Sanders and Warren are at each other's throats. I have no dog in the fight, but it should be noted that Warren is a known liar. Also, another journalist is assaulted by a raging SJW. And a college professor explains why it's racist for white people to ask for evidence before they believe a claim. Finally, following JK Rowling's lead, Stephen King just got himself canceled.
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I know a lot of people are worried about the state of the world and of the country, and you get the feeling that we're teetering on the edge of a cliff, we're on the precipice of something, you don't know if it's too late for us to be saved.
Well, fear no more, because help is here.
Cardi B.
is running for Congress.
Not yet, I mean, but she's gonna run for Congress.
She said yesterday, she tweeted, I do feel like if I go back to school and focus up, I can be part of Congress.
I deadass have so much ideas that make sense.
I just need a couple of years of school and I can shake the table.
Yeah, she deadass has so much ideas.
Deadass, that's one word, has so much ideas.
And I think that's a great campaign slogan for her.
You know, Cardi B, I deadass have so much ideas.
Or maybe just, Cardi B 2024, so much ideas.
It'll be great.
And she'll fit right in, I think.
I mean, this is the woman, remember, who bragged about drugging and robbing men.
So, she admitted to committing that crime on multiple occasions, a whole series of violent felonies she admitted to, and bragged about it.
So, as a thief, you know, she'll fit right in in Washington, so I'm looking forward to that.
Speaking of which...
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, they deadass have so much ideas as well, it's just that their ideas, like Cardi B's, not always the best.
They finally turned against each other, and in a not very shocking turn of events, these reports have surfaced.
Reports have surfaced, just surfaced, surfaced like a dead fish floating up to the top of the water.
Nobody caused it, just happened on its own.
The reports just sort of, oh, there they are, they surfaced.
Report surfaced that Bernie Sanders in 2018 met with Elizabeth Warren and said in that meeting that a woman cannot win the presidency.
Now Bernie of course has strenuously denied this, but Warren has come out, issued a statement, and without Without trying to sound like she's accusing him of being a sexist, she basically is accusing him of being a sexist.
This is her statement.
She says, Bernie and I met for more than two hours in December 2018 to discuss the 2020 election,
our past work together, and our shared goals. Beating Donald Trump, taking back our government
from the wealthy and well-connected, and building an economy that works for everybody.
So these are wealthy, well-connected people who want to take back the government from
wealthy and well-connected people by taking control of it themselves.
All right.
Among the topics that came up was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate.
I thought a woman could win.
He disagreed.
I have no interest in discussing this private meeting any further.
Then she goes on.
I have no interest in discussing the meeting, but let me discuss it for a minute.
So after she's confirmed that part of it, she said, I'm not gonna... Yeah, yeah, no, he's totally a sexist, but I'm not gonna confirm it.
I mean, we're not gonna talk about it, okay?
I don't wanna talk about it.
I'm just saying that Bernie is a backwards, bigoted misogynist.
I don't wanna talk about it.
That's all I'm saying, okay?
I'm just gonna say that, and then we're not gonna talk about it anymore.
Now, um...
Bernie fans have, of course, not been too happy about all this, and they have presented what I think is pretty compelling evidence to exonerate their man.
Here is, and this is now making its rounds on social media, but this is a clip of Bernie, apparently back in 1988, with still remarkably the same haircut.
In 1988, and here he is talking about women presidents.
The real issue is not whether you're black or white, whether you're a woman or a man.
In my view, a woman could be elected president of the United States.
The real issue is, whose side are you on?
Are you on the side of workers and poor people, or are you on the side of big money and the corporation?
Okay, so there you go.
He deadass had the same ideas.
He had so much ideas even in 1988, the same exact ideas.
Same hairstyle, same, you know, ranting and raving, which you gotta respect.
So there has been consistency from Bernie Sanders.
The only thing that he's not consistent on is the whole thing of, you know, rich people are evil and then he goes out and buys three houses.
So that's a little bit of inconsistency.
But in terms of his rhetoric, he's been saying the same things for forever, since, you know, since the Revolutionary War, approximately.
And, but in 1988, he says that, yeah, there could be a woman president, and now Warren claims that in 2018, 30 years later, he's changed his mind.
Even after, and he's saying, and she is saying that he changed his mind, even after he had the evidence of a woman running for president, Hillary Clinton, in 2016, and winning three million more popular votes than Donald Trump.
So, would seem to be pretty good evidence that people are willing to vote for a woman.
Even a woman like Hillary Clinton.
God help us.
So, now, I have no dog in this fight between kooky socialists, but I have to say a couple of things here.
First of all, who cares if he said this?
You know, even if he said that a woman can't be president, which I don't believe he said, and again, I have no reason to take his side other than it's not like I like the guy, but I don't believe he actually said it, but even if he did, Even if he deadass did say that, okay?
Eventually I'm going to use this slang in the proper context.
I don't even know what it means.
I don't know what it means.
Deadass.
What is that supposed to mean?
So in the context she used it, it sounds like a replacement for literally or something, the way people use literally.
Now we're doing deadass.
Even if he deadass did say that, it's not sexist.
There's nothing sexist about it because that would be a statement of his opinions of his opinion about the voting public, not about women.
So if he said that, then what he would be saying is that he thinks the voting public is sexist.
Which is sort of an insult to the voting public, but we're used to liberals insulting people that way.
I mean, it'd be the same sort of thing as if Bernie Sanders were to say that he doesn't think a black man can get a fair trial in an American court.
Which is the kind of thing that he probably would say.
And, you know, for all I do, he probably does think that.
But, would that be a statement about the black men, or is that a statement about the court system?
See, he's accusing the court system of being racist in that case, in that hypothetical, if you were to say that.
In this case, he'd be accusing the voting public of being sexist.
Which is insulting and demeaning to the American public, but again, not insulting and demeaning to women.
But in any case, the real problem for Warren is that she's a known liar, so there's no reason at all to believe what she says.
We already know that she's not above lying to get what she wants.
Bernie, on the other hand, has bad ideas, is a hypocrite, would be a dead-ass disaster for this country if elected, but there's no reason to think that he's a liar the way that she is.
I mean, she's just a liar.
We know that.
But I don't think we necessarily know that about Bernie Sanders.
As I said, though, I have no dog in this fight.
And I'm sure that Trump is glad to see them fighting.
Because here's the irony.
Between Bernie and Warren, there are certainly enough votes there to win the nomination.
I think the last poll I saw, the RealClearPolitics average, had the combined average for Sanders and Warren together was about 35 points combined.
Which is well above Biden at 26 or 27 points.
So if one of them were to drop out and endorse the other, or even one of them were to drop out and join the other's ticket, then I think they would sail to the nomination.
And this is exactly what, this is what exposes them both as frauds, really, because this is what they would do if they really cared about the ideas and about beating Donald Trump and all of that, as Elizabeth Warren claims to care about, then they would, that's what they would do.
But instead, they both stay in, because it's really about the pursuit of power.
They both stay in, and now they're gonna start eating each other alive, and Joe Biden's gonna win the nomination, and then probably lose to Donald Trump.
That's what's gonna happen.
Bernie Sanders, 78 years old, probably only a few years from death.
I say that because he's 78 years old.
The average life expectancy for a man in this country is 84, I think.
Or not much higher than 84 at least.
So, you know, however long he lives, it's not that much longer probably at his age.
He's been a politician forever.
And rather than retiring and enjoying his last few years on earth, he's grasping desperately for power because he wants it and he needs it.
And he will sabotage his own party in pursuit of it.
Same for Elizabeth Warren.
It is just, it's pathetic.
A pathetic display.
But, as I said, great for Trump.
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So you remember that Jessica Yaniv fellow?
He's the guy who tried to sue a bunch of salons to force them to wax his genitals.
Even though he has male genitals and is a male, and so it makes sense he has male genitals.
Males tend to have those.
But he claims to be a woman, and so thus he says he has a human right to have his genitals waxed somehow, and the fact that they wouldn't do it is an infringement on his basic human rights.
So you remember that.
And he's also the guy who allegedly has sexually harassed girls, minors, online.
And he's generally just a creep and a bad person in so many ways.
Anyway, he's in court again after another dust up with the law and a reporter on his
way out of the court, a reporter tried to come up and talk to him.
And here's how that went down.
You need, will you be pleading guilt?
What?
No, don't touch me.
Don't tell me.
Hey, stop.
Stop.
Stop!
Get away from me!
Go away!
Go away from me!
Get away from me!
Go away from me!
Get away from me!
Get away!
Get the f*** away from me!
Stay away from me!
Get away from me!
Now!
Right now!
You hurt me?
I'm calling the police on you.
I don't give a shit!
Get away from me!
You stay away from me.
I'm back.
So the reporter says that he was punched in the back of the head and assaulted, which you can't see that, but you can kind of hear it.
And here's all I want to say about this.
We've seen these kinds of videos so often, not just with Yaniv, but these SJWs assaulting people, whether it's at an Antifa rally or it's somebody assaulting pro-lifers or whatever it is.
We see these videos all the time.
with SJW bullies, assaulting people at will, and getting away with it.
And when I say getting away with it, I don't mean legally.
Now, legally, they do often get away with it, in that there's no legal repercussions in the end.
But I'm talking about physically.
And I'm really tired of this.
So, I don't mean to victim blame here the guy, the reporter, the journalist who was being assaulted, but all I'm saying is, if you're being assaulted by a raging psychopath SJW, Fight back.
Okay, it's not like you saw Yaniv there.
Not exactly a UFC champion we're talking about here.
So fight back.
Hit back.
This reporter would have been entirely within his rights to knock Yaniv's teeth out.
If somebody's assaulting you, you can hit them.
You should.
It's not just you can.
You should do that.
Stand your ground.
Stand up for yourself.
You don't have to run away.
Or just, you know, start calling for help, or try to just get it on video.
Yeah, fine, get it on video, but you can also, at the same time, defend yourself.
So, defend yourself.
Don't allow yourself to be hit in the head.
You know, respond with force.
You have every legal and moral right to do so.
That's what I'm saying.
People have gotten way, way, way too comfortable doing this.
You see these videos all the time, and it just seems like people in this country today, they're so comfortable.
You see someone, you know, you don't like, or they're making a political point you don't like, or they're annoying you, you just go up and punch them.
At least on the left, that's what they've gotten very accustomed to responding that way.
And I guess, why not?
Because nobody ever seems to respond.
They just do it, and then they walk away.
You know, the video goes viral, and we talk about, oh, those violent leftists.
I'm sick of that.
I mean, this guy of all people, this Yaniv guy?
You're going to let him hit you in the head?
You're going to let him do that?
This is the only way.
This is the same thing that parents used to tell us, and parents don't say this anymore, I guess, because it's endorsing violence.
Back in my day, you know, when I was a kid, we used to be told that you got a bully on the playground, maybe the one thing that bully needs is a sock to the nose.
You know, sometimes people need that.
And I think that's what we're seeing here.
If they never get that, if there's never any immediate repercussion for acting this way, then they'll just keep doing it.
And it's for their good anyway, because, you know, Not everybody in the world is quite so willing to be hit in the face or attacked.
You never know when you go up and treat somebody the wrong way, or when you treat the wrong person that way.
You never know how they'll respond.
Sometimes it could be for their own good.
You respond in kind, just physically defending yourself, proportionally.
Maybe they learned their lesson, and maybe that stops them from, in the future, going after someone who maybe will respond not so proportionally.
You never know.
So, just defend yourself, everybody.
That's what I'm saying.
Alright, a certain professor, college professor, and once you see the clip here, you're not going to be surprised that this is a college professor, We're dealing with, but her name, Dr. Shola Moshe Shagbamimu, I think.
Shagbamimu, I think.
I think I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Dr. Shola, we'll call her for short.
She was on TV this morning, British TV, talking about the reaction that Meghan Markle and, you know, the reaction to the Meghan Markle and Prince Harry situation.
And she said that the people criticizing Markle are not only racist, but so obviously racist that she doesn't need to explain why they're racist.
And in fact, if you ask for an explanation, that only proves that you're racist.
Watch.
I think the difficulty here for a lot of people is that they do not understand this thing.
And the thing is that it is not the job of black people and ethnic minorities to educate white people on racism that is perpetrated by white people.
White folks need to go educate themselves on the racism they perpetrate.
The reason why The racism experienced by Megan feels so personal and it deeply resonates with a lot of people.
It's because it's symptomatic of the culture of racism in the United Kingdom.
What examples do you have?
You see, that is another problem.
When people keep asking what examples, it makes me question...
It makes me question, where have you been the last two years?
What have you been reading?
What have you been listening to?
I've been reading some criticism.
I haven't personally read anything that I could say was based on racism.
And this is part of the problem.
And let me explain what racism looks like from the lens of white privilege.
White privilege whitewashes racist and inflammatory language as unconscious bias.
So this is great.
You see how the game is played.
And you couldn't ask for a better illustration of it.
You couldn't ask for a better explanation of the left-wing playbook than you get here.
So you've got Dr. Shola claiming that the criticism of Meghan Markle is racist.
And then you've got this very careful, very hesitant white guy just ever so cautiously asking.
He's very cautious about it.
Ever so consciously saying, hey, I mean, do you have an example of this?
You're saying racist.
I mean, can you give one example just so we understand?
You see, that's the problem.
Only racists ask for examples.
Oh, OK.
Well, never mind.
Never mind.
And then she goes into this whole spiel using a lot of big words and a lot of lingo and jargon about whitewashing and unconscious bias and the camouflaging of racist behavior and so on and so forth.
And all of this just to herself camouflage the fact that she has no evidence for what she's saying.
No examples to provide.
She's saying all of this criticism of Meghan Markle is racist.
Okay, well, there's a lot of it apparently, so can you cite one example of racist criticism against Meghan Markle?
I'm not even saying that it doesn't exist, but just tell me what you're talking about.
I want to understand what you're saying.
I'm trying to listen to you.
I'm being an active listener.
And so there's a phenomenon that you're describing, and so I'm saying, give me a few more details on that phenomenon so I can understand it.
But no, we're supposed to take her at her word, on face value, because she's black and we're white, and that's all there is to it.
And that's it.
That's it.
That's all that you need to know.
Meanwhile, personally, I'm not a critic of Meghan Markle.
I don't care about the issue.
They can do whatever they want, as far as I'm concerned.
Well, and as I said a few days ago, I sort of admire the fact that she was able to get her spouse to break up with his, with his, with, uh, you know, with he was, she was able to, she was basically able to break up with her in-laws, which I think at some level all spouses across the country can sort of watch with, uh, with maybe a tinge of, of envy.
But anyway, um, From what I've seen, the criticism of Meghan Markle is based on the belief that some people have that she wants to sabotage the royal family and she's a gold digger, basically, in it for attention and fame and whatever else.
Now, I don't know if that's true or not, and I think if there's any bias against her, or if there was any bias in the first place, it's probably more of an anti-American bias.
If there was ever any British bias against her from the beginning, before all this happened.
Maybe there was a little bit of an anti-American thing going on.
Which, even that, I don't have a problem with that.
I understand.
I don't care.
If some of the Brits felt like, hey, we don't want an American in the royal family, yeah, whatever, fine.
They want it to be their own little special club, it's, you know, I'm fine with that.
But, and it is true that Meghan Markle did succeed in tearing Prince Harry away from the family, so the people, you know, in Britain who said that they're concerned that she's on some sort of sabotage mission, well, it seems like they were vindicated in that view because of what happened.
And it is a pretty unusual thing, right, what's happened here.
So, the woman on the show is sitting there and saying, oh, well, the moment a black woman dismantles the royal family, suddenly it's a problem!
Well, I don't know.
I think the Brits would have a problem with that no matter who did it.
No matter what their race is.
It's kind of a really unusual and unprecedented thing, and to a lot of British people, it's a big deal.
And they probably react this way no matter what.
I think to them, having a Prince Harry step down from the family, whatever that means, that's, as I said, that's a big deal.
So people are reacting to an unprecedented, dramatic move in a dramatic way.
But all this person sees is race, of course.
Now, in a follow-up post on Twitter, Shola says, People triggered by the truth of racism and hashtag white privilege can't handle the truth.
It's reprehensible that we not only have to defend ourselves from racism, but then we're expected to explain it and also bear the brunt of denials of our lived experience.
How dare you ask us to explain?
We've made a claim and now you expect us to Justify that claim?
To present evidence?
No, evidence is a racist conspiracy!
By the way, lived experience.
Can we forever and always do away with that?
Is it racist for me to say this?
Can we do away with the lived experience phrase?
Or maybe don't do a wave though, because it is one of those key words, one of those red flags.
If you ever hear somebody unironically use the phrase, lived experience, then you know that this is a pretentious gas bag and you can probably ignore everything they're saying.
This is my lived experience.
Let me ask you, is it possible for you to have an experience that you didn't live?
Is there such a thing as an unlived experience?
This is my unlived experience.
Yeah, I experienced it, but I wasn't living at the time.
I guess, I don't know, maybe zombies?
Maybe we need to stipulate between lived experience and undead experience in case of a zombie apocalypse?
I don't know, I can't figure it out.
I can't figure out why you need the lived in front of that.
Except that this is just one of those dumb things that you get from, especially from pretentious college professors, where they just add in extra words to make something sound more profound.
So we're gonna add the LIVED on experience because it sounds more profound than just saying experience, like a normal person.
Let's, um... Well, before we move on, a quick word from Rock Auto.
You know, going to the auto parts store is not always the most fun experience, right?
Speaking of experience, my LIVED experience of going to auto parts stores, not always the best, because you drive all the way there, you go in, things aren't always the best organized, and, um...
At least in my opinion.
I never agree with the way that stores are organized.
I always think... I'm always judging the way they've organized everything.
Whether it's the grocery store, auto parts... And then I write angry letters, as you might expect, to the management.
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Well, Stephen King is about to be cancelled, everybody.
J.K.
Rowling was cancelled.
Now it's Stephen King's turn.
So all of the mega-rich liberal authors are getting their turn in the cancellation chamber.
So, of course, the Oscar nominees were released yesterday, and there's always a problem, right?
Every time the Oscar nominees come out, there's always some group that's been persecuted, there's not enough black people nominated, or there's not enough women, or there's not enough gay people, or there's not, you know, maybe they forgot to nominate a representative number of gender-fluid Mexican pansexuals, whatever it is, whatever the case may be, there's always some group that's been left out.
So this time around, It's women.
Women get to be the victims this time.
So they won the contest.
If you're a woman, congratulations, you won the victimhood contest with the Oscars this time around.
And maybe if you are a woman, you may not realize, if you've just been, I don't know, out living your life and not worried about the Oscars, you may not realize that you've been victimized by the Oscar nominee list, but it is my pleasure to inform you that in fact you have been.
So you have, you know, you can notch a couple extra, couple other notches in the belt of victimization there.
Because no woman was nominated for Best Director.
Now, the Best Director nominees are, apparently, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Bong Joon-ho, Sam Mendes, and Todd Phillips.
Those are the five nominees for Best Director.
Greta Gerwig directed Little Women and was not included.
And that's the issue.
That's where the persecution comes in.
Stephen King got himself canceled because he had the nerve to suggest that with art, all that matters is quality, not diversity.
He had the gumption.
Now, of course, he tweeted this out.
He said, well, don't you think that, and they always do it so innocently.
It's like they really don't realize what's about to happen.
So Stephen King tweeted and said, you know, it seems like with art, all that really matters is the quality.
It's not so much about diversity.
He's just sort of whistling past the graveyard, just sort of strolling along, doesn't realize that he's saying something that's about to get him gang-tackled by the Pitchfork Mob.
And so he says that, and then, predictably, they all descend upon him.
I'm just wondering... Of course, you know, there's no point in even analyzing what he said.
Of course he's 100% right.
Obviously.
It's when it comes to art, whether it's film or music or books or whatever it is, I think what should matter to us as readers or viewers or listeners is, does it speak to us?
Is it good?
You know, you look at the quality and especially when it comes to rewarding, to handing out awards, The idea is, what's the best?
Now, that can be hard to judge with something like a film, and there's a lot of subjective elements to it, but the concept is supposed to be, with best director, who are the five people who did the best job of directing?
Makes no difference.
Their demographic group makes no difference, obviously.
But I'm wondering, the people saying that Greta Gerwig should have been nominated, For Little Women, who are we kicking out?
Okay, so you got Scorsese and Tarantino, two of the best directors of our time, and they both released highly acclaimed films this year.
I didn't think either of those films, whether Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and The Irishman, I didn't think either of them were close to their best movies, but they still, these are still great directors, two of the best, still alive today with Two movies that were good movies that were certainly very well received by critics.
So obviously they're gonna be in.
And then you've got Bong Joon-ho, who did Parasite, which I haven't seen yet.
I'm planning to watch it tonight.
I've heard that it's, I mean, it's being hailed as a masterpiece.
And anyway, he's not white, so I would think that he's okay to nominate.
Then you've got Sam Mendes, and he did 1917, which I did see a few days ago, and I thought was spectacular.
If you haven't seen that movie yet, You know, I know there are a lot of people, especially if you're married and you have kids, you don't get out to the theater very often.
Even if you don't have kids, maybe you don't go very often because it's expensive and it's just not worth the trouble.
And besides, you can just watch it on Netflix, right?
When it comes out.
Or watch it on demand.
But this is one of those movies that it'll be enjoyable to watch on your regular TV at home.
But it's one of those movies that I think the theater experience is actually worth the price that you pay for it.
And I thought it was Great.
One of the criticisms of 1917 that I've read is that, well, two criticisms.
Number one, you've got what is called a gimmick, what the critic would call a gimmick, of the whole movie is presented as if it's one long shot, where you're following these guys and the camera doesn't really break away from them, there's no cuts.
And it's one long extended shot for two hours.
Now, of course, in reality, there were cuts, but they just edited it together so they didn't look like it.
To me, it didn't come across like a gimmick.
I thought that that method really helped to immerse you in the experience.
And I don't think it'd be the same movie.
I don't think it'd be quite as good without that.
Then the other criticism I've read is that the characters aren't very fleshed out.
And so it's sort of like you're watching a video game.
It's like you're watching a first-person shooter.
You're watching somebody else play a video game for two hours.
And I, you know, the people saying that, I don't know what movie they watched.
I thought that these characters were very well fleshed out in subtle ways.
This is a problem that war movies have often.
It's something you run into with war movies.
It can be difficult while you're trying to tell the story to also make these characters real characters and not just caricatures.
That's a problem that even I think Saving Private Ryan had to a certain extent.
Where a few of the characters, like Tom Hanks' character, and I think it's the greatest war movie of all time, one of my favorite movies of all time, Saving Private Ryan, but even that movie, I think Steven Spielberg struggled a little bit to give real layers to these characters and some of them, to turn them into real people and not just cartoons, basically.
So it's always a struggle with war films.
I thought that Mendes did a good Noble job of it in a subtle way, you know
There's a few that you get a few scenes with these guys That kind of show you the development of the character and
it shows you extra layers there that weren't immediately obvious
So anyway, that was a great movie and I think deserves to be
deserves to be nominated And then Todd Phillips with Joker, one of the most talked about films of the decade.
A huge success, obviously.
Which, of course, just because a movie's a huge success doesn't make it a great movie.
But this is also, I think in my view, a really good film.
And I think it would be weird to... And also, Todd Phillips is presenting a very different take on this iconic character.
An iconic, well-worn character, he's presenting a different take.
So I think that deserves as well.
Which of these guys do you kick out just so you can nominate Greta Gerwig?
I haven't seen Little Women, I admit.
And I don't plan to watch it.
I admit that too.
But I'm skeptical that that film and the directing job done there is really better than any of the five I just mentioned.
Alright, let's...
Move on to emails.
But seriously, go watch 1917 if you haven't watched it yet.
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This is from Jason, says, you got on the topic of free will again.
You had mentioned that you make the decision to lift a mug or make a grilled cheese.
What if those are decisions, what if those decisions were allowed to be made as they are inconsequential?
You mentioned you could go kill someone if you wanted, but really you can't.
Your moral code wouldn't allow it.
Now, morality is subjective to a degree within each person and changes through time.
What if God guides us through morality?
What if those lacking morals do so because of God putting events in motion?
We know morals come from God.
What if this is why?
Curious as to your thoughts on this.
Okay, so I'm going to try to home in, Jason, on what I think is your primary point.
Talking about free will, you say that, well, I really can't do whatever I want because my moral code is there.
And I guess part of your point is I'm not the one who put my moral code in place necessarily.
So, um, so then I don't have free will.
I guess maybe that's your point.
So when I say that I'm choosing to lift my mug, yeah, I could choose to do that.
That's an inconsequential thing, but I can't really go out and kill somebody because my moral code would prevent me.
But that's the point, Jason, that my moral code, Which does rule out and prohibit killing someone.
It actually cannot prevent me from doing it.
I could, if I wanted to, make the decision, in spite of what my moral code says, to go out and kill somebody.
Contrasting that with, like, computer programming.
Now, your computer is programmed to do a certain thing.
And it is prevented then from doing other things that it's not programmed to do, unless it malfunctions and something goes wrong.
But a computer can't say to itself, well, I'm programmed to do such and such, but I really don't want to do that, so I'm going to do this instead.
We can do that.
We can say to ourselves, and all of us have said it, hopefully not with something as serious as killing somebody, but we've all said to ourselves at times in our life, well, I know this is wrong, I shouldn't do it, but I'm going to do it anyway because I want to.
Because I've decided that there's something else that I want and it's worth breaking my moral code to obtain it.
And then we always find out that it wasn't worth it in the end.
But, you know, we're stupid so we keep doing it anyway.
But we still have free will because we still have that choice.
So the fact that I can theoretically... The option is open to me to go on a killing spree if I want to.
But I don't.
So I don't, right?
And that's the difference.
That's where free will, I think, Still applies.
This is from Santiago, says, Hi Matt, I love your show.
I listen to it every day on my commute from work.
I find myself in the rare position of disagreeing with you in relation to your counter-argument to Sam Harris' refutation of free will.
I agree with your conclusion that free will exists, but I think that you got Harris' argument wrong.
As I understand it, his argument is not that if you had the same mental illnesses and bad home environment of a serial killer, you would also be a serial killer.
What he is saying is that if you had exactly the same brain, down to the neural connections and all the same neurotransmitters and other chemical molecules in the exact same position, you would do exactly the same thing.
In other words, he is saying that our decisions boil down to just one big complex chemical reaction going on in our brain.
As such, if you knew every single molecule in every single position, you would theoretically predict every decision.
Or could theoretically predict every decision.
Actually, the whole argument of determinism is that the universe itself is one big chemical reaction that should be predictable if we know all the variables.
This idea is represented by the concept of Laplace's demon.
Therefore, Harris argues, free will is just an illusion that arises from the fact that the chemical reaction in our brain is so complex That making exact predictions of the outcome is hard.
However, in theory, even your decision to lift your mug should be predictable, if you have enough initial information.
This is indeed a powerful argument, but I think it has a big flaw.
The burden of proof is on him.
The claim that the universe is deterministic and that all that influences the physical world is just matter and physical energy is a tremendously strong one, and I do not think there is a way to scientifically or philosophically prove it.
What I'm saying is that I do not think that your argument refutes Harris's, but I also do not think that Harris's argument is a valued refutation of free will.
In fact, I think that there is no way to conclusively prove that our decisions are deterministic or that free will exists.
Yeah, and that is an aspect of Harris's argument.
I don't think I... I thought that I provided a relatively accurate summary of his argument.
Now, he did say, I think, There was one line in his book, in his argument, that I think maybe encapsulates it, and it was the strongest line in the book, where he's talking about, I think it was a murderer.
He said, well, if I were to change places with a murderer, would I do the exact same thing?
Would I also commit those murders?
And then he said, if I were to switch places, atom for atom, Like what you're talking about here.
Like I were to switch even right down to my atoms, we were to switch.
Well then in that case, I would just be that other person and I would do everything they're doing.
Which I think is what you're talking about here.
But I still say My response to Harris, I think, is correct.
And I have to say, Santiago, I'm a little bit biased.
I think I like my response better than yours, because getting into this burden of proof thing—see, I don't like that.
I don't—both theists and atheists, no matter what the discussion is, both theists and atheists will try to get into the burden of proof argument.
And then you get into this food fight, back and forth, where, no, the burden of proof is on you!
No, it's on you!
And then it's back and forth.
Who is the burden of proof on?
I just, I don't think that's the strongest platform on which to have this discussion.
And I think that Harris, or someone who's a determinist, could just as easily say that, no, the burden of proof is on you.
I say that everything is determined by physical matter.
You're saying that there's some other force out there, like a soul, spiritual force, that we can't see.
Burden of proof is on you to prove that, because we can't see it, and according to everything we know from science, it all comes down to matter.
So, no, the burden of proof is on you.
I think that would be his response, and I think it's a pretty fair response, if you want to get into the burden of proof contest.
I'd rather not get into that contest, And so I still say my answer is pretty simple, but it remains in place.
That whether we're talking about chemical reactions in the brain, or we're talking about how you were raised, and those sort of external factors.
The fact remains that as a human being, when we're deciding what to do, We have countless, infinite really, theoretical options.
And we could theoretically do any of those things.
So if I'm holding a gun in my hand, it is a theoretical option that I could pick up the gun and shoot somebody.
But if I don't, it's because I decided not to.
And to me, that's what free will is.
There are a whole lot, as I said yesterday, there are a whole lot of things that will influence my decision one way or another.
And if I do decide to pick it up and shoot somebody, you could probably start looking at my background, you could look at the way that I was raised, you could look inside my brain, and you could find a lot of things that push me in that direction.
But at the end of the day, that was an option of many different options, and it's the option that I chose.
Um, and that's all.
I think that's all free will is.
It's just, it's just, it's a, it's a, it is a, it is a, um, based on the fact that as human beings, we have many theoretical options for what we do and what we say.
And so the only way that I could see to disprove free will is to disprove that those options even exist.
You would have to say that, you know, I have the gun, I decide not to shoot someone.
You have to say that shooting someone wasn't even a theoretical option.
It wasn't an option at all.
But I think that's just on the face of it.
Clearly incorrect.
All right.
So, but it's an interesting discussion at any rate.
And You know, we talk about determinism and free will and everything.
And how we've been talking about the last few days, it's been sort of an atheist versus theist thing.
But it's not just that.
Because, of course, in the past we've talked about this with the different Christian views of this.
And there are Christians who say that there's no such thing as free will.
So it doesn't have to break down on atheist versus theist lines.
Okay, we'll leave it there, though.
Thanks, everybody, for listening.
Thanks for watching.
Godspeed.
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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is under fire from the race-focused left for once again snubbing performers of color in the Oscar nominations.
But in the Academy's defense, there will at least be more black candidates in the running at the Oscars than there will be at tonight's all-white Democratic presidential debate in Des Moines, Iowa.
We will examine the incoherence and hypocrisy of racial identity politics.
