Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 474: Schoolhouse Farce

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Episode 474: Schoolhouse Farce · Words & Numbers

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Today on words and numbers criticism.
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Hiking. An AI certificate.
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And how to think about college education.
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All this and more coming up next on Words and Numbers, a Civil
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original production. Check us out at civil.com.
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That's civl.com. Hi, I'm James.
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And I'm Anthony. And this is words and numbers.
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Ant I would ask what's new and exciting in your world this
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week? But I already know.
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You don't know. You don't know what I'm going to
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say. Well.
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No, that's right, I know what's new and exciting in my world
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this week. See, we we we we we horse trade
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topics sometimes. That's right.
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So what are? What are you up?
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This one I well this one I didn't run by you and it to
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begin before the episode starts. We, you know, do this thing
0:49
about this time on words and numbers and we go back and forth
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and I always write down what the things are because I I mentioned
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my quick hit and you do the foolishness that I mentioned the
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main topic. I knew the main topic, my quick
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hit. I hadn't thought about what to
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call it. So hiking.
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Hiking is probably not the right thing to say, but.
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You do hike from time to time. Well, I do and that's what
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that's what how I'm going to start the story here.
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I years ago, not that many years ago, maybe six years ago, seven
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years ago, my wife's birthday was coming up.
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By coming up, I mean it was like 9 months into the future.
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And she said to me she wants to, for her birthday, walk the
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Camino in Spain, which is for for those of you who don't know
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it, the Camino is, is a whole set of of paths that people back
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in the dating back to the medieval times would walk as
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penance from all places throughout Europe.
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They would walk to this cathedral in Santiago, which is
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in northwest Spain, as you know, payment for their sins, what
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have you. And in any event, these, these
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paths have been, you know, become been popular, more
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popular and less popular over the the millennia.
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And they're now in a phase of being more popular.
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And Christina wanted to to go on this.
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So being nine months in the future, I said, sure, no
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problem. Now, as a footnote, let me say
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here that I really don't like nature and I prefer not to be
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anywhere near it. The good Lord gave us air
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conditioning for a reason. This is Anthony.
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This is one of the reasons why whatever we were on the road, we
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got along so well. All I All we ever wanted was to
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be inside in a place with heat, hot and cold water, a
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refrigerator and ATV. Right.
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Yeah. And then, then we're happy.
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And over over time, even the need for ATV dropped because we
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had more on our computers than we could ever want.
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Right. Yes, yeah.
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But I but the way actually it will go out the way the people
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might like my children go camping.
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I have no idea what's. Wrong with.
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Oh, that's horrible. Yeah, well, I mean 2. 2000 years
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of Western civilization. Look what it's given us, right?
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I don't even want to go get the mail.
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So what? What happened here is this this
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was far enough into the future that I said, yeah, yeah, sure,
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I'd be happy to do this. And of course, the months go by
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and I'd forgotten about it. And as we get closer and closer,
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she starts to say things like, we should get our tickets.
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And I'm saying for what? And then she reminds me.
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And in fact, you and I were on the road.
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We were driving somewhere to some high school out in the
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West. And this, this Camino was going
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to be like a week or two weeks into my future and I was
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bemoaning the whole thing to you and you were just laughing your
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butt off. This is I was going that I was
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paying good money to travel to the other side of the planet, to
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walk in the woods, right? Something I could do?
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3 miles. 100 miles. Something I could do here for 0
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cost. If indeed I somehow lost my mind
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and went out into the into could have just done the less.
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Done the Appalachian Trail and called it good, right?
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But but I said, you know, I would do this and it's her
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birthday, so I do it. And my God, I fell in love with
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it. I thought it was the best thing
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ever. And I drug her back five more
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times to do. We've done 55, I guess, 6
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separate Caminos totalling, I'm guessing 500 miles, 750 miles,
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something like that. Oh, it'd have to be more than
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that because I, our last one was like, it was 500 kilometers.
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I don't know, but lots, right. So you walk these, these trails,
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you end up at a cathedral. And in any event, all of that
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caused this particular article that I'm going to talk about to
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catch my eye. There is a company goes by the
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name of Itinerary spelled ITIN ER-E itinerary and what they
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have done. There are a bunch of researchers
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that have gone and collected the all of the geolocation data for
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Roman roads that existed in 150AD.
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It presumably the height of of Rome's expansion.
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Of course, it in certain cases the records are hard to come by,
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so they had to extrapolate certain things.
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But they've got this and you can download this map looks very
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much like a Google Maps thing. And you've got all of these
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roads all throughout Europe. These are the roads that the
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Romans used, and a little bit of cross referencing with ChatGPT
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tells me that it is possible to download their date, which I
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verified you can indeed do. You can download this itinerary
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data and it's way too much to go into Google Maps, but you can
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get a subset of it whatever area you are uploaded into there.
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And if you are find yourself hiking in Europe and want to
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walk the actual Roman roads, you load it into Google Maps and you
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turn it on and follow your GPS signal and off you go and you
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are walking the Roman roads that existed in 150AD courtesy of
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modern technology. Well, that that was exactly as
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fascinating as your Camino talk always says, except for the one
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time you fought a goose with a stick.
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That was the one Camino thing that I like hearing about, and
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people can find that at the back end of one of our episodes.
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Go find it, it's worth your time.
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Subscribe to for $5 a month or $50.00 for an annual
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subscription. I wanted to.
7:51
Well, I didn't want to, but I thought it was best after you
7:55
told me it would be best if we addressed some rather severe
8:00
criticism of something I said last time.
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Yeah, yeah. And Norway.
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And this is an interesting thing.
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Let me preface by saying we get lots of, we get lots of nice
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mail. We get lots of hate mail and I
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take, I take it all. I mean, the nice mail is very
8:14
nice. The hay mail I take seriously
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and I, I don't like to dismiss it and I, I, I tend not to.
8:23
But there was one piece that came by criticizing your, what
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you had said about Nick Fuentes. And I responded to the guy and
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said, look, there's some things that should just be off the
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table. That's not that civilized people
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don't talk about, and that's what James was talking about in
8:43
the thing. And as far as I was concerned,
8:46
that was the end of it. And then one of our long time
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listeners, can I name him Long time listener?
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And we've hung out with him before.
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Actually, he's out West somewhere.
8:59
Isn't he in Australia? Oh, is he?
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Yeah, he who am I? Thinking of I don't know.
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Oh, of course no. Woody Woodhams is in Australia.
9:08
How we spoke at Hill's event. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:13
WA libertarian. Yes.
9:15
Sorry, Woody. Yeah, No, I was thinking of your
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friend who's The Who works for the gaming company Jesse Hunt.
9:22
But nonetheless, yes, yes, yes. But nonetheless, Woody sends
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this e-mail and very well thought out, rather lengthy,
9:32
long and thoughtful. Yeah, long and thoughtful,
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criticizing us for the same thing that you effectively said.
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Look, Nick Fuentes should not have a, should not be speaking
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publicly. So I thought it would be good
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for us to talk about that a bit. Yeah, sure.
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And and I'll say this about the the mail we get.
9:57
I generally don't take it too seriously because most of it is
10:02
nonsensical. The, the criticisms.
10:05
It usually boils down to, you said something I don't like.
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Well, OK, I'm going to say lots of things that you don't like,
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and you're going to say lots of things that I don't like.
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We can still get along just fine, but that's how life is.
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But every now and then, some principal gets woven into the
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mix. And this is a principle that I
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faced all the time when I was a professor, right?
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I'd be standing in front of A room and you like to say things
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like, well, everything can be on the table here because this is a
10:40
place where we discuss things. But even that's not true, right?
10:45
We're not going to discuss all kinds of things.
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We're not going to discuss how I'm going to.
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I'm going to try and be incredibly blunt.
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We never discussed things like how women ought to be raped to
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keep them in control. Now, there are people in this
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world right now who believe that that's fine.
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There are lots of people in humanity's past who thought that
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that was perfectly reasonable. But as we sit right here right
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now, that is not open for discussion.
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All right? That's a real easy example.
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It's disgusting. It's violative of individual
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rights. It causes all manner of short
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and long term harm. Real easy, cheap example.
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And I used to use it from time to time with my students in the
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following way. They would say that, well, all
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truth is relative and it's very common thing for young people to
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believe. And I would say, is that right?
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Do you have a sister? Yes, I'm going to go rape her.
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All of a sudden, truth isn't relative anymore.
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So look at what I just said. I said that something is
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completely off the table. And then I said I used it as an
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example in a class. Interesting, right?
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Contextual, which one is going to be right and which one is
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going to be completely out of bounds?
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And there are all kinds of things like this, all kinds of
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things I would tell students that we were not going to be
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addressing like anti-Semitism. But what I meant was you're not
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going to be anti-Semitic in my classroom.
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Not we're not going to ever talk about it because we talked about
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it all the time. Tom Sowell in his economics
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books wrote about it all the time.
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I would assign in every philosophy class I ever taught
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portions of Deuteronomy, right? We're we're going to talk about
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all kinds of things. So what's on the table and what
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isn't? That's always the question, and
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in a classroom, there's a lot on the table, but you have to be
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very gentle about it. You have to introduce it in just
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the right way. You have to tell your story in
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just the right way. You have to make sure everybody
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understood what just happened here.
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Even if it was a shock, an offensive shock to the system,
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everybody has to understand what just happened here.
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OK, Fast forward to last time when we talked about Nick
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Fuentes and I said something along the lines of people like
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Tucker Carlson who have large platform should not be inviting
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the likes of Nick Fuentes to come for a visit.
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And the people who complained rightly used the word
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deplatformed. I I would probably rather use
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the word unplatformed, right, because deplatformed indicates
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that maybe he should have had it.
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Unplatformed seems to bring the idea that this is not for the
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best. And the the point of it is, is
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that somewhere you have to draw a line and the line is going to
14:13
be different for everybody. I think we could all agree in
14:17
principle that if Adolf Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, if any
14:23
of them came back to life tomorrow, we wouldn't have them
14:28
on the show, right? And that wouldn't mean that we
14:32
were de platforming these people.
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It mean it would mean that we made a call that they didn't,
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that they didn't, they they didn't deserve to be on, nor
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would it be in anybody's interest to have them gain more
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popularity. Yeah.
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And I, I want to pause here for a second because I've seen
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libertarians do this too often for my taste.
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And I'm not accusing Woody of doing this, but but it called to
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mind that I've seen this before of confusing one's preference
15:07
with with a restriction. For example, if we are, if there
15:13
are certain people we don't want to have on the podcast, that's
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not deplatforming because those people don't have a right to be
15:20
on the podcast. I'll give you a deny.
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We are not denying them a right. We're exercising our right.
15:26
And I'm going to give you a perfect example.
15:28
Michael Rectenwalt ran for the Libertarian Party presidential
15:34
nomination. Heard out to be a raging anti.
15:37
Semite. Says all kinds of things on
15:41
Twitter about how terrible the Jews are.
15:44
And you know, I I heard something recently anytime you
15:48
you see, and I think Dave Chappelle said this anytime you
15:51
see the words the and Jews together, the Jews, you know,
15:57
you probably looking at a problem and Michael Michael
16:00
Rectenwald can't stop talking about the Jews over my dead
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body. Would he be on this podcast?
16:09
I'm not deplatforming him. I'm not even telling him he
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doesn't have the right to speak. Not even telling him he doesn't
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have the right to be a raging anti semite.
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I'm just saying can't come here. And in look in the case in the
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case that that Woody and others were talking about, you called
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Tucker Carlson to task for having Nick Fuentes on.
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Now notice the very the very big difference between saying, look,
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Tucker Carlson should know better.
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This is not something he should have done.
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Difference between that and saying he should not be allowed
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to do it? That's second piece.
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He's allowed to do whatever he wants.
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Unacceptable. Yeah, he's allowed to do
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whatever he wants within the confines of whatever contracts
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he's made with whoever he works for.
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Yeah, right. And if, if they'll put up with
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it, I what can I say? But, you know, look, I'm not on
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the Joe Rogan show regularly. I don't get a call to go down
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and explain things to Joe. Does that mean I've been de
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platformed? No.
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It means Joe Rogan has no idea who I am and doesn't care to
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find out. Yeah.
17:16
Or maybe he does and he doesn't want you on.
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I'm pretty sure it's the former, not the latter, but it could be
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the latter just just as well. But if I did something quite
17:25
horrible and became infamous, he shouldn't call to have me on,
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right? If I killed somebody and got
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away with it on a technicality, should I be made famous for
17:39
that? Should I be celebrated?
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Should I go do all the rounds on the talk shows?
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I I would submit that no one should want to to hear from me.
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Which is very different than saying no one should be allowed
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to hear from you. That's correct.
17:55
That's correct. So I think look, there's got to
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be a line somewhere and I think Nick Fuentes clearly crosses
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that line. I think other people don't right
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other it. It for other people is way more
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questionable and and sometimes people right on the line of
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agreeable and disagreeable or appropriate and inappropriate,
18:18
however you want to call it. Those people right on the line
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are are sometimes quite fascinating.
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The people that are below below the line like Nick Fuentes are
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just destructive. I don't want to hear it anymore.
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We hear too many destructive things.
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I just people should want to do better and and they don't.
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And there's nothing I can say about that.
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So let's get off to the foolishness of the week, shall
18:47
we? Because I want to talk aunt
18:49
about a former employer of mine, the University of Arizona.
18:54
I've got a pitch for you. Would you like to attend A5
18:59
session class online at the University of Arizona, Arizona?
19:05
'S a good school, sure. Is it?
19:07
In what AI prompting? AI prompted, No AI prompting.
19:14
Oh, AI prompting. Yeah, actually that would be
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interesting. Really.
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You want to pay $1800 to learn how to ask.
19:19
Chief oh why you didn't say pay $1800?
19:23
Who said do I want to attend it? Yeah, $1800 to ask Chetchi PT
19:28
how to ask a question. I mean, I mean what?
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What on earth AI prompting? Go figure it out for the love of
19:36
God. There's actually now I I have to
19:38
defend. I don't know anything about the
19:40
class, but I have to defend the idea.
19:42
AI prompting, I have come to find, is a bit of an art form.
19:47
You can get AI to do wondrous things if you know how to phrase
19:51
it. If you know how to do it, but
19:52
this is kind of like, you know, 20 years ago, maybe 30 years ago
19:56
now. God, we're old.
19:57
Somebody's saying come and attend our five session class on
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Google for $1800. Why don't you just open the damn
20:04
thing and use it, Figure it out for yourself.
20:08
I I mean I'm just saying this is a money grab from a bunch of
20:10
money grubbers and they should all be ashamed of themselves.
20:14
But I Speaking of being ashamed of themselves and money
20:17
grubbers, I think we have something else to talk about
20:20
today which is actually quite interesting.
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Take a look at the graphic on your screen right now.
20:26
And this is what started us or me down this terrible, terrible
20:30
path. And you know, ants to the
20:32
numbers guy. He does all of our calculations
20:36
occasionally and what is it? Maybe one in 500 times you'll
20:41
say something and I'll say I don't think that's right.
20:44
That doesn't seem right at all. And you'll say, oh geez, I
20:47
slipped the decimal. Yes, that's correct.
20:49
But it, it has, it has to be on the order of trillions wrong,
20:53
not just 8, right? I am, I am not a math guy is
20:58
what I'm painfully saying. And yet, fill in the box 7 + 2
21:04
equals blank +6. Now Aunt I'm I'm damn near
21:08
positive, but the answer to this question is 3.
21:11
Is it James? I'm damn near.
21:14
Let's say I'm as sure of that as I am that the sun will rise in
21:20
the east and set in the West tomorrow.
21:24
Will you pass judgement on my math skills now?
21:27
Well, as far as I can tell, it seems correct.
21:30
Yeah, 25% of university students got that wrong. 25 not 25% of
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university applicants, 25% of university students.
21:44
These are people who have passed the whatever bar was set and
21:47
have been admitted to the university.
21:49
The University of California at San Diego UCS.
21:53
Not not a fluff school Well, but then hold your judgement because
21:59
present evidence aside. They gave this test to let me
22:03
read it exactly 138 students in a remedial math class.
22:08
OK, see now, now word. That's the word right And and
22:12
let me make it worse. Let me make it a lot worse.
22:14
Actually. Harvard University has a
22:18
remedial math class. No college should have a
22:21
remedial math class. That is exactly true of them.
22:25
Should have. Remedial math classes.
22:27
Now a number of them have two remedial math classes that must
22:33
be taken in sequence. They're going back to cover
22:37
things all the way to middle school math.
22:40
Yeah. At the university, we used to
22:43
complain that we we had become as professors, high school
22:47
teachers. Now some professors are middle
22:50
school teachers. Oh my, how, how on earth did we
22:55
get here? And, and in the same, you know,
22:59
I'm, I'm reading a work up on the report.
23:02
If you want to go look it up at townhall.com, they've got lots
23:05
of charts and graphs there, which you can get to the
23:09
percentage of domestic students. So we're not talking about all
23:14
the foreign students who come to the United States and have a
23:17
problem with English. Roughly one in five domestic
23:23
students don't meet university writing requirements, which I
23:28
will tell you from experience, are phenomenally low.
23:32
Yeah. It's not like you have to write
23:35
a a stellar novel to have anybody say, yes, you're working
23:40
at at the college level here. Yeah, it's just to handle the
23:44
subject in a verb. Yeah, if I I don't mean to
23:47
identify them, I mean put them in a sentence.
23:49
In a sentence. That's right.
23:52
I, I would routinely get papers that had no verbs in lots of
23:56
sentences, which means they weren't sentences at all.
23:59
But let's, let's not walk down that road.
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So we're, we're looking now at 25% of the students at UCSD.
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And you've got to think, this is deeply representative.
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Can't do the basic, the most basic of basic math.
24:18
And 20% who can't write at a basic level, Well, that means in
24:24
my head we've got at least 2020 to 25% of students who don't
24:29
belong in college at all. It's worse than that.
24:33
You said they don't belong in college.
24:35
I'm wondering how did they, how did they pass third grade?
24:39
Well, and then 4th and then fifth and all the way to 12th.
24:42
There there's a whole string of people who just push the
24:46
students through, and now the colleges are doing the same
24:49
thing. They are doing the same thing.
24:51
And I remember when I was young, people were held back routinely.
24:57
Yeah, right. And we didn't think much of it.
25:01
It wasn't an insult to anybody when it looked weird when we saw
25:06
Johnny still in 3rd grade when we were all in fourth grade.
25:09
But then Johnny made friends with the new third grade kids
25:12
and everything was fine. And somewhere along the way
25:17
educators got it in their heads, or maybe better said
25:21
administrators got it in their heads that it did psychological
25:26
damage to tell children that they failed.
25:29
And all of a sudden nobody ever failed at anything.
25:33
And I remember finding some semi literate students in my class at
25:37
college and I, I would pass back a paper and AB and F on it and
25:41
they'd come to my office and they'd say I don't understand.
25:46
I said, well, clearly you don't. They, I said, no, no, I, I mean,
25:50
I don't understand. I did the paper and I would have
25:53
to explain that that doesn't mean anything.
25:58
That's like saying you handed in 8 pages of the same word.
26:03
I mean, it doesn't mean anything.
26:05
That'd be a good paper. And they said, well, I've, I've
26:07
never gotten enough before in my life.
26:10
And I would look at the paper and I think how did you get
26:12
anything but FS your whole life? And that's the kind of
26:15
difference that we're looking at.
26:16
And as we said, I think it was last week, at some point,
26:20
universities are knowingly admitting students who will not
26:25
pass through the first year just to take their money there.
26:29
And then it's more than that. They aren't.
26:31
Just it is. They aren't just because then.
26:32
Knowingly admitting them. They're putting pressure on
26:35
faculty. Yes, to pass them.
26:38
That's that is correct. And I will say without question,
26:42
Deans, plural, have forced me to pass people I had failed.
26:48
Yep, same here. Same here.
26:50
Some for some for that I failed for plagiarism, some who did no
26:56
work of their own and handed in a plagiarized final paper.
27:02
I was said. I was told Oh no, no, no, no.
27:04
You can't give them an F, You have to pass the The phrase
27:09
always was just get him through as if we were a sausage factory
27:15
that was taking crappy ingredients and pumping out a
27:20
crappy product. Now just listen.
27:23
Listen to the words. Just get them through.
27:26
Can be interpreted as do everything you can to educate
27:30
this student. But that's not what the D means.
27:33
That's what he would like of it. That's what he would like
27:35
everybody who hears him to think he means.
27:38
What he actually means is give this guy a passing grade so we
27:43
don't have to deal with this problem.
27:45
Yep, that's right. That's exactly right.
27:48
And and look at the data that we're getting out of UCSD.
27:52
People are illiterate and enumerate and you have to take
27:57
at least two semesters to get them to a college level, an
28:03
entrance college level of math. And I'm I remember working with
28:09
young people on their writing and it's 2 semesters of non-stop
28:13
work there too. That's an entire year of a
28:16
college education dedicated to remedial studies.
28:21
And off the top of my head, I would say of the people I worked
28:27
with in this remedial way, a third of them had the ideas take
28:32
root and they moved forward. James and I are delighted to be
28:35
working with Civil. For years we have been pushing
28:38
people to think about how we can make the world a better place.
28:41
Civil's mission of upgrading society fits exactly with what
28:45
James and I have been talking about for years.
28:48
Civil helps us by allowing us to do what we do best, which is
28:51
researching topics that are important in communicating these
28:54
to our listeners in ways that we hope they find interesting.
28:58
To see. Civil's extensive list of
29:00
content, including our podcast, Words and Numbers and our new
29:03
lecture series, Words and Numbers Live.
29:05
Visit civil.com. That's civl.com.
29:10
OK, let me throw out a, a wild idea.
29:13
Look, if we're going to do this, well, I shouldn't say if we are
29:16
doing this, we are. Our colleges, coast to coast are
29:19
offering these remedial classes that take you, basically take
29:23
you from a, I'll spitball number, a 6th grade education up
29:28
to what's necessary to function in college.
29:33
If we're going to do that, why are we bothering with the public
29:36
school system at all? Shut the whole thing down.
29:39
We don't need it. Well, it it's failing, it's
29:44
failing. There has to be a better answer.
29:48
But it's worse than it's worse than failing.
29:52
I would consider it failing if if the school system did not
29:57
produce educated students. But it's doing worse than that.
30:01
It's producing. It's producing uneducated
30:05
students but telling them that they are educated, in fact,
30:07
educated enough to get into college.
30:10
I well, and then they are educated enough to get into
30:13
college, right? Yeah, right.
30:14
I I guess so, right? The the standards that that we
30:17
have are such that, you know, let me throw this out there just
30:23
as a for instance, in the Chicago Public Schools, literary
30:29
proficiency rates have been 30.5% through 8th grade.
30:35
Literary proficiency 35% thirty percent 30.30%.
30:41
One less than 1/3 of students can read at an eighth grade
30:46
level by the time they're in 8th grade.
30:48
Cross reference that actually with the fact that many if not
30:52
the average high school teacher or public school teacher in
30:56
Chicago makes 6 makes a six figure salary.
30:59
Yeah, I just looked it up. Now I'm going to put a big
31:02
footnote here. I asked ChatGPT.
31:04
Of course ChatGPT is quoting the Peterson Foundation, but I asked
31:10
how much does the US spend annually on public K through 12
31:16
answer that's. $1 trillion Yep. 1 I don't trillion and I don't
31:22
doubt it. And you know, we don't, we don't
31:25
really have national standards and I'm I'm I don't think I'm in
31:28
favor of that. I, I would prefer if public
31:33
school remained attached to localities, right?
31:39
I, I think everything works better at the lowest possible
31:41
level, but the public schools aren't working.
31:45
And I can tell you that what I just said is factually both
31:50
correct and incorrect. Broadly speaking, we have a
31:53
gigantic public school problem. But there are many, many
31:57
examples of public schools that are working just fine.
32:00
Yes, and, and what's the deal? Well, the deal here is almost
32:07
always the same, and people don't want to hear it because
32:12
there's no easy fix. And you and I often talk about
32:15
problems for which there is no easy fix, which means we're not
32:20
going to tell you how to fix this, because we don't know, and
32:24
no one else does either. And I think even the beginnings
32:28
of an answer are so painful for everybody involved that it's
32:32
going to take a long time to get to the table.
32:35
But how are public schools funded?
32:38
Almost entirely by local property taxes, right?
32:42
There's some federal money that comes in.
32:44
There's some state money that comes in.
32:46
But localities fund local schools.
32:49
OK, What does that mean? That means that people who live
32:53
in wealthy towns or wealthy neighborhoods in towns are going
32:58
to have much better public schools than people who live in
33:03
poorer areas, because you can't collect property tax in a poor
33:08
area because the properties aren't worth anything and the
33:11
people who live there don't have any money.
33:14
So what happens? Rich places get all the
33:19
resources, poor places get none of the resources.
33:22
And then children in those environments start behaving in
33:27
ways entirely predictable given their environments.
33:31
People in rich neighborhoods and great schools sit quietly as
33:35
teachers say things. People in poor schools act
33:40
inappropriately as teachers try to say things.
33:43
What happens next? Good teachers leave poor places
33:49
and you see how it just unwinds starting from one basic thing.
33:54
Let me push back a little bit here.
33:56
I dislike the argument that, well, all we need to do is spend
34:01
more money because then we get better teachers.
34:04
I didn't say that. No, understood.
34:07
But I could see someone interpreting your words that
34:10
way. And you and I have direct
34:13
experience here. We have.
34:15
We visited, I counted once, 150 high schools across the country.
34:20
Yeah. Some so rich that their campuses
34:24
are better than a lot of colleges that I've seen.
34:27
It was. Embarrassing to to be.
34:29
There, incredibly poor, so poor that we asked one of the one of
34:35
the teachers that we were there visiting what the major, what
34:38
are the major employers here? And his answer was welfare.
34:42
Welfare, yeah. I asked what the major industry
34:46
was. He looked at me and he said
34:47
poverty. Poverty, yeah.
34:49
Yeah, it was the IT was the second poorest county in the
34:53
United States. What what we both noticed at
34:58
these various high schools is that money tends not to matter.
35:02
The quality of education that the students were getting from
35:06
our friend in the second poorest county was superb.
35:11
It was such a high level. It was such a high level quality
35:15
that he would sponsor things in the evening that the students
35:20
would come to. Not just the students, but
35:22
people that in the town, adults would come to this stuff.
35:25
Yep, right. Their parents.
35:27
Their neighbors. Yeah, and so too, I I've seen
35:31
richer schools to have lower quality education.
35:34
So I'm, I'm not, I think this argument that we need to spend
35:39
more to get better quality is flawed.
35:43
However, I'm now going to go back and say almost the
35:46
opposite. I think you're right when you
35:49
say places that can pay their teachers, that can't pay their
35:53
teachers more lose the good teachers on average.
35:57
And in the way you reconcile those two apparently
36:00
contradictory statements is to realize that principles,
36:06
generally speaking, are not allowed to reward good teachers
36:11
with higher salary, right? The salaries are on a scale set
36:15
by the union, and it's based on number of things amongst, you
36:19
know, how long you've been there.
36:21
So. So when we say yeah, we should
36:24
pay good teachers more, in practice you can't pay good
36:29
teachers more. You have to pay all teachers
36:31
more, a bunch of whom shouldn't be there in the first place.
36:36
That's right. I I would never suggest that we
36:39
should pay all teachers more. That's crazy.
36:43
I mean that's there are a lot of.
36:44
Teachers who should be paid less.
36:46
There's a lot of teachers who should be paid 0 yeah should be
36:49
showing the door I had a number of them as child right and I and
36:54
I grew up in a thoroughly middle class environment.
36:58
I I would call it and Even so, public school teachers not a lot
37:03
to write home about their. So how do you fix this?
37:07
Well, given all of the intersecting pressures, there's
37:11
no easy answer, which means any politician who says there is is
37:16
lying and federal national politicians who say that they
37:21
know what to do by definition can't do anything because this
37:25
is a local issue in every case. Now, can they pass universal
37:31
nationwide laws? Sometimes, but not always.
37:37
This is incredibly forny and the the the only way it's ever going
37:42
to get fixed, and you can bet on this.
37:44
The only way it will ever get fixed is if parents unite and
37:49
demand it be fixed. Yeah, but what did they demand
37:53
given that there's no easy answer and I I think there's.
37:59
And given, and it gets worse, because not only is there no no
38:03
clear thing for them to demand, it's very unlikely that you can
38:08
get a critical mass of parents to care 'cause they look at
38:14
school as a babysitting service. Well, or, or let me say it
38:18
differently, the ones who who really do care find a way.
38:23
Or, I'm not saying they all can find a way, but they're more apt
38:26
to find a way to move out of poor, poorer performing
38:29
districts into better performing districts.
38:32
Well, and, and people do that a lot, right?
38:34
Getting an apartment in a a much better part of the state, you
38:39
know, even though you may own property somewhere else and
38:41
using that as your primary address, things like this, Other
38:45
people do what they can. If you've got any money, you can
38:49
you send your kids to private school, right?
38:52
But that's really expensive and that's limited to only people
38:57
of, of actual wealth. I remember as a a young
39:02
professor, when my children got to school age, we, we sat down
39:07
and said, what will we do? And I had worked with education
39:11
majors enough, I knew not to send them to public school.
39:14
I worked with the people who became the students, the
39:16
teachers. There was no way, but there was
39:19
similarly no way I could afford private school.
39:23
Not a chance. We homeschooled and and that's
39:28
another thing that a lot of people just can't do.
39:32
So there's no clear answer here to any of the the cross cutting
39:38
currents. But if 20% of of college
39:42
students can't write and 25% can't add, the entire system is
39:49
broken from one end to the other.
39:52
I'll agree with you that there's no easy answer.
39:56
However, there is a an obvious path, and we've dealt with this
40:01
many times before. There are many, many situations
40:05
in which the problem is too complex for for people to design
40:12
a solution and So what you do. Is you leave it to market
40:16
forces, make sure that the incentives are all aligned.
40:19
People are rewarded for doing what they're supposed to do and
40:22
punish for not doing what they're not supposed they're
40:25
supposed to do. You leave it to the markets and
40:27
the markets will figure it out. What are they going to figure
40:31
out? I don't know.
40:32
If I knew what they were going to figure out, we'd be designing
40:34
it right. We'd already do it, but I would
40:37
like to see, you know, thousands of school districts each trying
40:42
something a little bit different.
40:44
Yeah, let them all try different things.
40:47
Because then we're going to see real, real quickly, really
40:49
quickly, what works and what doesn't.
40:52
I'd like to talk about. And honestly, I want one last
40:55
thing on the this before we move on to something else.
41:00
What works in an urban environment is not going to be
41:03
what works in a in a in a rural environment.
41:06
Right, Yes, right and. What, What works in the Deep
41:09
South is not going to be what works in Maine.
41:14
So to say that one place got an answer, well, one place might
41:17
get an answer for one place and parts of it might work in other
41:22
places, right? You've got to be reasonable
41:24
enough to understand that there are distinct differences from
41:28
place to place and they have to be accounted.
41:30
For and what you do here, the, the path to solving this is
41:37
school choice. And I want to be very careful
41:39
when I say that because when, when people say school choice,
41:43
what they mean is, you know, I should be able to take my tax
41:46
dollars and spend them in a private school.
41:48
That's not what I'm talking about when I say school choice.
41:51
I mean choice all the way down the line from parents choosing
41:56
where they send their kids. And if you don't want to deal
41:59
with private school, that's perfectly fine.
42:02
Give parents the ability to send their kids to any public school
42:05
of their choice, regardless of where they live.
42:09
Parents get to choose. Go up the line, teachers.
42:13
Teachers get to choose their curriculum.
42:14
No more school boards telling them or federal edicts saying
42:18
what you may or may not teach. Let the teachers figure it out.
42:22
They're the experts. Go up the line.
42:24
One step further. Give the principal choice in who
42:29
to hire, who to fire, how much to pay them.
42:32
The same as any president of a of a company has that ability.
42:38
You do that and you introduce all the competitive forces that
42:42
make our grocery stores, for example, wonderful.
42:46
Now you're going to get that with schools.
42:48
Now people are going to say things like, well, we can't
42:51
leave something as important to schools to as schools to the
42:55
vagaries of the marketplace. To which I reply, we leave.
43:00
We leave something as important as food to the vagaries of the
43:04
marketplace and notice something.
43:05
If you close all of the grocery stores, you're going to have
43:11
riots in the streets. If you close all the schools,
43:14
you have spring break. Now tell me which of those two
43:17
things is more important and and remind yourself which of the two
43:21
do we leave to markets to figure out?
43:24
Yeah, I, I often say the more important a thing is, the better
43:28
off we are leaving it to markets.
43:31
Yeah. Are the markets going to do it
43:33
perfectly? No, they will not.
43:35
They're going to screw it up, but but they will do it better
43:39
and more efficiently. They'll do it better and there
43:41
will be a feedback mechanism. That's right.
43:44
The the ones that do it poorly will get chosen out.
43:48
The parents deceive or the the teachers will choose a different
43:51
curriculum, or the principal would choose a different
43:53
teacher. But there's choice everywhere.
43:56
Our current system has no choice.
43:58
The parents are locked in. The teachers are locked in, the
44:00
principals are locked in. Right, I I couldn't agree more.
44:04
And I I think it's kind of scary actually, to say teachers should
44:09
just teach whatever they they think is right.
44:12
But that's probably better than telling teachers to teach what a
44:18
politician thinks is right. Yeah, yeah.
44:22
You're going to do one or the other.
44:25
Who do you trust? And maybe you don't trust
44:28
anybody. And I really don't in that
44:30
situation, but I trust the markets to sort it out.
44:34
Yeah, and if you don't trust your teacher to decide what to
44:37
teach, you've got the wrong teacher.
44:39
That's right. And I trust a market to sort
44:41
that out. Yeah, Yep.
44:43
I don't, I don't trust much of anything else, but a markets
44:48
going to get rid of a lousy teacher real fast because that's
44:52
just what markets do there. And they're remarkably
44:56
consistent over time every time that they're used.
44:59
And the feedback loop that you talked about a moment ago is
45:02
really the important part cuz you're going to get a great
45:04
answer immediately. And then the next year you're
45:07
going to get a much better one. And the year after that, it's
45:10
going to be even better. And the year after that, it's
45:13
going to be almost perfect. And then the year after that, we
45:16
just go about our business thinking it's always been this
45:19
way, right? But that's what markets give us.
45:23
And if you think I'm wrong, look at the produce section at the
45:27
grocery store. Because we didn't have 2/3 of
45:31
that when I was a child, 2/3 I've, I've and in if you, if you
45:38
had brought me to a grocery store, I couldn't identify most
45:40
of the things I see every time I walk in now and in other
45:44
countries today that control their food retail markets.
45:50
Well, I shouldn't say markets. They control the food retail
45:52
industry. You don't.
45:54
You have something even worse than what we had as kids.
45:58
Yeah, it's a disaster. I've lived in those.
46:00
I've lived in a place like this is where.
46:02
Telling the story, if you, if you're able, of Yeltsin going to
46:07
the grocery store in upstate New York.
46:09
I used to tell this story we're we're used to.
46:12
Tell you tell you what, let's let's call this episode a day
46:16
right now and. Well, no, this is too good of
46:19
astronomy. To leave off if people want to,
46:20
if people want to stick around for a story, I've got a pretty
46:24
good and you can see it or hear it however you like after the
46:29
closing credits. OK, so stick around for the
46:33
story. Yeah, stick around.
46:35
The we, we often do this. It's always kind of a surprise.
46:37
But today we'll announce it. So, Ant, I will see you
46:41
officially next time, whatever the hell that is.
46:44
And until then, I hope you have a wonderful life and everything
46:48
works out in your favor and every, every single thing makes
46:51
you happy. And I wish everybody be a little
46:53
nicer to each other, be nice to each other.
46:56
See you next time, yeah? See you next time, James.
46:58
At Words and Numbers. We spend a lot of time talking
47:01
about what's going on in the economy and the government, but
47:04
fundamentally, all of this boils down to one thing.
47:07
The greatest threat facing modern society is a lack of
47:11
respect, that people who disagree somehow find it
47:14
difficult, if not impossible, to discuss their differences in a
47:18
civil manner. We at Civil are interested in
47:20
upgrading civilization by encouraging people to engage
47:24
with new ideas and ultimately engagecivillywitheachotherifyousharethisideapleasejoinusbysubscribing@civil.com.
47:32
That's cibl.com. OK, so there is before we start.
47:37
Before we start, I have to give a warning to all the parents out
47:41
there who are listening with their children in the car or
47:45
people with with delicate constitutions that in this
47:49
segment. If you if you have pearls that
47:52
you're about to be clutching, listen to this.
47:55
Segment James is UN unplugged. He's allowed to say all kinds of
48:00
profanity because that's kind of the equilibrium that we have
48:03
come to at what's in rivers we market.
48:06
We can mark James to the end. Part the market has sorted out
48:11
my behavior anyway. How best to start?
48:19
Well, let me let me give the the preamble to this story about
48:22
Yeltsin. This was a story which you'll
48:25
hear in a moment is quite interesting.
48:27
And I used to tell it often as as an example of, of the wonders
48:33
of markets. And I was giving a talk of all
48:38
places on Capitol Hill to to staffers, congressional
48:42
staffers. And I started to tell the story
48:46
and I stopped myself. And I said, you know, I've told
48:49
the story lots of times and I probably should stop doing so
48:52
because I don't have on hand the source.
48:56
I can't verify for you that this actually happened.
49:00
And I describe what the story was.
49:02
And some guy in, in sitting in the back raised his hand.
49:05
He said, oh, no, that's a true story.
49:07
It happened in the neighborhood that I lived in.
49:10
I know the grocery store that you're that you're going to talk
49:13
about. So now I think it was in Saint
49:16
Louis, but the story goes back further.
49:19
We have to actually start this story in 1959 when Nikita
49:24
Khrushchev became the first premier of the Soviet Union to
49:29
visit the United States. And Khrushchev, they were
49:34
showing him around and he couldn't believe what he was
49:38
seeing. They brought him to houses that
49:41
workers, regular guys could afford.
49:45
Not not mansions, but regular people.
49:49
And he would walk in and, and he thought they were putting them
49:52
on. He thought they had built entire
49:54
towns to bullshit him, for lack of a better term.
49:59
And it got funniest when they brought him to a grocery store.
50:03
And it was a Safeway in San Francisco in 1959.
50:09
And he looked around in the Safeway and he saw all kinds of
50:14
stuff. And he said, well, who?
50:17
Who can shop here? But think about that question
50:21
for a minute. Who's allowed to shop here?
50:23
Yeah. What up?
50:24
What up and he? Didn't mean who could afford it,
50:26
he meant who was. Allowed.
50:28
Who's allowed? Because there was such opulence
50:30
at that store that he couldn't get his head around the fact
50:34
that the answer was everyone and everyone could go there.
50:40
And with a couple of exceptions, kind of like now before damn
50:45
near anything in the store if he just wants it.
50:47
Look, grocery prices have skyrocketed.
50:49
You go to a grocery store right now and probably afford every
50:53
single thing in it except for some high end meat or a lobster.
51:00
How that's amazing. That's I can go and buy an
51:04
orange for $0.30 yo, right? It's but think about this.
51:10
And in the Soviet Union in 1959, people were going hungry.
51:15
Because when you essentially plan an economy, no food grows.
51:20
Right. And that's the lesson that
51:23
communists never learn. Socialism leads to starvation.
51:29
If you can't see that, I don't know what to tell you, because
51:32
it happens every time. And Khrushchev looked around and
51:38
said, no, no, no, you're putting me on.
51:43
This can't be real. The second most powerful man in
51:47
the world couldn't believe that Americans could buy food at a
51:53
store. Now if that's not the saddest
51:57
damn thing that you've heard today, you've had a bad day,
52:02
because that's pretty sad. The second most powerful man in
52:06
the world had no idea how his mortal enemy was living.
52:11
Fast forward, I believe it was 89.
52:13
So what, 30 years later? Yeah, that's about right.
52:16
Yeah. Boris Yeltsin shows up and they
52:20
take him to a grocery store and Boris has a decidedly different
52:25
reaction. Boris Yeltsin says something
52:28
along the lines of holy shit, you got to be kidding me.
52:32
Look at this place and, and there are pictures of him with
52:35
his arms extended looking at the, you know, the, the batches
52:39
and the he, he came to fall in love with fudgesicles.
52:44
Something as simple as a fudgesicle.
52:46
You've had them and since you were a boy, they're so
52:49
commonplace that you literally never think of them.
52:52
But if you were at my house and I said, hey, guess what?
52:54
I got a box of fudgesicles. You would think, oh boy, I
52:58
haven't had one of those in years, right?
53:01
And, and you would eat it and be happy.
53:03
Well, Boris Yeltsin had never seen one and he got one in his
53:08
mouth and he thought, oh, here we go.
53:10
And there are pictures of him walking around with a box of
53:14
fudges. Anyway, he his reaction after
53:20
seeing it was I'm, I'm going to make sure my my people have this
53:24
too. And that, my friend, is the
53:26
correct answer. That is the correct reaction.
53:30
Well, with a footnote. This with a footnote so great
53:33
that I want my people to have it too.
53:36
If you want your people to have it, you have to just step out of
53:39
their way. You can't go in there like we do
53:42
with our public education and say I know how to make this
53:46
happen and start telling everybody what to do.
53:48
You don't know how to make it happen.
53:50
And you're just going to screw it up.
53:51
And I've told this story before, but I, I had one of my Iraqi
53:55
students come to visit me and I thought, where, where do you
54:00
take somebody who's never seen much of anything in America?
54:05
And I thought, oh, I know the Giant Eagle.
54:08
Which one doesn't think? If you're, if you're, if you're
54:18
not watching on video, if you're only on audio, a dog just came
54:23
on the scene and licked James head and they just disappeared.
54:30
That dog wants a WALK in the worst way.
54:33
I can't even say a word out loud and she's going to crawl all
54:37
over me until I. You've got your earbuds in other
54:40
if you were on speaker I'd be yelling at right now just to see
54:42
the dog go crazy. Yeah, no, we can't.
54:45
We can't say that word. Not until the sun goes down far
54:48
enough that you don't die from heat stroke on the WALK.
54:52
Anyway. I've.
54:53
I've decided that from now on I'm just going to let the dog
54:56
jump on me during these episodes and I'm never going to say
55:01
anything about it. So you see it or you don't.
55:04
Anyway, where the hell was I? Oh yes, the Giant Eagle.
55:08
Think if you don't. If you've never lived in western
55:11
PA, which I think might be the only place Giant Eagle exists,
55:15
think Super Walmart, except only for groceries, but only
55:19
gigantic, gigantic grocery store.
55:23
So I brought this girl into Giant Eagle and I said go.
55:27
You know, have a look around, grab whatever you like.
55:30
And instead of doing that, she burst into tears.
55:35
And I said, what the hell is wrong with you?
55:37
And she said you, you just have no idea how lucky you are.
55:42
A grocery store. And I said, well, I mean, will
55:47
chocolate make this better? Can we go buy chocolate?
55:50
You stop crying. And that's what we did.
55:53
But it stuck with me for a long time.
55:56
To this day I I can't shake it that somebody, an intelligent,
56:02
well educated, kind, decent human being could walk into a
56:10
grocery store and be so overwhelmed to be brought to
56:12
tears. Yeah.
56:14
I mean, markets, they do miracle, they do miraculous
56:19
things. And meanwhile in this country,
56:22
the people who have access to those grocery stores every
56:25
single day are saying we what we really need is socialism.
56:29
Yeah, and and look, we we got a an ass clown becoming mayor of
56:35
New York City who said I'm going to make city run grocery stores.
56:41
And I can't wait to see these because I'm telling you right
56:46
now, they're going to look good for about a week and a half and
56:50
then there's not going to be any fucking food in any of them.
56:54
Right, they're going to be just as good as the government run
56:56
schools. Oh, even even better than the
56:59
government run schools because you'll be able to see the
57:02
product or not see the product on the shelf.
57:07
And state-run grocery stores don't work.
57:11
People have tried. They don't work for all kinds of
57:14
reasons, but. But but it it's worth, it's
57:17
worth stop. It's worth mentioning here.
57:20
The major reason is the incentives aren't right, that
57:24
the people who are making the decisions don't live with the.
57:27
Consequences of those decisions that tras happens with the
57:31
private grocery store. And I guess this is my new catch
57:34
phrase, right? But grocery stores are not a
57:36
public service. They are a business.
57:40
I'm, I'm going to point out, I guess over and over and over
57:42
again, things that aren't a public service because people
57:46
keep, people will come to think of them as public services.
57:49
People will complain saying, you know, it's not right that that
57:53
the guy who's selling us food is interested in profit, to which I
57:57
reply, I'm delighted he's interested in profit.
58:00
Yeah, me too. Because that's how you.
58:02
Get the food. That's what caused.
58:04
That's what gives him an incentive to give me what I want
58:07
at prices I'm willing to pay. Right, that guy's, that guy's
58:10
got to say this crackpot Anthony Davies wants artichokes for some
58:14
reason, and then he goes and finds.
58:16
Them. Yeah, because he wants dollars.
58:19
I want him to want my dollars. That's right.
58:21
That's what makes the world go round.
58:24
And I'm, I'm happy enough with it.
58:26
Look, I I wish that lots of people would do things out of
58:31
the goodness of their hearts. I wish but.
58:34
They can. In a big market system, there's
58:37
nothing stopping you. Anytime you want.
58:41
And also also I get all these complaints about how every job
58:46
sucks and it's demeaning and all this.
58:49
Why don't you get together with all the other people who say the
58:52
same nonsense and buy a company and then run it however the hell
58:57
you want? Go ahead.
58:59
And then you, you see real fast, that's not exactly what they
59:03
really want. What they really want is not to
59:07
work at all and to be given whatever they want, right?
59:12
Yep. Because here's the thing.
59:14
Everybody who believes that there's a such thing as a
59:17
natural aristocracy also believes that he's part of it.
59:23
Or should be part of it. And everybody who thinks
59:26
communism is a great idea also believes he'll be in charge,
59:32
that he won't be in the field with their much beloved sickle
59:38
cutting down the weak, doing the the soul sucking work of making
59:44
sure people can have food without any economic benefit to
59:49
himself. Well, OK, believe that all you
59:52
want. It's never going to happen.
59:54
Human nature gets in the way every time.
59:56
So something that doesn't sound quite as good, free markets
1:00:00
actually delivers much better. And if you're interested in
1:00:04
outcomes, which I would say is the only thing you should be
1:00:08
interested in, what does best, right?
1:00:12
Now we can create thought experiments about well, what if
1:00:16
this and what if that, and I'll, I'll play that game.
1:00:18
I'm a trained philosopher. We could do that shit if you
1:00:21
want, but I'm interested in outcomes.
1:00:25
I want most people to have the I want everybody to have the best
1:00:30
life they can possibly have, right.
1:00:33
So what's going to what's going to yield that outcome?
1:00:37
How is the answer not markets? Take a look around What are the
1:00:43
achievements of markets? What are the achievements of
1:00:46
governments? Governments.
1:00:47
Much more efficient at killing lots of people.
1:00:51
That's about it. That's about it.
1:00:54
Well, maybe imprisoning people too.
1:00:57
The best, the the worst thing markets do is tell you to go to,
1:01:00
to expel you. We don't want to deal.
1:01:03
We don't want your kind in here. That's literally the worst
1:01:06
thing. And every now and then you
1:01:09
require a government to address that.
1:01:12
And every now and then the market is correct to do that.
1:01:15
When when markets said no black people, it was perfectly
1:01:19
reasonable for government to intervene.
1:01:22
And all, all the crackpots out there, they're real crazy
1:01:25
libertarian types who want to argue with me about the Civil
1:01:29
Rights Act. Come, come at me.
1:01:32
I dealt with your king not too long ago.
1:01:35
I'll deal with you too. You might remember.
1:01:38
What the hell is that clown's name?
1:01:40
You were at the dinner. He told me I wasn't a real
1:01:43
libertarian because I thought the Civil Rights Act was a a net
1:01:47
positive. Oh.
1:01:50
I don't know who you're talking about.
1:01:52
Come on man, you were there. I don't recall the conversation.
1:01:58
What did you say to the guy? I told him I knew better than he
1:02:01
did what went on in my heart, and I was in fact a libertarian.
1:02:06
No matter what the fuck he said, I believe in human freedom.
1:02:10
I believe everybody should be exactly as free as circumstances
1:02:16
will allow. Which means you will never be
1:02:20
perfectly free, right? Because other people exist and
1:02:24
you have to be cognizant of them and they have to count in your
1:02:31
actions. That's why we talked about a
1:02:33
civil society. Society necessarily means more
1:02:36
than one person. Walter Block, It was Walter
1:02:40
Block. Walter Block said Jackass is he
1:02:47
is Jackass. He says things just to piss
1:02:50
people off. Before you get started on a
1:02:55
rant, I think we should thank the nice people for listening
1:02:58
this far and call it an evening. Yeah, no, I'm all done.
1:03:02
I don't have a rant in me. I'm actually feeling charitable
1:03:05
today. It's a Thursday.
1:03:08
Thursday is my poker night, right?
1:03:11
So every week on Thursday, I gather with a bunch of academics
1:03:15
and other fellow travellers, some listeners of this very
1:03:18
podcast actually, and we play online poker with each other for
1:03:23
pennies for no good reason. And tonight, Thursday night, as
1:03:28
we as we record this, my beloved New England Patriots are playing
1:03:32
the hapless New York Jets. Should be a bloodbath there a 12
1:03:37
1/2 point favorite, which means it might be a lot more
1:03:41
interesting than it should be, but we'll see.
1:03:45
But I get this very evening football and poker.
1:03:49
That's a that's a good night. How could you be angry at
1:03:53
Thursday? Have a good evening.
1:03:55
James and you too Aunt. Have a good evening Doom, doing
1:03:58
whatever dumb shit you do. I can go watch Star Trek reruns.
1:04:03
Are you really? Really.
1:04:06
Oh God, here's a question for you.
1:04:09
Look, I always say this when people ask about us because they
1:04:13
want to. Everybody, when they meet us,
1:04:16
they're shocked to find out that we're exactly the same in real
1:04:19
life as we are on this podcast. Yeah.
1:04:22
They're always shocked. They think that this is some
1:04:25
kind of act we cooked up. And you are, when I explained it
1:04:31
in Star Trek terms, you are a Spock who wishes to God he was a
1:04:36
Kirk. And I am a Kirk.
1:04:39
And I am a Kirk who wishes to God he were a Picard.
1:04:42
And that's kind of perfect, right?
1:04:44
It, it nails us both. I wish I could be a Picard.
1:04:48
I really do. But I can't.
1:04:50
It's not in my nature. And I know you wish you you
1:04:54
could be a Kirk. I've come to argument with my
1:04:58
Spockness. You are a, you are a Spock and
1:05:01
and I think you can make a case that you know, you could be a
1:05:04
Data too, but you really are a Spock.
1:05:07
Same thing. Yeah, yeah, you really are a
1:05:09
Spock. So on that happy note, we'll
1:05:11
take our leave. It's, it's also my firm belief,
1:05:15
aunt, that everybody is a character in The Godfather, that
1:05:21
if you watch The Godfather, you will be one of those characters.
1:05:26
So maybe we'll talk about that next time.
1:05:27
I know it's perfectly clear who I am, and I don't think it's
1:05:32
perfectly clear who you are. I think I know.
1:05:36
Oh, well, I guess then we're not going to talk about it some
1:05:38
other time. I'm clearly a Sonny.
1:05:41
Hmm. Yeah, I could buy that.
1:05:43
I could buy that. Clearly a Sonny I I think you
1:05:46
might be a Tom Hagen. I could buy that too.
1:05:49
I think that's right, but we'll think about it more as time goes
1:05:52
on. All right.
1:05:53
Have a good night, James. Take it easy man.