Latest / Why We Do What We Do / Guess Who..?

Transcript

Guess Who..? · Why We Do What We Do

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You're listening to Why we Do what we Do. Welcome
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to Why We Do what we Do. I am your
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: trivia game show host Abraham.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm your completely in the Dark host Shane.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Right now, we Shane, right now. We are a psychology podcast.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: We talk about the things that humans and non human
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: animals do. And today we're going to do an episode
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: a little bit different from what we've done in the past,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: because this episode will be a slowly unfolding series of mysteries.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Three exactly, We're going to detail the actions of a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: few people and see if you can guess who they
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: are before we reveal these names. And for fun, Shane
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: has actually not read through the notes already, so uh,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: this will be an opportunity for Shane to actually participate
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: in sort of real time with the audience. Yeah, you
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: get to be the voice of our audience today as
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: you try and guess with me.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I love that, and I know I'm really
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: good at the rules of guess who. So, like we
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: can go like, does your person have a mustache?
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Great? Great, Yes, I'm calling this guess who I am
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: now taking the names out of out of the notes.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: So even if you were to accidentally scroll ahead, you
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: wouldn't see them, beautiful. I love that all right. If
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: you're joining us for the first time, then welcome. We
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: hope that you enjoy what you hear in this discussion today,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: and that you get to play along and have fun
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and also learn a bunch of things along the way.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: If you're not in your returning person, then welcome back.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: We're playing a guess who game and you get to
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: play along and have fun, and hopefully you'll enjoy it
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: either way. If you like to support us, you can
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: leave us a rating and a review like subscribe, join
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: us on Patreon, tell a friend. I'll talk more about
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: those things at the end of this discussion. Before we
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: even dive into this, there's an important note about the
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: fact that we are now well into Black History Month.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, so as part of Black History Month, one of
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: the things we like to do is we're going to
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: start trying to highlight some what could be described as
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: unknown heroes of the black community, at least in the
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: United States. And so today we are going to highlight
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Baird Rustin. He was an American political activist who was
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: really a big proponent for nonviolent resistance in protest movements.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: That's like one thing that he is really well known
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: for is just like focusing on those. Great one day
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: we'll do like maybe a talk on what nonviolent resistance is.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: It does not mean just laying down and not fighting back.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: It is just not aggressive. But we'll talk about that later.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: He was a primary organizer during the civil rights movement
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: and was the principal organizer for the March on Washington
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: for Jobs and Freedom in nineteen sixty three. He had
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: begun some of his anti racism work in nineteen forty
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: one and helped organize the Freedom Rides, which was really
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: powerful and impactful, and as well as leadership conferences. Specifically,
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: he helped put together leadership conferences to put speakers in
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: figureheads for the civil rights movement at the forefront, including
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: having MLK speak at these conferences to really like amplify
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: those voices, which was really powerful, brilliant move Yeah, yeah,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: super super cool. In the eighties, he continued to do
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: his work on advocacy and actually kind of shifted his
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: focus to gay rights and gay advocacy because he was
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: a gay black man and felt that he was a
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: pretty prominent voice for that community. He ended up passing
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: away in nineteen eighty seven and getting some buildings named
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: after him and lots of like posthumous awards. But he
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: did a lot of really great work in advancing these
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: rights movements.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Awesome, man, maybe we should just do a profile and
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: some civil rights figure. Yeah, as like an episode, because
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: these are amazing, amazing humans that definitely their accomplishments and
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: actions are worth recognizing and spending some time getting to
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: know what they did. Yeah, because it's like we wouldn't
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: be where we are today without some of the things
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: that they did. And good for them, honestly.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, you're absolutely right.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, this episode publishes on February eleventh, which,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: as I said, is well into Block History Month, which
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: is the month of February. So while we're here on
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: this date, then we can also wish everyone a happy
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: be electrific day.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Sure, it's also Daytona Pole Day at the time that
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: this is out.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: It's the race.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Oh it started the race week, got it pretty much?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is don't cry over spilled Milk Day mm hmm.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: It is get your Guitar out Day or get out
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: your guitar day.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Get out your guitar out. You did. It is Grandmother
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: Achievement Day, and I love that's right.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fun. I like that. It's International Day of
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Women and Girls in Science.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Fantastic. It is Make a Friend's Day.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It certainly is. Yeah, you make you make one of
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: your friend's day. That's that's what I'm supposed to be. Yeah,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: because it's an apostrophe. Yeah, because there's an apostrophe. It's
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: National Inventor's Day.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Also an apostrophe. Yes, it is National Make a Friend Day. Okaol.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: And we're right around Day Valentine's so I guess I
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: see where this is going.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a little bit. It's National shut in Visitation Day.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It is an Peppermint Patty Day.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Ooh that sounds nice. It is Promised Day.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: It is White T Shirt Day, not wet T shirt,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: but white T shirt.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, love a good white T shirt.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: It is World Day of the Sick.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: And as you might expect, it a celebration of Love week.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: And this can be all kinds of love. Love for family,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: love for pets, love for a significant other. Yeah, good stuff,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: very good. All right, But we don't just talk about holidays.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, we briefly mention them. At all,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: and that's what we've done. We have accomplished what we
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: set out to accomplished. So returning to our topic du jour,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: as I said, we're doing this sort of guess whose style,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: except that I'm not asking you to ask questions. We're
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: going to talk through some biographical information of someone, but
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: really focusing on the things that they did or are
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: doing as we will see and then figure out who
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: those people are. I guess that'll make sense.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense, I think so cool.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: So importantly, I am going to I design this to
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: leave out details that might otherwise give away who the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: person is. Some of the things I say are a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: little vague, and I'm gonna repeat that point a few times,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: but that's just important to know that that's what is
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: going on. When I reveal who it is, you might say,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: why didn't you talk about this, and I'd be like,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: because they're the only person who did that. Sure, so
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: if I did say that that it would be an
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: immediate giveaway that that is the case.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: That makes sense.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: So one thing I don't say for any of them
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: is I don't speak about geography where they're located.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: So the point of this is to have fun, but
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: there's a deeper purpose that will also sort of be
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I think it'll become clear fairly early on. Yeah, okay, cool,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: are you ready to dive in?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it. I'm super stoked for this.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: All right, let's start with profile number one. We're going
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: to talk through this person, and then we're going to
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: try and guess who they are. You're going to try
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: and guess who they are. Okay, why don't you kick
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: us off? Okay?
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: So this person eventually rose to the power of president.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: They were described as having a cult of personality, meaning
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: one who uses the power of the state to promote
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: an image of charisma and having loyal followers and supporters.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, this person used the government to censor critical media,
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: only appeared on and shared information with media outlets that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: sort of glorified and celebrated them and their actions and
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: painted them in the nicest possible light.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: They put their name and image all over the place
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: on buildings, the names of buildings, t shirts, posters. It
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: was inescapably ubiquitous.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they were wanted to have their name on stuff.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Quickly upon ascending to the presidency, they placed many of
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: their family members and close friends into positions of power
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: within the government. And then they began this person began
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: purging everyone from the government who disagreed with him, even
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: from within his own party.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm starting to get a picture of who this
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: person could be. But also it's just more of the
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: shape of a person. So this person reshaped government buildings,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: decorating them with ostentatious marble and gold, tearing down old
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: buildings and erecting larger ones in their places.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: Yes, they also pointed themselves to a position with pretty
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: much absolute power in which they had the final say
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: in all matters. They sort of got the decision about
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: things was up to them.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: At one point, they tried to claim another nearby country
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: as their own, presumably at least in part for their oil,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: if not also for control of their government.
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: So yes, not good. Yeah, those are all things that happens.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And then this person, as part of their rhetoric, as
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: part of their cult of personality, as part of their
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: strategy for obtaining power, is to blame the problems on
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: the country on essentially two groups, anybody in the opposition
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: party and minority groups, specific minority groups, and they especially
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: went after these minority groups. Once they were in power.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: They started aliening previous allied countries and making alliances.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, alliances with like previously combatant countries and like people
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: they had an adverse history with who were kind of
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: more like enemies they were all of a sudden cozying
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: up to while alienating their actual allies. At the same time,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: they lead really powerfully and heavily on a task force
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: in their country of police like troops, and they used
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: these to specifically seek out minority populations again, kind of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: one in particular that they didn't like. And this force
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: appeared to operate kind of outside of jurisdiction, and it
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: seemed almost to be like a personal force to do
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the bidding of the president to seek out the president's
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: version of justice. And everything they did was justified by
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: his power and authority which granted to them to carry
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: out their actions.
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, that sounds apocryphal. They lied in rewrote history
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: to blame others for things going poorly, and lied about
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: how well things were going in their country, even while
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: people started losing the ability to secure food due to
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: prices and availability.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, prices started getting difficult, so they people were having
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: a harder, harder time affording things. All right, So now
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: if I go any further, it'll start to become a
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: little too obvious who it was. So so let's start
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: with did any of this sound familiar to you? Oh?
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately, yeah, all right, and people probably have a sense
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of where I'm going with this. I'm gonna give you
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: a chance to mull it over while we play some ads. Okay,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: we're back. We just described to this person who quite
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: clearly became sort of an authoritarian dictator and took a
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: well point being that they rose to power and abused
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: that power and cause some problems in their country. So
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: do you have a guess as to who this person is?
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, so I'm thinking that because of the oil possibility,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: I feel like it would have to be either. I
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: feel like it has to be somewhere in Asia, like
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: to me, the first the first three that come to
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: mind are are Putin or Kim Jong Eel, but we
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: don't know enough about them in that situation as much
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: as we should. I'm gonna guess maybe somewhere in the
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Middle East. It feels like Saddam Hussein ding Ding ding Yep, Really,
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was trying to not go with the obvious,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: which is like clearly what we're dealing with right now.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: But like it was one of those things where I went, Okay,
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: this sounds familiar, you know.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was Saddam Hussein, and the parts that I
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: left out he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: of thousands of people. He was likely only stopped because
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: he invaded Kuwait, and that's the point at which the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: United States got involved. But he spent twenty five years
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: in power in Iraq, and like I said, he could
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: have kept going, and he would have if he hadn't
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: been stopped. That's a very long time for them to
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: have been under that oppressive regime. They weren't in like
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the most they weren't in a real, actual sort of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: democracy before he took over.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: But like this was this certainly wasn't.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Better, No, No, I mean, whatever form of democracy was
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: developing there, he shredded to pieces when he took power. Sure, Sure,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and you know it's because of him taking power that
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: they really never got back to that that much either.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: So that's sort of what he did. But there are
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: probably some other things in there that felt of a
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: parallel to other things that we have observed from other people.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately, also, to be clear, multiple people
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: across time, not like multiple dictators across time. That sounds like.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yes it is, yeah, and that will become more clear
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: as we as a couple of profiles.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so we should probably do profile too then, right, so.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the game, the game continues, The game continues.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: All right, does this person have a hat?
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: No? Okay, I mean probably, but not famously. Okay, okay,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: all right, This next person was born to a powerful,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: wealthy family, his father in particular, his father was not
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: a good person, let's put it that way. But where
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: his father had succeeded and worked to accumulate wealth and power,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: this person, his son, was able to really ride those coattails,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: despite never really gaining any real competence for themselves. It
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: was really only because of their father's actions that this
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: person was able to be born into wealth and therefore
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: pick up from there if you will.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Sure, sure, sure, Now. In their bid to rise the power,
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: they developed a cult of personality and leaned on nationalism, xenophobia,
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: and racism, particularly against nearby countries and immigrants, to attempt
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: to consolidate power and gain followers.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, So again, just as there a minder for culture personality,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: this is someone who uses the state to promote images
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: of charisma and to develop sort of loyal followers. That's
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the cult of personality, right thing, So that's this person. Also,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: he had a penchant for food, really all kinds of food,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: but in particularly goremet what you might call rich foods.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: In this person also really like ostentation. They like nice cars,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: nice clothes, large gilded furniture, all sorts of things like
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: that that were symbols of wealth. I guess is how
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: might you might describe their preferences.
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he used media and film to enhance his image
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: and glorify himself and his family, to make them look
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: unstoppably strong, and to make them look and appear infallible.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And so when he rose, when he officially rose
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to power, he kind of was another one. He put
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: his name and image all over the place. He I
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: guess you could say, motivated or inspired his followers to
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: really obey his command, to follow his orders unquestioningly, and
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: worked out this system of sort of loyalty was a
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: really important feature of his power.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He also used resources to reward obedience and give
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: and gave power, food, wealth, and status to people who
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: were loyal and obedient to him.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, he stacked the positions of power within the government
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: with regime loyal bureaque and put pressure on higher education
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: centers to quell any dissidents and to promote conservative friendly ideologies. Mmmm. Okay.
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: He had many affairs with different women, although of course
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: they were likely paid course or both to be with him.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: This person is fairly heavy set, but he forced artists
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: to depict him as thin and fit. He loved, loved,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: loved to play golf, and claimed to be a remarkably
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: talented golfer, like on the order of some of the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: claims that he made would put him in like probably
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: the top most talented golfer of all time.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so I already I'm hearing
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: this is Happy Gilmore.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: He targeted minority groups. No, he hit Happy Gilmour would
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: never do that. He targeted minority groups, particularly rival religious groups,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: and had them detained. He also diverted a huge amount
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: of resources to the military.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: This person believed that people should be paid extremely little
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: lest they start becoming ambitious and lose their quote unquote
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: self reliance. And so, you know, the people who were
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: already successful sort of in my mind, deserved to be successful,
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and the people who weren't deserved where they were at.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: And before he took over ruly the government, his country's
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: economy was thriving and growing. Following the implementation of his authoritarian,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: right wing policies, his country's economy completely stagnated and even
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: started to decline.
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: M okay. In doing so, he impoverished many people of
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: the country, but hid all of this claim the allegations
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: of their impoverishment were false and that the country was thriving.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yep. Now, meanwhile, he constructed lavish castle like buildings, erected
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: statues of himself, started making friends with other dictators such
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: as Vladimir Putin, and led or misconstrued information about what
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: was really going on in his country. Hmmm, kind of
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: at various in various ways. I guess I'll put it shortly, sure, sure, sure, okay,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: all right, So yeah, I like the last person, we
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: kept much of this vague to avoid giving too much away.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: But I'm guessing some of the sounds familiar, yes.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean all too familiar. Unfortunately.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: All right, So who would you guess?
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Can I ask two questions before I guess yes, But
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I won't promise that I'll answer them both. Well, they're
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: just yes or no questions. I think they will be fine.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: Does this person have a bad haircut?
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: Yes? Okay?
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Do his people believe he doesn't poop?
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: That is a rumor. Yes, I'm gonna go.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with North Korea on this one and
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: say this is Kim Jong.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Un, his father, Kim Jong ill. But they they're of
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: a kind, so reasonable guess yes, I'll say.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: The reason I guess that was not because of all
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: of the parallels with other things that we're seeing what,
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: but specifically because of the artists and the impossibly strong
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: and infallible like that. I feel like it just feels
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: very salient for him.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Fair, those are irrelevant things to attend to. I
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: would did worry about that being a thing that sort
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: of give give it away, But I was like, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I was like that he's not the first one. Like
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: this is a common dictator thing is to like have
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: themselves look stronger than they are, look better than they are. Yeah,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: it felt like it was safe enough. But that was
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: all correct. I didn't realize before putting this together how
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: much of an avid golfer he was. But yeah, that
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: also I was like, well, that just feels too good
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: to exclude.
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: That's too that's too close, that's too close to everything
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: right now.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I think you are right that we don't
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: know very much about Kim Jong ill. They control all
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: narrative in their country to them as much as they
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: possibly can.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: The Internet is a closed is a closed circuit, like
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: their Internet is explicitly closed and is nearly impossible to access.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: Like those networks are. It's they are. They are all
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: state controlled.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so I like the the narrative that they
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: spin is that like Kim Jong il was born on
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: the sacred mountain top and when he did, there were
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: two rainbows, and like the ice started to melt, and
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: like that. It was this. They fabricated the dates, they
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: fabricated the location, they fabricated the events around it to
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: make him sound like it was some deific being gracing
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the world with their presidence, even though he's a horrific
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: dictator who brutally tortured and falsely imprisoned hundreds of thousands
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: of people, or more he orchestrated famine, orchestrated it like
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: he caused it specifically in his country while ensuring that
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: only he and the people in his regime ate well
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: and I mean very well. Like while people were cutting
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: bark off of trees to feed themselves, he was having
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: caviar flown flown in from other parts of the world. Yeah,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: where they would like hand pick individual eggs from the
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: caviar and individual pieces of rice that were just like
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: perfect textures for him. This guy was just terrible. He
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: instilled an ongoing policy of keeping the world unclear of
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: what was happening in North Korea and keeping the citizens
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of his country unaware of what was happening in the
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: rest of the world. The saddest part about this is
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: that their authoritarian tactics have worked. They've successfully prevented any uprising,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: rebellion or descent, or even intervention from other countries, part
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of which it was because of the focus on their
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: military and development of weapons that they now have very
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: very powerful weapons, so they can prevent people from going
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: in and there doing anything. But yeah, people there, it's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: just a few people at the top, the elite, living
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: off of the backs of the people below them, the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: millions of people below them, and it's just gross, Like
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: it is horrible, horrible. I mean, they were inventing new
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: ways to torture people in this country that are just
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: so disgusting and gross.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's real bad, and the legacy continues. His son
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: does the same thing.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, it is just an ongoing event that
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: hopefully one day we will see some resolution for. But
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: as it stands, these two dictators so far sounded a
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: lot alike one another.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like they're reading from a playbook.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: It kind of does. Yeah. The playbook we read from
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: is one that involves ads, oh no, okay, we're back.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: We just profiled person two, which happened to be Kim
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Jong ill, although honestly, you plug in Kim Jong un
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: and much of it is still the same. Yeah. I
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: don't know that he is as interested in golf for
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: cinema as his father was. But but his father, like
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: he and his father worked to build up his image
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: so that they could seamlessly transition him to be essentially
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: like again, God's gift to the world. Yeah yeah, yeah,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: to at least the people of North Korea.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: I mean, his haircut is just a gift to comedians everywhere.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Good lord, fair, fair, Okay, let's get to person three.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: This one is probab blinging. A sound familiar, but that's okay,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: Like they all have, and this one will just be
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: that as well.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: They sound familiar, probably for a reason, right Like So,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: in the midst of some economic upheaval with massive inflation,
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: an extreme political figure full of rhetoric rose to power.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, he held these long, massive rallies where he would
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: speak for hours at a time sometimes, and he this
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: is in his attempts to rise to power. He blamed
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the economic woes in the country on policies of a
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: democratic system of government and leftist ideology. He also blamed
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: the problems of this country on specific minority groups, and.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: It's been the game power. He spoke passionately and at
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: length about the horrible atrocities of these minority groups, which
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: you referred to as vermin, who were quote poisoning the
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: blood of the country, had caused the country to decline,
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: and how purging them would be part of the strategy
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: to make their country great again. He argued that if
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: these groups were not dealt with, they would replace the
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: people of the country take their jobs.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: Now, why would I feel comfortable putting in a direct
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: quote from somebody if I was trying to obscure who
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: that person was because other people said the same thing.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that quote is has been used by more than
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: one person.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, initially a fringe extremist figure, he started a
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: sort of grassroots campaign to sort of accrue voters, and
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: he used this ultra nationalist rhetoric propaganda to start gaining voters,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: which he did successfully.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Before actually sending the power. He was arrested and briefly
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: jailed for some of his crimes.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: But to ensure success, he started targeting his campaign efforts
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: toward rural and middle class voters, which include small business owners, clerks, farmers,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: agricultural workers, and artisans, sort of that section of the
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: country to try to get votes where they thought they
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: could convince those people that their policies w be best
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: for those people. Yeah.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Now, as part of their campaign, their speeches were hateful,
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: fear mongering rhetoric against political opponents and minority groups, then
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: mixed with utopian promises of a brighter future that their
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: far right conservative party could deliver. They were the answer
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: to all the questions Yeah, they certainly were, or they
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: thought they were. They thought they were.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's say like that they thought they were,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: they promised that they were. Yeah, okay. They organized tens
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of thousands of events across the country with marches, rallies, posters,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: all kinds of sort of propaganda rhetoric to gain popularity. Slogans.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: They used a lot of slogans for easy, sort of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: memorable phrases to get people to chant and that sort
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: of thing. They would sometimes speak to crowds of thousands
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and get them all riled up and sort of frenzied,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: if you will.
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Once he attained the power or the presidency, he
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: started dismantling the systems of democracy and consolidating power in
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: his position. He stacked his government with loyalists and started
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: suspending civil liberties.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Yep, okay, yeah, this is so hard. This is a star. Yeah,
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: to put all this together. Yeah, many of his followers
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: went along with this. They even welcomed it. They you know,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: some of the stuff, it's clear that it's wrong, but
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: they're like this. They believe that his actions would ultimately
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: be for the greater good of the country. So they're like, okay,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: it's fine, you do your thing. This is probably for
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: the best. You know what you're doing. I trust our
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: leader here.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. He started threatening to invade and take over neighboring countries.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: He started making friends with other governments, and in particular
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: received nearly unfettered support from religious institutions, particularly the Catholic
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: and Protestant churches, which saw their goals aligned with this
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: person's ideology.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: Now, unfortunately, many of the flagrant human rights violations and
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: violations of international treaties that were part of some of
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: his policies and actions. Once he did rise to power,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: they were at least somewhat successful in temporarily boosting their
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: country's economy, which further solidified his support base and sort
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: of saying like, look, he's right, we support him because
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: he promised this and he delivered on it at least
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. He started taking actions to remove silence and
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: criticized political opponents. He criticized news sources that did not
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: speak favorably of him or for his regime, basically calling
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: them anti patriotic and liars, and took moves to control
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: critical coverage.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Yep. He established a sort of secret police for us here.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: This is again very similar to the other one. They
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: swore oaths to be loyal to him. He used them
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: to spy on and operate with immunity to target minority groups,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: minority populations, and dissenters around the country, and again they
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: sort of operated without Real's jurisdiction and seemed to have
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: a nearly godlike level of authority as they moved about
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the country doing his personal bidding and missions.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Yepp initially he promised that he would deport all of
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: the minority group members he blamed for the problems in
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: the country. In service of this, he had had his
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: people construct large attention centers and facilities around the country
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: to hold these people. Parents were separating from their children, pets, businesses,
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: and homes were abandoned, and people fled or went into hiding.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Still, the propaganda of the government promised that things were
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: better than ever and that the future was bright, and
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: some people even continued to believe him. Hmm, Okay, there
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: are more things I'd like to say, but going beyond
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: this would really give away who the person as I'm
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: talking about. Does this sound familiar, Shane, Yes.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: I have a question. Okay, is this person an author?
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah? I guess you could say that, Okay.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Okay, does this person have an IMDb page?
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I actually don't know for sure. I would have to
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: check if.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: It's who I think it is. He does, which you
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: know is not unlike other people that we are probably
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: familiar with. Okay, I know who this person is, and
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: only because I recently listened to a podcast that talked
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: about how he would rile up like working class, like
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: the folks, the farm folks and all those all those people,
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: and his time in jail where he wrote his he
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: wrote his book My Struggle.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is clearly Hitler, right, Yes, this is Hitler. Yeah.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: And for those of you who didn't know, who didn't know,
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: mine comp stands for my struggle. He writes about his struggle,
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: and he just writes a book where he complains the
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: whole time.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I really just blaming everything on Jewish people, of course. Yeah,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: if you listened through all of this and you played
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: along with us, and you played the game, I'd be
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: interested to hear your experience and thoughts. And I think
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: you know, I actually did test this out on someone
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: who was less aware of where I was going with this,
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: and they said, obviously you're talking about Donald Trump, like
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: why are you even playing this game? And if you
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: guess Donald Trump for any of these three, I would
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: understand that each of these descriptions mirror in part or
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: nearly identical his actions once he has obtained power, on
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: his rise to power, and that last profile was, in
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: my opinion, the most strikingly similar to Trump. You probably
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: figured out this pattern that we were detailing various dictators
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: throughout the last century, and the last one, of course
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: was Hitler. But like of YOUU liss, if you read
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: through that, you'll hear that and be like every bullet
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: point yep, Donald Trump, yep, Donald Trump, yep, Donald Trump?
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Why did I use those quotes? Donald Trump used those quotes?
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Also Hitler used those quotes, so like that's why I
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: felt comfortable using him, because I'm like, hey, this could
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: be multiple people here.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Also, Donald Trump is an author and is also has
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: an IMDb page two, so like, yeah, like not only
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: do like all of his like the worst things that
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: he has done? Do they align with Hitler and Saddam Hussein?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump and Hitler also have acting credits together.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Fair Yes, technically Kim Jong Il did as well, so
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I probably should have included that there.
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: There you go, there you go.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Anyway with all of that, what to you was sort
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: of the biggest giveaway in this last profile.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: In the last profile, I think that the I don't
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: know the thing is, I don't think that there was
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: anything any particular giveaway, Like if I wasn't in the
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: era that I'm in where I am at that stage
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: of like middle age where I'm interested in World War two,
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: and I've always been very interested in World War two.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: But like if I hadn't been studying that, I don't
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: think that it would it would come across very like
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: different than what's happening now. I did listen to this
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: podcast and it was really important that they were saying, like,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: you know, the current administration are not Nazis, but they
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: want to be. Yeah, and that's that's where the problem
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: is because like the Nazi, the Nazi Party in their
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: rise was a little bit more organized. But the thing
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: that stood out to me was I think knowing Hitler
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: had gone to prison, like he spent prison, he was
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: arrested as a political extremist prior to his rise to
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: power and had like been responsible for like nineteen deaths
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: as part of failed coup. So like there's like, so
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: he did and he didn't serve all of his time.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Everybody he was supposed to serve five years and he
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: served like nine months. Yea where he wrote this book
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: mind Struggle. Yeah, I just make fun of that because
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: just sounds so whiny. But I think that the thing
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: that really stood out. I think I will say the
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: one word that really went oh this is Hitler in
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: that entire profile was the use of the term vermin.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: Like that was such a major propaganda's talking point for
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: that administration, the term vermin and comparing minority groups to
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: vermin and rats. That was such a huge part of
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: the propaganda that actually got and people don't realize this,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: that actually got people that belonged to those minority groups
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: turning on their own minority groups. Yeah, like there were
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: spies inside of like the ghettos that existed that were
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: turning in equal to the Nazi Party and the Secret Police,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: the Secret Police also operating outside of government rule, so
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: like the SS was not a government entity. It operated
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: very similar to ICE where it's kind of a rogue
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: agency a little bit. So like but the term vermin
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: really stood out to me, and I went Okay, that's
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: that's the thing that like, I know that that was
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: like a huge part of that propaganda. But again that's
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: because I know that.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Well, and the reason I felt okay using
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: is because Trump also is called immigrants vermin. So yeah,
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: listening through all of these, all of them feel like
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: they're just all using the same playbook because of the
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: amount of alignment between them. I was like, I can
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: get fairly specific on some of this and have it
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: be okay because it's accurate across any dictator. Yeah. I
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: did look at some other profiles of dictators. I kind
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: of wanted to include some other groups that sort of
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: function like dictators, even though they're they're technically more of
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: a governing body than a soule sort of person. Yeah,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: but some of them I felt like they they did
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: use some different playbooks, Like there are some other people
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: who were brutal, horrible leaders, but they didn't really follow
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: the same template. So I left those ones out. But
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: these ones I was focusing on people who like, they
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: all kind of did similar things. And the point being that, like,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I think one of the things that we meant that
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: some people might miss is I was like, when they
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: were rising to power. This felt to people like, this
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: is weird. I don't know if this is going in
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: the direction when we want to necessarily want it to
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: be going. And some other people were like, yes, we're
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: finally going the direction we should be going. Yeah, And
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: that's kind of like how the country. But like at
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: no point in there where people like, ah, we're in
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: a nice stasis. Everything is calm and cool and collected.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: People are making rational decisions, business as usual, like it
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: really was always some kind of traumatic, horrible thing going on,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: and people sort of looking around and going like, uh,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know for all, I don't know about this, guys. Yeah,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: And then like that feels familiar, like distressingly familiar to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: what works.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing that I keep landing on. And and
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: you know, I could see people going, well, like, you know,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: it's a different time or different regimes or different contexts,
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: or there's different circumstances. I could hear people saying all that,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: and I would say to that, I would say to
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: anybody who would who would argue that the Trump administration
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: is different than what we just described, I would say, two, three,
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: maybe four coincidences is a coincidence? And you could probably
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: write those off, is like nah, maybe, like maybe, but nah,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: like there's there's other things to differentiate, right, Like you
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: can kind of go, like, there's other things that he's
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: doing that differentiate himself from those other people. When you
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: get to twenty thirty forty one hundred parallels bullet points
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: that match on a vent diagram, when that circle starts
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: to get smaller and become a single circle, like at
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: that point in time, you have to stop and go
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: what is happening? And like, as you go through each
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: one of these bullet points, I think that you can
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: see clearly that there are like superficial, superficial parallels. You know,
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: the author IMDb page likes golf, sure, whatever.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: There are great people for whom that's true.
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: Also yeah yeah yeah, But then you go into turning
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: people against each other, controlling the media, controlling the news,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: getting rid of dissenters, attacking minorities, having rogue police groups
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: and police forces. Like when you start getting those those
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: are more intentional and also just too it's too close.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: There are too many red flags going up going hey guys, hey, hey,
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: we shouldn't be doing this, and everybody's going we'll see,
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: let's see what happens. That's the problem, and that's the
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: problem in every one of these situations. It's never the
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: folks that are going out and saying, hey, stop this,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: or the people going, yeah, I really love this. It's
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: the people in the middle that are going, this doesn't
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: feel right. Let's see how this shakes out for those people.
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: If you are on the fence, if you're listening to
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: this and you're one of those people, it's like, let's
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: see how this shakes out. You need to stop and
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: recognize that there are problems. Those are the folks that
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: always turn the tide. Yeah, And by the time people
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: start to realize that it's shaking out the wrong way,
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: that it's turning out the wrong way, it's too late.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: And that's the thing that we're trying to that's part
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: of it. But I'm sure part of the process that
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: we're talking about here is like, if you are on
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: the fence, stop being on the fence and move against
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: these groups, because they are going to hurt you. You
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: will be the next group that they will come after.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it needs it needs an enemy, and
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: as soon as it's done with one enemy, it seeks
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: out another one and it'll just keep going through groups
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: as quickly and efficiently, well I mean not as quickly
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: as possible. They want they need to have an enemy last,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: but they're going to keep going through groups and creating enemies,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: and like, you just might find yourself in one of
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: those groups. Like you're not it right now, or maybe
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: you are if you're listening, but like probably you will
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: be at some point.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: And I think that's why we're having these conversations now
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: and people are getting a little bit more nervous about
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: it because you know, Renee good and now it's pretty
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: you were like two people that should not have been
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: executed by ice, but at the end of the day,
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: there were eight other people that had been killed by
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: ice this year, not just them. But the minute that
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: white folks saw that it could have happened to them,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: they were like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is bad.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: But it was already happening. It had been happening. They've
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: killed multiple tens and twenties of people.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: What a good time for an ad break. Okay, we're back.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: We have been sort of talking about I think the
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: parallels and understanding, like why it's relevant to be a
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: student of history in these moments, and I think, yeah,
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: you said very well that it was the people who
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: were like this seems weird, but let's see what happens.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: I'm like, there were those in every one of these regimes,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: and you're right that those were the people who were
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: the difference between that regime successfully gaining power or being stopped.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: And we don't know how many times there were dictators
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: who almost rose to power and those there were people
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: who decided, let's not go that route, and then they
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: stopped it before they ever rose to power. But thank
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: goodness that they did. You know, I'd rather have not
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: learned that lesson a fifth, tenth, twentieth time. Yeah, but
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: for some reason, we just keep going. And you know,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: I was sort of wondering, like why do we see
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: some of these parallels, and as you said, like there
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: are some things that by themselves are not super red flags.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: It's a coincidence sometimes that like the economy is doing poorly,
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: and then that's part of what allows a person to
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: rise the power.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: It's a or like the Catholic Church backs a candidate,
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: Like that's not that happens all the time. I mean, yeah,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: that we should trust what the Catholic Church says, but like,
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: I think it's one of those things that like those
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: are coincidences.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not a damning endorsement to have been, you know,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: backed by some particular religious group. It's not necessarily even
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: a damning endorsement for them to violate certain international laws
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: if those laws were let's say, unfair in some cases.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: Where those are the cases sometimes, like I think we've
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: rectified a lot of that. But if you imagine, for
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: a long time, the British Crown controlled an enormous amount
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: of of the government of other foreign bodies, and like,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: if someone were to liberate those countries from British rule,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: or they liberate themselves, that might go against the laws
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: that had sort of existed at that time, but that
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: was for the betterment of that country. But again, it's
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: when you add them all up and you take them
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: in context, you start to see where the problems lie.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things I was thinking
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: about is, like, why does this look the same pretty
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: much every time? The authoritarian playbook has few or no
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: original ideas, But why would they Like, they don't need to,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: They're both works every time, Right, there's always going to
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: be some dissenters and critics, but these evil failures of
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: evolution always seem to convince and just enough people to
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: follow them that they are able to rise to power,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: at least for a time. Right, I'd like to believe
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: that hopefully the American people are better than that. Yeah,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: but here we are. You know, maybe they won't let
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: it go that much further. But I mean, once you've
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: secured power, it's a lot harder to take it away
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: and lose it. But I would say, like personally, let's
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: learn histories lesson and reverse course on the dictator direction.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: And I do also like we've advocated very plainly in
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: this podcast, like we advocate for nonviolence, Like that is
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the only every other revolution that has taken place where
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: they used violence to have that revolution carry through, like
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: that has also failed. Like violence is just cannot be
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: the strategy our species uses moving forward, Like we have
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: to be non violence in our resistance and in our
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: approaches and in our revolutions because it just won't work, Like,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: no more bloody battles of us killing each other. We
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: just need to find a better way. But we also
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: do not need to tolerate dictators.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's important to point out
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: too that some of these regimes, in these reigns of
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: power were very brief. You know, Hitler was in power
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: for some time, but not all that long. I mean
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: long enough, tens a lot of problems, like yeah, but
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: not all that long in the scheme of like a
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: political career or anything like that. But others, other of
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: these regimes have been frighteningly long. We talked about Saddam Hussein.
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: I mean, look at Putin right now, and like where
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: we're at, like that's these are Fidel Castro. I mean,
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: these are examples of like you know, and these are
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: also complicated conversations about people who are like also painted
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: as boogeymen, but we have objective facts of them doing
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: some harmful things, right yeah. Now, if our democratic institutions
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: do not hold back the tyranny, if people do not
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: speak up and fight against this type of tyranny, against
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: this type of extremism, we might find that we're going
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: to be in a situation for decades or longer. Let's
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: not do that. I think the authoritarian system of government
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: is an abject failure that will doom our species, that
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: will doom our communities. We simply cannot allow for that
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: to happen. It will it cannot sustain, Yeah, and we
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: can't allow it to even get to a point where
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: it tries to sustain.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there are those who think, like, we're
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: always going to be suck with this, and I'm like,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: we just we just don't have to. And the other
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: thing I think people criticize is because I pointed out
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: that these were all conservative movements, which I mean the
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: ends the end state of conservativism is authoritarianism, Like that's
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: what it wants to be. It wants to arrive there
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: in some capacity as the direction it always goes. And
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of these people did call what they did
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: socialism or some version of communism or something like that.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: But the thing is, like they were very conservative in
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: their approach. Socialism does not have power consolidated into one person,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: and that was the case in all of these situations.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Matter of fact, socialism is specifically, by definition, diffusing power
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: across a large body of people. Ideally everybody like is
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: sort of the system where everybody has equal say, everyone
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: has equal protections, everyone has equal rights, everyone has an
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: equal ability to participate in the system of governance. That's
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: where it's supposed to be. And so calling something socialism
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: when you have a dictator is just like it's just dumb,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Like that's just calling something like it's just calling a
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: turd arose, like it's it's just not you can call
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: it that, sure, but that's not what the thing is.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: So the people who try and claim that, I mean,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: like you know, Hitler's like very spoke very openly about
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: being conservative, Like, yes, they called it their socialist movement,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: but like they they talked about left policies as the problem.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: He talked about conservativism as the solution. So calling it
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: socialism doesn't doesn't mean anything. They specifically and all of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: these dictators, they went after leftist politicians as soon as
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: they gained power, yeah, and put those people out of power.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: So like the regime of authoritarianism is a conservative one.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: It has to be. That's like the that's what it is.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's it's a it's power in the hands
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: of very few people, dismantling systems that would take them
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: out of power, and then putting loyalists in place to
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: protect that power and be a cushion between them. I mean,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: like if you I mean, it's literally the playbook that
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: was used in Nazi German. Yeah, that's exactly what Hitler did.
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: He started getting paranoid towards the end because and I mean,
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: if you start, if you kind of watch like the
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: one guy in Power Now, he's a little bit paranoid
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: about people and stuff like that too. But part of
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: the reason he was so paranoid was also all the
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: math he was doing. So there's it's it's you know,
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: are things are complicated, but at the end of the day,
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: like the hallmarks are the same, Like what we're seeing
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: now is a variation on a theme.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And I mean I do think that they've
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: learned some things. I think they've learned, like they're tolerating
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: a certain amount of dissent, like keeps people from like
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: actually organizing enough that they form like a formal resistance.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: It's like you sort of give them a little bit
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: of will go room, and then they will they'll wiggle
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: in that room and then they won't break through anything. Yeah,
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and that feels like that's maybe a lesson that they've learned.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: They haven't completely seized control of all of the news
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: here because possibly that would lead to one of those uprisings.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: But they're trying. They're trying really hard. Uh huh. And
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: so like the reason I included all of these is
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: because you the parallels today, like every note in here.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: The attempt to pressure higher education institutions to teach like
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: conservative friendly values, that's happening. Yeah. Putting loyalists and family
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: members in positions of high power, that's happened. Consolidating power
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: so that the president has the opportunity to select only
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: people that are loyal to him to fill positions within
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: the government. That has happened. Like it's all it's all
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: the same, Like it's all the same shit all over
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: and over again. So there's very little new here. There's
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: like a slightly adjusted approach to work in the sort
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: of current climate and context. But like another thing they
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: all did that I found a hard time. I had
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: a difficult time writing this cohesively. Is they always just
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: they blamed whatever they did, they said, that's what their
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: opponents were doing. Sure, you know, they're like they're the
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: ones who are causing the problems. Like, no, you're the
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: one causing the problem, right, you can't just say this
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: is the other people when you're the one doing it.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: They're just saying things. They would just say things that
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: aren't happening and say that they are. They would just
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: say things that are happening that definitely aren't, and they
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: would just say things that just were completely false and wrong,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: and the things that were terrible that they were doing,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: they would blame on people, on other people, and like
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: that's exactly all the things that are happening now. Yeah,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: that part is not even remotely different. It's exactly the same. Yeah,
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: So it's ridiculous. The exercise here, as you probably gleaned,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: and maybe I was too heavy handed with it, but
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: the exercise here was like to take a moment to
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: look at what's happened in history and learn from it.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: The thing is these people did, like they're the things
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: that are happening now and not just in our country,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: Like there are other countries who are dealing with this.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: So like the idea here is like, if we don't
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: like what Hitler did, let's not do that thing, right, Yeah,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: if we don't like what Sudam Hussein did, let's not
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: do that thing. If we don't want to end up
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: like North Korea, let's not end up like North Korea.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: We're at a point now where we can still make
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: that choice, I hope, so, yeah, hopefully that is communicated
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: effectively here. Yeah.
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: I think you did a great job on this too.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: I think you just you had a formidable opponent in
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: myself as a guess who expert so and like so
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: you just it wasn't really a fair shot, but it
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: was good.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: I thought it was.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: I that was really great. And I think it was
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: really great because it does make you think about because
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: even if you could hear those profiles and think, oh,
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: I know who this is, there's enough there that you
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: go ooh, like could it be? Could it be this administration?
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: And the fact that we're even asking that question should
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: concern everybody.
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right. And and you know, I do also
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: hear like people might hear this and think like, well,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: could you have painted other presidents in this light? And
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: I'm like a couple of them did have some overlap
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: and some of the things that they did here, but
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: nowhere not really as crazy as yeah, not not to
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: those Yeah, not this degree at all.
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: I think Reagan Reagan is probably close. I was thinking Reagan, like,
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: Reagan's up there, and then Alexander Hamilton right like is
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: probably up there. Too, I believe right, because he was
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: responsible for the trail of tears and all and a
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: lot of and a lot of like of the bad
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: things that happened to indigenous folks. I mean a lot
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: of them, all of them. Yeah, but no, but nowhere
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: near as bad.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's been some problems. I mean even the Bushes,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: who I had a lot of criticisms, Like, they mostly
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: operated within the existing system. They didn't do a they
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: didn't change a lot about the system. You know. I
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: think that Obama did a lot of really good things
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: when he was president, but he also did a lot
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: of things I was quite critical of. And I think
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: that you could point to some of these things and say, like,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: that's what he did, and I'm like, a couple of
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: them a little bit. Yeah, again not necessarily damning by themselves.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: You have a couple of coincidences, but definitely not to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: this degree. And I also think that like, intention does
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: kind of matter here. I think that these other people,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: maybe Hamilton aside, maybe also Reagan aside, Like I think
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: that most of these people had good intentions. I think
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: even if I disagreed with their policies or how to
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: get there, I think that they were like legitimately trying
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: to do a good job in this country. Sure, and
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: they just had their own ideas about what that meant
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: and the tactics that needed to be employed to achieve
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: those goals. But I think they generally had like good intentions.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I think that with these dictators, even if they thought
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: they had good intentions, I think they were only ever selfish.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: It was only ever about carrying out their vendettas, about
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: them accumulating power to themselves. It was never about helping
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: the people that they were those quote unquote leaders of
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: So I would say that, like where you want to
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: level this criticism at various parties or politicians, the intentions
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: are kind of important because like that will ultimately guide
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: some of the decision making. And I think that the
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: current administration is an exactly in alignment with these other ones.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: It's not there's no altruism here. It is pure selfishness, hatred, vindictiveness, stupidity,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: self aggrandizement, and just like accumulation of power, like that's
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: the only motivation.
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, I completely agree.
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: Great, Well, that's that was forty minutes of content and
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes of discussing the contents. Maybe accomplish what we
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: were trying to do here. I think we're good to
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: get to some recommendations.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: I think we blew pass an ad break though, so
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: we should probably do one of those.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: Let's do that real quick.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, we are back. If you were
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: joining us for the first time, then there's a thing
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: that we do at the end of our discussions where
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: we recommend some things that are just unrelated to our topic,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: but stuff that we feel like we like to communicate
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, you should check this out if you
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: want to, and don't if you don't want to. We
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: can't tell you really what to do. But before we
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: do that, I'd like to give credit where credit is due.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: Thank you to my team of people without whom I
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: could not make this podcast writing and fact checking from
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Shane and myself, and thank you for playing along today.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Shane, Hey, this was great. I thought this was a
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: really great exercise and hopefully very eye opening for folks.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: Hopefully. Our social media coordinator is Emma Wilson, and the
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: person who stitches together this mess is Justin and then
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: he produces a podcast and you hear it and you're like, wow,
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: how did that become a podcast? Well, you probably didn't
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: think that because you couldn't tell because the stitches are
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: so seamless.
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: Seamless do we just promote Justin? The executive producer of why.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: We do what we do? I think so. I think
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: that's pretty good. That's great.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: Welcome Justin. Congratulations on your promotion. It comes with zero raise.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Yes to say. If you'd like to help us, give
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: Justin a raise, you can join us on Patreon. If
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: you do that, you will also get ad free content,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: early episodes, bonus staff, all all those goodies, and more importantly,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: you help us, and that really means that we can
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: help Justin, and that's what we're all here for. I
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: would like to give a special shout out and thank
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: you to the people who have really done this, so
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: generously done this thing of supporting us over on Patreon.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: So a giant thank you and hug to Mike m Megan,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: Mike T, Justin, Kim Brad, Stephanie, Brian, Ashley, Kiara and Charlie. Y'all,
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: just thank you so much.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: Yep, you're gonna get the best hug ever when we
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: see you in person. Get ready.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Indeed, if you want to if you want the Yeah,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: not we're not forcing hugs.
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: No, not here, not on this podcast, not.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: On this podcast. Yeah, it's not who we are. Yeah,
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: very good. The otherwise, you can support us if you
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: don't want to join the Financial Support Group Club, which
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: you can join for as little as a dollar a month.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: But if you don't want to do that, you can
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: still leave us a rating and a review that helps
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: us show up in more people's algorithms. You can like
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: and subscribe. You can tell a friend, because word of
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: mouth is a great way to spread podcasts.
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Is there anything I'm missing or anything you'd like to
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: add before we do our recommendations. No, I think we're
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: ready to go to recommend some things.
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, recommendations, all right, I'm going to recommend a book.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: I am going to continuously put this author's work on
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: a pedestal because I think that he is often misconstrued
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: as only a horror author, and that is Stephen King.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: And I read the book pet Cemetery, which is a
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: horror book. But don't let that deter you if you've
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: never read pet Cemetery is a I think it's an
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: incredible meditation on grief and bereavement and how people cope.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: It is highly introspective. There are things that happen in it.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: There's some conversations about community and about found family a
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: little bit, and about dead family a little bit, and
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: all those things kind of come together and create this
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: kind of unique story that I think is most people
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: probably know the story, but they don't really know the story.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: They know it from the movie and it's like just
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: a killer kid with a scalpel, but the book is
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: not about this kid. It's about lots of other things
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: that happen and kind of the meditation around it. And
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: I think the last one hundred pages, even like the
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: last thirty pages are like even you're kind of going like, oh,
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: this is still like the thing that everybody's talking about
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: still hasn't happened. I don't know. It's great. It's a
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: great read, and I think everybody should give it a shot.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: It's gross, don't get me wrong. It's gross. There's some
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: gross stuff in it because it's dead bodies, But like,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: it's a great read.
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: I am definitely interested in checking this out. I like
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: Stephen King, and I think he definitely knows how to
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: write and write well, and so I'm yeah, I'm definitely
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: interested in checking that one out.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Jerusalem's lot is mentioned in it. Oh cool,
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: So Salem's lot is mentioned in it, which also makes
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: this a tangential Dark Tower book of course.
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, very good. I thought I had something
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: more to say on that, But that's good. I wasn't
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: gonna recommend a book, but I'm and I will probably
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: recommend it later, but for now, I'm recommending a movie
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: that I just got to watch. This was a twenty
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: twenty five's Naked Gun or then Naked Gun Yeah, to
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: reboot slash sequel I guess Yeah, starring Liam Neeson and
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: a variety of other other casts who are great. He's
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: the new primary guy. So if if you haven't seen
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: any of the Naked Gun movies in the past, this
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: is very slapstick comedy. It's meant to be very silly
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: and like almost like snl s get levels. Yeah, there's
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: a scene early on where he picks up a guy
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: and throws him and like they don't even try and
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: make it look like it's not a dummy, Like it's
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: very clear, like its legs are bent in all the
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: wrong directions, and it's like stuff like that.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: It's even picturing that is very funny to me.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, it was. It was a hilarious scene.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I will say, Like, I don't know if it exactly
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: captured the spirit of the original Nicked Gun movies. It
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: kind of felt like you could see them trying to
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: be funny like that, but a lot of the jokes
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: really did land super well for me and thought that
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: they were. I thought it was really fun so like
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: I was giggling at least the whole entire time. And
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: it's not one of those where you're watch it and
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: you're like, well that was boring or that was dumb,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: like it was. It's a funny, slapsticky sort of comedy. Yeah.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: That's very very very silly, like very cognitive. Like at
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: the very beginning, the bad guy obtains this little electronic
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: thing and on it says it says plot device. That's good.
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah, it's like that kind of humor,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Yeah, the commentary sort of in
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: your face. I don't know, it's funny.
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a little bit meta, a little bit silly,
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: like a little bit like it's like equal parts clever,
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: meta and goofy and dumb.
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's it all right. Anyway,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: this is a paramount plus thing. I don't actually have that.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: I streamed it on Amazon Prime, so I know it's
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: available in a couple of places to stream if you
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: want to check it out. But that's Naked Gun twenty
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: twenty five, the Naked Gun with Leam Neeson. Although if
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: you watch the other ones, those are very funny too.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: There's some of the jokes still work really well in
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: those older versions, which I think largely came out in
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: the nineties. Yeah, with Leslie Nielsen was the original protagonist
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: in those movies. Yeah, so that's where you can watch that.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: And then you recommended pet Cemetery by Stephen King. So
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: those are our recommendations for this episode. Yep, go check
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: them out. Go check them out. All right. I think
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: that's what we have to say about all of this.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: We managed to stretch it out to a full length discussion,
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: which is fun. But I think that we can wrap
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: this one up here. Anything that you'd like to add
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: that I forgot before we was there? Goodbyes, Nope, not
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: this time? Okay, Antifa, yes forever? All right. This is
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: Abraham and this is for Shane. Why We Do What
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: We Do is out see Yup, you've been listening to
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: Why We Do What We Do.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about this and other episodes by
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: going to WWD WWD.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Podcast dot com.
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and we hope you have an awesome
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: day