Latest / Words & Numbers / Episode 478: No Socials for Sheila

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Episode 478: No Socials for Sheila · Words & Numbers

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Next on words and numbers X locations, the arts in higher
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education, the world's strongest woman and the Australians and
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social. Media.
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All this and more coming up on Words and Numbers, a civil
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original production. Check us out at civil.com.
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That's C ivl.com. Hi, I'm James.
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And I'm Anthony and. This is words and numbers.
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Aunt, it's doing exciting in your world this week.
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We got a letter from a listener, actually a former student of
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mine, now a PhD in engineering. Tom Damiani, he said his wife,
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he says, my wife and I were discussing declining educational
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standards for college admission. She made the observation that
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you don't seem to see the same kind of decline in the arts.
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If you don't make the cut during auditions, you don't get
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accepted. Wonder if either of you have a
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perspective on that. I wrote Tom back.
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I think it's a it's a beautiful observation and it had not
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occurred to me until he raised the point.
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But I suspect what's going on is that in the arts, particularly
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in the performing arts, you can't have a high student
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teacher ratio. I could recall when I was at
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Duquesne, there were some music classes that had one student,
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one Rofessor, because that's, that's all you can do.
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And if you can't have a high student teacher ratio, you can't
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pack the classes. Yeah.
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And and so consequently, no one's going to put pressure on
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you to, to pass students who shouldn't pass.
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You're not a cash cow that that's, that's on the upside.
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So I would expect, given all of that, to see higher quality of
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students among the arts simply because you can't get the high
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student teacher ratio. But there's a downside.
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And the downside is because you can't pack the classes, when it
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comes time to cut budgets, we're not talking a few faculty.
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We're talking your entire department is going to be shown
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the door. Yeah, that, that's right.
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I, I think there's a couple of ways to look at this.
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It's not really a bad thing that there are incredibly high
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standards, right? Because.
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No, that's a great thing. In the performing arts, there
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are very few jobs. I mean, there are only so many
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Symphony orchestras. They will only accept so many
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people and everybody else becomes an unemployed musician.
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Is that, is that really what, what you want?
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I think you make the same argument right now and probably
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for the last 15 years about pH DS in the humanities.
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There are far too many of them. They will, most of them will
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never work in their chosen profession.
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The numbers just don't add up. So on the one hand, you've got
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this bit of a kind of a self regulating regime in the arts.
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Now I think the massive downside to this is that in the course of
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an average human beings education, not a musician's
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education, but just a general liberal arts education, and I'll
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reach all the way back into high schools, there is almost 0
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exposure to the high arts, almost 0.
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And that's a real problem, right?
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So. And I suspect that in the end,
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these two things are deeply related, right?
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Yeah. If you're not, if you're not
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teaching at a college, who becomes teachers in high school?
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If budgets get slashed in the universities with the arts, of
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course they're going to get slashed in the high schools at
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roughly the same rate. And and we end up with people
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learning all kinds of trivial nonsense about feminism, for
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example, or race in their high school years, and they're never
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exposed to Leonardo da Vinci. Right.
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Yeah, and. That's a crime, right?
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You should they never hear Bach or mate or Beethoven or Mozart.
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And and that's really a crime, right?
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Because that that is an equal part of the liberal arts
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education that everybody should get in order to be fully human.
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Yeah. And you know, we got another
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comment along those lines somewhere else.
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And and it occurred to me in reading this, this comment that
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I don't think people appreciate the difference between a liberal
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arts and a non liberal arts education.
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They just lump it all together in is college.
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And in my mind, the parts of college that aren't liberal
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arts, they're actually trades. They're, you know.
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Accounting, for example, you don't need to go to a four year
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college to become an accountant. It's a trade.
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You can get it in a year, year and a half.
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Now technical. The problem is look.
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Engineering is a technical thing.
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Engineering too, but but the problem with with the accounting
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thing is that the colleges have have created a fiefdom.
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They won't allow competition in. And so the only way that you can
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offer an accounting degree is to offer it within the context of a
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four year education. So basically they're selling you
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whatever it would end up being 3/4 three years worth of of
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education that you don't need given what you want.
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I would rephrase it that it's education that you don't want or
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that you don't you don't think you want.
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But you know what I want? I want engineers and doctors and
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accountants who know about morality, beauty and truth, and
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those things are not learned in their various disciplines.
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They're learned in other disciplines.
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Yep. So, you know, the liberal arts
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were always a way to participate in human life to the fullest
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extent possible. And you do that by reading great
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literature, reading great philosophy, listening to great
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music, understanding great art, right?
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These are the ways that you become an an educated human, and
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we're not doing that anymore. We're doing a bunch of other
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nonsense that doesn't yield fully human individuals right
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where it's indoctrination. And the indoctrination has come
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at the expense of beauty. Because there are only so many
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days in the week and only so many tax dollars at your
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disposal. Decisions have to be made, and
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we have decided very, very, very poorly in a number of ways.
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Speaking of poor decisions, I don't know if this is going to
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be 1, but I have been utterly fascinated in the last few days
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on X when I can go look up the country of origin of of various
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accounts. Oh, X accounts.
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Yeah, yeah. And come to find out a lot of
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the hardcore MAGA accounts are in the Philippines and Indonesia
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and all kinds of crazy places. And they have little American
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flags, you know, Avatar, and they say a bunch of crazy shit
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and, and isn't that fascinating? Now, I could just say, well, who
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the hell are you anyway? And I'm go look it up.
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Now, I'm under no illusion that these people aren't going to get
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their act together, get a nice VPN in place, and appear as
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though they're coming from Philadelphia.
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But for right now, for this bright shining moment, we can
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all find out who these people are.
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And well, we can't find out who they are exactly.
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We can find out where they're operating from.
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And I found a couple of these you've doubtlessly seen these
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beautiful women who post pictures of themselves and they
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say, look at my outfit and they get, and you know, they're,
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they're little white girls from the, the corn fed white girls
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from Iowa. And then I click in and it's
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some guy from Afghanistan. And you know, you get 80,000
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viewers because keep putting up pictures of Pretty Little girls.
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And it, it, you know, you're just doing it for the clicks
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because the clicks equal money. If you get enough clicks, the
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incentives are all right there. And and now for the moment we
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can we can see who's pulling this crap, and I just like it.
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And tell me, how do you do this? I if you go to their profile,
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click on more and and they're. And it'll tell you where they're
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coming from. It tells.
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Us a straight up where where the I think it tells you where the
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account was was started. So yeah, have fun with that.
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Fat Ant brings us, of course, to the foolishness of the week, and
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I've got a hum dinner for you this week.
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Did you know that there is a World's Strongest Woman
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competition? You know, I think I've seen it.
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I think I've seen it. I, I, I took a look at the
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ladies who are in this competition and I became
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immediately frightened of them. These are big, strong women.
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I mean, these would be, these women would be stronger than
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most men at any event, right? If they just walked into a
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dinner party or a movie, it would be the strongest person in
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the room, right? And it, it's that kind of
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strong. And you, you, you know what's
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coming next. Everybody knows what's coming
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next. The World's Strongest Woman was
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stripped of her title because she's a man.
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Oh no, of course we're back to the same old chestnut again.
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The very reason why women's sports exist is because we all
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have a clear and obvious understanding that women cannot
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be competitive with men in sports.
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On average. No, not on average at the
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highest levels, right? Right.
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Yes, OK, sure. In the tails, yeah.
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Women's Physiology does not allow them to be better than men
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who dedicate the same amount of time and who are similarly
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athletically gifted. And you know, I've said before
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that women have no, or men have no business in women's sports
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because sooner or later some woman's going to get killed,
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right? You can see how this would
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happen in contact sports. You really want men and women in
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in a boxing match against each other?
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MMA. No, right.
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But we have women's boxing and we have women's MMA and those
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things are incredibly entertaining.
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And I love watching women's MMAI love it probably more than I
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like men's MMA. I find it to be very
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competitive. I love women's basketball.
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Coming from Connecticut, I'm I'm required by law to love women's
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basketball, but I find it to be a team sport in a way that men's
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basketball is not. Men's basketball is about
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individual talent. Women's bad, they have to play
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team defense. The women's game, they have to
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play team offense. And for me, if you like the
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scientific elements of basketball, right, the real nuts
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and bolts of basketball, the women's game is far more
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entertaining at at least at the college level.
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I think the WNBA is, is full of a bunch of garbage, but women's
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college ball is wonderful. But you throw one man on any
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woman's team and that guy's going to be the best player on
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the team. I'm sorry, that's just how it
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is. I I remember the the women's
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soccer team that won the World Cup, they played a men's high
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school team and got eviscerated. Really.
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That's the kind of difference we're looking at male to female,
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right? When I say a woman will get
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killed in a combat sport, I mean exactly what I'm saying.
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So now there's for the women's the world's strongest woman.
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There's obviously no danger of harm, but a biological male who
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is dedicated himself his life to lifting weights will be better
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than a biological female who's done the same.
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So let's go back to boxing, which interests me because of
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how they they do the weight classification.
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So if you if you match up a male boxer and a female boxer of the
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same weight class, do you still have this phenomenon that the
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the male is going to be stronger?
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Oh, oh, God, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, the interesting
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question would be, could a 220 LB woman stay in the ring with
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140 LB man? Then it gets yeah, what?
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What is the delta need to be? Yeah.
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Yeah, and because there would be an answer to that.
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Men fight all the way down to the level of under £100, right?
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They, these are little tiny men now.
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They're gifted fighters who have dedicated their lives to the art
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of fighting. And anybody who's been on
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YouTube watching a, a, a street tough guy go up against a boxer
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by mistake knows only too well how much better at fighting
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boxers are than regular guys. I mean, it's, it's the
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difference is astonishing. So all right, a £250 woman and
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they exist against a 90 LB man and they exist all right.
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Maybe you got a fight on your hands there.
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But you need a general rule here.
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And I think the general rule needs to be that this does not
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happen, right? We have women's sports so they
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can compete against each other and and that pool of candidates
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is logical. They should be competing against
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each other. They belong in a group with each
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other. Does that mean that no woman
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could beat a man in anything? No, doesn't mean that at all,
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but it means that the highest levels, they would have
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absolutely no chance. And you, you hear female tennis
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players saying this all the time.
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They say not only would I have no chance, I couldn't even
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return his serve, right? The men are just so much
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stronger and so much faster. Well, OK, that doesn't mean the
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women's tennis isn't worth watching.
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Some of the best tennis memories I have are Chris Everett Lloyd
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against Martina Navratilova. I mean, they, that was a
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rivalry, right? They played great tennis against
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each other, but none, neither of them should be playing against
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men. So when I see a when I see a
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biological man getting into women's sports, I ask, what the
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hell? Is your motivation there?
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There's an interesting statistical phenomenon that's at
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work here. When you have two populations
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like that, Men, women, and and there's some difference on
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average between them. At the average, the difference
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doesn't need to be that large. But when you get out into the
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tails like you are now, when you're talking about the elite
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of the elite, whatever little difference there is at the
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average is way magnified when you get out there.
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Yeah, and even at the averages, we don't want to see it because
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a high school men's basketball team and a high school women's
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basketball team have no business playing each other.
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Yep. Yeah.
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So and you're you're saying is the Yeah, the difference of the
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average actually is not small. Yeah, it's not.
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It's not small there either. But I my real question is, what
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the hell is wrong with this guy? What?
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What on earth possessed him to say?
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Oh, I'll just compete against women because that's a
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dishonorable thing and everybody knows it and people get their
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noses up in the air about gender and all this nonsense.
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But if you really cared about women and women's rights, you
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would you would make the distinction in your mind between
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men and women, because that's the very reason we talk about
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women's rights, the difference between men and women.
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And if you if you turn your eye away from this and don't call it
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what it is, a lot of logical things following, you're not
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going to like any of them. What the hell with this guy?
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I want to talk about another ridiculous thing, but ridiculous
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in a different way. Last episode, you might recall,
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Aunt, that I said we're going to be talking about arbitrary
18:03
dividing lines and how those are used in terms of age.
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And we do this all the time because we have to.
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We absolutely have to. At what age can you drink
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alcohol? Well, people might say well
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there shouldn't be an age, but then you're saying that 12 year
18:24
old kids are are going to be allowed to do it and they will
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do it right? No question.
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And we have a driver's license. Aged 16.
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Universal, Mostly universal. Save your hate mail.
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I know there's coupled exceptions, but that always
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seemed to me to be a touch young people in 16 don't fully
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appreciate the consequences of their erratic actions, and a lot
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of people, myself included, have very bad car accidents.
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Between the ages of 16 and 18I totaled I think 5 cars including
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the cars of others. So I said something like that,
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right? OK, but in 1618 is the age we
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use for knowledge of the law, right?
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If you're a juvenile, you'll be treated one way.
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That means 17 days, 300 and 6417 years, 364 days.
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At 18. Different rules apply to you.
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And too bad 'cause that's what we've decided.
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The age of sexual consent is largely 18.
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What's so miraculous about that? And how many people waited until
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they were 18? Give me a break.
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I mean, just give me a break. Maybe in the current
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generations, that's more the norm than it once was.
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But when you and I were in high school, that was not the norm,
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right? And I just, I just leave it at
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that. And every one of these age
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restrictions is absolutely arbitrary.
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And it's arbitrary because there's no point in development
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that we all hit together that you can point to and say, well,
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that's the obvious time. I've said and yet for it and yet
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you need to make a distinction. You need to make a distinction,
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and I've said on this very podcast that the human brain
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develops until age 26, which means if you want a non
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arbitrary time, that's it. You should be held accountable
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in a different way until your brain is fully developed.
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I can make a really solid logical argument in favor of
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that. 16/18/21 No, I can't make a solid logical argument apart
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from we need socially to have these answers in place because
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we have human behavior to deal with and we just have to deal
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with it. Well, I mean, all right, OK, but
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enter the Australians and and you know, we have our Australian
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followers. We're we're not nothing in
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Australia. And I want a big shout out to
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our Australian friends who we have met over the years and
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spoken to and will speak to anytime we are invited.
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The Australians collectively have decided that there should
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be a social media ban on anybody under the age of 16 and they
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have specifically named 10 different social media outlets,
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I guess would be the the correct word.
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And all ten of them are now responsible for age
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verification. They're responsible.
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So the onus is not on the 15 year old.
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It's on, it's on. Well, and, and how could it be?
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They're not responsible by definition.
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Sure, sure. They're minors, right?
21:50
They, they, they don't know what they're doing. 15 year olds,
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they know what they're doing in in most cases, they know better
21:57
what they're doing with social media than their parents ever
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did. Let me give you the the list of
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the band agent the the band organizations, outlets, whatever
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you want to platform platforms there you go.
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Thanks Facebook. Finally, we've got numbers
22:14
correcting words. First time ever anyway.
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Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Threads, Tiktok X YouTube,
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Reddit and streaming platforms Kik and Twitch.
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That's actually a pretty comprehensive.
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List it is, but it's just, look, if they have to list it, then
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they're entrepreneurs coast to coast in Australia who are
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coming up with things that do all of that but are called
22:44
something else and they're going to have to go through and ban
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those. I don't know if you can say
22:49
coast to coast in Australia because you can literally drive
22:52
around that country and never leave the coast, which is
22:55
something I really want to do. Wouldn't that's like a?
22:58
Bucket. Wouldn't it be fun for me?
22:59
I would like to rent a car and drive around the entirety of
23:03
Australia. Yeah, I'm sure the Australians
23:06
are laughing right now saying you have no idea how long of a
23:09
drive that is. Well.
23:10
That, that, that's a big ass ride, but I would love to take
23:13
it. And then I I want to go to New
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Zealand too. So we got all kinds of problems
23:16
here. But anyway, back back-to-back to
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the bands that the government is also Ant under pressure to
23:27
target gaming platforms because of course they are.
23:32
Yeah, yeah. Kids interact on gaming
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platforms. And really, this is about the
23:38
danger of interaction on the one hand, and the corrosive nature
23:43
of life in the algorithm on the other.
23:47
See, there is no way, there's no way they're going to be
23:49
successful here because that's, well, First off, you're, you're
23:53
dealing with people, you know, the age group that wants to get
23:57
around your rules and is more knowledgeable about them than
24:01
the people who are putting them in place.
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They're going to go. I'll throw out an example.
24:06
Every Wikipedia page has a talk page attached to it.
24:11
Just go to Wikipedia, start up a new page, and there you have
24:14
you, You can, you can interact there.
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And now Australia's going to say, oh, we're going to ban
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Wikipedia. You're going to end up banning
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the entire Internet. Yeah, from people under 16.
24:25
And to make this work. Let me throw a great example at
24:28
you, aunt, because your state, Virginia, and my state, Arizona,
24:32
are involved in precisely the same foolishness as each other.
24:37
For the foolishness is almost always different your state to
24:40
mine, given the problems of geography.
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But on this shining point they're in, the politicians are
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in perfect agreement. They require an age verification
24:50
check on viewers of pornography. That sounds to me to be exactly
24:58
like what the Australians are doing.
25:01
They require an age verification on certain platforms.
25:05
Let me just ask you, hypothetically, do you think
25:08
that I would be willing to go through an age verification to
25:14
look at a pornographic website? Oh no.
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It's way easier to turn on AVPN. Yeah, no.
25:21
And that that was my next question.
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Do you think I have not looked at a pornographic website in the
25:26
last six months? We all know you, James.
25:32
I'm just saying, I'm just asking you what you think.
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And if you think I would not submit to, you know, giving
25:39
pornographic sites my driver's license and that I would not
25:43
just simply say certain websites are off limits to me, well, then
25:49
the law doesn't work, does it? Right.
25:51
And it's not going to work with young people either.
25:55
There will be a multitude of ways for them to get around this
26:00
nonsense, and they will do it now.
26:03
All right, Let's just stipulate to that because I want to ask a
26:07
much broader question. Should the Australian government
26:11
be looking to ban young people from social media?
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That's a much more interesting question, no?
26:17
Here you should have no say. This should be up to the
26:19
parents. I'm not so sure I would have
26:22
given that argument 10 years ago, but reflexively I wouldn't
26:26
have even thought about it. And I did think about whether I
26:30
wanted my own children on social media.
26:32
So I'm not saying parents have no role here.
26:35
They do, however, what we have learned when we've learned a
26:39
couple of things over time. I actually know personally a
26:45
whistleblower at Microsoft, right?
26:49
My, my mistake would be very clear.
26:52
It's meta and I'm working on getting him to come on the show.
26:57
But I you'll understand, you'll understand why he's reticent in
27:00
one second. He learned that there were no
27:08
protections for children on Meta and that they were routinely
27:15
subjected to pedophiles. That doesn't sound right.
27:22
I don't like the way that sounds at all.
27:24
I hate that there are pedophiles.
27:27
I hate that Meta doesn't do anything to filter them out.
27:31
I hate that they are allowed to interact with young people.
27:35
I hate all of it, and yet here we are.
27:38
I also hate the ideological bubbles that you get put into by
27:44
the algorithms of the social media.
27:47
If you don't know what's happening, and most people
27:50
don't, they just see what they see.
27:53
You think everybody in the world thinks exactly like you do all
27:57
the time. Oh yeah.
27:59
Because you never, ever see a dissenting voice.
28:04
For for our purposes, we're both of us are are often very
28:08
interested in hearing what people have to say who disagree
28:11
with us. And I find it really hard to
28:13
find people who disagree, not because they're not not out
28:16
there, but because social media prevents me from seeing them.
28:19
And and not only that, when I go and search them out, because you
28:23
can, right? It's it's not impossible.
28:26
The algorithm decides that I've changed and that's all I want
28:30
from here on. Out right.
28:31
Yes, yes. Which which drives me bananas,
28:34
right? But what does that do to
28:36
younger, very impressionable minds?
28:40
And I would say it has a terrible effect on them, right?
28:44
It's exactly what we don't want them to be exposed to.
28:47
So when a group of people, a country say the Australians for
28:52
example, say that look under 16, it's just too damn much.
28:57
Go be children, it's fine. Go outside, climb a tree.
29:01
You don't have to be glued to a screen.
29:04
You know, fear of missing out on the big post and and competing
29:08
for likes and thumbs up everywhere you go.
29:11
Go live the life of a child. You only get to do it once.
29:16
It's important, it's actually beautiful and it should be
29:21
encouraged. All right, look, I'm, I am
29:23
making the case for state involvement in a very big way
29:26
here and I think I'm comfortable with what I'm saying.
29:30
I think I've fought it through. Now I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not
29:34
certain that I won't see a gigantic red flag counter
29:38
argument along the way. I think I know what the good
29:41
counter arguments are, but there might be a great counter
29:44
argument that I'm just not seeing.
29:46
See, I, I would be, I, I don't know how this would work.
29:50
I would be in favor of this if the parent had the final say.
29:58
So in other words, what Australia is saying is, look,
30:00
you're under 16. You need some kind of
30:02
verification that allows you on this site.
30:05
And whether you get it or not, that's up to you and your
30:08
parents. On you.
30:09
I think I would be real comfortable with that too if it
30:12
were positively enforced, right? Not just a check box.
30:17
Yes, my mother agrees. Right.
30:19
Yeah, it would have to be. Seriously, enforced in some
30:22
fashion, you know, send a notarized letter, upload your
30:24
driver's license, just prove somehow.
30:27
And, and it would have to be proof and a driver's license
30:29
wouldn't work because when I was 14, I knew where my mother's
30:32
driver's license was when she was asleep, right?
30:35
There were all kinds of things I could have done with that if I
30:37
wanted to. So, you know, let's just say
30:40
that it would have to be foolproof.
30:44
Yeah. And you know, I know that
30:47
nothing is fully foolproof, but you get the idea.
30:51
Particularly, we're determined teenagers are involved.
30:54
Yeah, but I I knew 14 year old kids that used to steal their
30:58
parents cars after their parents went to bed at night, drive all
31:02
over town because of course they did.
31:05
They knew where the keys were. This was back in the This was
31:09
back in the days when you could push a car out of the driveway
31:12
and then down the street in total silence before you turned
31:15
it on and. Well, I was.
31:17
Just as a Side Story, I gave a talk.
31:20
Remember our friend Don Patterson at Audrey Kell High
31:23
School? I do, I do which?
31:25
You and I have gone and visited there a number of times,
31:27
wonderful, wonderful students. And she asked me to give a talk
31:33
and I said, well, you know, in my current life, I can't do
31:35
that. I can't come now, but I'll do it
31:37
online. Should fine do it online.
31:39
So it's a Zoom call. And and before the students come
31:43
in, she points to this thing behind her and it's a it's a
31:47
thing on the wall with pockets in it.
31:49
And she said, our school has a policy now.
31:52
Students are allowed to have cell phones.
31:54
They just when they come into class, they have to put it in.
31:56
They have a designated pocket. You put it in there.
31:59
And so you don't have the phone while you're, you know, in the
32:02
classroom, and then you can take it out when you leave.
32:05
And I thought, oh, this is good. Now, coincidentally, my talk was
32:08
on unintended consequences. So I'm there giving the talk,
32:13
and all of a sudden it hits me. I said, I said, Don ask your
32:18
students for a show of hands. How many of them have bought or
32:22
have seriously thought about buying smartwatches in response
32:26
to this policy? Bunch of hands go up.
32:29
What teenagers confronted with this rule?
32:32
You're not allowed to have the cell phone.
32:34
They invest in the smart watch, so they're Bluetoothed to the
32:37
phone, not the. They will find a way, not the.
32:42
Least bit surprised, right? That's exactly what what they
32:45
will always do. And look, I would have done it
32:48
too if we had smartphones when I was in school.
32:52
Oh, sure. Right, that's part of the fun is
32:55
figuring out. Yeah, How can I, how can I
32:58
subvert authority in every instance, right.
33:01
Let me, let me rephrase. If a miracle occurred and I
33:04
found a smartphone, because my parents would never have bought
33:07
me a smartphone. Never ever, Ever So.
33:11
James and I are delighted to be working with Civil.
33:13
For years we have been pushing people to think about how we can
33:17
make the world a better place. Civil's mission of upgrading
33:20
society fits exactly with what James and I have been talking
33:23
about for years. Civil helps us by allowing us to
33:26
do what we do best, which is researching topics that are
33:30
important and communicating these to our listeners in ways
33:34
that we hope they find enjoyable.
33:36
To see Civil's extensive list of content, including our podcast
33:39
Words and Numbers and our new lecture series, Words and
33:42
Numbers. Live Visit civil.com That's
33:45
civl.com. The Australians claim that 96%
33:50
of children from 10 to 15 use social media. 96 from 10 to 1510
33:59
Aunt Yeah. You really want 10 year olds
34:01
having social media accounts now?
34:05
I think I want 10 year olds watching YouTube videos.
34:09
I want four and five year olds watching YouTube videos, so it's
34:13
interesting you say that already.
34:14
We've got the problem. You went to the adults and the
34:17
pedophiles. I don't think I want the 10 year
34:19
old mixing with the 16 year olds.
34:21
Yeah, that's going to be a problem too.
34:24
But 70% of them reported having been exposed to harmful content
34:30
and or behavior. Yeah, I I'm sorry.
34:33
How? What percent did you say?
34:34
70. 77, Zero said. God and, and look, we know that
34:41
young people think everything is harmful and that everything is,
34:46
is dangerous, right? They're, they're raised to
34:49
believers. So I'm, I'm pretty sure that
34:52
number is inflated, but I'm also pretty sure it's not inflated by
34:56
half, right? So we're left, regardless of how
34:59
you look at things, with a series of problems.
35:03
And I don't think they're necessarily soluble without an
35:07
another arbitrary distinction, which below the line you can do
35:13
X and above the line you could do X + X.
35:17
So they've decided that arbitrary distinction should be
35:21
16. And if that's the arbitrary
35:23
distinction we use for driving, maybe that's close enough to
35:27
write it. Doesn't it seems a little too
35:31
old for me. I think if I were devising this
35:34
law, I would probably say 13, right?
35:39
There are a number of cultures that that say you become a man
35:42
when you're 13 and there's something different about being
35:45
a teenager than a preteen. And you know you can you can
35:48
just kind of hem and Haw your way to 13 in a way that I think
35:53
other. Ages but think about it we we do
35:55
the in this country with movies your movie gets a rating and I
36:00
don't know what force of law there is but I used to work in
36:02
the movie industry and we were pretty serious about it you know
36:05
if it's an R rated movie and a 15 year old comes in I'm sorry
36:08
yeah you're out if you're not with a parent I'm not letting
36:10
you in but. That that's right if you're not
36:12
with a parent. Right.
36:14
Yeah, yeah. I remember buying tickets for
36:16
one movie and sneaking into another and every now and then a
36:21
dude would come through and say let me see your ticket.
36:24
Yet I get thrown. I get thrown right into that
36:26
other crappy movie that I paid for.
36:28
This happened when I tried to say I remember like it was
36:31
yesterday. I tried to see the animated
36:33
movie Heavy Metal and was shown in the door and it was
36:37
heartbreaking. God, I wanted to see it so bad
36:41
but. PG. 13, right?
36:44
We're landing at 13 again, but anything up to and including
36:49
this, you're welcome. Go ahead.
36:54
But not below, not beyond. And, and there's a certain
36:59
sensibility to that, even if it's a self enforcing mechanism
37:04
on the part of, you know, the movie business.
37:07
Right. Right.
37:10
We don't call them X movies anymore.
37:12
They're called NC 17. Got to be 17.
37:17
Isn't that interesting? So we always kind of come around
37:20
to the same basic numbers. Well, why don't we do it when
37:26
there is, I think, a pretty clear harm that happens not just
37:32
to children but to everybody who gets too into the social media
37:36
Stew? Right.
37:38
Right. I, I think you can fall into a,
37:41
a very harmful VAT of poison with social media and not even
37:45
realize it's happened. And you know, in my own life,
37:49
I'm, I'm kind of amused. Both of my daughter's have said
37:54
to me in the past couple of years, I quit Instagram.
37:57
What a mess that place was. They just, they just quit,
38:01
walked away from it entirely. They both have X accounts and
38:05
neither of them ever post to them.
38:08
They just say I'm just there to be a spectator.
38:10
I was surprised when you talked about 10 year olds, 15 year olds
38:14
on Facebook. My understanding is that
38:18
basically Facebook is all adults now and older adults rule that.
38:22
The rule, at least the rule was, I have no comprehension of what
38:25
the rule is right now. The rule was that you had to be
38:28
13 and I don't know a single parent who told the 12 year old
38:33
he couldn't go have a Facebook account.
38:35
I mean, they might exist, but I don't know who they are.
38:39
Yeah, my understanding is the younger kids are just
38:41
uninterested in it. Yeah, Facebook is not a thing
38:44
for them. It's it's the minute they let
38:46
everybody outside of universities in.
38:48
And I remember when it happened in the early 2000s.
38:51
I'd forgotten that. Yes, it was.
38:54
You had to have a university e-mail to get on it.
38:57
And it was, it was for students, yeah.
39:00
And and I, I didn't join because I wasn't a student.
39:03
I had an Edu e-mail. But I thought, what do I want
39:07
to? I don't want to deal with this.
39:09
And then everybody's grandma was on it and and, you know, people
39:12
started using it to go hook up with their high school
39:15
girlfriends and what have you. This is not what young people
39:19
signed on for. They don't want this.
39:20
Now they're all on TikTok, which I think is red hot garbage, but
39:24
that's where they are. OK, Go be there.
39:27
I don't, I don't care. But you know, I want to offend
39:29
you got I want to ask some questions, right?
39:32
I want to fend off some of the hate mail.
39:34
Here I am. I am very much against the
39:39
government making the rule and saying if you're under 16 you
39:43
can't go on the site or whatever it is.
39:44
I'm very much in favor of laws that make it easier for parents
39:50
to make that call. So you would be willing to let a
39:54
parent say, well my 12 year old's ready to drive?
39:57
Yep. Well, that's what driving.
39:59
Driving is a different matter because well, with with driving
40:04
you'll you're now affecting other people.
40:07
You can. You can kill somebody else in
40:09
addition to damaging yourself. Fair, fair enough.
40:13
And I, I think that is fair enough, right, Because the
40:15
arguments here are going to have to be some variety of you are
40:20
going to do irreparable harm to yourself as a young person by
40:26
involving yourself in these various platforms.
40:31
Yep. And that's, that's a that's a
40:32
tougher argument to make. I think you can make it.
40:35
It's just much harder than the flippant driving answer the
40:39
flippant driving question I gave you.
40:41
All right, so how about alcohol? I'm going to bring my 12 year
40:45
old son down to the package store and say pick out a good
40:48
one. Boy, we're going to go nuts
40:50
tonight. Yeah, and see phrase it that way
40:54
is that sounds awful. But, you know, think about the
40:58
in Europe, where there's much less control of these things in
41:02
parents make the decision, make reasonable decisions for whether
41:06
their kids can drink alcohol. Yeah, I mean, and I get that,
41:11
although I think the idea of the the no age limit drinking regime
41:18
doesn't really exist. I, I, I just don't, I don't
41:21
think in practice you're ever going to find it.
41:24
An 8 year old boy walks into a pub, he's going to be shown the
41:27
door. That's just.
41:29
Well, but I, I believe it's a case even, but my experience was
41:35
England that if you are a minor, you have to have a parent with
41:38
you. They're not just going to serve
41:41
a, you know, 15 year old. Yeah, but I've, I've been in
41:45
bars that are also restaurants, right?
41:48
And you'll, you'll see young people there with their parents,
41:50
but they, they don't get into just a bar with a parent.
41:55
That's the prescription for disaster.
41:58
You can't go to the marijuana store with your parent if you're
42:01
8. The parent has to take some
42:04
positive steps to find a babysitter because we've all
42:07
agreed that that is not an environment we want children in.
42:10
And I'm I'm really OK with that. But if I'm OK with that, then I
42:14
probably have to be OK to remain consistent with a number of
42:18
other things that cause me a lot more mental friction, what the
42:22
psychologists call cognitive dissonance.
42:26
And it does cause me 'cause cognitive dissonance, right?
42:29
Because I begin by saying that everybody should be exactly as
42:33
free as they can possibly be, which means that any law that
42:36
you would put on anybody has to be very justified.
42:41
And we're at the fringes of justification here.
42:44
But I think there's a lot of evidence in these last ten years
42:47
or so that social media is in fact corrosive, that it has a
42:53
terrible effect on the human psyche.
42:56
And if it's adults, I have to say in the end that I don't care
43:01
that I, I wish, I wish maybe you would take a break and not do
43:06
that so much. But it's your life.
43:08
Live it the way you see fit. But I'm just not willing to go
43:11
all the way down that line with children.
43:14
I think there has to be a line somewhere that divides the yes
43:19
from the no. Yes.
43:21
And I think, I think when when we craft these laws, we we tend
43:28
to, we tend to err on the side of no.
43:33
I would much rather see the the laws crafted erring on the side
43:37
of yes and leaving the Gray area up to the parent.
43:41
So you say for example, well, No 8 year old should be served in a
43:44
bar. Fine, let's set the age limit at
43:47
10 or 12, whatever it is. But is the minute you start
43:51
stepping into the Gray area. That should be the place for the
43:54
parent to decide. I think 21 works just fine and
43:59
and remember, I was in you were you probably.
44:02
Did you ever make it into the grandfather clause when you were
44:05
18? That wasn't an issue in
44:09
Pennsylvania. I was in.
44:11
I was in New York. Let's see, I went there just as
44:15
that law got passed. But I was, I was 21 at the time,
44:20
so it didn't affect me. It didn't matter and I saw lots
44:22
of very sad 18 year olds though. Yeah, I, I just missed it.
44:27
It it had passed a year or so before I turned 18.
44:31
So there, you know, I wasn't getting into that list.
44:33
And people might not realize this, but when the, when we went
44:36
to the nationwide shift from 18 to 21, a number of states built
44:40
in grandfather clauses, which just meant that if you were
44:44
already allowed to legally drink when the law went into effect,
44:47
you were still allowed the next day.
44:50
So we had a group of people who were two or three years too
44:52
young working their way through the system for a couple of
44:56
years. I think it's a far better world
44:59
where 21 year olds are allowed to drink.
45:01
And 18 year olds or not, I think it's far better.
45:06
I, I think when you're 18, you are.
45:08
And look, I drank when I was 18. I don't know anybody who didn't.
45:13
But to to have to, to run around and do it in secret, right meant
45:18
that you had to behave in certain ways and you couldn't go
45:21
terribly overboard, even though we all did at some point or
45:24
another. But I think it's just a better
45:27
world. 18 year olds don't have the machinery yet to make good
45:31
decisions for themselves. So it's best that they not put
45:34
best that they not be put in bad situations where they will make
45:38
bad decisions. Yeah, and I've, I've heard the
45:41
argument from Europeans. I tend to fall more in line with
45:45
their argument that, look, the part of the problem the
45:48
Americans have is you don't let the the kids learn how to drink
45:52
responsible. Or you make that true.
45:54
Yeah. And look, I, I think and, and a
45:57
lot of states do have an in home exemption, I believe if you want
46:03
to have a glass of wine, if you are your children have a glass
46:05
of wine with dinner, but they're not old enough, that's fine.
46:09
That's not what we're talking about here, right?
46:12
And, and I, I think, you know, if we get to the point where
46:16
fathers are giving their 10 year old daughters martinis at night,
46:19
we probably have a problem. But a glass of wine with dinner
46:22
is not the same problem. And any reasonable person has to
46:26
know that. But again, the need of a bright
46:30
line causes this sort of friction in the law.
46:34
And, and look, I remember my my daughter, my oldest people out
46:41
there can figure it out if they want.
46:43
Once asked me at age 15, what would you do if you found
46:50
marijuana in my bedroom? And I said I would take it and I
46:56
would smoke it, which caused great hilarity at the dinner
47:00
table because they all expected that first answer, but they
47:04
didn't expect that second answer.
47:07
And and then I said, there's a bunch downstairs in my humidor.
47:13
Help yourself. And it was never an issue in my
47:17
house again. Yep, Yep.
47:20
Never. Not once.
47:22
And they never helped themselves to it and they never told me
47:26
that they had tried it. One of my daughter's is a
47:29
straight edge. She just started drinking coffee
47:32
at age 23. So marijuana was not on her
47:35
list. And and you see how a certain
47:39
looseness in parenting often yields these results.
47:42
Yeah, But if you demystify a thing, it's demystified, and it
47:48
stays that way forever. And I, I think a little wine
47:51
with dinner never killed anybody.
47:53
I personally don't care for wine all that much.
47:55
So, you know, it's never in our house.
47:58
But it's not because I'm a teetotaler, which which I am
48:02
generally, but it's because I don't like it.
48:06
I just, it would be what money wasted on me.
48:08
I would rather have pie, right? But but there we are.
48:12
It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out.
48:15
And, and you and I know the kids will find a way around the the
48:18
rule and they will do it almost instantly.
48:22
But how they do it's going to be fascinating.
48:24
And I'm sure we know enough people in Australia that they
48:28
will keep us posted on how the young people do this.
48:32
And I can't wait to get those emails as this law goes into
48:36
effect. Good.
48:37
So, yeah, that's about that, isn't it, Aunt?
48:41
But remember, remember, be nice to each other.
48:45
And that means you too. You're you're kind of nasty most
48:48
of the time you're talking to me.
48:50
Yeah. I'm nice to everybody except me.
48:54
Oh my God. I'm just going to leave you to
48:59
to ruminate to think on that. You go home.
49:03
You are, you are home. You go, you go somewhere after
49:06
we're done here and you just think about it for a while.
49:08
Have a nice however many days it will be until I see you again.
49:12
That's right, I'll catch you next time.
49:14
See you next time, James. By words and numbers.
49:16
We spend a lot of time talking about what's going on in the
49:19
economy and the government, but fundamentally all of this boils
49:23
down to one thing. The greatest threat facing
49:26
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