Episode 184: Tainted Glove

[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad and psychologist Dave Pizarro having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say and knowing my dad some very inappropriate jokes.

[00:00:17] Don't listen to them, Leela. People said I was dumb, but I proved them. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards, I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston. Dave, eugenics works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs and roses. Why on earth wouldn't it work for humans?

[00:01:23] Do we really call it eugenics when we're doing it to cows? Was there some cow Hitler who was spotted who's better? I feel like eugenics is widely misunderstood and I'm here to defend it. I think that we should make everybody blacker. But they were your racist against gingers.

[00:01:46] Well you know, that's an interesting question because gingers, sorry redheads, they are disappearing and if you'd make a concerted effort to keep the red hair genes going is that eugenics? Right, like sort of with an endangered species or something like that.

[00:02:05] Yeah, there's probably like a dating app that matches redheads. I remember Bill Burr saying that there was a sperm bank that just decided not to take sperm from redheads at a certain point. And he was saying that he was being weeded out of the population.

[00:02:30] But the thing is, as long as it's a, you know, as long as you get a female gender then it's fine. Is that right? Yeah, I think so. There's really no fetishes for male redheads, right?

[00:02:43] But it is sort of just a side effect if you want to keep female redheads going. Right. It's a necessary evil to have. It's like doctrine of double effect. Like we didn't mean to. Our intention was only to keep this particular porn hub category going.

[00:02:58] What are we going to do? I guess hair coloring but this is not the same. It's not the same when you know we're there real. I'm going to have to deep fake our redheads.

[00:03:08] So what we're referring to in this VBW no context bonanza is a tweet by Richard Dawkins that was as follows. It's one thing to deplore eugenics on ideological political moral grounds. It's quite another to conclude that it wouldn't work in practice. Of course it would.

[00:03:33] It works for cows, horses, pigs, dogs and roses. Why on earth wouldn't it work for humans? Facts ignore ideology. This caused quite a stir. Caused quite a stir. My first question for you is it appears that this was totally unmotivated, right? Like what's that?

[00:03:54] You know, like my first reaction was to click on it to see what he was responding to. No, no nothing. He woke up in the morning and he was just like, was he imagining some opponent saying that eugenics is immoral and therefore it wouldn't work in practice?

[00:04:12] Just, is there some voice in his head that makes claims like that? It's like when you have a dream that your significant other treated you like shit and you wake up and you're like I don't know what you did.

[00:04:23] Like he just woke up with some enemy of science. But seriously, what do you think motivated this tweet? OK, so I did a little bit of digging and I'll put a link to an article from a website called MercatorNet which I had no idea what it is.

[00:04:43] So if it's like a white supremacy website then I apologize. But what they were saying was that he might have been triggered or whatever by a recent, apparently Prime Minister Boris Johnson had some advisors who it came out that they had

[00:05:03] expressed some pretty unsavory opinions about eugenics a few years ago and so they got rid of them. They kicked them out of whatever. Yeah, they forced them to resign I think. Yeah, and it must have been in the context of some back and forth about this.

[00:05:22] But in his mind, because not on Twitter as far as I can tell. It wasn't on Twitter and there was apparently somebody who hopped on like an actual biologist who hopped on and actually did defend why it wouldn't work scientifically.

[00:05:37] But that seems to me to have come afterwards. So yeah, this is one of those things where if somebody tells you you're ugly, it might be true but why? Why just volunteer that information?

[00:05:50] It's like what's going on in your mind that that's what you tweet out of the blue? And then so of course there's going to be a ton of reaction. Some of it just totally unfair like Richard Dawkins defends eugenics.

[00:06:05] Richard Dawkins wants to implement a eugenics policy or something like that. There was one funny one which is that Richard Dawkins, I don't remember who tweeted this but Richard Dawkins tweets make a lot more sense when you just add Mr. Bond at the end.

[00:06:26] And this one it works pretty well actually. And to be fair to Dawkins, at least if what we're trying to find out is what he really believes, he did go out of his way to say that he deplores. He said I deplore the idea of eugenics policy.

[00:06:43] I simply said deploring it doesn't mean it wouldn't work. Eugenics policy would be bad. I'm combating the illogical step from X would be bad so therefore X is impossible. Let's fight it on moral grounds. This is what, so yeah, so I was going to read this.

[00:06:59] So he says just as we breed cows to yield more milk, we could breed humans to run faster or jump higher but heaven forbid we should do it. It would work in the same set as it works for cows.

[00:07:10] This is that's the cows thing is a running theme and all the tweets. Let's fight it on moral grounds. Let's fight what? Like, like what it like who are we fighting this battle against right now?

[00:07:25] Who's defending eugenics on both moral and scientific grounds so that we have to just fight it on moral grounds because if we deny obvious scientific facts we lose or at best derail the argument. What argument? What is, what is imagined here is my question.

[00:07:46] Who is objecting to eugenics on the primary grounds that it doesn't work? That sounds like you just want eugenics. You're like, you know what this would be awesome but bummer is like the science just isn't there and then Dawkins like wait a minute it is there.

[00:07:59] It is there but we shouldn't do it but don't say it isn't there right or who is making that illogical it would be wrong to do therefore it doesn't work. Now we should talk about the question of whether it works or whether what it even means for

[00:08:16] it to work but I don't know the like I'm not familiar. It could be out there. It could be like this big thing that Dawkins had to put a stop to but if there is I have

[00:08:27] not come across anybody saying that it is immoral therefore it doesn't like therefore it wouldn't work in practice. What are the moral objections make the assumption that some version of it could work in practice? Right right right there would be no point to fighting it.

[00:08:46] But what does it like does it work yeah and what does that mean that's the that's the interesting question that I really hadn't thought about. I hadn't I'd surprisingly given it little thought because there is a way in which

[00:08:56] like that it contains a moral like outrage in the way that we define it so if what you mean by eugenics is selectively say sterilizing parts of the population that you don't want to reproduce right or just finding other ways to prevent them from ever reproducing

[00:09:16] then then you're like in Hitler Hitler grounds I took it to I took it in general to mean trying to change the traits of humanity in general by controlling breeding and that controlling breeding requires some sort of violation of autonomy and so therefore it's immoral.

[00:09:32] So when you say eugenics could work what could they do successfully? One that that we can selectively breed people to improve traits which I think is the part that has to be there so he's saying that would work. Like what traits?

[00:09:51] Well that's what's that's I think what's at the heart of it because so many people might be trying to breed traits like you know make people of one race or something but I think usually people mean things like intelligence in fact in this article that I

[00:10:07] linked to one of the advisors that was fired from Boris Johnson's whatever advisory somebody on a blog post said that he suggested that the UK's national health service in vitro fertilization service should offer human eggs sorted by IQ to make a level playing

[00:10:27] field for rich and poor parents who want babies with a high IQ embedded in that obviously is one that we're so good at knowing IQ that we can determine it genetically which no to that poor parents are the ones who are having kids or yeah through IVF.

[00:10:46] So I think that it's I don't know like that my understanding is. Wait but so just to be clear because I'm actually doing conceptual analysis here so or trying to find success conditions.

[00:10:57] So let's say like IRBs are done any scientific experiment will now be allowed if you want to demonstrate that eugenics works might you with this count as successful eugenics try to selectively breed to make your population more intelligent with that.

[00:11:18] So a is that eugenics it sounds like it kind of is as I understand you know some versions of eugenics and then B would that work. Yeah I yeah I think that counts as eugenics what's under specified is the method so I

[00:11:33] think that's fair that when you say eugenics you may you may be agnostic as to the method because as some people have pointed out one one of these a professor at Oxford says quote we practice eugenics when we screen for down syndrome and other chromosomal or genetic abnormalities.

[00:11:49] The reason we don't define that sort of thing as eugenics as the Nazis did is because it's based on choice. It's about enhancing people's freedom rather than reducing it so that's I think it's a fair definition to say that the the attempt is to improve through

[00:12:04] selective breeding independent of the means and we just often associated with sterilization or yeah. So now does it work that is I don't know well I'm not a biologist but I'll tell you one of the things that that guy named Dave Curtis the editor of the Annals of

[00:12:20] Human Genetics posted a long Twitter thread in response to this Dawkins tweet and he said quote humans have long generational times and small numbers of offspring this would make any selective breeding process extremely slow second humans live in very different environments and most of the variation

[00:12:36] in their traits is due to the environment it would be very difficult to identify individuals with ideal traits that I think is too far I think that's bullshit I think that it obviously you could if you had all of the power in

[00:12:48] the world breed you could breed redheads out of the population right. Right. If that's your goal but the more complex the trait is like you could get like you could increase the percentage of green eyed people or blue eyed

[00:13:01] people or something like that but when you start talking about something more complex like intelligence or disposition to criminality trying to weed that out or something like then there's the question of well a that is

[00:13:15] how how easy is that to identify anyone can see what color your eyes are what color your hair is but like disposition to criminality that's genetic rather than environmental or an intelligence obviously I mean we've

[00:13:28] done a couple of episodes on that so then it's much harder and then the question for success also involves the sort of like I think the mechanism for it matters because like with dog breeding as people have pointed out like that

[00:13:42] can fuck up a dog breed like if you try to breed yes you can successfully breed for certain traits but you give them bad hips and you give them like all sorts of other kinds of health problems because the thing is more complicated.

[00:13:56] So I think those two things the sort of multi gene causation of various complex traits and the environmental aspects of it that makes it very hard like you could if you believe that there were no heritable component then you could deny what that eugenics would be possible.

[00:14:18] I think that many psychological traits do have a heritable component even if we don't know the actual genetic mechanisms so but it would obviously be a lot easier for something like height and we know like the Dutch for instance

[00:14:32] within a few generations have become super tall and people are kind of not clear why this happened but it seems like it might be explained by something like tall people breeding more. I don't comment that I just know that it was a mystery because it happens

[00:14:50] so quickly and that doesn't seem surprising that you could actually if you encourage tall people to only breed with each other it seems like that would be that would work. David Pizarro short people shouldn't be allowed to have sex. Well they got no reason no reason to live.

[00:15:08] So the part that is that the dogs might get hip dysplasia or whatever that just makes it harder. Right. So we successfully I'd say if we called eugenics when we did it with dogs I'd say we were successful in like making dogs more more attuned to

[00:15:25] humans better at pointing and more useful and it just had some side effects. And so like we if we did it better it would just be there would be less fewer fewer accidents or fewer side effects. So this is getting into the most dangerous of dangerous territories.

[00:15:43] You and I are old enough to remember Jimmy the Greek. Yeah for sure. OK help. Is it fair to say that Jimmy the Greek lost his job. This was was this in the early 80s.

[00:15:56] I feel like it was a little later if anything like mid early to mid 80s maybe 88. Yeah. This is a guy named Jimmy Snyder. He was a guy that would give he would give betting advice on an NFL pregame show. Right. He was like talking head on. Yeah.

[00:16:13] But but specifically like Jimmy the Greek he was like supposedly it was ridiculous like he was not like a real gambler that like made a lot of money doing it. But he had the look of like a person who didn't know about sports

[00:16:26] would imagine like is like a gambler a sports gambler and but then. So he said so I'll quote him here. No because I don't even remember the black is a better at the first of all you can starting it off with the black in 1988.

[00:16:42] It's like the black is a better athlete to begin with because he's been bred to be that way because of his high thighs and big thighs that go up into his back and they could jump higher and run faster because

[00:16:55] of the bigger thighs and he's he sounds drunk and he's bred to be the better athlete because this goes all the way back to the Civil War when during the slave trading the big the owner the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman.

[00:17:07] Oh black is only a man to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid see that's where it all started. So he got fired express regret over having said those things. I mean like if it's true let's separate like whether it was moral

[00:17:20] from whether it's true. In fact the outrage ought to be that anybody even considered doing that which I like why wouldn't you think that slave owners were trying to do that. I'm sure they were trying to do that.

[00:17:31] The I think the thing that sunk him also is the details like like the thighs going up into the back. There was a great Saturday night life skit. Phil Hartman played him like on the home shopping network.

[00:17:45] As far as I know Jimmy the Greek like he never came back from that right. I mean there was no. No just as a Saturday night lives get so. So I guess it's a question as to whether or not slave owners really were trying to do that.

[00:17:58] So I don't know I guess the more specific the trait the better you could have but it would still require pretty strict control of the population and the breeding population and I think that's what gets everybody's moral flags red flags going right.

[00:18:11] And a bit yeah because you need a big you need a lot of people and a big sample because you can't inbreed. It sounds like we're just doing now the thing that that everyone's appalled by. It's like wait a minute like could.

[00:18:29] Yeah I mean but I think that if we if it's not even possible to try on some grounds that would convince some people then then it wouldn't be a moral question. Right whether or not we can do it with intelligence I think

[00:18:41] that's probably bullshit whether we could do it for a skin color if we force sterilization for everybody who is a particular skin color then you know then it might work. When you say we couldn't do it for intelligence you don't

[00:18:54] mean I know because of our episodes that intelligence isn't heritable that it that just the implementation mechanism for that would have to be to it would be beyond our. That's right I think that it's that it's beyond our abilities and it might be that that intelligence has

[00:19:11] although it has a heritable component it has so much environmental component built into it that that it would be intractable because right you would have to control the environment in which people were raised. All this aside that Jimmy the Greek and Dawkins why

[00:19:25] did they say it that's the whole point like. Well Jimmy the Greek was drunk he was like shitfaced you see the clip that's and I'm remembering this from when you know like I was a teenager but my memory

[00:19:37] of him is that he was shitfaced like coming out of some party when you should face like is that at the is that at the back is that atop of my no I mean like right I guess my point is to distinguish Dawkins

[00:19:50] and because so we should talk about the moral element of it so when something is this sensitive and when policy eugenics policies or whatever policy you're talking about has been implemented in abhorrent morally abhorrent ways as as Richard Dawkins

[00:20:09] would agree and as maybe even Jimmy the Greek would agree right like so is it OK to separate the science from it and just give a look I'm just I'm just making a scientific point I'm just pointing out a logical fallacy I am just asking questions

[00:20:31] this I think what people are viscerally against with Dawkins including me to some extent is why on earth would you combat the illogical step from X would be bad to X is impossible where X in this case is eugenics given that you know nobody's really making those claims

[00:20:53] right now in a way that's affecting the scientific or larger culture so why just bring it up at all and why just kind of throw it out there into the consciousness and I guess one objection could be consequentialist like so some white

[00:21:09] supremacist is now saying yeah would work you know like we got to get on this but another is more just the I don't know that there's something just wrong with with raising a question even if it's true or making that claim even if it's true when there's nothing

[00:21:26] that it's pushing back against nothing real it's only hypothetical especially when I think that the term eugenics is itself used in a broader sense than Dawkins means here so Dawkins is saying like no if all we mean by genetics is I mean eugenics is

[00:21:45] the is what we do to chickens and cows for these specific physical traits then that's possible when the word eugenics as understood by most people I think contains within it some sort of understanding that this is targeting traits that might unfairly you know leave

[00:22:05] certain groups out in the cold and that it is done against the will in order to be effective so so in order for it to be effective it would require like large sterilization of people who didn't want to be sterilized and and he knows that which happened and

[00:22:19] those prisoners in the 70s there was a impetus to do that and and so I think that that knowing that that's the way that the term is used and generally understood you wouldn't have had to backpedal even if he had said like I would I don't think he

[00:22:35] would have maybe he would have gotten a lot of shit because he's Richard Dawkins but you can imagine a tweet that said I've heard some people objecting to the practice of eugenics because they think that genes don't work that way but

[00:22:47] that's the wrong way to object to it because genes could have this effect so let's just say it's abhorrent like just that in one tweet could have saved him spared him some grief I believe that that's what he was trying to say but it's

[00:22:59] hard to read that if you're somebody who I mean I like I don't have much sympathy with the people who are deeply offended and appalled by a 78 year old guy just you know spouting off but I still get like when you say let's fight it on

[00:23:17] moral grounds deny obvious scientific facts and we lose or at best derail an argument there's no argument there's nothing to fight on moral grounds right now so by tweeting that are you like inviting a debate on this question that is fairly settled on moral grounds

[00:23:37] already and anybody who just expresses any desire for eugenics policies squarely defeated now you like does he care that much about whether or not people get these details right it so it reminds me of well that's the thing is an imaginary group like unless

[00:23:55] you'd be great if docking said no is responding to this article or this claim like you know included a link something that it came out of the blue is what makes me think although very different from Jimmy the Greek that some shit is sitting in the back of

[00:24:08] his mind it's been getting just right there but you could have for instance unargued like suppose that I said you know the chances of actually having genetic disorders when you have sex with a sibling is super low like let's not object to it on that

[00:24:22] ground you I think people would rightfully be like they'd be like the Google the next Google search like David Pizarro sister and then I could I guess I could be like you guys are getting me wrong like of course it's important on moral grounds but like you

[00:24:38] know let's object to it on naughty grounds that just makes it better it's too naughty man that's a this is I think that much like drivers licenses you know when you have like that 80 something year old relative where you're like pop it's

[00:24:56] gonna get to the point where we can't let you drive yourself anymore and he's like no I'm fine but he's all constantly almost getting in crashes that's what we should institute for Twitter this is a guy that I found there was huge

[00:25:08] influence on my early self and the selfish gene and extended phenotype especially and then it just like I guess it started with the religion you know the anti-religion the atheism and then it just seems now that he's just picking fights with for the

[00:25:25] sake of picking fights like and just the worst kind of I'm rational you're irrational kind of fights if they've lost the subtlety that maybe in some like transition period they had and I don't know how much of it is is age related and lack of self-control

[00:25:45] this image is like three of our presidential candidates here's the last question just about eugenics and like are we gonna get into trouble for this maybe by just talking about it like this but does you is eugenics like a morally thick concept so in other words thick

[00:26:02] with two C's exactly that yes exactly no thick in the sense that like for it to work you would have actually had to improve the population that you're trying to implement it on right is eugenics the is eugenics the word for the attempt or the

[00:26:19] success is that what you're asking yeah well yeah and it says when when you say eugenics to work it has to be the success right no I think that it has to be the attempt because because you're leaving it open for eugenics not to

[00:26:31] work right oh I see right yeah but I mean like to work might mean that you've actually improved and so if it's that then you have then it's all of a sudden like a meta ethical and ethical question whether eugenics can work because you first have to

[00:26:47] figure out what would improve a species or a race or a population and then you have to figure out if that is something that we could yeah I think that's a good that's a good point that I hadn't really thought about which is take your least

[00:27:02] controversial statement like improving the longevity right reducing morbidity and mortality and it is that a an obvious moral good I think that it's clear when you are when you are not trying to maximize something but rather trying to just cut out clear cases of suffering like diseases like

[00:27:24] you know taste acts and sickle cell where you could say that that's improving everybody taste acts which is kind of a classic example that affects us Ashkenazi Jews like everybody gets tested for that even in the orthodox Jewish community there's some pushed who has very much anti-abortion to

[00:27:44] kind of allow without you know asking too many questions or making a big deal about abortions for taste acts babies because they'll just die when they're to and they'll live kind of miserable lives until they're to so but is that eugenic that's why that's that's what

[00:28:01] I was starting to say earlier which is that the word eugenics may just be nowadays understood as that whatever that process is including morally objectionable things so forcing people to do it and and promoting traits that may not be good for society so what

[00:28:20] things like preventing clear diseases might not be just people just don't lump it into eugenics although on some technical sense the eugenics might just mean all of that stuff because it's might be trivially true to say given what we know about genetics we could increase or decrease certain

[00:28:34] traits but eugenics seems to have built into it the improvement of the species and that's an open question you could you could be a utilitarian about it but it's hard to gather data on at a species level what would make us all better off would make

[00:28:49] me better off is if a bunch of motherfuckers died right now like any particular people you're talking about in your department disciplines of academics just a whole cloth but particular sports fans and the German soccer teams ever every time they play Argentina speaking of which we haven't

[00:29:09] we mentioned this but our topic our main topic for today is cheating in sports the kind of launching pad for that will be the Astros Houston Astros cheating scandal which is kind of the talk of major league baseball right now but I think what

[00:29:28] we'll broaden that to discussions of cheating and sportsmanship in sports and rules and unwritten rules and in general oh yeah is there sportsman like conduct rules for just daily life I mean there is right like like where you stand on the elevator and stuff

[00:29:46] that's right not not letting people cut in line in front of you back cuts no cuts alright we'll be right back this episode of very bad wizards is brought to you by better help you know I teach an intro course to hundreds of students and I see a

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[00:32:59] welcome back to very bad wizards at this time we like to take a moment to thank all the people who get in touch with us who email us tweet at us join in the conversation on reddit all the various things that you do the

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[00:36:22] listeners would predict this but this was your idea you know not my idea I'm more of a sports guy not like people say yeah this Houston Astros scandal that has rocked major league baseball you wanted to talk about and there's a bunch of interesting aspects of the

[00:36:41] shit's just been fascinating me and in fact I was I kept meaning to ask you about it because I thought you'd be into it and and I don't know for what reason I kept delaying but like I've been on my own just trying to read and

[00:36:51] understand like what the fuck is going on so I want to give just a little background first of all on what the cheating was and why it mattered and then also but just even before that so the Houston Astros have been pretty beloved you know kind of an

[00:37:08] institution in this in the city where I live for a long time they used to play their games in the Astrodome then they got a new park and then they went through a period where they were really the first baseball team to

[00:37:21] just tank this was in the early 2000s early 2010s so when I was here and late 2000s when I just moved here they were terrible they would lose more than a hundred games a year and they were almost intentionally terrible they would

[00:37:36] trade any good player that they had with a high contract for prospects for for good young players that other teams had who wanted to win now and they have any sorry how many games are in a season again 162 so that there were there were times I think they

[00:37:52] were they lost like 120 games they were just they were purposely this is something that basketball teams do all the time so they can get better picks in the draft but baseball teams hadn't really done this even like the money ball this was like the next level

[00:38:08] money ball shit money ball was working with a small budget but not intentionally tanking three or four seasons so that you could build up the draft picks and build up the prospects to then have a good team that you were willing to pay money for so

[00:38:25] that's what they did and there's a very famous sports illustrated article written I think in 2013 or 2014 when the Astros were just awful they were horrific and it said your 2017 World Series champions the Houston Astros and it was like a joke at the time but

[00:38:41] then 2017 comes and they're great and they have this likable core of young players including Jose Altuve chick Korea or Carlos Korea excuse me Carlos Korea George Springer they traded for Justin Verlander the picture in the middle of the season and everybody loved this team they were

[00:39:06] young and they seem like good guys like it just kind of inspired the city of Houston and I remember in the fall biking home from classes and seeing little kids like with it was like I was in a time machine back to

[00:39:20] the 30s or something kids with like sticks pretending to play baseball you know with like beanbags and sticks and stuff like that it was a big phenomenon and they ended up winning the World Series that year first World Series huge celebration just good feelings

[00:39:36] all around for a likable team a likable manager AJ Hinge but it turns out that there had been a lot of talk that this team had been cheating by stealing signs a lot much of this was just rumors throughout 2017 a little bit and I didn't even

[00:39:54] hear about it then they've been stealing signs using video cameras and then finally one of the players pitcher who is traded named Mike fierce I believe he he blew the whistle and and and said what they've been doing and then the baseball major league baseball released

[00:40:13] a report where they suspended the manager and the general manager they docked the team to first round draft picks which is a fairly big penalty and find them five million dollars which is nothing for their billionaire owner but is the maximum that they

[00:40:28] were allowed to find the team they did not punish any of the players involved even though the players had been they had been instrumental in implementing the policy but the manager AJ Hinge had been against it but he was suspended the general manager was suspended and the Astros

[00:40:44] fired both of them so that's the first background I can tell you like what they did also yeah I want to just like I think there's plenty of international listeners who have probably already no idea about the specifics in baseball pitchers get their signs from catchers the catcher

[00:41:02] crouching behind the plate catchers need to know the pitch that the pitcher is throwing whether it's going to be a fastball or a curve ball is it a slider or a change up because otherwise he won't be able to catch it they'll be wild pitches and a good

[00:41:18] catcher knows how to call the right game for his pitcher this has no homeroarotic subtest this is well now it does but based on what pitches seem to be working the game situation and the catchers knowledge of opposing hitters so they signal the pitch to

[00:41:38] the pitcher the pitcher then gets the final say though they can either nod and then that's the pitch they're going to throw or they shake it off and then the catcher will signal something else now since forever the dawn of time since the dawn of time players bat

[00:41:52] batters have been trying to figure out the signs the pitch that's coming either by stealing signs which they can sometimes do if they have a batter on second base that's the easiest you can see what the catcher is signaling right because the signals are right in between the

[00:42:09] guys crotch so he's protected from the two angles which are first and third base but that real down the middle second base guy sees what the pitcher sees but farther away yes and so that's so then they'll switch up the signals when a when a guy is on

[00:42:24] second but there have been all sorts of throughout the year's ways that people have tried to do it through cameras figuring out what the pitchers tendencies are and actually this is like some pitchers have tells this is called tipping your pitches if if you

[00:42:39] do a certain thing or your arm is at a certain angle when you're about to throw a curveball or a fastball so it is a big advantage if the batter somehow can learn what pitch is coming it is a big advantage there's controversy over how

[00:42:53] big the advantages but just at a basic level so fastballs are easier to be strikes for pitchers fastballs are the pitches when they absolutely have to throw a strike for almost all pitchers it's going to be a fastball so off-speed pitches whether they're

[00:43:09] curveballs or sliders or change ups they're a little harder to control so they're more likely to be balls not strikes so number one you know not to jump at it and if you ever watch a baseball game and you see a batter

[00:43:22] just swinging way before the pitch gets there it's because they thought a fastball was coming but instead it was a curveball or it was a changeup or something right and and if you think it's a fastball those pitchers are coming so fast so quickly that the

[00:43:36] batter essentially has to start swinging the minute that the minute they see the pitcher releasing the ball yes the so this has been going on forever but one thing that was illegal was to use technology if a pitcher was tipping pitches well that's just part of the

[00:43:54] game you know the pitcher might get pissed off about it and throw at the batter if the pitcher had a sense that the batter was reading him in some way but it wasn't against the rules and nobody would call it cheating but using

[00:44:07] a electronics was illegal and when they introduced instant replay into the game there were all of a sudden lots of cameras on the field and monitors that could be used to see what the catcher was signaling just like you always

[00:44:25] like like if you always had a guy on second base and so the Astros developed the system where they using a center field camera as well as the replay cameras and this Excel algorithm that would break the code it was called

[00:44:42] code breaker it would be used to break the code because catchers started to get very creative in terms of how they would signal then they would send that information to the dugout and at least in 2017 this was in the report the players would bang on a trash can

[00:45:00] if something besides a fastball was coming so some sort of off-speed pitch they did that throughout the regular season in the postseason and in all their home games in the world series as well and you can hear this like there's one of the articles I linked to

[00:45:17] you could just there's YouTube videos where they spliced together you know a bunch of these you're just hearing this telltale garbage banging in the background which we talk about later but it leads me to believe that this wasn't very well thought out

[00:45:31] well I mean it was well thought out in the sense that it worked it won them a world series this is one of the interesting questions they had never won a world series it was huge for the city of Houston they sold out

[00:45:42] like every game in the playoffs they you know they they made a lot of money from this I mean not getting caught I mean that's right no it's a very it was combined this use of technology and this algorithm for breaking codes with just banging on

[00:46:02] trash cans yeah so just just if you haven't caught this this is what's going on the camera is is showing the catcher there is a monitor somewhere on the Houston Astros it was it always in the dugout I'm it was in the dugout at

[00:46:16] least for 2017 because that's where the trash cans were right and so then that then it's getting code broken at some point and transmitted not visually but auditorily through text or something but to the dugout and the manager was against it but didn't so AJ

[00:46:37] Hinch who seems like and if he's not a mensch he's a really good mench actor but he really seems like just a solid guy but he didn't step up and stop it I believe him that he was against it but he never stepped up and stopped it

[00:46:54] the players to varying degrees were we're into it and even I remember on an episode that we did a few months ago I said that Jose Al Tuve had like a hundred percent approval rating in the country that has not no longer true he was

[00:47:11] one of them he may have done it less than George Springer or Carlos Correa but he and Alex Bregman the Hebrew Hammer the new Hebrew Hammer yeah so we should talk about like a few aspects let's start with what what what really

[00:47:27] got me which is the punishment which is in where I was going with the evidence there's incontrovertible evidence both that players at the individual level were engaging in this right so they were transmitting the garbage can signals and they were using those

[00:47:42] right now how much how much it improved their game is something that people have they've dived into right now like there was a recent analysis that somebody did of every single game and garbage can analysis to try to see what the material benefit was

[00:47:56] overall comparing it home games with away games because they couldn't do this on the road that's right the other thing that I think is important is that some of the pitchers who were playing against them were genuinely criticized for being for having pitched really shitty games and so

[00:48:13] they were in some cases like I believe that they were that might have been caused for them to be traded is that right well I mean if you're talking about for the regular season yeah there were probably pitchers that got shelled and then

[00:48:26] were released by the team or they were sent back down to the miners we never know but that happens the Dodgers guy endured shame for having choked yes what's his name Clayton Kershaw yeah he was like one of the great pitcher regular season

[00:48:44] pitchers of all time he pitched some bad games including in the world series so a lot of I think a lot of the discussion is going what's the counterfactual would they did they need this to have won the world series to have whatever performed so well in the

[00:48:57] regular season I you know that's an open question and I don't think for me the interesting part isn't how well they did it's that that a lot of the players knowingly engage in the scheme knowing that it was wrong one of the articles that

[00:49:09] you sent me they knew what they were doing was cheating and none of those individual players were punished right so it was the manager the aka the coach of the team that what's the other higher position that the general manager who is a real scumbag by the

[00:49:26] way this guy like that so like part of the reason I think that they went that hard at the management not AJ Hinch but the general manager as he was right so in my naive calculus when I heard about this I was like oh man this is

[00:49:42] like doping this is like these individual people if there is a if there is evidence that they actually engaged in cheating and blatant violation which we could talk a little bit about why this might be a gray area but I don't think it's a gray

[00:49:55] area I mean you can steal signs but just not that way why it was actually perplexing to me having not no knowledge of the background how this wasn't outrageous in fact like why I'm still kind of perplexed as to why there isn't a revocation of their

[00:50:14] world series well so I don't know what that would mean a revocation of the world series and I so that's it there two different questions right like why weren't players punished and then why wasn't the revocation of the like I guess you would give it to the

[00:50:30] Dodgers because that's who they played in the world series but I guess I don't support that because there's no precedent for it and there's I don't know like how good do you feel as the Dodgers oh two years later we actually won the

[00:50:45] world series even though we didn't like it doesn't seem to really by the way what happened to that what happened to the I'm sorry but you'd know this I need your expertise the the famous the were they called the black socks the chulis Joe

[00:50:58] yeah well they lost the world series on purpose so there was no issue there yeah they were they tanked yeah it was a gambling thing were they like so this is that's a good example actually because the commissioner then took the

[00:51:12] opposite tack which is to ban the entire team from baseball after that including those like chulis Joe Jackson who played really well in the world series and didn't seem to be tanking and even so his only crime was knowing about it and

[00:51:34] not coming forward in this case they didn't punish any of the players and the explanations for why are not fully satisfying so number one some of the players are on other teams that seems to me to be just not an explanation at all because like that's true for

[00:51:53] steroids you know you catch somebody doing steroids okay they went to another team doesn't mean that they that they can't get punished another explanation was they offered the players immunity if they talked it seemed like they had enough information based on that whistle

[00:52:10] blower that they didn't need to do that so if they are if they were determined to punish the players they wouldn't have done that they made the decision not to punish the players before offering them immunity I think and I so I saw that doesn't make sense and

[00:52:25] then the last one is there's no way of knowing to what extent each individual player supported it so that's the I mean that's the most plausible explanation I guess but like what I don't know like they knew about it at least and there's trash can

[00:52:45] evidence that they benefited from it or at least tried to benefit for from it so so that is a good question yeah and the trash can evidence so when they're at bat at home in Houston you hear not always I guess but you hear the

[00:53:00] garbage can signaling we can't tell whether or not they used the signal right I suppose they could have tried to ignore it if they were really in principle against against this but I would think that if that were the case they would ask their team not to not

[00:53:16] to signal to them they would just ask them not to do it yeah like they wouldn't I don't think the team was like forcing players to like hear the trash can if they didn't want to and what would you do if you knew like

[00:53:26] okay this is not a fastball like but I didn't know before so like I'm gonna just do 50-50 like I would have normally done so that's an interesting question baseball cheating is weird though so first of all we had this like huge scandal with performance enhancing drugs

[00:53:41] and no world series were taken away then even though tons of world series were won on the back of steroid it up players but there's also just this weird sort of like I don't know it's a kind of culture because just the tiniest little edge is the thing

[00:54:01] that everyone is searching for that's like what matters in baseball you play 162 games these games often come down to the wire like just a little edge a little advantage and so players have been doing this forever player like pitchers have been putting Vaseline on

[00:54:18] their pitches to make them and make them harder to hit they've been put people have been putting pine tar in bats and you know all this stuff is against the rules but it's kind of like this is what you know that that movie

[00:54:34] major league did you ever see it awesome movie the wait the there's no crying in baseball no that's the woman that Tom Hanks knows like with Charlie Sheen and Tom Berenger oh yeah way but yeah huh with this were they Cleveland Indians yeah they're Cleveland Indians the main

[00:54:53] picture there is like and you're supposed to love this team is like putting like a huge bit of Vaseline like all over his pitches there is a level of cheating that if you get caught like you get caught but it's not nobody

[00:55:08] gets mad about it in in the way that they've got so there was something about this maybe it's systemic or maybe just the elaborate nature of it that really that really gets to people and the fact that they weren't punished by this is something that a lot of

[00:55:29] other players are having trouble getting over right so a lot of players are pretty angry and so but to get your opinion here though is your intuition like mine that to the extent that we have any evidence or confessions from any individual player that they they

[00:55:44] ought to be punished yeah I mean I know that you're fighting against your team by the way Tamler's wearing a Boston Red Sox hat right now and I wanted to I wanted to point out that that you it seems as if you just

[00:55:59] prefer teams that are accused of cheating well one way in the that this is different from the Patriots if there are listeners out there comparing this to the Patriots and deflate gate is that this one actually happened this one was not just made up by a

[00:56:14] bitter opponents first the moon landing and then deflate gate it's all conspiracy no no but the Red Sox could just get like we're recording this episode early I think the finding against the Red Sox is due Friday and they could get hammered by

[00:56:32] this I will say given that I will say that I think the players should have been suspended for you know maybe a small number of games now how you do that you can't suspend all of them because there they have to field a

[00:56:46] team but maybe you do it in a staggered way or something like that's what I think based on all the evidence that has come out but I get also that baseball you know it's just trying to figure out how to do that and

[00:57:01] how to implement that would have been a pain in the ass for them I still think they should have tried to do it because all this controversy right now is because they didn't right and it seems as if the decision you know I could

[00:57:14] understand in some cases like where there's negligence or something where you just target management and you're like well look they're the ones ultimately responsible I think that might very well be the case for the managers here in as much as they deserve punishment but it's also clear

[00:57:32] that these were you know it kind of sucks that these were bad actors who were even going against their own manager and that he's the one who not only got suspended for a year but then he got fired. Well yeah because it's no good having a manager that

[00:57:46] suspended for a year it doesn't really help you I guess you could have an interim manager. No no he was he got thrown under the bus A.J. Hinge and he when we get to apologies like he's the only one who actually gave a

[00:58:00] good apology and he's probably the least guilty of all of them I think another reason if I had to guess why they didn't punish the players is because they're a very well liked team or they were they're not necessarily anymore. One funny thing

[00:58:16] is that Las Vegas has put out a line for how many times an astro hitter gets plunked hit hit by a pitch and it's very high 83 and a half. I would I would wear the double helmets whatever and it's very funny because that's part

[00:58:34] big part of baseball and that's something I talk about in my book a lot actually is the code around throwing at batters but I think that is if anything a more in some way is the most appropriate response. If you're a pitcher that's pissed off by

[00:58:49] what they did you just do that and that's kind of fun. The fact that the hitters even have to have that in their minds is a kind of punishment you know in the same way that pitchers had to have it in their minds that the astros batters knew

[00:59:05] what pitch was coming that like it's such a psychological battle the pitcher batter matchup that just even the thought that that would happen is something that freaked a lot of pitchers out and so they could be looking for revenge. It's interesting I

[00:59:21] was reading in whatever article and I'm not going to remember names but that the pitchers who were unaffected were the ones who were so methodical in changing their signals that they just did it no matter what right so and and they they escaped the you know

[00:59:37] the decoding and and the cheating because they were particularly neurotic about their their signal schemes which is not something that you want your you know this is you don't want your pitchers having to do that. And there are certain pitchers who just it just

[00:59:54] doesn't matter if the batter knows Mariano Rivera the Yankees closer was like this like you knew the pitch that was coming and you still couldn't hit it but there are other pitchers who live by deceit you know like that's the thing they they're not going to

[01:00:08] pitch well unless they can fool the batters right so some pitchers put in like a ton of work into not having any tells so that they're wind up to every single pitch looks identical like they'll pour over video just to try to make it seamless and the feeling

[01:00:23] that you must have when you're like the fuck like I'm doing everything exactly like and I think that definitely hits some pitchers harder than others. So let's talk about the apology because this all happened in the off season and then all and then players reported to spring

[01:00:38] training which is there the what they do before the season starts they arranged a press conference first the owner Jim Crane went and that was a train wreck so the two most famous things from that was he sort of apologized in that kind of

[01:00:57] weasley way but then he says our opinion is that this didn't impact the game. That fucking pisses me off like that sentiment right there is like why would you fucking be doing it like that is the most bullshit you're basically saying don't punish me I'm incompetent at

[01:01:16] implementing cheating. You know who agrees with you about that is Jim Crane because 55 seconds later he said I didn't say it didn't impact the game in response to some reporter was trying to rip up a new one and it's like no no no no don't get me wrong

[01:01:34] I meant I meant eugenics would work and then he says and then he said I don't think I should be held accountable that's a ballsy thing to say because in that sentence you're saying not I don't think that I should be punished

[01:01:49] not I don't deserve it or I didn't do it you're saying like yeah I did it but like really me that's that's who you're gonna sing well my like I think what he's saying is my team you know like the buck stops below me you know

[01:02:02] he was willing to throw his manager general manager totally under the bus but I just think like this is what happens when a billionaire who's normally around people who are obsequious and other billionaires like they have to deal with the real world it's just

[01:02:19] like they don't get it they don't get how people can not kiss their ass they should hold workshops you know like like they do for like NBA rookies or something like come from bad neighborhoods like for billionaires just to interact with the real world

[01:02:37] so that was a disaster and then the other astros just gave weasley apologies George Springer said there's no real way to express how much regret we have how much remorse we have I'm sorry we're in this situation today I regret the fact that we are in

[01:02:56] this situation today I'm really sorry about the choices that were made by my teams this was somebody else by my team by the organization and by me so one of the things I wanted to ask you was is there a way to like how

[01:03:12] like let's say they did this you're in this situation now and you have how do you handle an apology press conference all right so I thought I was thinking about this because like so now now you're in a position where everybody knows that you cheated you

[01:03:28] know that you cheated and you're asked to give an apology I think you do one of two things one is you say I'm not going to apologize like just fucking own it just you don't want to apologize you don't apologize the other is to say I really disappointed

[01:03:44] a lot of people when I was doing it I knew I was doing it I shouldn't have done it what else can I say because this in between shit is the worst possible way I mean either be a heel either by joking about it or

[01:03:58] saying like I don't care like I did it we won the world series fuck off and then just own the being the villain or just refuse to comment at all like that's the other way I think you can be a heel or just admit everything no

[01:04:13] excuses no rationalizing but totally agree the in between stuff is worthless I think it's very hard in the twitter era to apologize though yeah I know because the truth is that that I it's unclear at all whether there's any remorse in these people to begin with

[01:04:31] so even if you have genuine remorse and you need you need to craft a statement that's going to satisfy a whole bunch of people and we've seen sincere statements that get rejected by by tons of people right but like at least everything would point to the signal

[01:04:45] of sincerity and it's still not accepted so much so that there have been studies done on public apologies where basically they've said like there's pretty much nothing that you can say in terms of your remorse that will stop people from condemning you harshly

[01:05:02] there's been one successful apology in the twitter era that I'm aware of and that's Dan Harmon and he did it on a podcast and it took like 20 minutes yeah you're right the the long form long form sincerity so it but in this case there's not

[01:05:17] even like nobody even believes that there might be sincerity because it's pretty clear that had they not been caught nobody would have said anything so it really does feel more like steroids than in the sense that like you could just deny deny deny until it's proven

[01:05:30] I think the other aspect though that's like steroids is there is this sense that everybody's doing it or at least a lot of other teams are doing it and so we just did it better than other people but like don't pretend there's been a lot of

[01:05:44] stuff like the red sox were caught using apple watches the Yankees were caught using some system I think the Astros a lot of people think the Astros still did it in 2018 and 2019 and got even fancier about it wearing buzzers that's that's been funny

[01:06:01] that that that was one of the articles will link to it you sent me about the possibility that a tattoo a fake tattoo well that that hose al-tubey but this was on a home run that won the pennant for the astros against the Yankees

[01:06:16] against the star closer of the Yankees I'm blanking on his name right now al-tubey hits it and that's it like they're going to the world series and then you know it's a big tradition to rip off the player's jersey when they come to home plate and al-tubey

[01:06:33] didn't want his jersey ripped off and he was actually interviewed about it afterwards and he said I'm shy my wife would get mad now people are like oh he just had a buzzer on so by the way I know I know a little

[01:06:45] bit about these kinds of buzzers because they're used in magic mentalism acts like there are a variety of devices that you can get that will give you a little buzz people often wear them like on their ankle I can see why you wouldn't if you were a baseball

[01:07:00] player and they'll you know you have a code that signals so why not like you know why not try something like that that seems like the natural next step if you can get away with it I don't know if we like we can

[01:07:10] move on to this but I really do want to ask you whether there is this you pointed out the interestingness of baseball like it baseball is complex in a way a lot of sports aren't complex and this is one of these cases where I

[01:07:23] think if the intuition fails you that gives you clear guilt for some actions and not guilt for others so as you were pointing out there is like it's not at all illegal to try your best to steal signals in the old-fashioned analog kind of way where

[01:07:40] you're looking so that relies on the accident of if you have somebody on second base if they have good eyesight if they the batter has good enough eyesight to catch the signal that's all allowed and so unlike things like doping where there might be like no you

[01:07:56] you either use a substance that's on the ban list or you don't even though this was technically on the list of things that you're not allowed to do and I think that it was made very clear to them early in the season when they were having

[01:08:06] accusations at some point it still feels like the sort of thing that in even in the way you were describing it that a sort of wink wit nod nod is like if you can get away with it then you should do it

[01:08:20] which is kind of what surprises me about everybody's reaction you think it feels that way well I think it might because to them or to just to you to them like I feel like so you know a lot of the work on on cheating and dishonesty has shown

[01:08:35] that that it's people usually get caught in these slippery slopes where you do the first thing for loyalty to your to your company and then you you know before you know it you're embezzling funds in this is one of those cases where because the the

[01:08:49] guidelines for what's legal and what's not in baseball like they kind of go like the same action stealing a signal becomes illegal with the use of technology now I could see very easily you moving from having some guy with binoculars in the stands right signaling a chain

[01:09:05] down the line was that technical that is technology right but glasses wouldn't be like I can see why they might have fallen into this more easily and might not feel the natural guilt in the way that you would feel if

[01:09:18] I mean I don't even know an analog of another sport where you can cheat so blatantly well you mean in football there are ways of deflating not that one but actually I mean the Patriots were involved in a scandal that did actually happen which was

[01:09:35] taping signals from the jet sideline in a regular season game when that had just been made illegal but these things are fuzzy yeah yeah it's not like you know it's not like somebody was taking their opponent's tennis racket and and like fucking with it somehow you know

[01:09:51] right like they're there in other sports it seems as if like the lines are clear you're encouraged to scout and to analyze videotape in this case analyzing the signals and breaking them you might be like well no coach we've broken the signal

[01:10:07] all we need is a way to to like get it to our player and imagine right so I can see them this is not to excuse them I think they know what they were doing was wrong but I can see the lack of intuition

[01:10:18] that it's wrong being so strong and you know like it's interesting because it's not clear why it's wrong so I feel like it's wrong but then it's like well stealing signs isn't wrong it's the technology that makes it wrong except like technology is used in

[01:10:35] all sorts of ways in baseball like the whole analytics revolution is led by technology and using it to gain the least bit of edge and even just videotaping pictures and studying them or having somebody study them to see whether they would be tipping their pitches

[01:10:55] and then conveying that information before a game or even during a game based on research that was done in videotaping like that would be okay so it's not just the technology so I was going to say the other problem seems to me that signaling the pitcher isn't

[01:11:11] an official part of the game like it's not in the rules it's a behavior that sort of grew out of the rules of the game so it's not like there's you know some standard format in which you're allowed to signal to the pitcher or not

[01:11:24] so I can see why you're saying well look signaling is their way of getting an advantage me reading their signals is my way of getting an advantage suppose that that there were technology that allowed the coaches to analyze the stance of the batter

[01:11:38] so that they could feed to the pitcher what the best pitch would be would that be illegal like they haven't this gets to what you were saying a little bit earlier maybe off the air to me which is the technology introduces a whole bunch of problems

[01:11:52] that just didn't use to exist yeah that's right like I think a lot of this stuff was okay because there was no technology and then it was sort of like spy versus spy kind of but once you bring technology into it

[01:12:06] I think a key question that I don't think we know the answer to is how widespread this kind of practice was so I think it's clear that the Astros weren't the only team doing it it looks like maybe the Red Sox might have done some version of it

[01:12:23] although hopefully not in the playoffs that will be unfortunate because we won the World Series the following year but yeah so like but what if like 15 other teams were doing it well then it doesn't seem bad at all pretty much you know then it just seems like this

[01:12:38] is that this is the new game right which is what what leads me to wonder I certainly don't know like you know of all of all the people who have expressed an opinion or of all the people who have an opinion it struck me as weird

[01:12:52] that's that there was so much vocal outrage that that's what led me to infer that maybe this was a clear blatant a violation that not as many teams have done it if everybody knew that their own teams were doing it too then they might yeah

[01:13:07] that you'd be bullshitting yeah they might be bullshitting outrage right there were a lot of people complaining about steroids who are on steroids I agree that my sense is based on the reaction that it wasn't as widespread but maybe that's just because well our team is different

[01:13:23] we didn't we didn't do this particular system we cheated the right way right so which leads me to I think the last thing that I want to touch on at least which is this seems that at the very least not cool

[01:13:36] I don't know how else to say it it's tight it's like it might be legal if it you know if it were legal or if there were a gray area you're still unsportsmanlike for lack of a better term and as the expert on honor

[01:13:49] at least on this podcast I wanted to know whether you think this at the very least is dishonorable and they should be remembered as the dishonorable team I mean part of that depends again on how widespread the practice was and if this was to what degree could you

[01:14:04] with a straight face call it defensive like everybody's doing it so we have to do it too I think it does seem dishonorable partly because it's technology aided you didn't even get the credit for being clever you just use technology in a way that other people

[01:14:22] might not have been willing to use it oh that's interesting so it could be that I see that's a nice distinction because if it's suppose that you accept that baseball is not just about athletic ability and the ability to swing your bat at the right time

[01:14:36] but it's also about having the cognitive abilities to notice and pay attention to the to the codes and see patterns that's still you and I think baseball is very mental in that way it does require a high degree of cognitive intelligence in a fairly specific domain but yeah

[01:14:54] so yeah I mean in that sense if they got some program to help them decode the pitches and there's also the lying at the sort of the dishonesty aspect of it honor and baseball like you cannot break any rules and be considered dishonorable

[01:15:13] even this thing that they're doing now like the shift so they'll have based on the analytics of where a hitter will hit they will put now the second basement on the side of the shortstop or vice versa the shortstop on the side of the second basement

[01:15:30] a lot of people think that that's a dishonorable way of approaching the game right so why what what does that do so let's say you know that a baseball hitter like a hitter is more of a pull hitter and so much more likely to hit it

[01:15:45] to the left side of second base rather than to the right side of second base so they will put more fielders including like the they will put the second basement where the shortstop is and or if the other way they'll put the shortstop where the second basement usually

[01:16:02] stands and so they'll have more people on that side of the field and so some people think that that's dishonorable and well I think that's kind of crazy I also get it it's like no this is the way the game has played we have the second basement

[01:16:18] in this area the shortstop in this area the third basement in this area you know like well then why did why did the fielders always come close up when I went to bat when I was in the field yeah I'm like you don't play here

[01:16:31] you play out there the code said that was okay or if they thought you were a weak hitter they'll put there but but what wouldn't have been okay is if they had no nobody in the outfield and they put everybody in the infield

[01:16:44] so I think this is like the fact that it was illegal is less the part of being dishonorable than the fact that it was breaking a lot of unwritten rules in addition to the written rules that people sometimes break yeah in an in in an informal arms race

[01:17:02] where the the pitchers know you're trying to steal their signals the catchers know and and so they are adjusting right so like they're they're trying to change your signals you're trying to make them less obvious they they have a sense of what you're doing

[01:17:18] if you all of a sudden go way beyond like beyond that then you're you're essentially violating whatever not tacit agreement you have about how how we're supposed to be trying to defeat each other I could throw at your head to get you to not crowd the plate

[01:17:35] that's okay but I can't like I can't be studying or getting signaled what you're like by your batting stance what the best pitch for me to throw is so I kind of am a fan of sports having their own organically grown rules that are of honor

[01:17:52] and it bums me out that what's going to have to happen now is like the letter of the law will have to get so specific I mean that just seems less fun to me it's unfortunate but that's that's how it has to go

[01:18:04] or they could just go the other way and just let everybody kind of do what they want then you lose a lot of this the magic of the mind games I mean like one of the great things about baseball is the mind game between the pitcher

[01:18:20] and the batter and if that's gone because you're just letting everybody steal hey you know one way that they could just fix this is what they did in football which is let the coaches just talk to the pitchers so they might figure out a way

[01:18:37] where the catcher can through technology get signal a pitcher in ways where he doesn't have to put his fingers down but I like I'm not sure exactly how it seems like it would be possible for that to work you know there are a few other examples

[01:18:52] I think that like as I thought about this I'm I I thought that this is the the tacit rules of a sport that we label sportsman-like conduct and unsportsman-like conduct are so much of what what I think make games cool right what happens then though

[01:19:09] is sometimes people can violate them without getting too much punishment do you know the story of this item I don't know which way I would judge on this but this poker player who won a tournament because he was able to read the back of cards

[01:19:22] so it turns out that playing cards every once in a while there might be an error in the printing of the playing cards such that the patterns on the back give away which cards so it's like it's like they're marked if you are good enough

[01:19:39] to notice the slightest difference and you know that that printing error might indicate a face card or something then you can win right this is not counting cards this is not looking at other players cards this is just the manufacture process cause so there was a poker

[01:19:55] I'm butchering it for our poker fans but but I think the details are I mean the broad points are right he won a poker tournament and a big purse because the casino just hadn't properly gotten rid of the cards that were printed in error

[01:20:09] so he was just able to infer and so they tried to take away his purse and there was a big outcry from the poker community saying like no this has always been one of those things like if you are in the lucky situation where that error

[01:20:24] your skill in doing that won you the fucking game right I mean that's a separate episode but the intro like the ethics in the casino versus gambler thing and the little edges cause it's a very similar thing where the only way you can be successful is to gain

[01:20:38] little edges wherever you can find them and when the casinos clamp down on them for not even technically breaking rules but like that's a that's a really interesting I think that one at least one of the guiding principles that should be here when you were saying

[01:20:57] like maybe it'll just be a free-for-all with technology is I think that we want it to be that everybody has a shot at this so like you don't want the richer teams like apparently the astros have like 70 cameras around their stadium they like put put them in early

[01:21:11] like we don't want the money of the team to be what's dictating whether or not they're yeah but I also think like like I would be in favor of just I don't know if you could do some like GPS or some some sort of cell phone blackout where

[01:21:25] there was just no technology because baseball is a game that doesn't really benefit from that and that that would benefit more from just them playing like they played in the 50 you know like soccer is another interesting one with this and flopping cause flopping is something that works

[01:21:43] and your your your rivals the Brazilians have some serious floppers and it's like so effective it can be so effective because the scores are so low and like you could just get a penalty kick by flopping in the penalty area and yet that seems like about as dishonorable

[01:22:04] as anything it's up that's a funny one because as dishonorable as it might seem people continue to do it and like that when you see the instant replay like when you know these magical no contact hits not people on their ass they just continue to do it because

[01:22:22] because they can like you're giving your team that that edge people respect people who don't flop but but are you willing to sacrifice a world cup exactly exactly this also you know came up there's a whole host of like dishonorable actions that in any given sport

[01:22:37] but I was had been watching a little clip on Reddit about of an MMA fighter who pretended to touch gloves with another one and then just socked him in the face and that's like yeah that's also not illegal but which is just like you know

[01:22:50] in all of these cases it seems like people are willing to sacrifice their reputation for the edge yeah and I think you're right like I was just talking about this with my ethics class we were talking about Aristotelian ethics and his focus on habit and like

[01:23:03] building good moral habits and not having like I think it's just that you start doing it like the Astros didn't say we're gonna engage in this massive two year long signal stealing scandal they just started doing it a little bit at a time

[01:23:18] and then it just started to become normal and then you just keep doing it and all of a sudden what are probably most of them otherwise good people just like it becomes okay to do something that they probably never would have thought was okay when they started

[01:23:33] right you can even imagine the first time at like dude we should try this oh shit it worked and it's like oh well what if we did that yeah I'm still like I'm a fan of unwritten rules here I don't know why I have this intuition

[01:23:45] that the unwritten rules give me a lot of pleasure you know when was also saying to you like when a tennis player hits a ball very hard but it hits the top of the net and dribbles over and they apologize I don't know why I feel good

[01:23:56] when that happens like that they apologize I'm like oh cool they didn't need to in fact it's perfectly legal to get a point that way but they know that it wasn't the best you know the most skilled way of getting a point so they just raised their

[01:24:08] hand and that just makes the game fun and I also think that if a soccer player is flopping too much you start making the game not fun and his players and the other team should call him the little bitch all right well on that note I totally agree

[01:24:22] you're flopping to get out of recording all right let's wrap this up join us next time on very bad wisdom good think deep thoughts and with no more brains than you have they know our ditches to that man anybody can have a brain you're a very bad man

[01:25:10] I'm a very good man just a very bad wizard