[00:00:00] Very Bad Wizards is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist, David 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] Show me how to get rid of the unlimited capacity for human beings to make themselves believe that they're somehow right, and you'll just about put this place here out of business. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:18] Dave, I can't believe it, but this is our 200th episode and we have to celebrate. But just please tell me you're not going to whip out your d*** and start d***ing, are you? I feel like whip out is saying something about the size.

[00:01:34] Like I don't know, whip is an appropriate term for just squeezing out. What do you think? Just nudging out. I feel like whip indicates, you know, like a 12-incher. Yeah, you don't want to hype it up and then have people be disappointed. Better to say expectations.

[00:01:54] No, I absolutely am... this is a principle, even Kantian stance that I hold, which is your webcam should never even be pointing below your waist because then you could do whatever you want. Right, but that's true. But presumably what we're subtweeting here, subtweeting, I don't know.

[00:02:15] Can you say subtweeting when you're just not on Twitter? But is Jeffrey too been? Presumably what he was doing was for an audience, not the people. That's right. Camera A should have been above the waist. Like work cameras should always be above the waist.

[00:02:33] You know, if you're going to do that stuff like take an iPad, put that on your waist, maybe like a low coffee table, your regular task, your regular computer, waist level and above please. This is as a general rule, dick below camera. Dick below camera.

[00:02:49] All right, I'll write that down. Hopefully that'll prevent me from making a similar mistake. So when I think after the last episode we... I tweeted out the episode and then I said that I had to note because it

[00:03:06] was right after the tube and thing happened that we recorded before it happened or else we would have talked about it like pretty much for the whole episode. But Paul Bloom, among many other people, but Paul Bloom did it to us,

[00:03:19] but there were a lot of people who for whatever reason just decided, oh no, we can't joke about this. Like this is terrible. This is also part of a larger intrusion by the workplace into the home and all of that. And I don't agree.

[00:03:38] So Paul said leave the poor guy alone. But here's my, I think, principled stand here. This was a Zoom meeting between writers and staff from the New Yorker and NPR and they were doing an election simulation. Was it like a full-on virtual reality like POV simulation?

[00:04:01] No, I think it was like people were adopting roles of how different election scenarios would play out. And Tubin, in fact, was at one point, I heard playing judges that were ruling on various issues like whether Pennsylvania could count mail-in ballots with unmatching signatures,

[00:04:22] slightly unmatching signatures or something like that. And then all of a sudden, Jeffrey Tubin who's kind of pompous writer for the New Yorker, a CNN legal analyst, he wrote the OJ book that the doc was partly based on. Oh, wow.

[00:04:38] And he just starts jerking off during this massive jerk fest. I'm not going to try to make the jokes that everybody made. But if you can't make fun of that, then there's no point to life. Then the anti-natalists are right and they win. And the terrorists too.

[00:04:56] Yeah, I don't quite get it. I don't get the idea that we're not supposed to laugh at that. I mean, is this just our particular Twitter feed being liberal bias and the fact that Tubin is one of us or something? Because did anybody say that about Anthony Weiner?

[00:05:16] Weiner. Weiner. Yeah. Anthony Weiner. I was trying to be respectful and not call him that. I think that one was just off the table not to make fun of that. It just wasn't in the realm of possibility. But I think this one is too. It's off the table.

[00:05:32] The Overton window doesn't, it's not in the Overton window not to make fun of this. What's the Overton window? The Overton window is the things that are debatable. And so when people say move the Overton window, all of a sudden universal healthcare in America

[00:05:50] was outside the Overton window and then Bernie helped move it into the... Bring it back in. I see. I want to laugh at it because of how uncomfortable it makes me. I think that just the thought of that happening,

[00:06:03] I mean I have it below like above waste rule, but the thought of that happening to me makes me so uncomfortable. It just makes me so nervous to think about the cringe when you realize, can you imagine the moment it dawns on you

[00:06:17] that this whole time they've been watching you jerk off? That is such a shameful, like I'm just filled with, I guess again, my Kantian shame. Well no, this might be your Christian, like your religious opinion. My Christian, yeah, my remit.

[00:06:33] Then I want to laugh to keep from crying. And isn't this what comedy is for? You know, like this is the role that it plays in society. We make jokes. And it's not a double standard. I wouldn't do the election simulation for one thing.

[00:06:50] Like if you pay me like $50,000. Wait till part two of the opening. That's true. But like that sounds like a vision of just, I don't know, of hell or just a godless void of nothingness. I get all high and mighty about this stuff.

[00:07:09] Like why are you jacking off during a work call? But if I was in an election simulation where like I was role playing various different like pundits or like judges or whatever, like I don't know what I would do. Like you don't know what you're gonna do.

[00:07:25] It's like war, you know? Like you don't know where that would leave you mentally. That's why veterans don't talk about that shit when they get home. Exactly. But if I did, I would never in my wildest imagination expect people to not make fun of me. No, exactly right.

[00:07:48] Like oh my God. I would just be like go for it guys. Like what am I gonna do? You know, I might be like have your fun. I'm off at Twitter for a while. Even if I lost my job, which I don't know,

[00:08:00] do you think we would lose tenure if we did that during like a faculty meeting? We had like a little text exchange with YOL after this happened and I forget which one of you said like. I had to know. If this was like a class you said.

[00:08:15] Yeah, if it was a class. Like if this was like you were teaching a class and all of a sudden you said jerking off during class, could we lose our jobs? Like during a Zoom breakout session

[00:08:24] and then they all came back and then I was just like what? Like like hand on my Johnson. I mean there's only one way to find out, you know. But so is it that this is the sense that I got

[00:08:37] from some people who are like it's not funny and then there was even some articles about like this shows, the shame about masturbation or I don't know what. Like I don't know what they were trying to do

[00:08:47] to make it not funny, but I was like, I just let it be funny. Let it be funny. Like let it be funny. It's hilarious. It was an election simulation with the New Yorker and NPR and he just jerking off. And it wasn't on purpose.

[00:09:01] Like it'd be one thing if this were, you know, I think it's like obviously a serious, actually back to that text conversation. So I got in a conversation with Nikki about whether or not this was like an instance of him exposing himself on purpose.

[00:09:16] And I was saying something about the rates of like, how many women have seen men expose themselves on purpose. And it ended up transcribing. Like I hit the wrong button. I want to find that text because this was in that text thread with YOL.

[00:09:32] I came in late to it and like you guys were already talking about whether you would get fired if you started jacking it during class. And I said, this is a class you're teaching. And I said, I think you might be out of a job.

[00:09:47] And then you responded to that. Well, I think they're starting to get into lower numbers and you're starting to get an alone number is when you have like 10% of the male population is gay. And also it's more dangerous probably will be attached as

[00:10:04] a gay man exposing yourself to heterosexual man. Yeah, rough 20. And then I replied, I've lost the thread. That's the name of my new album by the way. That whole thing is the name of my new album or yeah, rough 20 that could be good too. Yeah.

[00:10:20] So that's when I lost the thread and you said it was an audio transcription. Yeah, which was like hilarious in this context of like privacy leaking that it had transcribed that. But let me just explain what like the quick, what I was saying.

[00:10:35] We were talking about where did like gay men like exposing themselves to heterosexual men come in? So here's where it came in. I was, I was saying that I think one of the biggest gaps in knowledge that I know of across the genders is

[00:10:51] how clear it is to women, how many times they get exposed to men jerking off in public and how surprising it is for us. Like if that even happened once, if like I saw a man jerking off like I'm looking at me, I would be like,

[00:11:05] I would rush home. I would text you and you well and I would like call my dad and we'd laugh at it. And so, and Nikki was saying like, oh my God, it's happened countless times. And I remember even my sister as like an 11 year old

[00:11:17] at a water park telling me that some guy was jerking in front of her. And so, and so Nikki was saying, well, it's weird. You would think that given that there are a substantial number of gay men that they would expose themselves.

[00:11:29] And so there would be some number of men who had had that experience that's higher than you might think. And I said, well, yeah, but like you're getting to low numbers, like say 10%, even, but it's even lower than 10%.

[00:11:41] But even then, I think if you were like a pervy gay man who wants to expose themselves doing it to heterosexual men is actually physically dangerous probably like you might get your ass beat by like a group of guys.

[00:11:53] If you did that just because of how, how lots of men are. So that was the conversation. It's an interesting point like next time on Very Bad Witch. Yeah, main segment. Yeah, but this is all to say that it was just

[00:12:09] it was just about Tubin not being an instance of somebody trying to like expose themselves on purpose. This was like clearly an accident. Like this was not something that you might want to morally blame him for something, but it would be more like negligence and like harassment. Right?

[00:12:26] That's the thing about it is in fact, actually I think people were restrained about it because I think people get that like he didn't mean to do it and like you know, but still like I won't be told that it's not funny because it is funny.

[00:12:41] It's like the definition of funny. Day it happened there was like Twitter was fun, but then it just kind of died down. I don't know. Maybe there's a more important stuff going on. I don't know. Yeah. Speaking of more important things going on,

[00:12:56] Dave, we were talking about like the opening segment for this episode and Dave, David Pizarro said that he wanted to make election predictions for the opening segment and that would be fun to talk about. And I honestly didn't know like that was

[00:13:13] more confusing to me than his text about like the game and the rough 20 and all of that. Like I was like, wait, what? Who am I talking to? Which is more evidence of a stroke. It sounded like you. So we're going to do that.

[00:13:30] But then in our second segment, we are going to revisit our 45th episode where we got in a pretty bad fight about gender balanced play diet. So about what kinds of toys you want to expose your kids to your little boys and your little girls.

[00:13:51] As our assignment, we read some articles and we both re-listened to that episode as painful as it was. So we're going to have insightful analysis. It should be probably a very short segment. You'll just apologize. You'll say I was right and we'll just move on. It's funny.

[00:14:07] I thought that's what you were going to do. I guess not. All right. And are we talking about the holes or not? Oh yeah. Let's talk about the holes. It's an action packed just jammed 200th episode. This is because we have bourbon. This is a bourbon episode.

[00:14:25] Do you want to do like the two psychologists for a beers thing and talk about the bourbon? Sure. I've always wanted to sound more douchey. Why don't we do that? Exactly. I'm drinking Angel's Envy, which is smooth. It is just smooth.

[00:14:44] I'm drinking Boondocks, which is an eight year old straight bourbon whiskey finished in port barrels. Yeah. So all right. That was good. We're done. Down big douchey. This has been your moment of douche, brought to you by two psychologists for beers.

[00:15:02] Start with holes and then move on to predictions. Sure. Because there's an interesting, there's an angle that I find interesting here. Okay. Which I think, so this is somebody on the data is beautiful Reddit, but then somebody posted to our subreddit, surveyed what was like 1600 people I think.

[00:15:20] How many holes does a given object have? And so they have nine objects and they charted the options that people were given are zero, zero holes, one hole or two holes. And some, it's a couple of these perplex me,

[00:15:37] but one of the things that I really found hilarious was the number of well actually posts on the original Reddit thread of people hopping on and correcting people's intuitions because they knew like the Wikipedia article on topology. And that just, I was like, oh my God, come on.

[00:16:00] So yeah. It reveals a kind of Platonism that people have. When also just misses the point, like if, like what point would it be to survey people if what you're concerned with is the mathematically correct answer? Like this misses that we use the word holes.

[00:16:19] In fact, this is a defensive conceptual analysis in philosophy in many ways. There is the mathematics of holes and then there's the way in which we use the concept holes in everyday life. Right. And it's not about the mathematics of holes.

[00:16:31] They're not being asked about like a technical question. They're being asked about the ordinary language usage of holes. All right. So should we go through the results or I don't know, like I kind of lack the gene for finding this surprising or like really interesting,

[00:16:47] but it seemed like everyone was fascinated by it. Like Fiery Cushman put out a tweet that was just like, it was like he saw like how I felt when I first saw mohull and drive or something like that. We've alluded to the philosophy of holes before.

[00:17:06] That was in the absurd episode, right? 126. Maybe. I don't remember. It was the one where like your toe is best at like finding, like identifying holes. Oh yeah. Yeah. Your tongue. No, no. Tongue was second. I think toes were first. Oh, I don't know.

[00:17:23] But yeah, there is only one thing in this that, I mean there are some, the results are pretty clear for a lot of them. Like a donut. Okay. A donut. 97% of people say a donut has one hole. In surprise, mathematicians agree. A rubber band. Yeah.

[00:17:42] Now 39% of people say it has zero holes. I have to think that if you were just asked about a donut and then you're asked about a rubber band, wouldn't you think that a rubber band has one hole as well?

[00:17:54] I might not because like sometimes the rubber band is, you know, it's like lying flat on each other, you know, the two sides. And so there's no real hole there. Or maybe there's two holes because it's like on the side. This is the thing.

[00:18:10] Like if you say like a straw, like straw was actually like a split decision. That's the one that's the talk. That's the one that's really the only one I want to talk about. But this is what I mean about, I lack the gene. So 60. 65%. Say it has one.

[00:18:25] Yeah. 29.3%. Say it has two. No number percentage of zero. Yeah. But smaller for zero. So if you ask me how many holes a straw has, I would probably say one, but then they would be like, yeah, but if you turn the straw over,

[00:18:43] it seems like there's another hole. And I might go, okay, well then two. I don't know. Like this is why like, I was like, I don't feel like there's a right answer to how many holes a straw has. No, but like your first intuition,

[00:18:56] my first intuition is that a straw has two holes and it is interesting that once it's pointed out to me that it might be one. Like I was like, oh yeah, I guess so. Like I was walking around thinking of both sides

[00:19:09] because I have access to both sides. It seems, but it's no different than I guess a donut. This is where though the people that the well actually brigade came out and was talking about a hole is supposed to have

[00:19:24] just so you can go from one side to the other. So like you can go completely in one side and you come out the other, that's one hole. Which I find interesting that a hole in the ground topologically is not a hole.

[00:19:37] So when you say I'm going to dig a hole, unless you dig it to China, you don't have a hole top like for a mathematician. Which means, and this is the only thing I wanted to get to, that if that's one hole,

[00:19:51] if a straw has only one hole, if you sucked a cock, you've had anal. Whoa. Is this one of your texts where you were? If you suck it, let me see if I can like unpack this. Hold on. If the topologists are right

[00:20:12] and a straw has one hole, then your throat and your anus are the same hole. Why? Because it's just one, you know, there's a direct connection. But what about your like pee pee hole? That's also, that's like a straw with a hole in it. A straw with like,

[00:20:36] okay, since your pee pee hole shut, now that is one direct connection from your mouth to your butt. So according to the topologists, how many holes are in the body? Like your two ear holes, well I guess they're not real holes because they don't come out anywhere.

[00:20:57] You'd have to have like a hollow part between the ears and your throat maybe. This is real science at this point. I've definitely lost the thread. I mean, look, we can connect it directly to our election predictions by talking about hanging chads. How about that?

[00:21:17] But I want to say about this, that like I think what the topologists say about holes isn't authoritative. No, because I dig a hole. Like that's a hole to me. Like I don't care what a mathematician says. Like they're just using a different definition of the term hole.

[00:21:33] And I don't want any corrective emails saying like that's... The well actually. Yeah, there are some cases in which you have two different concepts being used and one has no authority over the other. Exactly. Washer for bolts is a weird one though because why did only...

[00:21:52] Why did 16% of people say there were zero holes? Well, it's like a rubber band to me because I didn't buy your explanation of why a rubber band might be seen as having zero holes. Like the structure of a rubber band can be twisted,

[00:22:07] but we know the shape of it. It's just like a... I guess still. Like given that... Like a donut is a washer, but you can eat it and it doesn't work with bolts. Yeah. A washer is a torus, as is a donut and a rubber band

[00:22:23] and a straw. Here's the one that perplexes me. 5% of people said a spoon has one hole. Is that because like they view... So like in my defense of a hole in the ground... Yeah, exactly. Being a hole, like that there was metal that was removed,

[00:22:41] like scraped away to make... Because in my... Like my theory is that a spoon is a flat sheet of metal with... That somebody banged on to make it into a divot. Not that someone who you've removed a portion of it.

[00:22:54] Well, I can't speak to like how spoons are made, but... Then don't say anything. Then don't say anything. Then be silent. But I will say that this exposes your hypocrisy, which will also be exposed in the second segment. Like you say that if you dig a hole,

[00:23:12] that's a hole, but now all of a sudden a spoon, which also has this indentation that comes is not a hole. It's like, which is it? I've explained why because in the case of Earth where you're removing portions of the object and leaving empty space,

[00:23:28] whereas a spoon doesn't have... Like the thing that you started with doesn't have less spoon than when you started. Right. A bowl, 33% of people think of it as a hole. Now that one's a cup, 46%. I wouldn't say a bowl has a hole. You wouldn't? No. Yeah.

[00:23:51] I don't know. And this is conceptual philosophy. I was trying to come... But here's why I don't think a bowl has a hole. And this is not going to be like anal or this is like sucking dick or whatever. But this is... I apologize for that statement.

[00:24:04] It was the most juvenile comment I could have made about what Fiery Krishman thought was great cognitive science. If someone says this bowl has a hole, I would think that there was an actual hole in the bowl. And so like if you put soup in it

[00:24:17] or cereal, it's going to leak out. So then same for spoon, right? Yes. Right. And cup as well. That's right. If someone said this donut has a hole, I'd be like, no shit, it's a donut. You fucking idiot. You fucking... Get the fuck out of my face.

[00:24:30] Leave me alone. What kind of faculty meeting is this? This... I'm just going to start jacking right now. The weird thing, I questioned the survey, the person who created the survey. Part of it is... This is like supposed... Like the best scientists in the world

[00:24:46] are celebrating this as like fascinating and groundbreaking. But this is like a post on Reddit about some guy who says he did this. That's right. He could have... He could have very easily just sat on his computer and punched numbers into Excel.

[00:25:02] But he says or she, I don't know, last about the letter O. The letter O isn't an object in my mind. It's an abstraction. Like I refuse to answer. Yes, exactly. I refuse to answer. I take the fifth on the letter R.

[00:25:18] It seems like he forced a response. Yeah, forced responses are... I mean you know, because that's like... That's the trick that you employ to get all your results. All right, we got to get to our like resolving our debate. We are going to achieve closure.

[00:25:35] So there will be no hole in our debates about gender and gender diets. I know, so smooth. It's 200 episodes. You know, you learn something over there. But before that, David insisted that we give our election predictions. So I'll turn it over to you.

[00:25:53] So we talked a little bit about how people are freaking out. Like I just still think that there's some hysterics going on with like whether or not Trump is going to win what are we going to do? What are we going to do?

[00:26:06] I think it's just going to be a landslide. I don't even think... At worst, this is how it's going to play out. At the beginning of the night, we're going to worry that it's only going to be the mail-in ballots.

[00:26:20] We're going to worry that Trump is going to hold the office hostage and we're going to have to do that thing that happened in Florida in 2000 and not know until January. And even then, it's going to be...

[00:26:33] But I think it'll be clearly answered by the end of the night and I think that the liberals will be able to sleep soundly and not cry the next morning like some of us did four years ago. Did you cry?

[00:26:47] Yeah, remember you tried to clown me for crying because of your toxic masculinity. Yeah, well, I was playing with too many dinosaurs and Legos so don't blame me. It's my socialization. Yeah, Taylor said... I don't know about an election night. It will be fully called,

[00:27:08] but I agree that I think it's going to be significant for Biden. Will he concede? If I'm right, I still am not sure whether Trump will concede. Oh, see, like that's the thing I'm less worried about is like, I don't think that there's enough apparatus

[00:27:24] in place for a real like steal the election thing. No, no, I think... And especially if it's like, if it's significant, if it's like, if it's clear on election night, I don't think at all. Like there's no, there's nothing. Like nobody, people will jump,

[00:27:39] will dump Trump, like they will try to get off that bus with as minimal damage as possible, even Republicans I think. I totally am with you, but maybe famous last words, but I'm totally with you. I only mean will Trump make that phone call? To even try?

[00:27:55] No, no, the concession phone call that night. If it's clear. Oh, no. Right? That's what I mean. Like I don't think, like I think he'll just stubbornly hold out and he'll never in public say something like concession. Well, so there's one thing I remember

[00:28:14] and I don't know why I was traveling and I watched like one of the Hillary Trump debates and the last question was, it was like a town hall debate. Will you say something nice about your opponent? And like Hillary said,

[00:28:30] well I guess he has a family and that's good, you know. But and then Trump said like something actually sincere. He was like, here's what I respect about Hillary Clinton. She's a fighter. She's been like battling things for her whole life

[00:28:44] and she is a fighter and I respect that. And it like, it seemed like genuine, way more genuine than what Hillary Clinton said. And so I think there's a chance, very small chance that he just does that. He just says congratulations. I don't know what calculations go.

[00:29:01] It's very hard to figure out like what goes on in his mind about these kinds of things. But yeah, I think there's a chance, but no, I don't think he'll concede. I think he'll put out, he'll definitely, he'll be tweeting up a storm about election fraud

[00:29:15] and all of that. I just don't know if there's enough behind that to amount to anything real. Like I could see some crazy militia guys killing somebody and which is terrible, but it's a big gap between that and altering the election

[00:29:30] in a way that like means that Biden won't be president in January. Yeah, like I could see him doing that because if it's really obvious, it just might not be worth the fight for him. I suspect that if he loses,

[00:29:46] he'll be out of the country within a week like quote unquote vacationing, but really trying to avoid. Being prosecuted? Maybe. I mean, I don't think we're that good that we're going to get him under prosecution right away. No. And you know what? Fine. Just enough.

[00:30:02] I do feel like it's, this is why I agree with you like that maybe it'll be settled on election night. Like I think like people are just enough of this. What do you think about the Senate though Dave? I have no idea. I barely,

[00:30:15] I barely know that there is a Senate in the House. I know that one's Republican. I know that we just put in us just a new Supreme Court justice. It's pretty good. You're like a cautionary tale of like the lack of civic responsibility and...

[00:30:34] Hey, I know we need 270 electrical votes to win. Electrical? Electrical. No, but, but sounds like you have thoughts about the Senate. Not really. Like I think Democrats are favorite to win and I don't know anything otherwise. I will make a slightly risky, no like very risky prediction.

[00:30:53] I'm not signed up for any of those betting markets, but if I got like plus 250. What does that mean? Plus 250. Like so if I bet $100, I would get $250. Okay. That Biden will win Texas. I would bet that. You should do it. I know.

[00:31:10] Are we going to say any naval gazing things about episode 200? Yeah. Or should we save that for 201s? Let's save that. Yeah. I have some thoughts about us doing this for 200 episodes, but yeah. All right. We'll be right back to relitigate our famous fight on gender toys

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[00:34:07] to talk to our listeners. Since then, we have been working on our podcast, the VBW podcast. It's been very popular. And it's been very popular. And it's been very popular. Thank you to talk to our listeners sincerely. And thank you all for all of the support

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[00:34:57] By oldest, do you mean they've listened for a long time or oldest in age? Or like your age, people. Both, both. It was double entendre. I wonder who our oldest listener is. If you are in your 70s and you listen to us more above, let us know.

[00:35:17] We'll do the thing that Weatherman used to do when he would celebrate. What was the weatherman's name? Oh yeah, the black guy who lost a lot of weight. Al, Al. Al, right. Roper. Roker. Roker. Yes. This is really, this is what you tune in for.

[00:35:42] Thank you everybody for getting in touch with us. Thank you for your emails, your messages, your discussion, your criticism. If you want to engage with us or our community, you can email us, verybadwizardsatgmail.com. You can also tweet us at verybadwizardsattamler or at peas.

[00:36:03] You can join our community on Reddit and engage in discussion there. There's always lively discussion going on after each episode. You can follow us on Instagram. You can rate us on Apple Music. We really, really appreciate those.

[00:36:21] And I want to, oh, and you can listen to us on Spotify. And just spread the word. We have 200 episodes in the bank. If you want to tell a friend, please feel free to share. I wanted to mention one of our listeners in particular

[00:36:38] because he sent us something that's just so badass that we're going to share it. And if everything works well, if your podcast client of choice allows you to see chapter art, I'm going to make this segment have the chapter art

[00:36:53] of some fan art by a listener named Giovanni Quann. I think he's okay with us saying his name. He has an Instagram account, go follow him. He's an amazing graphic designer, digital artist, Giovanni Quann at Instagram. I'll put a link to it. But he did this like incredible,

[00:37:12] like it looks like a comic book cover. It's amazing. It's so cool. Like I just had fun looking at it for all of the Easter eggs that are in there. In fact, you and I haven't sat and looked at it together.

[00:37:25] In fact, I haven't really studied it like carefully. Oh my God, man. It's so cool though. Yeah. There's detail in there that is amazing. Just you can just tell that he's been listening to us for far, far too long. Far too long. The detail.

[00:37:42] There's Paul Bloom is in there. Sam Harris is in there. There's Pulp Fiction references. There's Drug Reference. There's Borges references. It's amazing. It's amazing. So thank you, Giovanni. There's Laurie Santos, right? I forgot about that. And it's a freaking phenomenal drawing of Charlie. It's amazing. So thanks.

[00:38:07] Thanks all. Over the years, a number of listeners have given us art and we always really appreciate it. So thank you. And yeah, there's... Yeah. I didn't say the one thing that I said I was going to say, which was that we're not sure about the election results.

[00:38:23] Oh yeah. So we're recording this later than we recorded the other episode. We feel like we might have been a little cocky there. My jinx vibes were like as I was editing it, I was like, oh no, we didn't fucking say that. Are we out of our minds?

[00:38:39] So yeah. I mean, pretty much if Trump wins, it will have been directly our fault is what you're saying. And I don't have a great track record, you know, with predicting the consequences of an election either. So try not to blame us if either, you know,

[00:38:55] the country is on fire or Trump just wins fair and square or, you know... I'm just going to double down. Fuck it. I'm just doubling down. You're not scared of jinxes like I am. No. My whole life, like I believe in jinxes, I believe they're real.

[00:39:17] They're as real as the aliens on Venus. Well, if there's anything that our constant listener emails have taught me is that my vote is actually the most important vote in all of the nation. That whatever I vote for will magically cause the outcome.

[00:39:36] So you're just a sign for like where, you know, where the election is starting. Like how good the polling has been. I mean, statistically that I'm voting should be like a leading indicator of what the turnout is going to be. Yeah. Although we'll see whether you vote.

[00:39:53] That's true. So, you know, like we don't want to counter chickens. Well, hold him to account, ethical listeners. Make him vote. Drag him out of bed and make him vote. I have early voted. Like, like a lot of taxes has.

[00:40:10] So, if you would like to support us in more tangible ways, we are so thankful for our Patreon listeners who actually gave us the idea for our 200th episode. They in one of the, one of the times every six months

[00:40:29] or so where we ask our listeners to help us come up with topics and that one was not voted in by our Patreon supporters, but it was definitely one that I liked. And as 200 came closer, we decided to do it.

[00:40:44] And we have some other cool ideas for episode topics too. So the financial support is crucial and the just engagement and idea support is also crucial as if you do 200 of these, you start to be scrambling for new things to talk about. Seriously.

[00:41:05] This isn't a great example since we're literally discussing like what we already talked about before, but yes, it's a new twist on it. Yeah, so you can go to our Patreon. You could also give us a one time or recurring donation on PayPal.

[00:41:23] We have some bonus content and it's been a little slow on the bonus content just because we are adjusting to the light into the world of recording lecture videos and dealing with all of this. So our time has been stretched pretty thin, but we have

[00:41:42] some ideas for bonus episodes on the show Atlanta, which we both love. And also we were thinking of maybe taking one or two lectures that we've recorded that we like best and making those available to our Patreon supporters too. Yeah, let us know if that's a good idea.

[00:42:03] Like on the one hand I feel like why, you know, who would want to watch us lecturing, but you might. And so if our Patreon supporters want to see one of our lectures, I'll happily post. Yeah, I think I would too.

[00:42:22] It is it would be cringy if like we posted and everyone's like why would I want to see that? But... Like my students do. Like my students do. Yeah, but they have to, right? They don't have to. They're like paying money to... Yeah, they're paying me $50,000 a year.

[00:42:45] All right. So, yeah, thank you to everybody so much. We really appreciate it. Thank you to Giovanni for that cool fan art and let's get to the main episode. All right. Now to talk about I feel like we've been teasing a main

[00:43:04] segment like this for so long that we finally had to pull the trigger and do it for episode 200. I think I, Tamler was more reluctant than you. Would you agree? Yeah, I mean this was originally a Patreon suggestion. Right.

[00:43:19] And I thought it was a good idea but I think yeah, you were a little more reluctant but you have these issues with audio that I don't have. Yeah, my first response. So, okay, so episode 45 we should put a link to

[00:43:34] the original article which we both agreed was horrendous. Did you read it again? Yeah, well not the whole thing but I enough to tell you that it was terrible but there was an article, it was like a British tabloid article arguing that because brains...

[00:43:51] No, because girls' brains are wired crisscross and boys' brains are wired back to front and front to back. Yeah, that we needed to provide much like when you want to provide a balanced diet to, you know, for your health. We should psychologically provide a balanced gender

[00:44:09] diet by giving boys and girls both boy and girl toys. And so this led us to quite the argument, although I must say upon re-listening it was worse in my memory than it was. But we got a big argument and I think that in

[00:44:30] revisiting what we need to do is put some of the issues to rest because one of the problems in that argument, well one my voice was gone. I sound really stupid but two we were talking past each other for so long that it made for

[00:44:48] just a lot of useless arguing, like arguing that just didn't get us anywhere. And I like to think actually why don't we do this? I'm going to give just a few reactions to re-listening and then I want your reactions to re-listening. Sure.

[00:45:04] One of the things, so that, that I think we were arguing past each other and I don't remember if it, I guess it just took us a while to understand what we were arguing. I mean I don't think that fully resolves the argument.

[00:45:16] I think there is a disagreement there but it was frustrating to listen to ourselves go around in circles. Can I just say on that? Like I feel like there was something in the first part of it that I didn't get that you were saying and then there was

[00:45:29] something in the second part of the discussion that you didn't get that I was saying. Yep. And we got stuck and we got stuck and one of the problems I think was that the discussion would go from narrow like should you give your kids more toys to

[00:45:45] like this super, like different toys to this super broad like is their gender inequality and like in no, like it's in no apparent order. One of the things that I noticed that I think we're just a lot better on now you would know more since you edit

[00:46:00] but we talk over each other a lot less. Like we're just more polite now to each other. That was definitely an impression I got. I was like I can't believe we keep interrupting each other. Yeah. I mean maybe you thought that was the

[00:46:15] stick but I think we were actually in the moment like having some difficulties. Can I just say like and I think this is true, I'm not a hundred percent sure but my memory is that we recorded the first version of that and it was

[00:46:31] so bad and rankerous but also just incoherent that we then decided to record another version of it. And then when I was editing it I kind of picked between the two versions and I think you can hear that your voice sounds a little different

[00:46:48] depending on like where what I chose from. Do you remember that? I don't remember it. I do remember the woman I was dating at the time Alex being like what the hell is going on? She was in the other room and it wasn't a very private apartment.

[00:47:06] No right. We used to get into fights. You're like on and off air and we just don't do that anymore. Yeah my only less insightful observation was I think we cursed more like we just did. Dude did we? Yeah maybe. I don't know. Like you insulted me more.

[00:47:25] I don't know you said some pretty insulting things. You know what I didn't remember is Eliza. Yeah I had no recollection of that at all and I thought it was a low like it's just a cheap shot to try to argue with your daughter.

[00:47:42] Hey Dave you think that girls who play with dolls aren't good at math? Well I love dolls and my math teacher called me a genius because I figured out a super hard problem that even the teacher couldn't figure out. And I got an idea in both math

[00:47:57] and science on my report card. Oh and don't dismiss this as anecdotal. Wait okay so you know first of all Eliza's grade. 99 on a report card in math and science those were her highest grades. I'm confused. 3 or 4 in English or something like that. I'm confused about your desire

[00:48:17] for me not to take that as anecdotal evidence when that is the definition of anecdotal. Those were her words. I like that first of all it's just really funny for me because the difference between this like unselfconscious like 9 or 10 year old versus like this obviously self-conscious 16 year

[00:48:41] old that she is right now is so plain. She just came in there looking to spit fire. But then I clearly told her to say and don't dismiss this as and then you denied it. And then you were like well it's kind of the definition of anecdotal.

[00:49:00] And I'm like well that's those were her words you know like threw her under the bus like but I played it for her and she didn't have any memory of doing it either. It was just like. That's insane how we can have such little reverie.

[00:49:15] Yeah so yeah those were my own my only two insights like then there's obviously substantive stuff to talk about but like about in terms of of the actual episode upon re-listening to it and our audio was so the article we were working off of which is ridiculous

[00:49:31] that we would do like this Express UK thing as like the article for the main segment. Why wasn't that an opening segment? Yeah I don't know. This was the main segment what we talked about in the opening segment some like new atheist thing. Yeah yeah. So

[00:49:49] this was our main segment article it was from the Express and it leads off saying we all left on recent research that indicated boys and girls brains are wired differently. They're even pretty pictures of brains kids to prove the point that boys could read maps

[00:50:07] and girls could chat for Britain so science what the fuck scientists in Pennsylvania scanned 1,008 to 22 year olds and 8 is just a like a word and 22 is just a number for some reason 8 to 22 year olds and found that male brains appear to be wired front to back

[00:50:29] and were better the brains were better at spatial skills whereas female brains crisscross from left to right which might explain how they could cope with several tasks at once. And like no no like no reference like it says Pennsylvania as if Pennsylvania is a unit of research like

[00:50:49] and yeah and they scanned exactly 1,000 but so okay which might explain I like that like whereas female brains crisscross from left to right which might explain how they could cope with several tasks at once like in what way might that explain that. I've often thought when trying

[00:51:07] to multitask if only my brain were more crisscrossy is intuitively obviously the way that brains tackle. Like my wife is really good at multitasking in a way that I'm not but now I know the explanation it's because it's crisscross. Yeah but so then

[00:51:23] the next sentence which we talked about in the episode so parents could be forgiven for concluding that it doesn't matter if girls play with Disney princesses all days and can't read maps they're just acting out their biological destiny. This was our main set. Yeah like like none

[00:51:43] of those things make sense like zero things and those and these are three different paragraphs make sense and then actually the opposite of is true say those who know. It's like a poorly sourced article from the Times. Our brain wiring isn't set this is something that we've

[00:52:01] like we've talked about a lot it changes depending on what we do with it especially in our first 10 years so this was what we were leading off of and what got us into this big fight but now we have two new articles you found like a meta analysis

[00:52:21] of systematic research and meta analysis of toy preference research and I found. We could do a whole episode on the the David Stove article that you sent. Oh I know did you actually find it I didn't see that we should read the abstract. I read it.

[00:52:41] You read the whole article. I read the whole article. I couldn't find it like it exists I guess I didn't really try to find it but it's funny. Let's just save that. It's called let's just say the title is the intellectual capacity of women

[00:53:00] Honestly I thought that their intellectual capacity was equal to ours but apparently no. I honestly I could not believe it and you know what's funny is that you sent me the you posted this in our Slack we have a Slack channel for posting ideas and you posted

[00:53:20] too you posted the review article that was a real article. Why does all the girls have to buy the pink stuff the ethics and science of the gendered toy marketing debate by Cordelia Fein and Emma Rush and then you posted this article called the intellectual capacity

[00:53:36] of women and you said that one's a joke but this one's serious. But I read it wrong I thought you were saying that the review article was a joke but that the other one was serious and I started reading the other one and I was

[00:53:52] getting pissed at you like I was like fuck Tamler like we're not going to talk about this article this is terrible because it is actually really terrible and I really want you to read it now. That's a good opening segment for us. I'm going to tease it.

[00:54:08] The first sentence is I believe that the intellectual capacity of women is on the whole inferior to that of men. There was some I saw like on Phil papers where I don't know I even know how I found this but I don't remember

[00:54:26] I don't want to know what search terms you were using. What jam I was on but I think I think basically you just got Christina's thumb drive by mistake. I will say that before she became like a propaganda outlet for like police unions and

[00:54:48] I hope you better keep this in. Like to try like the war against boys is that she wrote was like pretty like that's a good book and I think it did highlight the way that boys are struggling right now in education and the workforce and for whatever reason

[00:55:08] like people aren't paying attention to that. I think this is also the the niche as the French would say that Jordan Peterson slid into which is like there was there is this need to address some of the problems that we have with men and

[00:55:24] he was directly speaking to them. If we're going to talk about this right now I want to go through a little bit like our episode that we disagreed upon but it's like these articles like they establish the one that you sent establish that pretty robustly boys prefer

[00:55:44] different toys than girls and you know we kind of knew that but it really pretty much documents it in definitively. We'll go through like because they had hypotheses about what might be going on in their meta-analysis of these studies and it turns out only like

[00:56:02] one of the things they thought that they predicted actually turned out to be the case. Everything else was pretty robustly I mean 16 studies but let's talk about it. Let's first talk though about our disagreement because I think that's that will set the stage. So the first disagreement

[00:56:18] where I say I I didn't totally track what you were saying and just to preface it the rest of that ridiculous article talks about how you should give children a balanced play diet and so it just goes through like different ages and says you know offer dolls to

[00:56:38] boys put girls in a more risk-taking situations let them like build high things even if they don't want to and yeah I remember this sentence in other words by giving children a wider range of toys and experiences parents can help them develop a properly rounded brain

[00:57:00] that's not to say that a girl can play with a doll or a boy shoot a toy gun but they should also have access to other toys as part of a balanced play diet and then it says one glance and a toy shop reveals

[00:57:10] just how difficult this is to achieve. And so I was a little put off by that partly because I you know I think parents are already too involved in their kids lives and so like doing this would be just like just leave the fucking kids alone

[00:57:24] and play with what they want to play with. Actually that's a first case where like your resistance about being more involved I don't think I got because I just assumed you're involved when you take a kid to the toy store anyway like it didn't seem like being more

[00:57:40] involved to me but now that you say it that is something you were saying. Yeah it is. What would be a properly rounded brain like would it diagonally in the brain? Like do we can it not be criss-crossy and rectifront like it's just smooth. It's just smooth

[00:58:00] like when Dave Chappelle talks about smooth like an egg. No but what I wasn't getting what you're right about is all you were saying was a little counter programming. Yeah. Right? Just a little counter programming to what is relentlessly pressed on them through commercials

[00:58:20] and going to the toy aisles and stuff like that. So yes you want to resist some totalitarian thing where like kids are forced to play with things they don't want to play with but just a little bit of counter programming to like the stereotypes

[00:58:34] is not the worst thing in the world. Right because I had already viewed in my mind like the hardcore marketing that is like super annoying if you ever make the mistake of letting your kids watch actual TV and not like streaming you see like this

[00:58:50] it upsets me in a like a Chomsky way like how much they're influencing what it is that our kids are wanting. And so I was like let's try like if we could create a neutral environment to see what they like that would be ideal

[00:59:04] but I fear that it's hard to create a neutral environment so yeah so like a little counter programming might be helping. I mean like but again it all depends on and this is my biggest appointment with the episode is what are we talking about here. And so

[00:59:18] like what are we talking about how to deal with like we didn't really address like what we should do like on the one hand there's just let's spend a little more time in the boy aisle with our kids and then on the other hand there's like

[00:59:32] like boys aren't allowed to play with like soldiers and dinosaurs and girls have to. Then the part that I got stuck on that I like realized that I just wasn't getting out of the way was your later argument. Because as we were arguing we started talking

[00:59:48] about like what the goal was for this right and I was trying to argue that the goal is that look like there is this problem of inequality in that women are less likely to be in STEM fields but you were saying is it inherently morally wrong

[01:00:06] to have a distribution that's different where there is a world in which women have preferences A and a world in which men and men have preferences B and a world in which they both have the same preferences is one world really morally

[01:00:20] better than the other. And I think at that like that straight up level of analysis like the straight up conceptual analytic philosophy you were doing I would say no those are not inherently it's not inherently immoral. The problem was I was stuck on you saying

[01:00:36] is it immoral to have this world that just is this way that nobody made this way and I was stuck on the word immoral because to me a moral judgment was about an agent or like an action or someone's character like that's what it means

[01:00:50] and I think you were just talking about in some in some evaluative ways is good or bad. And so that's what I was stuck on and so we spent way too much time arguing in circles about that. I think what I was stuck on is that a world

[01:01:04] in which preferences are asymmetrical like I won't even say unequal just different between men and women is only bad if those preferences themselves are somehow affecting the lives of the people. So in a world in which women truly want low paying low

[01:01:22] status jobs and men truly want high status high paying jobs then I would say that's like a bad world but I have to admit that just just the fact of differential preferences can't be immoral like just people have preferences. Yeah. And in fact the thing that I

[01:01:38] saw that and I think this is it's not just you it's everybody there's a whole assumption which is somewhat offensive for someone like me that is held by many people in this debate is that the stereotypically male fields are better.

[01:01:56] Yeah I could hear you getting pissed at that at like the science envy. Yeah exactly like you only have a good life if you're a scientist or engineer or like a computer programmer and like otherwise you might as well be selling drugs or like living in the

[01:02:10] street but like that's the weird part of this debate is that like this is kind of unquestioned on both sides even the people who are on like my stepmother's side and be like well they're just better at it like naturally and genetically but it

[01:02:24] could very well be right that the stereotypically female jobs lead to greater life satisfaction and if anything like this counter socialization that you might do to girls could make them less happy and like if anything what you would need to do is just make the boys

[01:02:42] play with American girl dolls and just leave the girls alone because they'll be happier than if you try to and this is what I think that like I actually see this happening with both boys and girls with all the stem propaganda that you get now in schools everywhere

[01:02:58] is that like people have stopped wondering whether this is actually like the right thing to make people happy you know and if it's not then like girls would be lucky to not have the stereotype of them not being and boys would be unlucky you know

[01:03:18] I get what you're saying which is that we shouldn't value these other jobs so highly but it sounds like what you're saying is that unhappiness like unhappiness is somehow higher in those jobs maybe it's just like correlated with working like how many

[01:03:34] hours you have to work and how many you know like how much it takes over your life in all these other ways and like do you find it meaningful and do you find it like do you feel like you are do you feel fulfilled by what you're doing

[01:03:48] okay so here's a question if an investment if somebody wants to go into investment banking and they're like they really want it they just they're like yeah man this is the most awesome job in the world I want to do it and you know

[01:04:02] that they're actually going to be miserable which is probably the case like these well especially here we get like a bunch of kids going into investment banking because we're close to New York City and they actually get burned out really quickly and a lot of them are miserable

[01:04:18] so but they want to do it so are you saying that because they might be miserable we should push them away from it even though they want it well this is the thing I'm not saying that necessarily but I'm saying like it's not automatically clear

[01:04:34] that like they're getting the better deal than somebody who becomes a teacher and you know even though they're making a lot less money and it's I guess considered lower status I don't know like what the status how the status I mean I think definitely like high school

[01:04:52] and elementary teachers are lower status than investment bankers but I don't know how you measure status in these situations well the amount of money that society is willing to pay you is one one way but that's okay so salary is one thing but salary the status independent of

[01:05:08] that is like you know you're like a professor you don't make as much money as some of the people who work in industry and do you feel like your lower status than those people like I don't feel like that no they give me status

[01:05:24] for being a professor so it's not just money here's the status test like when you when a Jewish girl brings home a guy she's dating what does the mother say yeah that is the and you don't see that those studies run actually like you're a wife okay

[01:05:48] we have matured so much yeah where do they tell their friends on the phone like do they start off with what he is like he's a lawyer or he's a nice young man my Elizo was saying to me the other day there was some like maybe a teacher

[01:06:08] or something was like and like I told him you were a philosophy professor and he thought that was actually cool she was like really deeply surprised you know I will say like I get so like my daughter the way that I get points with her is just

[01:06:28] like if I'm on the internet or I know somebody who's on the internet that's status exactly so a few things I think that because we're starting in a world where the male dominated jobs are higher status and higher pain to begin with it's like a deeply

[01:06:50] confounding like it's a deep compound that that's how the world is because I think you're right like if suppose that being a nurse or a caretaker or a elementary school teacher was valued in society and a high paying job that gave you power

[01:07:08] then it would be less of a problem I think the deck is stacked so that the male dominated fields get more status and in fact you have these weird cases in which you get a reversal sometimes so this is somebody told me this

[01:07:22] I haven't looked up the paper but apparently in Russia I don't know if it's still the case but for a while women dominated in the medical field there were way more women M.D.'s than men it's because it just wasn't it wasn't a high status job

[01:07:36] and so when you take that away and you get like this ramp up and women doing that job then that's when it makes me wonder like what you know that's why I want the counter-programming just to see like hey you have a shot at being

[01:07:52] a high status but your point is that it shouldn't be that way to begin with they shouldn't be high status jobs to begin with like there at least there shouldn't be a difference yeah I mean I do believe that but also

[01:08:02] that like so let me read something from the Cordelia Fine article so she's and it's not just Cordelia Fine it's also she has a co-author but I don't have to be a part right now that's what you're saying yeah it's just a woman so whatever while the

[01:08:20] negative effects of gender stereotypes can be detrimental to both sexes because male typed occupations enrolls often have higher status in earnings relative to female type counterparts there are particularly bad, assume bad consequences for females with clear lifelong impacts so that's where I take and she cites somebody who

[01:08:46] documents the empirical support which I don't doubt but money isn't everything and status isn't everything and so you have to look at all these other things like and thank god because like you know I don't make a lot of money compared to like somebody who's in STEM

[01:09:02] you have to look at all these other things like job satisfaction and hours and life satisfaction and you know you see plenty of guys who are in high status jobs that are wealthy and like some people here who work in oil and gas but they're like hollowed out

[01:09:18] by their jobs and they don't find it meaningful and they say that they don't find it meaningful and it's like it leads to like a deep crisis and so like while I agree absolutely that people in education and social work should have more status and get more money

[01:09:34] I also think that like it's not that clear who's getting the better deal here well no but the problem isn't that as I see it I mean the problem is that what you have is women with the same level of aptitude and interest starting off

[01:09:52] not getting into some of these STEM careers that's just like well if you want to be a miserable neurosurgeon who's like constantly on call and has like a shitty life then I want my daughter to have equal access to that

[01:10:06] shitty life and I want the men to have equal access to like the $35,000 a year public school teacher in like the inner city who's like losing all just losing their shit because the kids don't do anything in their class or whatever you know

[01:10:20] How do I reach these kids? Yeah, make a movie of them Gangsters paradise the white, it's usually a white woman teacher that like saves thinking too of what's the guy in the wire press Belusky in the wire I love press though Even though he blinded

[01:10:40] a little black kid is how are you like him That's true That's what that show does I mean like Bodie I know you're rooting for Bodie like by the end and he was just like scum He killed Michael B Jordan for God's sake I know Where was that?

[01:11:00] So So yeah, like I just want like I would like there to be equal access to shitty jobs and life affirming good jobs because there are plenty of women who are in roles that they're miserable in that don't have high status But I also think that like so

[01:11:18] here's one thing I was thinking when I was re-listening to the episode so when I was giving my like ideal societies idealized societies there was one where there was like equal distribution of men and women in all the different fields

[01:11:34] and there was another one where there was unequal distribution but there was no prejudice or discrimination in that world if like you conceded but I'm about to make a concession like in that world you know if like 75% of engineers are men but the 25% of women who are

[01:11:52] engineers have like all the same opportunities and nobody is trying to steer them away from it then my feeling is that that's fine like it doesn't matter like we don't need like a 50-50 split there but then like there's something you said

[01:12:08] at the end where it's like but that's not really how it works right if like a man if a field is dominated by one sex or the other or one race or the other probably there's going to be this people are going to feel uncomfortable

[01:12:22] if they're in the minority and maybe they'll be less respected and so that would be a pro-tonto reason to try to make things more equal but again not you don't want to over socialize people so that they're doing work that they don't want to do

[01:12:40] Which can happen right so like we know a lot of kids who go to our universities who come in with like especially I'll say as the sort of child of immigrants and like being raised in a community where there are

[01:12:56] a lot of immigrants the pressure on being like a doctor or a lawyer is intense man and so I see so many kids who come in pre-med and they don't want to be like you can just tell they don't want to be so yeah

[01:13:10] yeah I'm with you there but let me just say it was actually a funny reversal to see you arguing what was such like an idealistic argument where you were almost like arguing like a veil of ignorance kind of like in the absence of all other things

[01:13:26] like and I was arguing like but it's messy like when there's men who dominate the field women feel uncomfortable and like totally while at the same time calling me a Kantian well I want to unpack what I was saying about the Kantian if I can

[01:13:42] because that's where you said you don't know what I'm talking about but I'm not 100% sure I knew but I'm going to give it a shot that was you punching me in the balls because you weren't winning the fight no I I don't know about

[01:13:56] that but you know what's weird about podcasts is that like I know like I took I listen to it on a walk and I know every every place that I was at every juncture in the podcast so like the time I was on

[01:14:12] the podcast like the time that I was talking about the Kantian like I can pinpoint within like 30 feet where I was on this walk it's amazing it's amazing it's an example that I always use when I'm lecturing on memory in intro psych because memory is hugely

[01:14:28] spatial and so you can you can if you can tie facts or events whatever to regions of physical space you can remember that shit so much easier I yeah I remember like I'll listen to there's a podcast episode that I love that I always remember I was

[01:14:44] vacuuming the exact spot not even like that I was vacuuming the spot I was vacuuming when I heard it and if I'm like biking past a place where I heard like some podcast that made an impression on me it'll pop to mind again oh this is where

[01:15:00] I heard that you know exactly it's incredible it's like this weird thing it is how memory champions do it if you look at these like world competitions of memory champions like people who can memorize an entire deck of cards in like 30 seconds what they're doing is they're

[01:15:16] putting each card in a they're remembering like a particular path that they walk right like that they know very well like from my dorm room to the cafeteria and at each spot in their imaginary walk they put the card and that helps them remember so yeah it's

[01:15:32] incredible it's amazing that's like some like the only neuroscientist will be able to explain how that works well if your brain is front to back but remember you should always figure eight if it has a figure eight like you should always wipe front to back

[01:15:48] by the way I think that's the only front to back wisdom that there is I think that you yeah you've said that to me on the podcast multiple times and I still like never remember which way I'm supposed to wipe you want to end with the poop

[01:16:04] you don't want to spread you know you don't want to spread it on like your balls you don't want to E. coli on your nut sack okay so actually there this leads to a point that I unfortunately didn't send this to you in time

[01:16:20] but I was reading it right before but there is there is this finding that many I think including your stepmom like champion but there is a finding that says in there the demonstrates in countries with greater gender egalitarianism gender quality so there is a standardized

[01:16:38] people measure using a bunch of different metrics like how much gender qualities in the nation in any given nation and so you can you can like rank nations in terms of the gender quality which is totally accurate and valid it is what what many people mean

[01:16:52] by quality so you have like things like well I don't remember up some ahead but it's about at least it's not just one measure it's a bunch of different measures in those countries women end up being in stem less like the higher the gender equality

[01:17:08] presumably the more options the woman has the less likely they are to be in stem and so I was like in the rabbit hole that I was in in preparing for this podcast I started I was reading about that because that it is weird right that's like a

[01:17:22] that's a weird finding that that might say something it's not that weird because I don't think it's that fun to be in stem well your anti-stem feelings aside if we assume well you know they don't count your field by the way in like whenever they're doing

[01:17:40] like the massive inequalities they never count psychology and like social sciences in general because we're social science yeah and you know even the life sciences are like heavily way more heavily women like biology right yeah exactly so people have argued if what is really happening

[01:18:00] is that in the absence of of inequality pressures you see women going to more traditionally female stereotypical roles that means that their preference was that the whole time right so it's not it's like in the absence of pressure you should see their true preference emerge or whatever

[01:18:20] so I was reading a study published in 2018 that was looking at this to try and unpack what was going on and it was actually super interesting I'll put a link to it yeah I wish you had sent this to me yeah I know it was right

[01:18:32] before I thought it would be mean to send you a paper right before but but I figured I could just summarize it what they looked at in this paper was across I think it was 67 countries they took there is a standard assessment that's given to thousands

[01:18:48] of people in these countries that is an aptitude test of science, math and reading so students get these these aptitude tests and they get a score like how good are you at science literacy at math and at reading skills reading comprehension

[01:19:06] and so they can look across all the countries at the gender differences and what you find is that there is no gender difference in really in science literacy so about half of the countries a little bit less like a third of the countries boys score higher

[01:19:24] on science literacy, a third of the countries girls score higher and about a third of the countries there is no significant difference and what these authors looked at was well maybe what's going on is that when you're making a career decision what you're using to guide your choice

[01:19:40] like a rational agent who has no they're not like there's no pressure external pressure to make these decisions a rational agent might say let me look at my relative strength so what they find is that a lot of women score higher on reading than science

[01:19:58] and so even though they're objectively good at science they're better at reading and what they look at is the quality this gender equality index and what they find is that in countries with less gender equality their relative strengths matter less so women in those

[01:20:16] countries what they argue is since they're experiencing hardship to begin with they go after the jobs that are higher paying so if I'm good at science I'm going to go into one of these STEM fields because I actually can earn more money I can provide for my family

[01:20:30] and then fuck you know even though I'm better at reading fuck that like I'm going to go into the higher paying job it's in countries with less inequality where women are just better able to go with their highest strength right and I don't know

[01:20:44] what this says but I but it was a nice way of showing one that it's not that the inherent science and math abilities are different although math there was a gender difference but science abilities like it's not that those abilities are just not present in women

[01:21:02] it's something else and by like in every single country women score higher in reading and in most countries men score higher in math but in science because science is kind of bullshit but also kind of but also kind of mathy yeah that's really interesting

[01:21:22] I mean this is something I we have a lot of children of immigrants and first generation college students at U of H and those are the ones that feel the most pressure to take the high paying high status jobs and if you tell them

[01:21:40] even if they want to be like an English major or philosophy major like that's just their the parents just aren't having yeah it makes sense because they don't have the buffer they don't have like the ability that some parents have of like you know catching you

[01:21:52] if you fall right and I could be an English major because my you know like it would just like worse comes to worse which it practically was well I would you know I had a buffer exactly and so this is this cuts between

[01:22:08] the sexes and is more of a class thing but this is also the thing where like if women are more are better at it and also would have more fulfilling lives than trying to force into and I say this because I have women tastes

[01:22:24] you know and so like I feel like I wouldn't have been happy doing some of the things that our stereotypically male that yeah like it seems like wrong headed to try to engineer that yeah so I think like one way of looking at the problem is

[01:22:42] just at the level of individual differences and not gender differences I think that all things being equal if there is no financial social like you know weirdly sort of cultural pressure to go into one field or another and you're just

[01:22:56] left here on devices I want us to be able to live in a society where you do what you want to do so if it turns out that what is driving women's desire to go say into teaching is that they have a relative

[01:23:08] high aptitude of reading over science even though science is good and they have that preference then I would think in a society where they're not being pressured to be a teacher or a nurse like you should be a teacher like they tell little girls

[01:23:22] to be nurses instead of doctors in a world that was more gender equal I would say like in Finland and Norway where you get this effect I would say that's not an immoral outcome like I wouldn't want to pressure those people

[01:23:34] into doing something they don't want to do there could be pragmatic reasons where you're like well I want more female doctors because female doctors actually make for better doctors for women like you might want that pressure to be there but if there really is

[01:23:50] some propensity for women to be better at reading and they like that then good. You would say that about an individual like I'm not going to try to like this is the thing that they want to do they're good at and it'll make them happy

[01:24:04] so let them do it. The problem is trying to tease apart what we've told women will make them happy. Let me try to, that's a good segue into trying to unpack what I was saying about the Kantian thing and maybe I'll play this clip

[01:24:20] and it was out of the blue that I brought this up when I listen to it I had the same feeling I had in the original like it just renewed Alright, last thing I want to say from my point of view because I know everyone

[01:24:44] is going to hate me on this even though I'm so good hearted and big hearted and I haven't formulaized this yet when I do it'll be like a breakthrough and philosophical thought. There's this sort of implicit ideal in which there's, I don't know, there's something

[01:25:02] platonic about it or Kantian where the only thing that should matter is this numina. Some sort of rationalist conception of the soul is the only thing that should matter and we should work to eliminate every other difference and influence that

[01:25:22] I don't know what the fuck you're talking about I swear. How does a simple claim about basic gender inequality and differences in the way that we treat our daughters versus our sons like how does that have anything to do with Kant's metaphysics? I mean, it's like you're denying

[01:25:38] you just want to deny that this should happen It's like, I want to let kids play with the toys they want to play with Alright, how do they decide what they want to play with? You have some sort of you think that they make their preferences

[01:25:50] in a vacuum only influence but that's the thing. No, you're assuming that the only way they can be playing with the toys that they really in this like Kantian platonic sense want to play with is if it's that they haven't been influenced by anything either externally

[01:26:10] or internally through their brain wiring That's absolutely not what I'm saying I want, yes I understand that the reason that they want to play with certain toys is in part because they've seen TV shows and they have friends and you don't think that those TV shows

[01:26:26] and friends and society is sexist? I understand that that will influence to not You don't think that those influences are directional in making women be... Maybe those influences make them more likely to want to play with dolls That's the part I just don't see anything

[01:26:46] wrong with. So then they play with dolls, then they want to play with dolls and they're happy when they play with dolls and I don't see that... and then maybe for boys this is always focused on girls maybe boys the influences to play with guns and dinosaurs

[01:27:02] and whatever and so that makes them want to play with guns and dinosaurs and whatever So what? So then that's what they play with and they're happy because they need another premise that they should be wanting to play with the same toys. That's your end

[01:27:18] It's not my premise and you're being so thickheaded about this Music There was this sense that I got from you and this was at the same time that there were people saying don't pay attention to interviews because that'll just be biased and so you won't

[01:27:42] get a real sense of the person if you interview them It just seemed to me that there was this conception of a Kantian numinal self. I don't know why I brought Plato into it in the episode I don't think this has anything to do with

[01:27:58] Plato. Yeah, now that you've come around to loving Plato, now you're recanting your platonic like no the cave's cool No, but I just don't even get what I was thinking even at the time where I didn't like this has nothing to do

[01:28:10] with Plato as far as I could tell I don't even know what I was talking about with that. But the Kantian thing I absolutely do. So this numinal self that exists independent of gender and sociol- socialization biology and that the goal of moral philosophy is to organize society

[01:28:32] in a way that just gives that numinal self that's independent of all those things maximal freedom and that anytime you get socialization through gender stereotypes or whatever else influences the numinal self that that constrains its freedom and that's unfair. And then just because whatever for whatever reason

[01:28:54] right now it's usually unfair towards women but you could definitely say that it's also unfair towards men in you know all sorts of ways too but like there is no numinal self which you agree with and so like the socialization and the biology just is

[01:29:10] the person. Yeah I still don't understand the appeal to the numinal. Like I'm not even sure that you're getting the numinal right here like we don't really have access to the numinal but like I understand what you're saying but I do think look

[01:29:26] there are ways in which like I guess the thought experiment for me is this like imagine that we wanted to systematically oppress like redheads right and so we went out of our way to tell redheads that they could only ever be busboys and pooper scoopers and all that

[01:29:42] and redheads turns out they end up like developing preference for pooper scooper toys when they're kids I think that the question of what a redhead really wants to do is not an odd one like it's one that you would say like well in the absence of the pressure

[01:30:02] that we've put on the redhead to like poops pooper scooping would that redhead develop other desires? I think the answer would be yeah because we've actually done something to like we know in this thought experiment we've actually intervened to make their preferences one way or another

[01:30:18] now what happens when I remove all of that pressure is that the biology just has a greater chance of popping up as a source of preferences and so in that sense like I get why you're saying like well why is biology might not be fair

[01:30:32] in any sense but like at least there is no agent who's actively trying to shape the preference and that's why in your thought experiment where two worlds where one the biology causes inequality and socialization causes inequality I was like well if there is an agent that is

[01:30:48] like actively causing somebody to have preferences that give rise to a worse outcome for them then remove that like I think we should remove that yeah if they're actively trying it's weird because they're not acting like nobody's trying to like it's not a conscious decision

[01:31:05] to like oppress people it's just trying to make money based on like the previous socialization that's right so so I don't I think that it's actually probably bad to attribute active desires to to oppress but there are structures that were caused because of the original intentions

[01:31:21] to keep women in check or whatever and in Hispanics like me you know I've broken free I have broken free of is with Hispanics like white it's my word for white Hispanic white you know we are we're few we're proud we tend to vote Republican in Florida

[01:31:39] white to next oh yeah sorry white white T next yeah I mean so but there is this weird thing like we're all just a bundle of socialization and biology and like to try to like untangle that and find this thing that exists this independent of them

[01:31:59] is seems like a fool's errand but obviously that's true if there's this even conscious or even unconscious effort to like move certain people you know it's a good thought experiment for why this would be bad just letting it naturally unfold we would

[01:32:17] want I think in an ideal world that them to have more options and options where they could I don't know there's something there that is somewhere between what you're saying and the new man some middle position that I want to take where if you have aptitudes and abilities

[01:32:35] that are just part of your biology like you're pretty good at art and let's say you're better at art than you are at math I want you to be able to do art for a living and so in that sense I want socialization to be

[01:32:51] to not hinder you to not hinder you but you're absolutely right that there is no way does remind me of our discussion of John Rawls and like the weirdness of what it means to be behind the veil of ignorance where you have

[01:33:05] your nobody like you can't be a nobody like I'm infusing this thought experiment with some value about what's good and what's bad but still I can't shake the opinion that little girls are often told and you and I have seen it like maybe it's getting better

[01:33:23] but I've totally seen people be like oh you should be a nurse or you'll be such a good mother or you'll be whatever like they get that more right in one of Eliza's math classes they had they were assigned a project to do like

[01:33:39] recipes and like the point was to work with fractions like how to deal with fractions and all that but they had to do recipes and I remember saying she was probably like finally something that's actually useful for you

[01:33:53] I will say one thing that I thought we were both guilty of is like this weird assumption that like if biology is the cause then it's less malleable than if sociosation is the cause like why were we like that like we know better than that

[01:34:11] I think that you're right I disagree with what we were saying I think that what we were driven by must have been the use of biological arguments in people just in this domain of arguing people often are like pointing to innate skills and abilities but it's absolutely true

[01:34:31] that just because it's biological doesn't mean it's not changeable like it's stupid that was so stupid and like I couldn't believe that neither of us were like like why were we just taking that for granted even in my thought experiment it was like

[01:34:45] both of us were taking for granted well if it's biological then it's harder to change but it's definitely not harder to change like you know depending on the domain like it could be much easier to change if it's biological or much harder like it's like right like

[01:35:03] I think Steven Pinker to invoke a champion it points this out nicely by saying like you know one of the biggest common biological constraints we have is poor eyesight and all it takes is just a trip to the mall it's a great example of that

[01:35:21] like it's like biological and you can fix it by just putting on a pair of glasses or having contact lenses that's right and what's his name? Tubin could have fixed his biology by just raising his camera I wouldn't have had to say this biological weakness

[01:35:39] I am so glad that you know this because probably I would be seeing you jerking off right now if you didn't... That's what I'm saying like look it's not wrong it's not intrinsically wrong to jerk off even when you're doing a political simulation

[01:35:55] what's wrong is showing people that you are right? Like if we knew when people were jerking off and like what you know like it would be a terrible terrible like piece of knowledge to have about a person we just do not... We want to be protected

[01:36:11] from knowledge about their sexual behavior and desires so but you know do what you need to So the thought experiment was that here's a world where women are... There's just unequal distributions in various fields based on sex and it is the result more of biology than

[01:36:37] socialization. Why am I having I know I'm now used to saying socialism because of your recent podcast habits Yeah but so there's one world but in that world it's this idealized world that I was for whatever reason thinking was okay to imagine that there's no discrimination. It's cool

[01:36:59] if you want to be it but chances are like if you're a girl or you're going to want to go into this field or boy you're going to want to go into that field but if you do go into the minority field you're going to be fine

[01:37:11] and I was saying is it any worse if the cause of that is socialization versus biology now I think it's a fucked up question because of what we were just saying but you were insisting that it is worse because you know it came from something that we could

[01:37:31] change more easily I really think it's because you think that stem fields are better and so like it would be unfair to women No it was because of my very sort of like manufacturing consent kind of argument that when you say socialization changes preferences

[01:37:47] in my head I couldn't remove and this is what made it such a weirdly idealistic argument from you in my head I couldn't undo the fact that the socialization pressures are for lower paying less prestigious jobs and you know by the way there's even

[01:38:03] a time when I said something about leadership and you said this is the first time you bring it up but it wasn't I had brought it up earlier You know that was actually a really good point like when you brought up like congress or whatever

[01:38:15] I mean you're always in the political space I mean this is just who I am it's like hard for me though But yeah like there like I was starting to feel it more but because I don't have that pro stem bias

[01:38:29] I wasn't feeling the other thing but then like okay but this is representation and but anyway that was the debate we were having in the last half of it which is kind of interesting because I actually share the intuition I remember saying that and I still

[01:38:45] kind of feel it that if it's if it comes from some socialization process that's unconscious it's just sort of building on earlier socialization and it's not like money neutrally like capitalism does just tries to eat everybody's souls and this is the way it's trying to eat your soul

[01:39:03] that that's worse than if it was just you know biological dispositions again that's a confused way of thinking about it but like I kind of agreed with it but it does it's weird like why? Why given that there's no like central planner here there's just nature in different

[01:39:23] domains like working on you like what matter? Why does it matter? It does come down to like the history of the systems that are being perpetuated in the socialization so if it's a completely random so here's here's something suppose that marketers and whatever the capitalist engines

[01:39:51] randomly chose to bombard half of the children's population with messages about like hating math and like you know staying at home and the other half like got like a bunch of more high here's like a judges robe for you to play with and like a chemistry set and

[01:40:11] in that society in like like in ours those were higher status already and then people start just telling those kids randomly like yeah I mean the the half socialized to like you know want to be teachers and other low status jobs like they started talking to them about

[01:40:27] how cool it is to be a teacher and at the end you end up with these two very different distributions based on like which ones like that seems wrong right like I feel like now I'm stacking the argument by positing an agent that

[01:40:43] like started this but there was something that started like I don't want to say patriarchy but I think that's what I'm looking for I think that's the word I know I'm going to lose like we're going to lose 10,000 listeners from me saying the patriarchy but like

[01:40:57] it's a thing yeah no that's a thing but what's weird is that that seems worse than if it was again given that it's just a patriarchy that you're sort of organically forms seems worse than if it was some sort of biological thing

[01:41:15] that like and I think this is just our fucked up way of understanding like how causes work but like that seems worse than if it was just this is the biology of it and you can only push against that so far yeah I think it's hard

[01:41:31] for me to un-unknow like that there are there is there aren't really biological differences that are driving this that much like that if there are they're really small and they seem maybe this is why maybe this is why society's structures became the way they are like these

[01:41:51] small differences in biology like getting magnified through socialization but you're right that it's a naive view of if there were something that girls were born with that made them bad at math that could be fixed with a simple like you know just like

[01:42:03] a minor surgery and they would all be just as good at math I mean I guess if you could just like inject somebody so in some give your make your son play with American girls like or at least an easy big oven you know

[01:42:17] to get some of those ratios to work my daughter did just say she's like you know what I kind of feel like being an English major so the socialization ended up working in the end in spite of her genius at math that said

[01:42:31] and I don't think it's gonna be on this episode because this is long but she has a theory about Taylor Swift's new album and dark the show dark the Netflix show dark that will blow your mind so stay tuned

[01:42:45] on page run at least like just let her go let her let her have at the mic yeah she's she's got this down I'm really impressed and I'm actually I think there's something to it like I think Taylor Swift and dark is like but you also

[01:42:57] think there's something to the UFO conspiracy absolutely like I think there are aliens now it's just like they're on the moon like Venus it was like there was Venus the alien from Venus but now they're just on the moon so like that's very close

[01:43:13] I think I saw one the other day walking down my street no I mean we're totally fucked and people are like worried about whether like the senate goes Democrat when there's just aliens on the moon right now I don't understand they're the ones giving Mitch McConnell

[01:43:31] those bruises exactly that's the one good thing you can say about them off the rails alright thank you for thank you charlissners for sticking not just through this episode but for 200 that was the thing that we were going to talk about next episode

[01:43:47] alright join us next time on very bad wizards

Episode 200: Our 200th Episode Spectactular