Episode 201: Very Bad Lizard People

[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.

[00:00:16] There's a conspiracy out there. You know what I'm saying? There's a conspiracy. A C-O-N...spiracy. The Queen in Oz has spoken. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Who are you? Good man. Good. They think deep thoughts, and with no more brains than you have. B-

[00:01:04] Anybody can have a brain. You're a very bad man. I'm a very good man. Just a very bad wizard. Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Sommers from the University of Houston.

[00:01:18] Dave, Amy Coney Barrett was sworn in, and she's been a Supreme Court justice for a few weeks now. And I just have one question. Where is my handmade? I thought I would have a handmade by now. I know.

[00:01:31] I thought we were all team handmade, and I got like the outfits fitted and ordered. They're just waiting. They're just gathering dust with a waste of money. I already sat down. Eliza was going to explain how that was going to work to her.

[00:01:44] I'm rehearsing a couple things about how to talk to Jan about it. And it's okay because it's a woman who's bringing this about, right? Because it would be sexist if not. Isn't that the point?

[00:01:56] What's the point of her being a Supreme Court justice if we are not going to get our handmaids? Embarrassingly dude, I had like three abortion schedules and I canceled them just thinking,

[00:02:05] you know, I don't want to, you know how when you cancel too late they charge you anyway? I was like, I'm going to avoid that because it's pretty sure. Right. And now it's like worst case scenario. You don't get the abortions or the handmade.

[00:02:19] I can't believe you would say such a thing. That was a bit of a conspiracy actually that came from liberals who were concerned about her becoming a Supreme Court justice as well as the process by which she became a Supreme Court justice.

[00:02:40] But she apparently served in some Catholic charismatic group, if that makes sense? I don't know. I thought all Catholics were kind of boring. No, I don't think so. Catholics are the fun ones. It's the Protestants that are the boring ones. Well, church isn't fun.

[00:02:57] Maybe they find fun outside the church. They do. There's something I remember from like in high school, one of my history teachers said if you go to Europe, the good food is in the Catholic countries. The bad food is in the Protestant countries.

[00:03:14] And that's pretty much exactly right. Like Italy, France, Spain, awesome food, England, Germany, what? Germany is split. You have like the counter-reformation people. So maybe it's by geography there. But yeah. So apparently she was in one of these. I came across that term, Kara's Manor.

[00:03:34] I don't know, but she served as a handmade and people thought that that was like, you know, the Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. But it turns out that there is no connection there. And what, you know. She was just like the clarity of thinking. That.

[00:03:51] So today we're going to talk about conspiracies in the second segment. We're pretty excited about this. The psychology of it, the science of it, the allure of conspiracy theorizing and the irrationality of, or not irrationality of believing in them. Yeah.

[00:04:10] This is a case where we assigned ourselves a few readings, which will as always post in the show notes. But yeah, I was actually looking for, not that I don't always look forward to recording with you, Tim.

[00:04:21] But but in this case has actually kind of excited about talking about the conspiracies. Mainly because I knew you were going to come with some like, you know, defense of some crazy shit. So I'm just ready. I'm prepared. I took like a LaRazza Pam.

[00:04:35] I'm not going to get mad at you. I mean, if you're going to sit there and deny that Katie Perry is actually John Benet Ramsey growing up, then I, you know, I don't know what, like, I don't know what will convince you at this point.

[00:04:48] The only reason I believe that is because of the chemtrails. I don't even know what that is. No, yeah. We'll talk about that. Yeah. I mean, one of the problems with me is I think I'm prone to believe in conspiracy theories,

[00:05:01] but I like, I haven't really gone deep into any of them. You're like a lazy conspiratorial. Exactly. I'm like lazy. I'm too lazy.

[00:05:12] But I started to get into it just preparing for this and that I could see this being like a two part or maybe even just like a series, like like a Borges, you know, like. Yeah, it could very well be.

[00:05:26] I doubt that we'll ever do an episode again that isn't about conspiracies. All right. For the opening segment, we didn't do in our 200th episode much naval gazing, you know, like it seems like if there's any,

[00:05:43] if there's any excuse to kind of crawl up your own ass and talk about the kind of the podcast and how we feel about it and what it's meant to us and the challenges and the. I don't know. The glory, the glory, the glory, the pussy. Yeah.

[00:06:04] It's so we figured we'd take that opportunity now since we didn't in the 200th. And I don't know, just talk about some of our listeners have asked us for advice. People have asked us for advice about starting a podcast.

[00:06:17] I don't know, you know, like how good our suggestions will be on that, but we can at least talk about sort of what we do, why we love it, why we sometimes struggle and yeah. Yeah. What is your favorite thing about doing this podcast, Dave?

[00:06:31] You know, I think about this a lot. And I think over the years, my motivation and the aspects that I enjoy shift around.

[00:06:41] But I think the one steady thing that like upon reflection that I always like about this podcast is that it makes me sort of, you know, in a pre commitment sort of way, it makes me read things that I wouldn't normally have set aside the time to read.

[00:06:58] And I think it's a real selfish way. Yeah. It has, I think, you know, a lot of people go into at least the kinds of academia that we like wanting to be broad and wanting to talk about a lot of ideas.

[00:07:10] And, you know, you quickly learn in a master's or PhD that the whole point of that is to squeeze the shit out of like that desire and like narrow your interests. Right. And this suck the life and soul and vitality out of that view.

[00:07:24] And it just shows you the shards of your soul and what you used to be interested in. Right.

[00:07:29] Like, you know, I feel like it's a rite of passage to like in your fourth year read some paper you wrote when you were a junior in college and just feel so terrible about how. Yeah. I'm so used to be like, like used to have.

[00:07:40] I used to like things. Right. No, it is. It's like a recapturing of that spirit a little bit. Yeah. You're right. Yeah.

[00:07:50] And the aspect that comes into play with our listeners is that I feel like we give some of them that excuse and we give them some of that feeling too.

[00:07:58] And a lot of people who just weren't able to pursue education to the degree that they wanted to just get to like hang around with us and think and talk about this stuff. Yeah.

[00:08:08] And yeah, I think that's probably if there's one thing that keeps me going is like I want to keep doing that. Yes. I mean, teaching a seminar that every once in a while we get to teach seminars that we just came up with on our own, right?

[00:08:20] That are like just our babies. And this is like a seminar, like our baby. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like I teach a lot of classes, especially now that I like where I'm going in pretty green into it and that's and I love doing that.

[00:08:35] It's because I'm learning something and learning it and having to teach it is a real is a really good way of learning it. I totally agree. That's like my favorite thing both selfishly because like it really does account for especially what we did.

[00:08:50] We were doing brothers caramats of like accounts for or caramazov it accounts for like probably 60 to 70 percent of my reading, you know, like this podcast. I know I was just talking to my family and my mom was like do you still read as much as you used to?

[00:09:03] And I was like not really, you know, like I left to my own devices. I'll read as in I'm on Reddit and Twitter and stuff. Right. But but it's rare to take the time. Time. And then I was like, well, no, I do read because to this afternoon.

[00:09:15] Right. I spent a lot of time reading. Yeah.

[00:09:18] So I love that and I love providing that opportunity for others because I know that podcasts have done that for me, you know, like, like those people you talk about who who who email us and say, you know, I never got to pursue like I was interested in philosophy or was interested in psychology, but then I never got to really pursue it and your podcast gives us that opportunity.

[00:09:38] That's like me with like film, you know, and that's what like film podcasts provide to me as like a little window into, you know, be like feeling like, oh, I went to, you know, I went to school or I was just a little more rigorous in like my study of cinema and directors and the process of making movies and all of that.

[00:09:59] So the fact that we can do that for others is it's great because I know I value it. And I really, it is. It's one of the fun things about how the podcast has evolved is that we have branched out in all sorts of ways. Yeah.

[00:10:16] And that sort of speaks to a challenge, which is that we've been doing it for eight years and coming up with like stuff that we haven't discussed can be a challenge.

[00:10:24] For some reason, sometimes more than other times maybe when we're busy, especially busy with the semester, a lot of the work just comes from actually trying to come up with topics that we have a shot at saying anything interesting about. Yeah.

[00:10:38] And that we haven't like kind of done to death before. But you know, like then there's all these doors that have been opened like the Borges episodes or the Bible or like I don't think we ever thought we would do an episode on Ecclesiastes. Yeah.

[00:10:53] When we started this podcast. Totally. And when that happens, it always like gives me this shot of like energy where I'm like, oh, you know, there is an untapped, there's here's an untapped thing that we'll like we might be able to continue doing because we both enjoyed it.

[00:11:06] Yeah. And it's funny because if I was giving advice to other people for starting a podcast, I wouldn't sort of suggest that you have it be something that, you know, one day is about a movie.

[00:11:22] The other day is about like a couple of scientific papers or philosophy articles or and then another day it's Borges stories. Like I think that only works if you've like once you're a little more established. Yeah.

[00:11:36] That is, that is, you know, there's something I'm not quite sure what the advice is.

[00:11:42] But I've talked to, you know, like a few people who are up and coming podcasters, you know, sometimes you and I get invited to be on someone's podcast and they're just starting and they ask us for advice.

[00:11:53] And I often think because a lot of these are just interview podcasts where it's one person bringing on a new person every week or every other week or whatever.

[00:12:02] And I often think that that's just super challenging because you're relying really on drawing people to your podcast based on the guest.

[00:12:15] And one of the things that you and I have been able to do that I think both allow us to venture into these other kinds of like domains is build a relationship with each other and with our audience such that they won't like they won't just.

[00:12:32] Dismiss the all this week's about Ecclesiastes then I'll skip it or whatever they will listen just because maybe they enjoy you and I talking to each other. And that's hard when it's just you and a brand new person every week. Yeah.

[00:12:45] And the other thing that's a challenge about that. And I think it's is that you are talking to someone often that you don't know, which is something we rare some we rarely do that we don't have guests that often and when we do we usually know them.

[00:13:00] So pretty well. But if you're doing an interview podcast you're talking to people who you either don't know at all and so like and you have to establish chemistry like every time starting from scratch.

[00:13:12] Yeah, I don't know like like there are there are people who have come to me asking for advice ideas about starting a podcast like we're writers and we're also new fathers or something.

[00:13:24] And I think that this is that's something that's a lot harder these days than it was when we started out to just where we're philosopher and psychologist and we're you know like and we're friends and we're you know that's I think that's

[00:13:38] something I don't know if it's squeezed out but I think you have to be really good and you have to have a lot of luck to get that going these days.

[00:13:44] Yeah, and a lot of you know a lot of people maybe who who have an audience like I'm like Jesse single and Katie Herzog like they've. Developed a show but they had an audience like you know as journalists. Yeah, it's I think it's as turf as big as.

[00:14:09] And as Jews but weird Jews and big as Katie Herzog juice. I don't know actually that's a good question I just assumed. We like Jesse single right. I mean I've never met him. No, no I love him both actually.

[00:14:24] Having a more niche you know there are subreddits about people who like you know foot have foot fetishes but only feet that are you know painted with black nail polish or something like there's and there's thousands upon thousands of people right so

[00:14:38] So you can find if you're really passionate about something which I think is the other piece of advice you would you should do a podcast only about something that you would love to talk about even if no one were listening because.

[00:14:51] First like yeah no one is no one is no one is it yeah. I mean we really had like it took a while for anybody to listen and we used to get so excited if like we'd get an email or but we enjoyed just doing it.

[00:15:06] It was fun to do it was fun to edit it was fun to make the whole part the whole process there were like tech stuff that was a huge pain in the ass but like just because we kept fucking up you know a lot of people have asked for advice a lot of people have gone part of the way through the process maybe even more.

[00:15:24] I mean putting out an episode maybe not getting that far I think the follow through is the key and there's I remember although we talked about this I don't think you do but like I remember like at least six to nine months of just trying to figure out tech stuff recording episodes that just didn't work or the tech was bad or like and scrapping that because I associate it with New Orleans because I was in New Orleans for a year when we were first doing it.

[00:15:50] Like I feel like a lot of that year we were trying to figure this out and then we only put out the first episode the following summer when we were in Costa Rica so like it was it was tough early on but then once we got into the swing of it it was yeah we could do it and then you know and then at that point it was less like.

[00:16:10] We can't follow through and more like how are we going to deal with the fact that you know where we hate each other or that.

[00:16:18] By the way I just looked up we had talked about this I have a Google Drive folder that is that just says bad wizards podcast and it was last modified January 13th of 2012 but I have an earlier folder September 19 2011 where we actually have two episodes called Bad Wizards Discussed Part One and Part Two.

[00:16:44] That's what I'm talking about right like that's like almost a year before we put out our first episode.

[00:16:51] Yeah so we I think got some weird benefit of having these challenges like tech and whatever where we actually kind of rehearsed a number of times before our actual episode came out and that's hard to do on purpose it's hard to record something thinking you're not going to put it out but I actually think if you can that's good advice.

[00:17:14] Absolutely.

[00:17:15] Yeah it takes some patience but the follow through what you said is that's key like that's the biggest piece of advice I have for people who have already gotten to the point where they're putting out a podcast is put it out regularly because that's how you build an audience like if people don't you know there are people who already have this ginormous audience who don't need to do that but

[00:17:35] but when you're building your audience having that regular podcast appearing in somebody's you know whatever app of choice is so critical.

[00:17:44] And so critical for us too because it just I remember we got an email from somebody it's not something that we were doing at first I think if you look at our first whatever number of episodes they would come out somewhat haphazardly every two or three weeks it like the day was different and somebody said to us on over email.

[00:18:04] I know that with podcasts I like to just know the day you associate that podcast with that day of the week and even if it's not every week can be every two weeks it can be every three weeks but that day is your podcast and we.

[00:18:18] That was a great I remember that email like that. That was a great piece of advice and I just think we didn't think about it we're like yeah whatever.

[00:18:25] We'll just put it out like why would it matter but it was both good I think in terms of of associating our podcast with Tuesday and then also just us knowing especially and then I think you and I made the decision at a certain point to just do it every two weeks and that was actually like such a huge because without that we had we had to default to like we're not doing it we have to make the decision to do it and now if we go like we are for this episode.

[00:18:55] A third week that's like that's the exception that's the thing that has to be justified and defended and and not the other way. And I don't think we've gone you know we've not gone more than three weeks.

[00:19:07] I don't think ever yeah ever since we started doing the two weeks yeah we were there done two weeks or three weeks and it's usually every two weeks.

[00:19:15] You know the one the one other challenge I was thinking about that I don't know if you feel this way but one of the hardest things for me just psychologically is I don't know I feel sort of vulnerable saying it is knowing that for every single thing that we discuss.

[00:19:36] There are people who know a lot more about it.

[00:19:39] Yeah and and you miss that because until we talk about something that you know really well it might just sound fine but the minute we get to something that you know really well we might sound just super ignorant and and that it worries me because look putting out a podcast episode every two weeks about various topics just me and with regular jobs on top of that just means that there is no way.

[00:20:05] That like I can compare to somebody who studies conspiracy theories for a living right or whatever and and I know that some of the things I say might be wrong or simplistic or mischaracterizing that's kind of what worries me sometimes.

[00:20:19] You mischaracterizing entire fields or in speaking with the kind of confidence that you kind of need to speak with or else it would be boring you know you've right you've you've seen me hedge that doesn't make for good podcast. No hedging is terrible for.

[00:20:32] And so so knowing that like it always brings me you know the positive way to describe it is humility but I don't like using that term it's more like a fear that I'm disappointing somebody who really knows.

[00:20:45] Yeah because it's very frustrating to listen to people talk about something that you know a lot of like you know a lot about and hearing them mischaracterize it or and it's especially and it's even more frustrating when they talk like contemptuously or scornfully of that thing like we sometimes deal with.

[00:21:01] I'll give you a concrete example like I felt that way about the the sideways music paper because I like don't know that much about the metaphysics of time and I don't know like I don't in terms of the interpretation of Einstein.

[00:21:15] I know that a lot of people have reacted to that now I gun to my head I think we're right and that's completely ridiculous paper and certainly it didn't do anything to sort of you know build confidence that it wasn't ridiculous.

[00:21:31] I definitely in the back of my mind thought we could be just like ripping on like just ridiculing a paper and and it's just based on some kind of misconception that we don't like that we don't know or get right. Like a like a super basic one.

[00:21:47] Yeah and that's sort of it's it's risky and I have to say the people who are our listeners who have gone out of their way to email us are always like super nice about stuff.

[00:21:57] And you know and we've gotten like gentle correction about something or you know you're just straightforward correction but not malicious in any way read it sometimes not so kind. Not as kind but that's fair enough.

[00:22:10] That's fair right I mean yeah and so so it's I don't know what I'm communicating other than that it feels risky sometimes and I don't want to be irresponsible like epistemologically if that makes sense like I don't want to be like those neuroscientists.

[00:22:27] Who say like here's what free will is and here's what why it doesn't exist obviously because like I don't want to be like that that really annoying person who just talks about like compatibilism without understanding it and and just dismisses it just contemptuously.

[00:22:45] I don't want to at the same time like I do think you have to take that risk because otherwise it would be boring and we just do right academic we go back to writing just academic papers. On those qualifications. Yeah.

[00:22:59] No no yeah that's it's funny somebody I think on some reddit thread somebody said they were expressing kind of frustration with us and they said you know when when they referring to you I mean are in their wheelhouse like when they're talking about something that they they know it's fine but when they venture out into stuff they don't know then like they can be terrible and my initial reaction was you mean episode six and on like.

[00:23:26] It's exhaust.

[00:23:28] My wheelhouse is such a narrow specific set of things that I feel comfortable being an expert on like the kind of stuff that if a reporter wanted to talk to me about that I you know I would talk to them about but there is very little in in our just every every week recording that I'm an expert.

[00:23:46] Yeah I mean we really did like we did yeah six seven like that was some of your stuff we did the free will stuff like in the first 10 episodes and yeah we've come back to those topics we've come back to some of the stuff on disgust and on free will certainly over the episodes but we can't keep doing that.

[00:24:05] No you know it's for us anymore. That's exactly right. You would stop being fun like I talk about you know it's been like 1213 years that I've been giving talks on disgust like a good Jillian times talking to people about it and I don't want to talk.

[00:24:18] You know I don't even do it like talks like I'm so sick of it like I don't write about it and I don't talk like I don't give talks on it anymore like I really feel like I said when I had to say about those.

[00:24:28] That's why this is this is like and I've said this before this this podcast is like a respite mental respite where I still get to do intellectual things.

[00:24:38] You know put the intellectual in quotes if you're going to be an ass but but not but not not stuff that is work because the minute the minute this feels too much like work and not to say it's not work and it does it's certainly feels a lot of work yeah it's a ton of work but we and we agreed about this a long time.

[00:24:56] The minute it stops being fun then we stop doing it.

[00:24:58] We do have you had this because I have I'm just going to I don't think I've ever told you what I'm about to say right now but there have been times where I've said like to Jen or to like my brother or something like I'm quitting like I can't I'm not doing this anymore just because there's like a big thing of like editing that's done or we're going through one of our things or like there have been times where I said I'm quitting it now I haven't been 100% sincere about it but I have so and it's almost like they know that that's not true.

[00:25:28] There's just something that's frustrating me or there's like you know there's just this four hour raw audio of of us talking with or with. Yeah, it can be daunting.

[00:25:45] You know it's funny I think just just as a as a feature of our personality like I don't you know I don't yell out impulsive things like that because I don't put it I don't put negative energy out into the universe like you do.

[00:25:58] But if you're asking me, I find out so that it's not in me. Of course I've thought that but I've also I've also thought in a more rational cool like cooler fashion how much more do we have in us.

[00:26:14] You know like I've thought like what is what what will be the end of this podcast what like what will that look like. Yeah and there are definitely podcasts that I listened to or used to that just stopped being good.

[00:26:29] And so I've stopped now you sometimes those ones get like new listeners and so like there's kind of podcast that you can kind of that you like for two or three years and we may definitely be one of these where it's like okay but enough I got get their stick they're going to make jokes about porn and talk about psychology and philosophy.

[00:26:49] And so maybe you'll get sick of it after a while but then here's something. So I had this thought too because I've stopped having that I'm going to quit them and now almost doesn't seem possible. It just seems just inevitable like necessary.

[00:27:03] It feels like like and like a neice and like my our destiny is to do this podcast and like. It's pronounced anus. That's what they keep coming back for. But like I saw the South Park Pandemic special. Did you see that?

[00:27:22] And so now of course they've been doing their show since 97 and it maintained like I would say a high level of quality for a long time like longer than the Simpsons longer than almost any show really that I'm aware of.

[00:27:38] And you know that is very much the brainchild of two and especially Trey Parker but the brainchild of two people they have like a kind of makeshift writers room but it seems like it's mostly them. And then the Pandemic special was just lame.

[00:27:52] It was just it was like their stick was tired. It was exhausted. It was done.

[00:27:59] It was played out and I and I remember while I was watching it with the lives on Jen and you know we kind of all were like yeah yeah you know there were a couple there are a few funny things.

[00:28:05] There was definitely not they're never not going to be funny at all. But it's like it just felt played out in a way that I you know worry that that could happen to.

[00:28:15] Yeah yeah I mean and I don't want to be you know I don't want to be Michael Jackson wearing the 45. I mean Michael Jackson Michael Jordan wearing the 45 but I but how would we know.

[00:28:26] Well that's the thing like I kind of think they might know but I don't know if they do right like did they put out the Pandemic special and think we still got it.

[00:28:35] Or did they or were they are they kind of you know it's not it's a little you can't make too big a deal. No that's what we've had bad episodes. We've had episodes.

[00:28:47] There's one thing that I have learned is to be patient with creators because like they're going to be bad episodes. They're like you know like worse episodes. They need to find their boreheads find your boreheads. That's right.

[00:29:02] No I mean I think that's the thing is like we get these new little bursts of like energy like you said earlier like when we do Ecclesiastes or boreheads or you know for me definitely some movie episodes were that earlier on.

[00:29:18] And all right I'm kind of making like I don't know I feel like I'm like I'm throwing up in my mouth just hearing us right now so should we wrap this up anything else to say.

[00:29:29] Oh I let I always do this when we should end and I'm like one last thing because one of the things that I think has benefited us behind of the scenes wise is we just have different like interests and skillsets in a way that was weirdly complimentary like and that was not something that was that was just lucky.

[00:29:50] We when I first approached you to do it. I thought it was just because we had similar sense of humor and we're from two complimentary fields and it would just be fun.

[00:30:00] I didn't realize that you could do music and like and that you will like knew all about the tech stuff which I knew nothing about and yeah. No that's true. That's totally true and we help like we we that's right.

[00:30:14] We never would have done a movie episode like as you hear me bitch all the time and it's joking but it's like I wouldn't have ever not only done a movie episode but watched movies in the way that you watch in order to talk about them.

[00:30:28] But I mean like I'm even talking more about just the nuts and bolts of producing the podcast. Oh yeah. Like the that's what I mean right.

[00:30:36] I can clean the audio and Tam looking at it the shit out of by the way you really have a career as an editor if you ever want to just quit your job. Canceled.

[00:30:48] The audience can't possibly know but you know like the hours and the magic that you sometimes do to rearrange our shit to make more sense than it did.

[00:30:59] And you but you grew into that though like that was not a skill set you came with this is something that like you've developed like this is a latent talent in you that you never would have known was there. Right.

[00:31:12] It's not like I did audio editing it came like I think I was I kind of had an intuitive sense for how to do it but definitely but you know what I never could have done is any of the tech stuff I never could have done any of the like music which is still awesome like.

[00:31:25] Thank you. That makes me that makes me that like I still love listening to the opening music. Yeah, that your beat you did like one night.

[00:31:35] I remember like you did it overnight when I was like and you said it was like a birthday present because I think it was that was right around when we were going to put it out the first episode and you go here I did this and I remember listening to it.

[00:31:46] I'm like holy fucking shit and I played it for Jen and Eliza and that was awesome.

[00:31:50] Yeah, no I like we've and we've what's funny is we fell into the roles as well where I was also good and part of it does help that I love tech stuff and so like any excuse to talk about stuff tech stuff was good.

[00:32:04] Does editing scratch an artistic itch in you. Definitely yeah yeah I mean and also that kind of writing itch because I like patients for that shit like you write long books like yeah good at like I am.

[00:32:19] I don't know how sometimes I'm like I just but I hate I don't like writing I like editing right my writing like that's the thing I've always liked that I hate the actual putting the thing down at first that I really struggle with but the editing of it.

[00:32:35] I really enjoy and like just the shaping of it the sculpting of it and so like I like that part but yeah I think there's also it's like an artistic itch that yeah because you really are creating something.

[00:32:45] Yeah yeah and you know some need more than others but like this intro this intro yeah all right well we should stop sucking each other's dick we should stop sucking our own dicks and get back to what makes this show run which is us talking out of our ass about things we don't understand.

[00:33:10] So we will be right back to talk about conspiracy theories. This episode of Very Bad Wizards is brought to you by the Great Courses Plus.

[00:33:19] Tamar I don't know how you've been coping with these these times but one of the things that I've really come to enjoy is just going on walks like with people but also just alone with my dog do you do that. I do.

[00:33:36] So one of the things that I actually really enjoy about the private walks of the walks with my dog is listening to something and it's great if that listening can be in some way educational or edifying and the Great Courses Plus has been one of the things that I listen to that actually really makes me feel good

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[00:34:11] Every episode covers some aspect of philosophy through the lens of a work of science fiction and so the first lecture is on the movie Inception and he focuses on how to interpret art like the philosophy of interpreting art like should we you know or should we take the intentions of the author to be primary or should we take the larger broader context.

[00:34:33] And he actually puts forward a theory about what happened during Inception that I had to say I hadn't really thought about. There's episodes on The Matrix on Star Trek which I haven't gotten to really looking forward to Doctor Who in Time, Westworld and Artificial Intelligence.

[00:34:51] So I really recommend it. One of the things that I love about the Great Courses is their app is available wherever you want it's on Apple TV or the App Store, Google Play. You can get it even on your Roku or Amazon.

[00:35:04] Everything you can think of to listen to it on, it's available. The production value of these things is really good. I don't know if I can emphasize that enough.

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[00:36:33] Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. This is the time where we love to thank all of our listeners who get in touch with us in all the various different ways that you do.

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[00:38:08] Like right now. I just saw that he resigned from the Intellectual Dark Web. I don't know if that's true because I didn't listen to where that's coming from but... Who do you submit your resignation letter to on that one? I guess it's probably one of the Weinsteins.

[00:38:23] Right? Like who else? Maybe what's her name? Claire Lehman. Yeah, so thank you so much. We really enjoy interacting with you even when you're critical as you might be after this episode. So yes, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

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[00:41:23] All right. Should we get back to the show? Let's get back to it. All right. Welcome back to Very Bad Wizards. We are about to dive into conspiracy theories.

[00:41:33] Like I said, I don't want us to feel pressure like we have to cover everything because I think we could come back to this topic. This could be our new Borges. We could go conspiracy theory by conspiracy theory and lay out all the evidence born against.

[00:41:47] Give our credences for each one of them like eight, nine or 10, most of them for me. But actually since I'm the philosopher and all I care about is conceptual analysis and defining terms,

[00:42:01] should we talk about how we understand what a conspiracy theory is and what separates it from? There are a few things that like I think, at least in the common usage, distinguish a conspiracy theory from just say believing that somebody's lied.

[00:42:19] Somebody in authority has lied about something for instance. So we read three articles and we'll put links to each of them.

[00:42:28] So the evolutionary article says a common definition of conspiracy theory is the conviction that a group of actors meets in secret agreement with the purpose of attaining some malevolent goal.

[00:42:39] So this hits on at least to me what matters is like a group of people who have some common goal and who are keeping it secret. And who have some sort of power over like large groups of people.

[00:42:59] So take, suppose that Lee Harvey Oswald didn't kill JFK but that it was just some guy named Joe and Joe killed JFK and the government lied to us about it.

[00:43:10] But for no reason other than they didn't want us to know that it was that particular guy maybe like he had powerful relatives or something. I think that might be a lie and a cover up but I wouldn't call that a conspiracy theory yet.

[00:43:22] It would have to be some deeper reason as to why they were lying about that that would I think start to qualify. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Like cover ups are different than conspiracy theory.

[00:43:35] It wasn't a conspiracy when Bill Clinton said I did not have sex with that woman. It wasn't a conspiracy, you know like a lot of the things that Trump does aren't conspiracies because they're just not organized really that kind of off the cuff.

[00:43:50] Do you think because one in their original definition the malevolent goal? Do you think that that's necessary like for conspiracy theories that it actually has to be something that is intending ill and at least some group. I'm not sure I do.

[00:44:10] I'm not sure I do either because I get why they're adding that because there's a way in which we use conspiracy theory to mean and we'll get into this I assume later to mean irrational unlikely to be believed and harming people.

[00:44:25] And I think that that but I don't think that there's anything in the notion of conspiracy theory that means like you could have the government could be like putting antidepressants in our fluoride to make us all happier. And that would still be a conspiracy.

[00:44:38] I think it would still be a conspiracy. Even if I didn't believe that it was harming me. I think this is how I feel about some conspiracy theories is it's probably for the best right like that I don't know about it.

[00:44:51] You know because and it's but I think this is partly like our group of people where we are people who feel more secure. We are people who feel a little less threatened by the external world. We're lucky we're privileged.

[00:45:05] But maybe in terms of just the psychology of them the malevolence is what drives you to into the like deeper recesses of believing it or not. I mean certainly most conspiracy theories are malevolent that I am familiar with.

[00:45:21] Like you know whatever the conspiracy theories are of JFK the CIA did it like they had their reasons for doing it that were not for the good of the country. They were probably for the good of the CIA.

[00:45:33] Yeah and I think that they're often used to explain bad shit that's happening. So just by that just because of that we're looking for it to kind of tell us why life is fucked up or why you know I'm having these symptoms or whatever.

[00:45:49] They're often and there is something to lying about something no matter what that you might take as malevolent. Because you're a con dude. That's right.

[00:46:00] Do you feel like now everybody is worried about conspiracies queuing on being like the latest trendy one but people are just worried about conspiracy theorizing and just how hard it is to have kind of the same reality or the same truth to people of all different sides of the political spectrum maybe the religious spectrum.

[00:46:24] Do you think it's worse now than it has been in the past.

[00:46:29] Yeah I don't that's such a hard question for me because on the one hand like much more of my time is spent worrying about people believing conspiracy theories but that again as some of the articles point out like that could just be because I know about them right so like just the internet does that right.

[00:46:45] I don't know. I do it's hard to get to get evidence for this but I remember as a kid having friends who were like super in a conspiracy theory so it doesn't seem to me like it's perfectly plausible to me that it hasn't gone up.

[00:46:56] Yeah yeah and especially like that it's not greater now than maybe in the early 70s when like there was some seriously shady shit going on no matter like who you are like I don't know if the were there Michael Schirmers at the you know in the 70s saying actually no.

[00:47:13] I was like no these things really fucked up about what's going on in the American government over but but yeah I so maybe it's not worse than it does feel like it's worse than any time in my like adult lifetime or even like kid lifetime.

[00:47:30] And but I think partly so partly that just could be because I know about it like you said but the internet plausibly makes them easier to spread makes them easier for people to congregate like for communities to grow.

[00:47:46] I mean the Q and on thing is is something that would have been hard probably to generate enough momentum pre-internet. Yeah. Do you know anybody on like your social media who believes that shit?

[00:48:01] Q and on I don't know anyone like no I don't know any like I don't know any Q and on like people who would go to rallies save the children rallies or anything like that.

[00:48:10] But who like posts stuff about like like I have like one or two people who post stuff about like the global pedophile rings.

[00:48:17] Well so here's the thing and we can get into it now or we can get into it later like you know there was Jeffrey Epstein there are these sex trafficking organizations sex trafficking goes on it happens.

[00:48:31] And this is the thing that conspiracy theories often do is they're putting their finger on something I mean Q and on focuses a lot on Hollywood.

[00:48:39] Hollywood is and has been really since it was the center of making movies like there's some shady shit that goes on with kids and sex like that.

[00:48:51] And so you know like I there are people who are who are rightly concerned about that but maybe then who think who take it too far and and you know think that Tom Hanks has like a basement full of 12 year olds.

[00:49:05] Yeah. So there is another so there comes a feature of conspiracy theories that I don't know if it's necessary for the definition and certainly at least the philosophy article doesn't think so that we read but there are their claims are almost

[00:49:24] Taylor made to be unfalsifiable and evidence in one direction and evidence in the other direction are both taken as evidence of the conspiracy. So like if you deny it then that means that your part your dumb or your part of the conspiracy or if like.

[00:49:41] So that wasn't the point that I was making at all my point is that it's actually tapping into something real.

[00:49:47] Yeah. No I know I was just adding because that like you can believe all that so that's why I think you can believe that there is sex traffic and it doesn't quite count as a conspiracy theory yet like I would have to add layers of connectedness

[00:50:03] Like to me a conspiracy theory you need you know Charlie Day's yarn to connect something like it can't just be that there is sex trafficking.

[00:50:12] It has to be that sex trafficking is connected to like the trial at our commission to like the you know the Jews and the yeah right and to Hillary Clinton and a pizza place and yeah and all the things that's what makes it no you're right

[00:50:25] and then of course this is what any conspiracy theory does well is it immunized itself from like evidence that to the contrary because you know like oh but the New York Times said that blah blah blah

[00:50:41] Well of course the New York Times said that they're infiltrated they're like implicated in it they're part of it they might be at the center of it. I don't know if that's part of the definition of it but that seems like how they are successful.

[00:50:51] Yeah you know like that they really can't be shown to be false and if you start to believe it you it's going to be very hard to persuade you otherwise like especially with something like the Kennedy assassination the Warren commission are you going to believe them.

[00:51:08] No right like of course not so how are you possibly going to think if you feel like you have some independent reason to believe that this wasn't Lee Harfield as well that he was a Patsy and that this was part of you know the CIA and possibly the mafia like every

[00:51:27] you know mainstream journalistic source and every mainstream like government source certainly is not going to convince you that that didn't happen they can't like it's like by definition that's like impossible because they were part of it.

[00:51:40] Yeah no anything that you can think of that would be evidence against a particular theory can be explained away and that's what makes them like just so frustrating and that's what I really think distinguishes the way we use the term in the in the normatively bad sense from just

[00:51:57] believing that there is like Cointel pro was a conspiracy like it just was right but we have evidence for it. It would be if you just simply continue to believe something with zero evidence and a lot of evidence against it that's when it takes on the flavor of the way that I use it.

[00:52:13] Pejoratively so. So but here's the problem with that is that I think there are some conspiracies that would really be hard to falsify because they have taken over sources of information or at least mainstream sources of information.

[00:52:30] So there will be evidence for them whatever the evidence is for them like there was evidence that Oswald didn't shoot him like there was like you know maybe multiple angles of the bullet and all of that.

[00:52:42] So it's not like there was no evidence for them but it's just that the evidence against it is like how are you supposed to trust that because of the way it is unlike something like QAnon where like there would be you would think that you could find if this was really happening at the level like there would be

[00:53:03] there are sources you could trust that have no real stake in child sex trafficking that would could tell you that it's this isn't really happening but I guess my point is like when especially with the government ones.

[00:53:18] It's like well yeah I mean just the fact that it's un-falsifiable doesn't make it false and that's the genius of them you know.

[00:53:27] Yeah I like so I have a I think a different take like I genuinely believe and this is when you were saying like how do you shake someone out of conspiratorial beliefs like this.

[00:53:39] I genuinely have a belief that there is a low probability that a government conspiracy even like a serious one could be kept secret the way that conspiracy theorists seem to believe.

[00:53:53] I got and this is the one thing that shook me from my kind of mild tendency to at least like and dabble in shit about like secret societies.

[00:54:05] I used to like read books on Freemasons I think partly because of my religious upbringing there's all kinds of like the Protestants who believe that Catholics are going to take over the world and there was really like also a belief that Freemasons became the Illuminati and they were like actually in control of shit.

[00:54:23] What shook me hardcore was that I had a kind of terror. Yeah, French Revolution like a lot of the Marxist revolutions. Right all that they were behind the scenes.

[00:54:32] What shook me the most was that I had a friend a good friend who was in college who shared these interests and she went to law school and became an attorney and worked for the government. She worked for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

[00:54:49] She was actually in one of the buildings when the guy hit and survived. She's fine.

[00:54:55] And I remember her like a few years after college telling me you know what after being after working in the government for this long like it's absurd to think that any secret could actually persist with this many people like we can barely get shit done.

[00:55:10] And this gets you know when I was young the black you know the black helicopter stuff. Remind me. It definitely sounds familiar. It's super vague when I was a kid they used to say that the black helicopters were FEMA that was like basically like spying on shit.

[00:55:27] And then when FEMA so famously was unable to get it shit together after the hurricane like I thought after Katrina you know like there was a just terrible response.

[00:55:38] I thought yeah it's crazy to think that they were like secretly controlling everything when they can't even get their shit together to like respond to an emergency in the way that they're supposed to. Well if that's if that's what they're supposed to do. Yeah. That's the thing.

[00:55:54] The I mean one of the shocking things that I came across was this old Miami Herald article that exposed the FEMA director. This is probably why your kid you as you as a kid were worried about FEMA.

[00:56:05] Louis Guafreda they had been given powers to aid in the aftermath of disasters that transcended the authority of local officials.

[00:56:16] Charity reported that Reagan officials had gone to FEMA with plans to suspend the U.S. Constitution in the event of a devastating nuclear strike that destroyed American infrastructure communications command and control.

[00:56:27] But in fact they'd been practicing these readiness exercises since 1982 and they had all these operations in conjunction with the Department of Defense affiliated with Edward R. Moros Center at Fletcher School for Public Policy at Tufts. And they revealed the name of these joint exercises.

[00:56:49] Proud Saver Rex 82 pre-nest Rex 84 night train and these were like martial law plans where he advocated in case of a national uprising by black militants and also advocated the roundup and transfer to assembly centers or relocation camps. This is from a memo of at least 21 million American Negroes.

[00:57:14] So this is the thing is like these like they were like could they have actually done that? That's what you're casting doubt on because they fucked up the Katrina thing so much but maybe that's not what they're trained to do.

[00:57:28] Maybe that's just like their justification for being there. They are trained to put down civil unrest. Now like it's not that I have any positive or necessarily reason to believe that but at the same time like I was amazed by how hard it was to just research this.

[00:57:45] There's not that much on it and it was and there was the only reason we know anything about is because of one 1987 Miami Herald like article that kind of brought some of this stuff to light.

[00:57:55] So I don't know they seem to be able to get their shit together on some things anyway. Right. It's like obviously Co-Intel Pro was a thing and they actually did like a lot of counterintelligence on black panthers and stuff like that.

[00:58:10] This is why it's like extraordinarily epistemically hard. You have to sort of gain some baseline belief in the plausibility of the specific claims of the conspiracy theory in order to evaluate it because it's extremely difficult.

[00:58:28] So I am willing to believe given what we know about the FBI's workings in within our borders that they were able to do some shit.

[00:58:38] But the things that they are said to have done are straightforward like you know just like having to spy on black panthers like bring assassin Martin Luther King.

[00:58:50] There's other stuff like scientific stuff that's just so like it's so ridiculous to believe that we have good reason to on the face of it doubt that they're that they're right and and we can use maybe scientific information to evaluate it. Tamler guess who's back.

[00:59:10] Guess who's back back back back again. Yes. This episode of Very Bad Wizards is brought to you by one of our favorites of all time. I'm actually really excited to be doing a readforgivewell.org.

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[01:02:10] Yeah thank you to givewell.org for sponsoring this episode of Very Bad Wizards. Okay this is where we're going to like butt heads I think.

[01:02:20] You know like your friend said like government can't get their shit together I buy that to some degree but that's not real you know that's anecdotal that's like. Oh now you care. Exactly no I care. I care whether something's anecdotal when it's useful for me.

[01:02:34] Like so take I don't know what if you're talking about with the science stuff like climate change or. Like 5G right. 5G yeah so this belief that like 5G is actually super harmful to people and they're trying to like.

[01:02:48] Control yeah that's just like so yeah college physics can show that that's wrong.

[01:02:54] Right and there is no there's no reason to think that every physicist or chemist is like in the bag for whatever this conspiracy theory is so like you can there are trustworthy sources of information there.

[01:03:07] But what I was going to say is like about the anti-vaxxers who like look I'm not an anti-vaxxer like I get vaccines like my daughter has gotten all her shots and vaccines.

[01:03:18] But the idea that there are pharmaceutical companies like that are putting out misinformation to amass large large unbelievably large sums of money like I totally buy like I think it's been vindicated.

[01:03:36] And so like I even though I think anti-vaxxers are probably a threat to the public health of. Probably you're not willing to like go for it. I mean they yeah they are okay.

[01:03:47] I have some sympathy with that general impulse of like don't just believe just because these you know what's kind of a conspiracy theory a little bit is like you could definitely do one of the mental mental health industry and just like now yeah you can do studies on various drugs but that whole way of thinking where now you're just like.

[01:04:06] Just going to medicalize everything that is something that is very hard to overturn that would require a paradigm shift.

[01:04:12] But you so there's a couple things so one that I'm not not at all saying that people can't be wrong and so right so muddled about the way that they're doing research that they're not systematically wrong for many years.

[01:04:27] That that can happen it would have to turn into a conspiracy would literally be that there is there are people who know that it's wrong and they're being sort of paid to continue lying about it.

[01:04:38] And that's where it was like yeah let's say that has to be intentional. Yeah, like ego depletion research has had this famous sort of rise and fall. And now many people just think that like tons and tons of studies were just wrong.

[01:04:52] Like that they were false positive findings or whatever. But I know a lot of those researchers well and I know that they weren't secretly trying to suppress evidence. They were just doing things poorly right it wasn't. You think you know that they have convinced you.

[01:05:10] You are not in the Illuminati of the psychologist they keep this whole thing afloat this pyramid scheme. Are there secret societies and philosophy that you know of? Not that I know of I haven't certainly been invited to any of them. There are some stupid ones in psychology.

[01:05:29] Are there like secret societies? Yeah, I mean it's sort of an open secret. Like an open secret. There's been some articles written about it but yeah it's really dumb. I feel like we're jumping ahead to sort of like the epistemic question.

[01:05:48] Because I just think in general epistemically we're so fucked that like it's very hard to make broad statements about conspiracy theories in general like well they couldn't be that organized. How do you know that people couldn't be that organized?

[01:06:00] But I'm saying like our epistemic position to these kinds of issues is really poor.

[01:06:07] And so we're trusting third hand, fourth hand testimony like people we know that know somebody that can tell us actually like the climate science is pretty definitive on this point or masks work to prevent transmission.

[01:06:25] Those are the ones that I find hardest to believe like imagine that somebody came up to you and said I know that all of philosophy has systematically been trying to shit on like this particular view and like that you guys are like suppressing it.

[01:06:36] You'd be like we didn't even talk to each other that much. Like I don't know like the thought that you and a bunch of other philosophers got together and or like you know what let's never talk about Foucault again or whatever.

[01:06:47] Like I totally buy that and it's just that I was not invited to like decision making because that's the thing.

[01:06:55] This is why maybe I but this is like I am have more humility like you think if there was some big conspiracy that you would be in on it by now whereas I think they would just not include me by now being like at the stage in life and the status that I am in life like I would have found out some shit.

[01:07:13] I feel like Rothschild would have said like an emissary to you by now.

[01:07:18] I remember I told Paul Bloom early on in graduate school that if he ever found out that like the elders of Zion were like true that he would just tell me because I figured he might get tapped.

[01:07:31] Give you a little heads up like three winks and a pause and then two more winks. You have a two day head start before they come after you.

[01:07:43] But like nothing even close to a conspiracy in fact get sometimes undergrad students who will make statements like they're frustrated about the way things are going and they'll say something like that indicates that they believe that systematically the university is trying to do something to the students and I'm like right now you're mistaking incompetence or apathy or you know just just for like an actual intentional orchestrated action.

[01:08:07] And I do I really I know that this is not conceptual or empirical evidence that you can like take to the bank. And as you said you can't make blanket statements about conspiracy theories because some conspiracy theories just are true.

[01:08:22] But anything that requires the secret coordinated action of lots and lots of people in power. I think on the face of it just has a less less of a chance of being treated. It's hard for people to keep that level of secrecy. Yeah.

[01:08:37] And I mean yeah like universities are the prime example of where like it would be very hard. Now that said like Penn State did a pretty good job of keeping the Sandusky thing under wraps for a while.

[01:08:51] And so again sometimes these things do happen or look at the Catholic Church right like you would think oh it would be really hard for them to hide the fact that there like there was this massive sex abuse like rampant with a lot of people.

[01:09:05] And that was one of the priests and yet like it took a while for that to come to light. And it was very hard to like you know even once it came to light for to gain any traction or momentum.

[01:09:18] Yeah I think that that's an interesting case where in order to keep something secret like that. I mean I'm sure there were leaks and people talking about it for a while.

[01:09:29] But if you compartmentalize things so that every instance in which that happens people are cut off from knowledge that it's happened in other places then you have a shot. Because everybody will plausibly believe that this is just a one-off.

[01:09:46] Exactly and so like that one is one that probably would have been harder to keep now. Yeah. Sandusky thing how many people knew aside from the victims obviously but like there were a few people in power who knew I suppose.

[01:10:00] But they were you know like I think part of the issue with these things is they tell their husband or wife and they tell their friends and like that and then the whole thing gets out.

[01:10:11] That's why I don't try these things they have these mechanisms of also squashing it right like they have people that they marshal out like you who will say oh no there's no way that could have happened because like

[01:10:21] they think of the organization and then they're like oh okay never mind then. In my faculty senate meeting they had a vote that I shouldn't talk about this on the podcast you know.

[01:10:29] And then in all of their robes they like slashed their hand and made me do a blood oath. Yes and they sacrificed you had to sacrifice like a virgin for her. Oh here's another you know like there is this the Skull and Bone secret society at Yale.

[01:10:44] Yeah George HW Bush. He's at the center of a lot of conspiracies. There he is and he's not even Jewish. No like there is a wasp element to conspiracies like Rockefeller he's kind of old wasp right.

[01:10:59] Yeah so the Skull and Bone secret society is Yale has rather than like the Greek system they have secret societies Skull and Bones is a big in the sense that they have like a huge endowment they have a building and they're probably tied to Freemasonry in some way.

[01:11:16] Right. I just I happened to know a kid who was. So it's still going. Yeah yeah it's still there right on right on High Street New Haven.

[01:11:26] It's a very it's the second at least when I was in graduate school was the second largest endowment in Connecticut was Skull and Bones only second to Yale's endowment.

[01:11:35] Yeah and they're just a bunch of like fucked hard kids you know like there is you would really have to like it would be a stretch to think about.

[01:11:46] That these these idiots who are just basically like jerking each other off and like you know having these fake rituals would be capable of anything that serious.

[01:11:56] Yeah but of course you think that now right like people probably thought that about HW right like there oh there's no way he's just some rich kid that's. I don't want to jerk off.

[01:12:08] I don't think I don't think that HW was part of us called Bones conspiracy that's part.

[01:12:12] Well I mean but he did go on to become like director of the CIA and like heavily involved in both Gulf Wars and like a lot of arc and like all the oil.

[01:12:26] Rich white kids who go to Yale have a shot at being powerful whether or not they're in Skull and Bones right that's where those.

[01:12:35] I mean there is something about secret societies that's like how the whole Illuminati thing got started and all the freemason conspiracies is there's something about a secret society they are dedicated to keeping things secret from.

[01:12:47] Well that's the unfalsifiable nature of it right of course like that's that in that that is why these things persist. By the way if I am murdered before this episode comes out I will take that as proof that the Illuminati exists and is conspiring.

[01:13:06] I know you seem like you're trying to cover a lot of this shit up. Well you know I went to Yale. Which is the one like if you're red pilled do you see the truth or.

[01:13:16] I never get that right I think red pill is the truth doesn't make sense. So we should talk about a the kind of person that's prone to believe in conspiracies because I think that I am like a conspiracy theorist dilettante or and not even a good dilettante.

[01:13:33] I don't really there's no conspiracy theory that I've really dived into although I could see myself starting today. I know you just started this is like. This is a new direction for my life but. I'm glad you're already back to your daughter.

[01:13:46] Some people are prone to believe it and to really get it let it like kind of take over their life and you know often with really harmful and destructive effects maybe sometimes with good effects who knows. But like we should talk about the kind of person that is.

[01:13:59] Yes. To engage it with it that way. So here so there are there are a few things that have been documented as at least predictors of the of who believes in conspiracy theories.

[01:14:10] And they they're things like low and analytical thinking need for high and need for cognitive closure. And then there's the stuff that really to me is the most interesting which I think you might be a candidate for given what I've seen of your weird superstitious tendencies.

[01:14:30] And that is the tendency to see patterns and attribute patterns to what is generally random information. So what you say is random. Yeah exactly the tendency to perceive agency and intentionality where does not exist. And that's two of the articles highlight this.

[01:14:50] That's I think the most interesting part to me that's like the seeing of patterns. And seeing of agency those. And seeing of agency those two things.

[01:15:01] So this is and so you have like studies where if I show you a series of coin flips for instance and there's like 20 coin flips and 16 of them are heads.

[01:15:15] Some people think well that's for sure an unfair coin when it's perfectly consistent with it being a fair coin. If you flipped 100 times you would it would just be about 5050 that tendency to see patterns sometimes. And that's called epiphenia. I think we've talked about it before.

[01:15:32] It's in the context of Stoner films. That's right. Yeah now here's the thing everybody agrees that everybody has this to some degree.

[01:15:42] This is like the human mind and as much as I love thinking that people hire in this or that this is at the root of conspiracy theories or believing conspiracy theories. I that's just not enough.

[01:15:57] There is a real benefit to seeing patterns and then there's patterns that you see that were right turn out to be right and some that turn out to be wrong. That's not enough to make you into conspiracy theory. Right.

[01:16:11] That's enough to make you like go on to like the David Lynch Twin Peaks subreddit and give your like your latest Twin Peaks season three theory. And that is like a way to like watch things and try to connect things.

[01:16:26] But there's a big difference between that and then looking at the chaos of the world and thinking this has to make sense in some way and trying because I feel like I'm in the former group and really not at all in the latter group. Right.

[01:16:39] And since your gut level super sports superstition that like you will easily discard. Like if like push comes to shove. If like you put like if she said like my daughter's life depends on being right about this. Yeah.

[01:16:58] Maybe maybe that's like another aspect of being higher in that trait. As these articles say those traits tend to predict belief in conspiracy theories less in high education individual. So right.

[01:17:14] So maybe what's going on is that you've just sort of had that shit knocked out of you through just the power of reasoning. Just like those Richard Dawkins bucks. That's right. You used to be so rational. I did.

[01:17:29] The person like going up to girls at bars and asking why they believe in astrology. Oh my God that shit is so popular now. Astrology. Yeah.

[01:17:41] It's an interesting thing to try to connect religion or astrology or something like that to conspiracy theories because they are different but they have a lot in common especially the need to see like patterns and things that seem otherwise random or chaotic blooming buzzing confusion.

[01:17:56] Like I think like this is the thing like I do see the world mostly as a blooming buzzing confusion or whatever that phrase is but I also have that trait. What is it? Epiphenia. I will see little connections in life.

[01:18:12] But that's what makes us good at what we do. Just they're just they're just not grand.

[01:18:16] There are little things there were like little things that I think I've figured out about you know the way people interact or movies as a prime example movies and TV shows where I'll come up with really.

[01:18:25] fucked up theories about something that turned out to have a much more straightforward explanation that I just wouldn't accept because it doesn't make sense. Like I need some some other kind of explanation for it.

[01:18:38] Yeah, I don't like I feel like I come up with connections a lot too and part of the reason I don't think this is anywhere near close enough to explain conspiracy theories is because I think being high in that is the only thing that makes us be anywhere decent at our job is to find similarities

[01:18:53] and connections and to find patterns like that's kind of just what we do. Yeah, there's a little difference though and being overprone to sort of seeing them but you're right that that is like you have to have that to a significant degree.

[01:19:08] Right in a schizophrenic like a person from schizophrenia has like it in just you know if you ever talk to one of those paranoid they have a notebook full of connections and you're just like well that's how I feel when I talk to you about these connections.

[01:19:21] There's a great movie that came out. I think I recommended it once on the podcast under the Silver Lake where the central character really sees like the universe as these like coded signs that rich people are giving to each other for their like they have this plan won't spoil it but like that are in like

[01:19:38] serials like the little things like the toys that or maps that they put in the serials and like Vanna White and like her gestures on Wheel of Fortune and like those things are all connected and they and you know the main character just is frenzied like with all these things

[01:19:55] or like Charlie and always something right. That's where I'm not like that you know. Right, you're easy to pick up but easy to discard. Right easy to pick that's exactly right. Easy to discard and I think the stakes are high enough I'll just discard it.

[01:20:08] Right and I think this is the nefariousness of conspiracy theories because I think to some extent I see that trait in myself I think most humans would but I abandoned them pretty easily so you know I remember as a kid thinking when I stub my toe what did I do before that to like have had the universe punish me for instance so like I'm searching for some some like reason some cause that I'm not

[01:20:32] that I you know the conspiracy of the universe to make me stub my toe but then I abandoned them pretty quickly.

[01:20:39] Conspiracy theories are are the kinds of beliefs that are so tailor made to having trouble abandoning them and I think when you put social pressures into that when you have other people telling you like feeding it to you then it's like a virus it's like a like a so hard to disabuse people of these things.

[01:20:57] So I think that like also though it's also fairly low stakes for me to discard it you know like because if it's true it doesn't really matter if it does it's not true it doesn't really matter like I'm kind of fucked either way I'm not going to or I'm good either way so like who cares whether I believe it or not but I think for some people they have this emotional investment this is another part of the article right where people who are oppressed or exploited or most or more likely

[01:21:27] to believe in conspiracies people who are either low status or they've had there is a big segment of the country that's against them I mean think of you know you're at like Trump voters who believe the election was rigged right like they are probably you know they've had all of

[01:21:44] most of media and pop culture kind of being against them and they feel beleaguered by and also the shit scared out of them by right wing or organizations telling them that like they hate you they have contempt for you and so and to some extent that's true like so then now to believe that this was all bullshit and Trump is was just a con man like that's really high stakes and in getting rid of that belief rather than thinking

[01:22:11] no the deep state and the media are have it in for him and you were right all along right or like all of what you said for say like yeah like disenfranchise black people in this country who of course yeah yeah um here's here's my problem with all this literature and psychology on this stuff

[01:22:32] there is so everything I've read about conspiracy theories you'll have people pointing to okay this tendency to oversee patterns like oversee intentionality oversee agency and

[01:22:45] people who need explanations for their suffering or their like sociological conditions where there's a lot of uncertainty all of this stuff is taken as like here is what makes people believe in conspiracy theories

[01:22:58] but all of that stuff is what makes us believe anything like the desire to see order in the universe is what leads scientists to do science or philosophers to do philosophy the tendency to see patterns can make like a statistician really good all of this stuff to me doesn't

[01:23:16] it's not a great explanation it's not offering much by way of explaining what's going on with conspiracy theories I think it's much better to look at the belief in in let's just say crazy let's take some subset of conspiracy theories that we are like super convinced are not true

[01:23:33] John Bonet Ramsey is kitty parent there is something in the feature of those beliefs that I think is making them hard to discard because I can understand why people pick them up what I think needs to be explained is why they don't let them go

[01:23:49] right right yes exactly that's a really good way of putting it actually like you can get into the mindset temporarily of these things pretty easy all the time

[01:23:57] totally this is really fucked up oh okay that yeah I would buy that and then you know you see yeah this this happened a lot to me today right like but what makes the people not just give it up yeah and not discard it in the face of evidence that you know would be plenty for people like you and me

[01:24:16] right so this epistemic nightmare of like thinking that people believe that there's hundreds of thousands of fake ballots and you can like show them cameras of like you know Republicans present while they were being counted and you can show them evidence that the ballots that were being discarded were empty

[01:24:35] and they only take that as as further evidence for their belief yeah it's like an epistemic nightmare and you're like well what is it I think that any attempt to explain to make sweeping statements about why people believe in conspiracy theories I think ends up just calling people stupid

[01:24:53] but they're not like some of these people some people are very smart they believe in conspiracy

[01:24:56] right and so the question really is what is causing these things to these specific beliefs to persist and I think the more pressing question is how do we get people to stop believing these specific things like how do you snap someone out of that

[01:25:10] well so take QAnon right and we'll assume that you know the you know some of the more extreme aspects of QAnon are false right like so what causes people to put

[01:25:22] you're such a centrist about conspiracy theories I really am I don't want to like I'm trying to like triangulate and let's pretend you're such a Virgo or whatever I don't want to offend them I want to bring everybody into the conversation but so take something like that

[01:25:37] like I have no incentive like there's nothing in me that wants to believe that's true it's horrible like if it was true it's like I'm a fairly cynical person about like the people in power and politics in general but like I don't want to believe they're all sex criminals you know

[01:25:56] Epstein was a fine man

[01:25:57] no like but yeah there are people like Jeffrey Epstein and I'd like to believe that that's not like everybody that that's not also like most of the actors and actresses that I like and you know the politicians that I don't like but at least I don't think they're all sex criminals so like that you know like

[01:26:17] there's nothing that draws me to believe that but there has to be for some other people like that has to do something for them yeah it has to it's just that that it does something for them can't be the evidence used against them because

[01:26:31] right some yeah yeah yeah somebody might not like pleasant to believe that about the world no I think it's also very easy for us to think of all these examples of the crazy conspiracies that we know are wrong but

[01:26:45] we think are wrong or we think suspect or we suspect are deeply wrong but possibly wrong the belief in widespread sexual harassment in Hollywood could be dismissed as a conspiracy theory and I think it turns out that it was true

[01:26:59] and there is something I'm going to use I'm going to use a centrist term here there's something that people have weaponized about calling something a conspiracy where you can easily dismiss it

[01:27:09] absolutely and that's happened plenty of times in the past where people have actually done that yeah and called something a conspiracy that just turned out to be like a hundred percent true

[01:27:17] maybe it was even worse down the conspiracy so we need some external reason to and method to really try to find the truth and I don't know what that is

[01:27:29] but I guess I was going a little before like trying to persuade or trying to die like just what impels them to believe it in the first place

[01:27:38] like there is a kind of you know there isn't it a cognitive bias like an optimistic bias like you try to believe the world is better than it is

[01:27:47] and so what makes people believe these things that are so awful that if they are true like it means that it's a matter of time before the Illuminati like are putting us in cages or making us have sex with them

[01:28:01] yeah no that's a great question I remember when I was a postdoc I was working with a memory researcher on false memory stuff so Elizabeth Loftus who does false memory research and Pete Ditto who does motivated reasoning research

[01:28:17] and we did a project that was trying to look at it never went anywhere but it was trying to look at this question which is why would people be so willing to accept evidence that they were molested as kids right

[01:28:28] that's for all the reasons you say like aren't we supposed to just believe good things about ourselves and like try to wash away the bad

[01:28:35] and where we were like we're trying to do some studies to test the hypothesis that what's going on is that that helps explain your current misery

[01:28:46] and if you can chalk it up to like an external force then it feels good right like people want to believe that there are agents actively working to keep them down because believing that it's just you being stupid or lazy is a terrible thought

[01:29:03] or even that you've just gotten randomly fucked or randomly fucked that's right randomly fucked doesn't have meaning systematically fucked has meaning exactly yeah no no right like that makes sense whereas if you are if you are fairly happy and you feel lucky and you feel like fortunate

[01:29:22] and like what life has dished out for to you for the most part then like you don't you're not going to necessarily need to find an explanation for that so I think yeah

[01:29:31] so my yeah my friend's father so to my best friends growing up their father died of a pretty gnarly cancer in his I guess early 50s and you know he was a young man right like it struck him it was tragic he survived for a year but succumbed

[01:29:50] he happened to live close to three mile island when there was that nuclear accident yeah so my friends really think that there was something about the radiation that led to cancer in their father

[01:30:03] now I have no idea what whether that's true that's true but I do know that it brought them seemingly some comfort comfort is a weird word to use because it brought them outrage but a comfortable outrage there's comfort in being outraged when you know that somebody did this

[01:30:23] as opposed to just randomly my father got the severe cancer and like

[01:30:27] so I was going to think even though I brought this up in the first place like now I'm thinking that like in some ways it's worse if if if like this active agency did it and they got away with it rather than it's just a horrible meaningless lottery

[01:30:44] like you know that there are these people out there who did it and if they just hadn't been evil then but my mother would still be alive yeah but here is the thing that I think is where the psychology maybe sheds light on it

[01:30:59] you have a shot at changing evil agents you don't have a shot at changing the universe rolling a die

[01:31:08] and so channeling that outrage I think is yeah maybe like the evolutionary paper that we read maybe there's something about that like finding out who's trying to fuck you is a good impulse

[01:31:21] yeah and the false positives of that are are are worse than yeah so you be had a better than the false negatives so you be had a couple people who were trying to kill you sorry about that

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[01:33:57] you know I was it's funny that you brought up this because I was thinking today there are a lot of Greek gods a lot of Greek God myths where Greek gods are heavily involved and they serve that purpose in these books for the mortals is just a way of explaining just how they get randomly fucked over killed

[01:34:21] you know why some people are are blessed with certain skills or traits or or or they were able to perform certain feats it's because well Athena was was backing Odysseus or whatever and it's like conspiracy theories can be like God's God of the gaps

[01:34:41] like it's like we don't understand this this gives us a way of understanding this it was part of this bigger this is like the Greek gods are kind of a conspiracy they're this bigger organized power that affect the ways that we interact with each other and explain out of character like deeply out of character decisions or injustice in some way like deep injustice that's the other role

[01:35:04] that well you know that's just because Aphrodite is still pissed about that Aries slept with whoever the fuck the son of nymph you know right yeah yeah they offer and and the thing is like when society believed in that and there's like structures

[01:35:20] like myths and religions that offer you an explanation and we don't call that a conspiracy theory because and I respect whatever the beliefs of people who have like built this world story yeah people are really trying to build this world story and sometimes it involves

[01:35:37] there's nothing about QQ and on that's crazier than believing in a Greek God right yeah no I mean you might have you have different sources of evidence but like it's funny God like now that I'm thinking about it like you wouldn't call like the Christian God or even the like Old Testament God really a conspiracy because you know like they're they're not intimately involved with all the like sort of the things that happen but the Greek gods because they are

[01:36:07] they have their own dramas and their own goals and own intentions they really are like a cabal at the top you know they really do operate in that way and probably provide the similar sorts of either you know like suffering or satisfaction to the people who buy into it yeah yeah so like their coordinated actions

[01:36:28] it's they at least bring meaning to yeah right like that that happened even if it was speed you know even if the gods were capricious at least it happened for a reason it right that's the weird thing yeah it's like why do I have to suffer because you know Artemis is pissed at Apollo for like not respecting her dear yeah and why does that bring any kind of comfort as opposed to being a random taught like a right yeah there's this in slaughterhouse five

[01:36:58] there's this quote something like where the guy says why me and other guys as why you why anyone and there is like this the coldness of the why anyone is that the universe doesn't care but the why me is a fundamentally just like just super ego

[01:37:17] to stick away of asking the question like that you you don't matter but in these stories you somehow matter your your part of this bigger narrative

[01:37:28] and you're oppressed in a way that it's not your fault at all I mean you were saying that before I was maybe pushing back against it to some degree but to some degree that's right like you know if you feel like you aren't what you want to be and then it might be like you said it's not like it's it's not any part of

[01:37:47] you that's leading to that it is this coordinated effort to keep you down yeah yeah now I still wanted you be able to epistemically or you know like your empirically rank conspiracy theories in their order of like how ridiculous it is like there's the

[01:38:06] you know you have lizard people and you have like co and tell and somewhere in between there's stuff I don't want to give up the ghost on ranking them because I think that one of the things that does happen in people who believe some of these conspiracy theories is they just never

[01:38:24] they end up just not questioning some of the crazier assumptions that need to be questioned and so like one of the things that I kept thinking to myself especially when reading the philosophy article that we read was

[01:38:34] how do I know that none of my beliefs were arrived at in this crazy way like you know and it's super hard to know you know the other day I found myself lost in this Twitter

[01:38:47] slash Reddit slash just general internet search about where I was just reading too many like conservatives there was a post about the statement where Trump said they're very fine people on both sides yeah and it's true that the way that the media

[01:39:05] ended up characterizing it for for us left of center people was that he was unequivocally pandering to white supremacists but in that same speech moments later he says I'm not saying you should defend white supremacist or white

[01:39:20] nationalists they should be condemned and it this it it tossed me like it threw me for a loop a little bit where I was like wait and I kept trying to like make sure that I had the right while I was like no but he did say this like

[01:39:38] and then I was like shit man if I don't even know why I believe what I believe in this case like right it's not like I'm gonna been I'm not gonna go Q and on people but but if we're not a little worried about the information that we get then we're doing something wrong

[01:39:54] that's a hundred percent right and I've had that experience probably a little earlier than you did because you're older the liberal bias and the media bias against Trump is a real thing like that's the that it's it's not that that the people who believe this and then now can't trust the New York Times or anybody like calling the victory for

[01:40:14] Biden it's not that they're not given any reason or any evidence to believe that's true there are a lot of those cases where things are are they're not they're out of context a little bit it's not that you can't defend it at all but it does totally taint like like lean you one way and like that stuff

[01:40:32] happens all the time with Trump and with like a lot of right wing figures where things are reported and excerpted and the Internet makes that very easy to it to happen I mean it also makes it very easy also a little easier for you to correct like

[01:40:46] yeah but the thing is you're taking a risk so so my delving into whatever corners of conservative Internet that I don't usually that I'm not usually part of there is a cost associated with me spending that much time in the like so I get upset I disagree

[01:41:04] I like you know I'm just get morally indignant it takes some energy to find these like blonde like like these like blonde Republican kind of borderline fascist girls that you would love I know that's why I keep this I think that they're just using fake avatars to try to lure people like me

[01:41:25] I love my guns there is like a real cost to diving deep enough to find that one thing that the liberal media might have distorted and it takes hours of like searching to make sure that it's right so that's asking a lot of people

[01:41:41] but it's all it's asking you know as a good it's like as a liberal myself like it's asking a lot of conservatives to do the same like it's not a mystery at all why we don't do that like you know if we were rational agents you could say well like you should look at information as if we were

[01:42:00] scientists looking at journal articles where we could find pro and con and make a rational assessment but in order for me to do that with politics I have to wade through a shit ton of like hateful spewing that goes against what I believe already and and that's just further incentive never to delve

[01:42:19] you have every disincentive to not like because a you're gonna like get your core beliefs that have like led you to do certain things challenged and B you're gonna get upset and you're gonna be exposed to things that you legitimately hate and you are well informed enough about to hate

[01:42:35] right and so the genuine response that I had when I was like fuck that's true he did say it was well but I know that Trump is pandering to white supremacists so like even if in this case he condemned them that doesn't mean that that clip is that bad to take out of context because I believe this already about Trump

[01:42:57] and that's exactly the fucking thing that people say that Trump is always doing right where like or the conservatives are always doing which is that like they're discarding evidence for the sake of like they already know that the spirit of belief is right

[01:43:12] so I'm not being a centrist here because I'm genuinely like convinced that fuck Trump but if you're not shook a little bit by the way we get information I think that you're probably a little too comfortable

[01:43:24] right I don't think this is a centrist like no because I think the centrists also do this right they also are very focused on things that support their centrist belief that you know defund the police is what costs the Democrats the Senate and this is a bias that is widespread among everybody

[01:43:44] some people are better at dealing with it than others but I don't think it's like where you are in the political spectrum has an effect on that

[01:43:51] yeah metacom it like sort of side metacom it then it is a little bit sad that whatever seven years ago I wouldn't have a problem saying both liberals and conservatives are biased without fearing that it placed me in some political like some on some side of politics

[01:44:07] and now the reason that I'm like hedging is that I don't want to be lumped in with like some weak-ass interest that I'm imagining in my mind who right it's like you can't say that anymore I just can't problem

[01:44:24] yeah it is the amount of information that exists on the internet true and false yeah is so ridiculous that the epistemic problems that we face now are just unparalleled

[01:44:37] and it's not even true and false but also just like this is the problem with some of the liberal stuff like some obviously some of the conservative stuff is way worse than what I'm about to describe

[01:44:47] it's just blatant falsehoods just like massive fraud a hundred you know two hundred thousand missing votes and Minnesota or whatever

[01:44:56] but like but what I'm talking about is more just like it's slanted in a certain direction and it cuts off certain quotes and speeches and ways that sort of bias you in a certain way

[01:45:08] or just like you know the fact that there have been all these Middle East peace deals that have barely gotten mentioned in the times whereas that just wouldn't be true if it was Obama like three months of the election

[01:45:20] and all of a sudden Israel is making peace with all these countries even if you know it's kind of already been true de facto like it's still like they would have covered it and they would have celebrated it

[01:45:31] and that just that kind of stuff doesn't happen and so like you have to be shook by that stuff it's patronizing you do have to like read across the spectrum yeah

[01:45:39] because you will have this moment but in order to do that you have to like take the fucking hit of reading fucking you know yeah like Ben Shapiro or whatever your boy right your boy no yeah

[01:45:51] I'll you know I'll give you an example of this the Rudy Giuliani is like the fuck with there's no there's zero equivocation in my belief there are my statement but that picture of him in the hotel room where he has his hand down his pants do you know

[01:46:06] yeah oh yeah I saw the bar yeah oh I didn't see but he's he's like you know I was tucking in my shirt and everyone like on my side of the aisle is like yeah whatever you were jerking off to that girl but like

[01:46:21] I seems pretty reasonable that he was tucking in his shirt like yeah there's some creepy thing like having seen the whole scene in the movie like and I don't know how he edited it but like there are some creepy things

[01:46:33] but like at least the initial reports of it were completely like not at all supported by like what you see in the movie and it's like journalism for the greater good which is very patronizing which is like okay you I don't need that to know that Rudy Giuliani is doing some evil

[01:46:48] stupid things I don't I don't need to also believe this but there is this desire to to curate information to make sure that I remember that he's evil and this is what Twitter and Facebook like that's how they make their money is to curate it for you

[01:47:03] and that's the problem this is like a part of this is like a conspiracy but it's not a conspiracy because it's not coordinated it's just they're the way they profit is by like out raging people and leading you like you okay you already are

[01:47:17] like I was to hate Rudy Giuliani and fair enough like he's very hateable but now they're just going to feed you everything any story that will like kind of true kind of true whatever it doesn't matter like that you're going to get it

[01:47:32] yeah I mean this is the this is the issue and then once you you've lost your innocence when it comes to that stuff it's like it is hard to get back and this is where like I feel like I was

[01:47:44] and why I'm more prone to believe in certain conspiracy is now you're all of a sudden like trusting what we're formally trusted sources less than you used you know and then once you're there then it's then you're fucked you're epistemically so fucked because how are you supposed to know

[01:48:04] yeah yeah there to me when I think about how I evaluate conspiracy theories I think I just use certain heuristics where it's it's just if anything requires the coordinated efforts of too many people that are kept secret I just don't believe it

[01:48:19] and I think that keeps me kind of roughly on like a on the right path or things that require like metaphysical beliefs that I just discard you know like the existence of lizard people

[01:48:30] or something like that right and then and then that's that but all of the middle ground stuff is the experience I have with the middle level stuff like people selectively reporting because they're trying to convince you uphold an ideology

[01:48:46] that stuff is not that far away psychologically from believing in conspiracy there it's just that people people who don't have like scientific education might set their rational priors differently when when talking when thinking about like you know how physics works and how medicine works

[01:49:03] but it's probably the same mechanism that's leading them to maintain this belief I don't know like gun to my head I'm probably with you but like I feel like I could easily be wrong like I could easily be wrong about like a lot of these like I tend to discard the

[01:49:21] conspiracies but I don't tend to think that it's crazy that they could be true like I think like you know with some of them yes yeah with lizard people yes but like you know JFK was assassinated by the CIA absolutely like gun to my head I don't even know what I would do

[01:49:39] I mean why did Jack Ruby kill the world? What's going on there? I mean there's so many fucked up things that you know something like Jeffrey Epstein killing himself I remember talking like we were texting with Paul I think and like what's your credence in it

[01:49:55] and like I remember he and maybe you too had a very low credence like 10% 15% I'm convinced that he killed himself yeah so like I don't like I'm convinced that like either he didn't kill himself or he was he was convinced to kill himself because there were certain threats coming from powerful people

[01:50:16] and that wouldn't be that hard to coordinate and like certainly less hard than all the things they had done for him to get to that prison cell I think that the Illuminati convinced the aliens to coerce him through mind control using 5G waves

[01:50:31] but this is what I mean I think we are like we still like for all your like what you've conceded and I've conceded we're still far apart unlike where we think

[01:50:40] like your epistemic confidence is much higher than mine yeah these things it is it is for better or for worse like I'm just I just don't believe in the coordinated I'm just a pessimist about coordinated human action

[01:50:53] and also like a pretty strong rationalist in paris is I mean those two things don't mean what I mean pretty strong in my ease with which I would discard information that's not obviously relevant so like I don't know

[01:51:09] hey let me ask you a question I saw I closed on my house on Friday yeah the closing date was said is Friday the 13th

[01:51:17] and the seller asked me are you superstitious at all and I was like fuck no I didn't give a fuck like what day it's but would that bother you at all

[01:51:27] that in particular no yeah yeah I thought like for a moment I was like what would it be like to be a person who believed that signing paperwork on that day would mean something

[01:51:38] and I thought I should ask him but like I will like my daughter is very like knock on wood person like she and like you have to do it the right way or

[01:51:47] or your fucked and she really believes that and probably because of superstitions that I that I've instilled in her but like you know it's also just random what like the Friday the 13th thing never got to me

[01:51:59] and we were watching like the conjuring which is like a haunted house movie and you know how in all those things you you always sort of make fun this part of the fun of the movies you make fun of the

[01:52:11] like how are they not getting that this is a fucked up situation why are they not just packing up like the Eddie Murphy thing you get the fuck out there goes to get the fuck out right

[01:52:19] like why are they not doing that and then I remembered that when we moved into our house in Houston we were renting it at the time in the attic there were like I swear to God 80 I don't know half human sized ceramic Santa Claus

[01:52:37] Santa Claus is like very of all different types like there were there and Svarta Pete's also and just like like so from all different kind of cultural presentations of Santa's they were a little like 80 the entire attic was covered in them

[01:52:50] and we even joked at the time that that was like a horror movie that like you know like you could call a Santa where they are and then we just we didn't want them like we don't like we're Jewish or you know I'm Jewish and so we put all the Santa's on the lawn and and like just gave them away to everybody in the neighborhood

[01:53:11] and like and we thought that was fine we didn't move out of the house we didn't say get the fuck out of the house like we we we stayed in that house which is insane we thought if we just get rid of the Santa's they're not going to kill us because like they're not going to just come back to the house

[01:53:26] and kill us and then you would see them pop up across the street and like oh that's fine like all of a sudden like this neighbor has one of our Santa's

[01:53:32] all I want to know is that you put the short of Pete's on the lawn like a lawn jockeys

[01:53:43] my point though is that like I think just because like you seem to like detect some sort of like pattern in one area like you might be totally blind to it another and another and so yeah no it's true I think I've I made a decision at some point in my life to

[01:54:02] just like kill all of that part of my like just just it's an easier life if I don't care about those those those random patterns I don't know why it's like sort of I decided to stop arguing with you you know

[01:54:17] about these kinds of things yeah yeah yeah I'd never made that decision you know but like that doesn't mean that I see patterns in everything like Friday the 13th nothing like you know what you failed to see a pattern in

[01:54:30] and I've never seen a ghost you fail to see a pattern in the rampant cheating of the New England Patriots but we can talk about that next time that's one of the most implausible conspiracies like maybe that's ever like been put forth

[01:54:45] you're like 50-50 on lizard people but like deflate gate fuck you that's just crazy but I mean it was it was at the level of lizard people yeah where was your skepticism man I'm glad that that you enjoy sucking Tom Brady's dick

[01:55:07] so anymore all right all right we'll be back I feel like there's a lot of stuff that we didn't talk about we didn't even talk about the substance of any of these

[01:55:20] yeah which I mean we alluded to them but I would like to go a little deeper into some of them New World Order if we make it to next episode if we're not silenced by the Illuminati

[01:55:31] it's really just a question of is it the Jew conspiracy that's in charge or is it the Christian one that's what confuses me if they were so powerful why did they let the Holocaust happen

[01:55:39] yeah I don't know like I don't know because I'm not part of it it's like every conspiracy goes on without my being a part of it

[01:55:46] that's actually true that there was like kind of a conspiracy I've been in a department I won't say which where there was this conspiracy playing out that I should have like figured out I did it you're an outsider looking at me yeah exactly the outside looking at me

[01:56:03] all right George's next time on Very Bad Wizard

[01:56:40] everybody can have a break very good man just a very bad wizard