A Geek History of Time - Episode 233 - Why Eugenics Should Make Us Feel Bad About Liking Idiocracy Part II

Episode Date: October 14, 2023

Music See people when they click on this, they'll see the title, so they'll be like, poor Ed. But what does that mean to me? However, because it's England, that's largely ignored and unstudy. I really wish for the sake of my stances moral righteousness that I could get away with saying no. He had a god damned ancestral home and a noble title until Germany became a republic. You know, none of this high-falutin, you know, critical role stuff.

So they chewed through my favorite shit. No, I'm not helping them. I'm gonna say that you're getting into another kind of, you know, Mediterranean or psyche archetype kind of thing. Makes sense. Also, trade winds are a thing. Uh-huh, just serious. Like, no, he kind of thing. Makes sense. Also, trade wins or a thing. Ha-ha, just serious. Like, no, he really has a mad on it. I'll be able to go on a tangent.

Um, as we keep doing. Like, yeah, this is how we fill time. 1.5-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1- This is AL Week 2. Where we connect nurturing to the real world, is Ed Bllock in all history and English teacher at the sixth grade level. Here in Northern California. And this has been a very eventful week. My in-laws and my parents We're here visiting at the same time, which is always entertaining. And at the end of all of it, early to this evening, my wife and I had a lot of a moment where we were just really, really tired. tired. And we kind of need need a weekend or two to just not do anything. And living living in a late capitalist hellscape like we do makes that really hard Simply because we don't have any time other than the weekend to do a lot of shit So

Yeah, that's just kind of where where we are we're tired. Um, how are you doing? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a US history teacher here at the high school level up here in Northern California. I'm doing pretty well. I do not have an exhausting child because mine are now getting close to the age of the ages that we teach. In fact, both of mine are the ages that you teach. Yes, this is true. So I promise you it gets easier even though you guys are playing zone defense and it must be nice because I'm I'm in a fast break. I'm in a fast break on the defense or what have you. But I do promise you that it does get easier as to how to hear that. Can't speak to you about the in laws and parents both coming because I am a fish. I wandered off.

But I will tell you this, I had a moment that was pretty proud of recently, my son and I have been playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Right. The video game from the while where he was made. Yeah. And we finished it and then he's like, can we play the Civil War one? Yes, absolutely. Okay.

And this is the one, you know, that you remember he wrote the Sonic fan fiction about. Right, right, right. So now we're doing the Civil War one and he's been hungry for that. So I play with him with that one. There comes a point in that game where you get to choose, are you going to registration? Are you going to rebel? Right. And I took him as like, you need to go listen to everybody. And I said, and I am not a part of this decision.

So don't even look to me for any kind of guidance here. He goes around talks to Luke Cage, talks to He goes around, talks to Luke Cage, talks to Mr. Fantastic, talks to Songberg, talks to Spider Woman, gets all their opinions, and then it's like, okay, we gotta go choose. It looks to me he's like, well, what are we gonna do? And I was like, no, no, no, your choice. Like, it's a video game and you get to choose.

I already chose both and played both. So I know how it goes. Right, right. And he know how good I am. And he's sitting thinking it over. And he says, and he's like, okay, we're gonna rebel. I said, are you sure? Cause you won't get to play Iron Man for quite some time now. And he says, Iron Man's my favorite, but caps right.

You don't get to tell people that they have to register. All right, here we go. Now, yeah, exactly. I'm a huge cap now. Here's the funny thing is that source material, the, the comic book source material, I'm 100% on cap side. Like, even though I do not want to live in a world where self-appointed vigilantes determine life and death, I mean, and property of the image. It still beats Tony Stark, went full villain, has a secret prison and frankly, like, just, you know, you would robbie Baldwin. and ultimately his inability to answer Jessica Jones in the comics. So given that source material, I'm obviously on a cap site, right? I'm a huge cap stan anyway. In the MCU, I actually

I end up sighting with Iron Man. I know. Philosophically, I'm against him, practically, I'm with him because it's not about... Here's why, because Ross straight up says, because when Natasha says, well, what if we don't want to go with it? And he says, consider yourself retired then. So there's an out like... Yeah, but... Also, here's the other thing though in the MCU, the only super powered beings that exist at that time are kind of all the ones that are in that room. So it just becomes about that club.

Okay. And there's no secret identities other than Spider-Man. And he doesn't even show up until Iron Man brings him into the fight, right? So the morality of the Scovvy against has nothing to do with Spidey, too. So I actually, it's kind of interesting because eventually I think we're going to end up debating with with friend of the show Tim Watts, comic book creator of the Republic. In the pub that he built behind his house. We're gonna end up debating with him over this and the dirty little secret is that I actually am probably gonna agree with him if we go with MCU.

If we go with comics, it'll be a much more lively debate. But MCU and again, there's a secret prison, but that's not a secret prison that Ironman created. Yeah, Ironman's not wrong. Now Ironman Ironman gets off the hook in the MC. I think I think it's a very big Very big important part of that conversation is Ironman kind of gets off the hook in the MCU. I'm going to argue The whole time he's trying to offload his conscience. Yeah, I mean 110% That's the the aspect of grief that he's going through for the DSD that he's suffering. Yeah.

Yeah. And, and like, I can totally understand that and that totally humanizes it. And in that situation, Tony Stark is not, the movies don't villainize him. Correct. The movies villainize Ross Yes, fundamentally fundamentally the bad guy is Ross. Yeah, which like still tracks with the comics cuz holy shit but

my My own take on it in both universes is What's for two is the three or eight rule. Okay. If you have the ability to stop something bad from happening, you have a responsibility to stop a bad thing from happening. So any universe in which you have Hydra, right, you have a responsibility, if you are a cap and we're in a universe where there is Hydra, you have a responsibility to do what needs to be done to protect people from that threat because you are the one who has the ability to do that. That's true. No, I get it. I mean, if I had a collection of zip ties and bear mace and maybe some husbandhood weapons that I stored with some friends on the ground. Yeah. And the image make a noose and go and stop the certification of an election.

I would also feel the moral responsibility. Yeah, I saw where you were going right off the bat from that. And that's, yeah. And that is certainly the flaw if that's the only guiding principle behind your morality. Right. As my brother said, I trust cap. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. It is like my brother has always been smarter than me.

Yeah. And you know, and I mean, we talked about this when we talked about civil war in the comics. It's very clearly, part of the issue is, the central part of the issue is that one side approaches superpowers as being like gun rights. Yes. Which is essentially a property right.

Right. Right. And the other side Jessica Jones Luke Cage Cap look at it as okay, no, I can't put this in a locker Right, this is who I am you are you are forcing me to register based on an inherent characteristic that I can't do anything about Like that I did for that I didn't Well, I didn't ask for that I didn't well on the case it just because it was just a case didn't ask for that yeah like Cap can't make that argument because he like he leapt at the call but yeah and and for Tony Stark and for anybody who's part of the Iron Man genius. It literally is a property issue. Registering you fucking power suit.

Right. Yeah. And so for him, especially with all of his privilege and money, he can put the suit away and walk away and retire. He can opt out of his status. Yes. Yeah. can opt out of his address. Yes. And that's why I said specifically strictly to the MCU movie of Civil War, I end up on Ironman side despite myself because there's 12 super power beings. That's it. Like in the world and they're all in that room. You know, now in in both the comic and in the movie, it's interesting that the rallying cry for both ends up being somebody who gets completely fucked by it six

ways from Sunday in the MCU. Wanda is absolutely screwed by everything that happened. She killed like eight people and they're like, oh my god, this is terrible. It's like, that guy was a suicide bomber and the market was filled with like 200 people. Yeah. Like that's like, hey, you killed four people. I saved, I saved a kindergarten class. Yeah. Like and and given what the state of education today is 40 kids. Um, but uh, but yeah, um, you know, and in the in the comic, uh, it absolutely, um, you know, screws somebody as well. Like, speedball gets completely fucked as I covered quite a bit. So ball gets completely fucked as I've covered quite a bit. So anyway. Yeah. So, uh, so I am, but yeah, my my son shows to not register, even though that means not getting play as Black Panther

or not. I'm glad. I'm glad. I'm glad. So anyway, uh, when last we spoke, we were still stuck in Europe dealing with eugenicists. Um, given that I'm trying to get us, oh, you're pouring your third beer the night. Um, yep. Given that I'm trying to get us to examine an American movie, Idiocracy, we should take a look at eugenics in America. So take a gulp, pour it out. Yeah, that is, that is a full, full, I don't know what you'd call that cup. Um, a goblet. Um, that is a full goblet. So for anybody who's, so for anybody who's interested, um, I do recommend what I'm about to drink. This is from a brewery, I really like this. This dragon's milk, crimson keep. It's a bourbon barrel aged red ale.

And it's very, very tasty. And for the purposes of what we're doing tonight, a very important point is it is 11% alcohol. Yeah, there you go. By volume. Whereas for anybody in the audience who's not a drinker, your average macro brewery beer is about 5.5%. There you go. So anyway, yes, eugenics in American history. So let's start with Alexander Graham Bell. Because of course we're starting with Alexander Graham Bell. Uh, because of course we're starting with Alexander Graham Bell.

Yeah. One of one of the great bastards of American history. Yes. Yes. So, yeah, Alexander Graham Bell noted that and Martha's vineyard, Massachusetts, that deafness was more frequent there than anywhere else. By what kind of like did he have did he give receipts? Actually, yeah, there's quite a bit there. So Martha's vineyard was and still is an island off the

coast of Massachusetts. But on that island, it had served as a summer escape for the wealthy, starting in the 1970s, which means that in fact there's a local population there as well, and that there's a visitor population. So rich people are the visitors, the locals who are there amongst them. Hereditary deafness was uncommonly high, notable to the point where that in some small towns on that island, as many as one in 25 people were deaf. Really? Yeah, and on the whole island,

it was roughly one in 155, which just to give you an idea at that time, the frequency of hereditary deafness at that time was one in 5,730. Wow. Okay, so that is in fact statistically significant. Quite so. Okay, after we'd been talking about the assholes, we've been talking about

in our last episode, I thought that was just something he pulled out of his ass anecdotally. But okay. No. All right. And again, it's Alexander and Greg Bell. So he's especially interested in sound and hearing, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, he wrote up a paper and delivered it to the National Academy of Sciences in 1883. The state keeps coming up, right? Alexander Graham el theorized that since deafness was hereditary, deaf couples would have a higher instance of having deaf children, and therefore they shouldn't fuck. Now, I say they shouldn't fuck because contraception back then was largely don't fuck. Yeah.

That doesn't mean that he's advocating for celibacy, he's advocating for not breeding. So if you're using Pissaris, which I don't think is really big in the US until about 20 years later, or if you're pulling out, although that's considered onanism and that'll soften your mind. Yeah. But anyway, like you get the idea, I'm, I'm broad brush, theoretically saving strokes, but now I'm talking all about it. But they shouldn't fuck.

Thus, Alexander Graham Bell was advocating for negative eugenics. Remember, you keep the undesirable trait, having people from having sex, uh, allow the desirable trait, having people to fuck as much as possible. Yes. Um, now this combined with Bell's love of livestock breeding, which by the way, it was a thing for him. Um, yeah, I was a little stunned when I found that out too, um, which I guess it makes sense.

Again, everybody at that time seems to like look at how many times we have brought that up, right? Elfrank. Oh yeah, over and over. Yeah. When I mentioned the the British famine in Ireland, like one of the reason people were getting kicked off their land was from luxury sheet breeding. And it makes sense with... Okay, stop. Hold on. Yeah. Luxury sheet breeding. And it makes sense with stop hold on luxury sheet breeding. Yeah, similar to luxury chickens. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I had not realized it was luxury sheet breeding. I knew it was sheet breeding, which also, by the way, is the reason why the Scott's Highlanders were kicked off

of their lands during the clearances. Right. So I mean, you know, that's the thing going going backances. Right. So, I mean, you know, that's a thing going back ways. Yeah. But luxury sheep breeding, okay. Right. It's a good way for rich people to flex. Okay. Yeah.

Kick off people they've never met from the lands that they don't really see. Yeah. Well, there you are. So, Bell was into that as well, and that gets him appointed to a Eugenics Commission, which was absolutely informed by the concepts of animal husbandry, and they then took those and tried to apply them to humanity as often as possible, like you do. Now, interestingly enough, the Deaf population on Martha's Vineyard Island and the hearing population, largely on their own had developed their

own sign language and the deaf members of that community were absolutely independent and capable of living a full productive life in their community as equals like you do. That's actually really awesome. Yeah. Now this independence of people with what Bell saw as a disability was what initially drew his interest. He's like, wait a minute. And that led him to thinking of a new way to solve deafness by the same negative eugenics he had became it. Well, look, they've come up with a way around it. We should really eliminate the thing

that they're having to come up with a way around. And I kind of get it. Like if your lens is that, let's say that your son, like, but just is shorter than most kids or something, right? And you're like, look, he had to come up with a way to get up onto the counter to get up to that thing. Okay.

We don't want the next generation to have to do all that work. So let's just sterilize your son. I mean, wouldn't I mean, I mean, like, I know that this is all all completely theoretical. Yeah, no, I see, I see the train of logic. And I understand that's the whole reason that you were saying all of that. But right now, yeah, I have to tell you, it is physically hurting me, not to get up out of this chair and go grab a broadsword. Like, fair enough.

You, like, yeah, from the point of view of somebody who's looking at it as a disability, right? Yeah. And not seeing the full life of like, he fucking accommodated himself. He's fine. Yeah. Like he figured it out. Like that.

You're not bitching that people are using stairs. Are you? Yeah. And shut up. You know, fuck off. Like, like, he showed resilience. He showed creativity. He, he, like, he's smarter than your fucking kid because he figured out how to do this.

Fuck off. No. Because he wasn't born with these privileges. Yes. Yeah. So obviously his life must not be worth living. Like what? Right. Or what?

You really want him to have to pass those difficulties on to the next generation. And it's like talking about begging the question. Yeah, number one. Also speaking as a short guy, fuck you. Right. Right. I already did. Like, are you going to want me to go into Genics jail?

Like, see, okay, NC, and as a result of your, your being allowed to propagate recklessly, we have another generation of ladder draggers. Yeah. A ladder draggers. I love that. So. Yeah. A ladder draggers. I love that. Yeah. I mean, um, people tend to find shorter people too. So you're not really improving the race.

So it's like, fucker, you could have built the house a little shorter too. Like, like, like, like, so much that goes into all of things. Yeah, there's so much that goes into all of it. There's so many systemic issues. But on that last point about shorter people fighting, shorter people, this is a total segue, but I have to include it. When my son was very little, like under a year old, he was very little. Weight wise, he was okay, but length wise, high wise, he was very little. Weight wise, he was okay, but you know, length wise, high wise, he was very small.

And we would go in for his checkups and for the first, you know, year and a half, he was his percentile numbers for size and everything were small. And my wife was really like worried about this in an outsized way, because the numbers are small. Well, after two years of this, our pediatrician at the time said, okay, no, look, the numbers are going up.

He's growing fine. And this is the same, the same reassurance as she'd been giving my life for like two years. But she said, you know, he's growing. That's all that matters. You know, and my wife said, well, you know, it's just, and I understand this is silly of me, but it's just the numbers are always so low. And the doctor went, okay. And she and I were both, my wife and I were both in the room. And the doctor said, okay, and turn to me and said, how tall are you? Right.

I said, five, six. Just turn them away. I have how tall are you? Five, four. She says, okay. Well, so here's your son's, here's your son's, you know, growth curve, right? And here's where he is.

And you know, this is, you know, 10th percentile or something. And then let's take your two charts and plug that in there. We saw our two lines on it and she's like, he's exactly where he belongs. Right. In my life, actually got a little, she's like, I understand you're trying to be reassuring, but like, did you have to call me out like that?

Like, holy shit. Yes, clearly, because you've been worried for two years or more. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Is patently true. Yeah. Like, clearly, because you've been worried for two years. Yeah, yeah, yeah, is patently true. Yeah, you know, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, similar story. My children have always been like in the upper quartile of everything. Yeah, 85th, 90th percentile. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so, you know, their mom and I are divorced and, you know, she's always worried on that end that, you know, they're too big, they're too. And I was like, you do remember who their father is, right? And they have my hair and coloring.

Because you're six, what? Six, six, six feet. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Like, I'm like, you do remember who their father She's like nobody in my family is that all I'm like how are you a nurse? If you don't understand Mendelian genetics like you made it with a high lender twice How how like I know nobody on your side of the family is that tall.

I know because I kept the wedding album. Like, I can look into pictures. I'm a tent pole. Like, more like a main mask. And yeah, yeah, but still. Yeah, and well, and the thing is, it's the other thing is, you're right. Nobody in your family is that tall,

but nobody in your family is miding my wife's height. You know, you're not... No, no, no, no, no, no. It's not on her side of the family. She was talking about like, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I'm saying. It's nobody, nobody on your family is as tall

as your husband, but also nobody in your family is my height. That's true. I mean, well, a lot of the gals, okay, well, everybody's like five five eight or shorter, you know, okay again, I'm just like Yeah, I really think one of the worst things that that pediatricians have done has been like showing us the charts and the measurements Yeah, let us know if it pings below the fifth percentile for us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And he doesn't for you guys, you know what I mean? But whatever. But the other one is that, of course, when we were trying to figure out, you know, what was going on with my son, because my son has cerebral palsy and mild autism. And we did the genetic counseling. And they asked at one, or they said at one point, they're like, well, I have this. This is this is a medical record says a child may have macrosophilopathy, which is big headed. Yeah. Yeah. But appears relatively benign because so does father. And I was like,

wait, what? Yeah. I told you had a big dome. I have a big dome. And you know, it's been masked by the fact that I have grown over the years. I love the fact that it's big, long word macrocephalopathy. Yeah. You got a big head.

Yeah, big headed. You got a big, you got a pumpkin dome. Like, yeah. So I'm trying to run. So, it's like, yeah, you know, that's the thing. So, yeah, Alexander Graham Bell would be like, okay, well, clearly Damien is superior because he has a large head

and therefore he's got a long word. Right, because yeah, the, not flea bottomy, free knowledgey. Yeah. Yeah, Flea bottomy? Yeah, well, like, I'm into my third beer that I should like come on. Yeah. Give me a little bit of grace here.

But yes, because of the free knowledge. Yeah. Now, you know, that's Alexander Grimbele. That's Martha's Vineyard. Clearly, like, people are thinking of things things in, I'm going to say scientific terms because it's different than, well, there must have been a poison in the air. It is different than that.

And we maybe add the qualification pseudoscientific. Yeah, yeah, but what they saw as scientific. And that's so. Okay, okay. I'm gonna put like, it had not been as scientific. And that's so okay. Okay. I'm gonna put like it had not been, it had not been debunked. I'm not gonna put air quotes around it.

I'm gonna put like parentheses around it. Okay. Maybe, maybe grayscale parentheses around it, you know? Cause we don't want to be presentist. Well, it's not that. It's not our last episode. They were genuinely trying to apply what they understood as science at that time to the thing.

Yeah. It's, you know, the, the water that they were using for their slides was the problem, you know, and they didn't know it. Yeah, yeah. I like that. I like that analogy. Yeah. Okay.

Also, keep in mind at this point 1882 1883 they're still 34 44 years away from figuring out that ether is not a real substance Like shit that was that late was Okay, yeah Hoover was president. Um, oh, oh. Okay. So now Charles Davenport has entered this awful, awful chat. Charles Davenport, uh, whose name will come up for quite some time. Uh, he was a zoologist whose wealthy parents wanted him to become an engineer. Oh, God. another fucking zoologist from a wealthy family. Yeah. Yeah, turns out that's that's villain 101. Um, he, he was a huge fan of Galton, uh, Sir Francis Galton from the last episode.

Because of course he was because they met in 1901 in London. Um, and in 1904, Davenport moved, uh, Um, and in 1904, Davenport moved, uh, over from Zoology to Eugenics full time. And he established the Eugenics Reckords office six years later in 1910, using money from the Carnegie institution and EH and Mary Harriman's railroad fortune. And this becomes the locus of eugenics in the United States. The Carnegie Foundation? Yeah, they give him money and so did the railroad tycoons, EH and Mary Harman, EH and Mary Harman. Yeah. Yeah.

Now, this is in Coldwater, New York. Okay. And it becomes, anytime I talk about the Eugenics Records Office, this is where I'm talking about. Now in America, Eugenics was still largely something that was just discussed and accepted broadly amongst scientists at the time. Like, oh, well, yeah, of course that's true.

I'm my kids smart because I'm smart and therefore. They held a few scientific conferences throughout the world and largely talked to each other about it, building on each other's ideology and research. Charles Davenport is the reason that Eugenics in the United States got all the steam behind it that it did, though. Well, that and the American dominant culture at the time that had invested interest in explaining through biology, what had been made true by law already. Um, so a year after establishing the Eugenics Records Office, Charles Davenport wrote something called, he wrote a book called

Heredity in relation to Eugenics. So you know, this is, yeah. Okay. This became a standard college textbook for biology and zoology for about 40 years thereafter. Oh, way. Hold on. Yeah. Back, back to truck up. There's your hold. Hold on a second.

Um, this is in 1911. Hold on. 1911. And, and, and this, give, the title of the book again, 30, okay, heredity and relation to eugenics. Heredity and relation to eugenics in relation, but yes, in relation. Okay. You, okay. And that and that remained a mainstream university biology textbook. Anzoology textbook.

Okay. About 30 to 40. Perfert into the 40s. Yes. In the United States. Yes. Cheers. Yeah.

Because I wow. Yeah. Now Davenport divided people into, he divided people into different races, and he used those as the basis for who was more or less fit for continued human improvement over time. Oh, really? Yep. Like, okay, so here oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, because it's also another one. It's also five races. Okay, golden to 10. Madison Grant did five.

There was another guy in the 1700s who did five, whose name I'm forgetting. But he did five and he did the ending oids. Right, right, which is where we get mongoloid right as a holdover right unfortunate fucking term okay so okay but yeah so this idea there being different races and and distinct ones is a pretty common one some people would say five some people would say six, some people said 10. Okay, so like what in his division of humanity into more than one species because fuck, we're stupid. What was the distinction in his,

what made his system of differentiation different from the other ones? I mean, what made his system of differentiation different from the other ones? I think it was just more, how to put this. You know how like sometimes you'll see this kind of like, not quite cannibalistic aspect of academia, but where they talk about like,

I'm gonna use color scheme for just a second. They're gonna talk about like the background color of our zoom is better than Eben Black. And then 20 years later, someone's like, you know, when Harmony said Eben Black, what he really meant was jet black. And then 10 years after that, somebody's like, not really jet black, so much.

What's kind of cold? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So the distinctions are distinctions without differences and again, they're all making it up. Like, yeah, well, it's like adding, it's almost like adding classes in D and D. It's like, okay, you realize you're just doing magic user or martial character, right? You know that you're doing that or healer. Like you're just doing those three.

It's just, you know, okay, well you got a barbarian now. Okay, so like a stronger martial class. Yeah. Well, no, no, this is a druid. Okay, so a nature healer, you know, stuff like that, right? All right, okay, that's skirmishers. Okay, fine, you finally did find a difference enough. This is skirmisher, fine. Yeah, you know, but this is sub species right?

This is skirmisher who uses like arrows from a distance and is good at tracking things. Okay, so he's in nature skirmisher. God yeah, like okay. Yeah, so now Davenport along with many others believed strongly that he had proven the quote science of human improvement by better breeding and quote because none of the other guys that came before had figured it out no but more like he had been like okay they all had it right and now now it's okay so so so he considered the seal of the prophets in terms of of eugenicism. Okay. It's still. They all. So so they all they all had part of the picture, but now I I've perfected it. Well, yeah, by the way, to any of our listeners who may be Muslim,

I apologize for any any offense I may have caused by the use of the term seal of the prophets in that context, but that's just kind of how that came out. But he was he was characterizing himself in that role. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, and by the way, to any couch enthusiasts, you're welcomed for his name. Okay. So, and by the way, to any couch enthusiasts, you're welcomed for his name. Um, so.

Okay. Nice. Nice. Nice. This, this idea of course means that some people should breed more and others should breed less. And of course you and I know what that means. Well, I mean, obviously anybody who's like me should be breeding more.

Yeah, he would say that about. Yeah. Like, um, because that more clearly. He would say that about. Yeah. Like, because that's always the way these things turn out. Yeah. And he was clear about it too. He was actually very upfront about it. And since, according to Davenport race determined behavior, therefore behavioral and psychological traits were hereditary.

And if the United States wants to improve as a country, this meant that mixing races would slow everything down. Okay. I need to, I need to interject here. I know I'm doing it. I'm doing it enough that this is going to be like an eight episode slog. But yeah, no, this is only a 23-pageer, but yeah, fuck. Okay. So people are going to be like, like, six episodes and they're like, are you ever going to get to the fucking movie? But yeah, when the hell be in the end. Okay. So, people are gonna be like, except those are like, are you ever gonna get to the fucking movie? Yeah, when the hell are we actually gonna talk about judge and the film?

But like, none of these guys, when they talk about, well, you know, in Mixing the Races, it's gonna get the way of us, you know, achieving, you know, what we do, improvement. Like, if none of them bent on a farm and actually, because one of the things that when you are engaging in animal husbandry, one of the things you look for is every so often you have to introduce fresh blood to get what you call hybrid vigor.

Well, that's still selectively breeding in the traits that you want. Well, yeah, I understand. And that's that that is you're still you're still choosing the hybrid vigor. You're not just saying go out and like for the next generations, fuck whatever. Okay. Yeah. However, I'm I'm I'm I'm focusing on the racial quote unquote racial purity aspect of this glad that you are because what I'm about to tell you is going to piss you off. Oh shit. Yeah. Because you know, because if you're if you're trying to argue about, you know, racial purity, racial purity, like, okay, look at any kind of competitive show animal. Right. And when you, when you breed them, it, when you interbreed them with themselves too much, you wind up getting the Habsburgs. Sure,

but with your, like, as a kid of 4-H, I didn't breed my Dutch rabbits with Californians or with Netherlands warms and think, oh, these offspring are going to be better Dutch rabbits. Okay, fair. All right. All right. Fine. But you get what I'm saying. Like, yeah, okay. Yeah. Because this is this is just this is so patently fucking wrong. this on a talk about the last episode where, yeah, what they don't seem to get is that the entire culture of animal husbandry is fully controlled too. Yeah. And the culling of the herd happens often. And they would have said, yeah, well, yeah, that's why you need to poison children. Okay.

Now, what are you talking about? Mixed breeding. Right. I'm not talking about what was against the law in most states. Oh, no. No, I'm talking about mixed breeding amongst white people. Wow. What? out mixed breeding amongst white people. Wow, why? Because, well, because if a British person were to breed with an Italian person,

that Italian person might carry undesirable traits that don't, don't obviate themselves in that. Oh, no, no, no. And Mike, it's gone down because if people have recessive traits that don't physically show themselves, their recessive traits could continue to work their way into the population, staying in the gene pool and weakening America. This means then, of course,

that the only way to stop that accidentally thinking that you're fucking a white person, but it's not really a white person, or it's not the right kind of white person. That means that you need fucking a white person, but it's not really a white person. It's not the right kind of white person. That means that you need to make sure that certain people don't get allowed to come into the country for fear of their mixing with other more desirable people, which absolutely is going to lead to the 1921 Emergency Quota Act. And of course, it's SQL, the Immigration Act. Yeah. So, so this is this is where we also get into the tangential, but kind of important in related conversation about the definition of whiteness. Oh, it's not tangential. And

and when and when it is and when it is that Italian people in the United States actually attained status as white. Oh, this is central. And the Irish actually changed the status as white. Yeah, this is central, not tangential. Fuck. So Davenport heavily lobbied Congress through a man named Albert Johnson, who was a representative of Washington States Third District. He used Johnson as his leverage piece to use legislation to restrict the living shit out of

immigration. Albert Johnson, who sponsored the bill that became the 1924 law, representative from the third district of Washington state, Albert Johnson said in 1919 that Jewish immigrants were, quote, filthy, un-American and often dangerous in their habits. And, quote, wow. And Johnson, Albert Johnson, representative of Washington's States Third District, also appointed Harry Lachlan of the Eugenics Records office to the committee as an expert on issues of race for the eventual bill. And he said that the 1924 Immigration Act would stop, quote, a stream of alien blood with all its inheritance misconceptions, respecting the relationships of the government, of the governing power to the government."

End quote. Now I'm going to get into more of Lawland in a little bit. But for now, just know that the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization that fed into this bill included an expert on race who believed that Jewish people were inherently feeble-minded that Italians were naturally prone to excessive insanity and who wrote a comedy play on eugenics for eugenicists, which is like the most fucked up version of for us by us that somebody could find to do.

Yeah, so, okay. So presumably then, the people that they have all placed at the top of the quote-unquote desirable line are oddly enough Anglo-Saxon United Kingdom residents that we want to have coming into the country. Yeah. With scots slightly below them. Right. Yeah. The Welsh probably not even being considered as a separate group because nobody thinks about the Welsh until the modern era at least in the United States. And then, you know, oddly enough, then probably

the French. Yeah, Germans, Germans probably way up high there. Yeah. Well, if you remember Madison Grant, the passing of the great race, yeah, he separated into latitudinal bands. So Nordic, Alpine and Mediterranean. Bob, me really? Yeah. So Nordic being the ob top ob obviously because yeah. All right. By the way, the third district, presently, third district of Washington state presently is 89% white. I don't know what it was that then.

Presently. Yeah. Back then, I'm going to make it. I think it's stabbing the dark and say it was 105% white. I think like Clark County, Washington is most of it. And the biggest city is Vancouver, Washington. Yeah. And you lived up. I, well, I lived in Seattle. But yeah, so you might have some understanding geographically, where I'm talking. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I get, I get where you are. It's the northernmost part of, of the state.

No, no, this is more the southern most. Vancouver? Yeah, right? No, Vancouver is near Vancouver, Canada. Is it? Vancouver, Washington is the northwestern most part of the state. Oh, okay. Southern part of the state is Tacoma. Okay. Well, yeah, it's, it's a, uh, Roma of Tacoma. Yeah, as I recall on the map and, and I could absolutely be wrong. Um, but, uh, yeah, it borders Oregon. Like what's, what's the, uh, like, okay, wait, hold on. I'm thinking of something. Hold on. I'm thinking of something very different because I just realized I'm I'm again three beers in and uh yeah. Third district includes uh yeah Vancouver is way in the South. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. No. It's it's it's right on the Columbia River which makes makes things make things make a lot more sense because

of course Oregon until I don't remember what what year had a law preventing non-white people from moving into the state. Yeah, it was the mid-1800s by the first, the eventual first governor of California. Yeah. Okay, so. So, the Immigration Act of 1924 sought to limit the genetic regression that eugenicists clutched all the pearls to by limiting immigration. So, look, if we can't outbreed them, we can stop them from coming in and then we'll get a foothold. Now, the immigration act of 1924 specifically was aimed at Asian people. So, any person from Asia, and even more specifically, it also aimed at southern and eastern Europeans. Because by 1924, over 4 million Italians had 4.2 million Italians had come over since

the 1880s and 1870s, and 4.1 million Austrians had come over since that same time. So clearly, we got to limit those two groups because they look white. Like, we could pass anti-Asian immigration laws. No problem. We've done it. But how do you weed out the not white white ones? Well, country of origin will help a lot with that.

Not white white ones., yeah, really? You, you can't, they had hands covered that. That's fine. It wasn't a substance yet. I have to keep coming back to this. But like you can't be satisfied with just the level of racism of like, well, you know, the shape of their eyes is different or they have more melanin than we do. No, no, no, that's not enough.

It's got to be, well, you know, they're from the Mediterranean. Right. Like, okay, is there a distinction? Is there a distinction between Norman and French and like, you know, Mediterranean, Southern French? Yes. Where, fuck me really? Yes. I mean, not legally no, but like people would be like, well, what part of France? I mean, come on. You've heard that joke about there's a Flemish and a Wal-Lune walking down the pier and a bird shits on the Wal-Lune and the Flemish says, Oh my God, do you want a tissue? And the Wal-Loon's like,

Why? He's a mile away. You can't wipe him from here. Like, it's fucking Wal-Loon's. Like, of course, there's,, okay, now hold on. Hold on. There was a gradation of, you know, how French are you? Right. If we're talking about spaniards, yeah. Spaniards are just like, they're some Mediterranean, like, they're not in the same country where he's the French at all.

They're all Burian. Okay. Yeah. And in T They're all burying. Okay. Why? In Toulade. Yeah. Okay. So they got that actually temper. Yeah. It's all that shit, right?

The French are Leconic and Sleepy and lazy. The Italians are anarchists. The Austrians might be Jews. the Italians or anarchists, the Austrians might be Jews. Germans, but hold on, but the Austrians are Alpine. They are, but again, might be Jews, because the Austrian Empire actually opened up citizenship to the Jewish people trying to escape Russia, because fuck the Russians, right? Right. Yeah. We've served on the Slavs. Oh, right. Slavs.

Yeah. Right. Jesus. So it's not enough to create an artificial category called whiteness. You've got it. Okay. You got it. So being not not white, agents were easy to pick out of a crowd and pass laws

against letting them fuck white people. But an Italian immigrants grandson 40 years down the road, he could pass for white. And if he passed, think of the fucking that he could do with a truly white person. And then think of the naturally insane children that that could produce who had just enough of the good whiteness in them to mask their insanity. And yet, we can another generation by fucking a feeble mind to Jewish woman's great grandchildren 60 years down the road. Why the whole country would be filled with brittle white folks because it's impossible to tell just by looking, this is why we need laws.

Wow. Just I digress. Like, yeah, okay. I have a trouble forming the words carry on. So back to 1911. Yeah. And because Davenport's heredity in relation to eugenics wasn't awful enough, the carnage institute published a report titled preliminary report of the committee of the eugenics section of the American Breeders Association to study and report on the best practical means for cutting off the defective germ Plasm in the human population. They literally refer to the breeder's association. Yes, the American breeders Association.

American breeders Association. readers association. Yes, the American breeder's association. American breeder's association. Yeah. Okay. Now this is just, yeah, I just, I just had to confirm that because what the fuck we're talking about humans, but okay, we are. And it's going to get worse. The most, this report advocated among 17 other practices. So they had like a list of 17 things you can do to better the human race.

Amongst the other 17 was Euthanasia in order to improve the gene pool. And the most common recommendation to affect this sort of improvement was a local gas chamber paid for by public expense of that municipality starting in 1918. This was because the Army's venereal disease expert in 1918, a guy named Paul Popano,

wrote a book called Applied Eugenics, in which he said, quote, from an historical point of view, the first method which presents itself as execution, its value in keeping up the standard of the race should not be underestimated. So the Carnegie Institute is recommending municipally funded gas chambers.

And this motherfucker in 1918, it is almost a certainty because of cultural moors at the time It is almost a certainty that this motherfucker went to church every Sunday Oh And he's arguing this Well, that's not all he's arguing, but yes Literally Jesus wept Yeah, like like

Okay, well the reason Jesus is crying is because you're letting non-white white people fuck white people weakening the white people. Of course, Jesus is we've Remember, remember, it said earlier wise. Yeah. eyes. And blonde hair and yeah, yeah, you know, I said earlier, it is, it is physically painful, sitting here and not going and grabbing broadsword from the other room. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm back there again, like, oh, good. These, these are not, these are not people I can do anything to, but I need to hear something with a sword right now. Here's what Pope Adoe again, the army expert on venereal diseases in 1918 said, quote, an elementary knowledge of the history of Africa. Oh, no. Or the most recent and much quoted example of Haiti. Oh, shit, is

sufficient to prove that the I'm going to say ends. It's not the N word, but it's one that it shows up at a moment. It's edimologically right next to it. Yeah. Yeah. It shows up in Spanish a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

That the ends own social heritage is at a level far below that of the whites among whom he is living in the United States. The N race is germinally lacking in higher developments of intelligence. There'll be more on Pope Noe later. Oh, joy. Now, fortunately for America, these chambers were never actually set up,

but local doctors did practice what came to be known as, quote, improvised euthanasia, end quote. In a way. Yeah. What? as quote, improvised euthanasia end quote, yeah, what true believers again, enacting their conscience, doing the kindest thing, even though it might require me to do something that's personally uncomfortable to me, this is truly the kindest thing that I can do for this poor infant or these poor people. Now this was to do this was,

they could quote, strengthen the race. End quote. This included, you might wanna take another sip, an institution in Lincoln, Illinois that fed its incoming patients milk from cows that had tuberculosis on purpose. Because the belief was that eugenically healthy individuals would be able to withstand tuberculosis, laden milk. So you can guess how much science went into

that. Now another common method was active neglect designed to kill patients in these institutions. That's another method that is used, but it's really difficult to determine the number of people killed by these methods given the lack of reporting at the time. Well, and just the fact that active neglect is a hard thing to prove. Right. So statistically, I mean, that's that's the that would be the method that would be the easiest to deny. Exactly. If you if you got called on it, which is interesting, because if you really believe in what you're doing, although in all fairness, if if I'm breaking a law

that is immoral, and I also want to be able to go on breaking that law. I might lie about breaking that law as well. I can kind of understand that kind of mental gymnastics. Yeah. Especially if the strengthening of the white race is at stake and I happen to believe in that and I have the power to do something about that by actively ignoring this Lithuanian family's baby. Yeah. Born with a clubbed foot. Yeah. Yep. Fuck. Now, because he can't just seem to leave us alone back to Charles Davenport. Charles Davenport's personal life was an outward expression of his ideology. He married twice and he fathered 11 children. He was a wasp. Um, and he's upper class, decidedly so,

and extremely well educated for his time. So he's doing his part. Um, we're doing our part. Right. While most academics, while most academics are regularly collaborating to produce research and writings. Davenport was regularly reproducing, but also he wasn't collaborating with most academics. He only collaborated about 10% of his 439 publications and projects. Most are collaborative. Yeah. 439. This son of a bitch got got published yeah

439 times and he only collaborated on like 44 of them Wow white people suck. Yeah, he also got he got that much traction. Oh, yeah Yeah, well again, he's an academic. It's not like he's a crank out in the middle of the fucking woods. He is, he set up an institution. He's getting money from the carniquies. He's getting money from the hermits.

He is influencing politicians to make policy. He is a mover and a shaker in this world. He also walked really fast and really far too, to the point where few people tried to keep up with him. I just found that interesting. Okay. Charles Davenport had his own eugenics creed, by the way, according to a biographical memoir

that was written by Oscar Riddle. Here is his creed, point one. Or I labeled them points one through five I believe in striving to raise the human race to the highest plane of social organization of cooperative work and of effective endeavor I believe here's point two I believe that I am the trustee of the germ plasm that I carry now. That's just fucking creepy That this has been passed on to me through thousands of generations before me and that I betray the trust if that germ Plasma

being good. I so act as to jeopardize it with its excellent possibilities or from motives of personal convenience to unduly limit offspring. So in other words, I need to get out there and get fucking. I don't need to buy a new yacht. I got a fuck more. Point three, I believe that having made our choice and marriage carefully, we, the married pair, should seek to have four to six children in order that our carefully selected germplasm shall be reproduced in adequate degree. And that this preferred stock shall not be swamped by the less, by that less carefully selected. I really want you to put a thumb in that point when we start analyzing the movie in full.

Point four, I believe in such a selection of immigrants as shall not tend to or adulterate our national germ plasm with socially unfit traits. So we go back to reread that one. I believe in such a selection of immigrants as shall not tend to adulterate our national germplasm with socially unfit traits. Okay, so in other words, keep that immigrant come away from our good American white women.

Right. Okay. Point five. I believe in a repressing my instincts when to follow them would injure the next generation. In other words, I'm not going to whorehouses. Yeah. And this is in 19 what?

Roughly. I'm talking about this. In 1910s to the 20s he wrote in he he wrote the the book that I'd mentioned earlier in 1911 her identity in relation to eugenics and yeah he he set up the eugenics off his records in 1910 he's a big big deal for a while and then I believe he dies in the 1920s. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, that last point talking about, you know, not not utilizing the services of sex workers. Well, I interpreted it as that. Well, I'm gonna repress my instincts when to follow them would injure the next generation. Okay. So yeah.

And yeah, there's there's multiple different circumstances of that. But your your statement in regard to sex workers is interesting to me because of the culture of, well, yeah, Victorian Britain, where it was... I already in it at this point, but yeah. Yeah, well, at this point, it was Indian, but prior to that, you know, in the generation immediately before that, it had been a consistent, you know, issue that, or it was considered kind of a thing that men did was going out and hiring prostitutes was just a common place thing. And I wonder how much of that was a American Protestant response to that. Very much. Very much. Yeah. So you can imagine Davenport's beliefs when it came to Southern and Eastern European immigrants and interracial coupling and the children that came from it. Can we guess what he thought about the poor people having children while we're at it? I would venture to guess that he didn't think it was a good idea. No. Now after Great War, there was a lot more focus on science and using

science to improve society. In addition to a lack of study on the effects of war on soldiers' psychological capabilities, there was also an inverse increase into the study of genetics on the effects of psychological and mental health traits instead. So, in other words, despite having just put millions of young men through an incredibly traumatic experience, the first large scale global major modern war, with all its new terrors previously not experienced by soldiers on any massive scale, social scientists then turned to genetics to explain why these men came back mentally broken, questioning their initial fitness instead of the impact of the war. Because, because of course we have to blame the victim, because if we don't blame the victim,

we have to look at the systemic issues that led to this. Right. And the systemic issues must be genetic. They can't possibly be that we put them into a goddamn meat grinder filled with poison gas. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it can't be that warfare has fundamentally changed. Ed, what's been a constant companion if humanity? I mean, you've seen that earlier. We have seen that earlier. No, we wouldn't have, because if you spend 15 fucking minutes or less reading accounts of warfare in the middle ages up through the civil war,

and then you read about the experience that was gone through by the men in World War I, you'd see, actually, no, we don't even have to do that. We don't even have to do that. The American Civil War was the first time that we started actually seeing a significant number of cases of what we now call PTSD. And it's because up until the Civil War, it was significantly less common for that kind of instantaneous, violent, holy shit trauma to be inflicted on men, on the field of battle. Even in the Napoleonic era, you had battles that were being fought, that were set peace battles, where everybody involved had the time to see the enemy coming, to psychologically prepare for the shock of battle.

And thus, you didn't see the kinds of neurological, uh, uh, uh, neuropsychological damage that led to PTSD. I also think that, uh, the civil war is over. Like, if you look at the other wars, yeah, their wars of expansion or defense. Okay. Civil War is one of ideology. Okay. Yeah, that's wonderful.

Yeah, I think it does. I think it does. I, I, Does everybody thought they had got on their side? And then if you lose territory, you're like, well, fucking God, I guess like, like them better, but like if you've got an ideology, like God really wants me to own human beings.

And then you lose, like, that can't be it. Like, well, yeah. Oh, yeah. So anyway, sorry. Davenport gets a point. It's a point of peace of mind. Yeah. Davenport gets put in charge of a study of soldiers with government backing to study in catalog the various defects that were found in soldiers as well as their geographic distributions.

And with all of this data, Davenport was able to make several claims about genetics and the impact of generations on certain genes on modern disorders. And after he retired, Davenport also got in child development with a mind toward eugenics. So now, I feel like I have to keep rewinding here. All of this was Davenport from 1911 through the end of the Great War. But now let's rewind it back to 1894

again when the immigration restriction league was founded, a specifically eugenics based group that lobbied for restriction of immigration, literacy tests and deportations, and anti-immigration think tank, if you will. McKinley and later Wilson would veto bills that were passed by Congress to make immigrants take literacy tests. Really? Yeah. Now, McKinley vetoed it twice. Um, no, I'm sorry, Wilson vetoed it twice. And Congress overrode his second veto, which means two thirds of the House and two thirds of the Senate were like, no, fuck you. Do it. Okay. So wait, Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow racist ass Wilson. Yeah. He told this. Yeah. Well, okay, because because I'm going to go out on a limb. Okay.

Not it's, it's a pretty heavy limb, I think, and support my weight. Um, but Wilson probably looked at and went, well, okay, now you're trying to stop white people getting in the country. We need more white people. I think Wilson also had the belief that he himself was very pro-American and I'm sorry, it is un-American to give literacy tests. Okay. I think there was that. Now overriding someone's veto back then did not happen often, right? No. And when it comes to being hella racist, they go ahead and override the veto. And keep in mind, this is Woodrow Wilson, the guy who limited black high rings by the

federal government. And when he was in charge of Princeton, made it more racist and more anti-black as an institution. He wasn't being racist enough for Congress in 1917. So, this league that was started in 1894 was founded by Prescott Farnsworth Hall, which I'm sorry, that name just automatically makes you a racist. Well, and that name sounds like you need to be a chicken-shit heel manager type. Absolutely. Damn. All right. Charles Warren, Robert, T'Coursey, Ward, and Henry Cabot Lodge. Warren, Robert, T'Corsi, Ward, and Henry Cabot Lodge.

Okay, I recognize that last name. Yeah, I'm going to go over each one in a bit. So, where did I go? All of these men believe that American wasp culture was being weakened by the new trends and immigration in the 1800s and early 1900s. What with all those non-white whites coming in from southern and Eastern Europe, you see. And this is largely due to the 4 million Italians and 4 million Austrians that came to the US, and amongst those Austrians a significant number were Jewish Austrians, not just standard Catholic Austrians, and from 1865 to 1924, these two regions accounted for over 40% of America's immigration.

Now, private racist groups have had a long history in the United States, but when they begin lobbying the state and the federal governments to pass laws to push their agenda, it becomes policy. And that's ensconced in the government and it's ensconced in government that in such groups that, that they are going to have this kind of access. Charles Warren was a legal scholar who got appointed to

assistant attorney general by Woodrow Wilson. Okay, so he's the second guy right below the top cop. He was also quoted by Louis Brandeis in a Supreme Court case. Prescott Farmsworth Hall was a notable lawyer who had lobbied for the 1917 Immigration Act. Rodney, or, I'm sorry, Robert DeCoursey Ward was the foremost meteorologist of his time, which is weird. But he also was the first president of the American Meteorological Society in 1920. He was also an expert testifier in the Committee hearings on the 1924 Immigration Act. He advocated that humans had an impact on climate, he was also, I know, like he's all over the board. He was also a part of the Harvard admissions committee and specifically helped limit the freshman class to being no more than 15%

Jewish in 1925 just because. And of course, there's Henry Cabot Lodge. What's that? Yeah. Just lovely. Of course, he's behind that. Because, you know, yeah, Henry Cabot Lodge was a federal lawmaker who had authored a bill and filibustered, uh, which was filibustered by Democrats that aimed at protecting the voting rights of black people in the 1890. So he, he was like, give black people the right to vote their Americans and the Democrats filibustered him. Right.

And two years later in 1892, he went on to use the newspaper to blame 11 Italian Americans and immigrants to or in 11 Italian Americans and immigrants in Louisiana who'd been lynched. He went on to blame them in a newspaper for their own murder. He used this as a reason to start restricting Italian immigration. He was also pro imperialism after the Spanish-American War ended. He wrote in the, there's a book that he wrote, or there's a book that came out called The Great Parallel of unrestricted immigration. He wrote, Henry Cabot-Lodd wrote, quote, you can take a Hindu and it's with two O's, and give him the highest education in the world can afford, but you cannot make him an Englishman.

Okay. So all of these men weren't just a think tank and a fringe group. They absolutely impacted immigration policy and infused it with their eugenics ideology as they went. So now we are going to look at the states for a little bit. Okay. State legislatures had been introducing eugenics based laws for a while. Connecticut passed a law in 1896 prohibiting epileptics. By the way, epileptics comes up a lot. It seems like an umbrella term for people who suffer from seizures at that time. Okay.

Okay. So prohibiting epileptic embassies. So, prohibiting epileptics, embassies, and the feeble minded from getting married. So since you need a license to marry, this was considered an acceptable requirement to put on marriage licenses. Modern medical studies on the life expectancy of epilepsy show now that inherited epilepsy will shorten a person's life by about 10 years on average. This is hardly a reason to deny someone a marriage license. Yeah. Now Michigan took a different approach as early as 1897. Michigan, their legislature, tried to get a castration law passed.

It failed. The law was aimed at certain types of criminals and, quote, degenerates, end quote, to stop them from spreading their criminality and degeneracy onto the next generation. Because crime is hella genetic and not in all type. Totally not in all type. In firement or poverty. Yeah, yeah. But it's not like they had the ability to gather census data,

either nationwide or in prisons. So it just must have been a mystery of that then about. Mm-hmm, yeah, totally. Totally, yeah. Totally, obviously. Yeah. And that leads us to the study of families that also got started increasing in popularity for eugenicists who were trying to prove that degeneracy and crime and feeble mindedness

were all in heritable traits. And that gets us to the juke's family, the gnom's family, and the calakax family. These are all pseudonyms. In short order, the jukes were colloquially called Hill people in New York. Richard Dougdale was a sociologist who was working in the prison system in New York. And in 1874, he noted that eight prisoners all had the same surname. He later would change it to jukes. Okay, so I'm just going to use juk use juke. Okay. This is a pseudonym because back then, people had some inconsistent ideas about anonymity. Nice.

So like if you were in the newspaper, they'd be like Ed Blalock, who lives at one, two, three, in any street, you know, it's like, what the fuck, you know? Yeah. But then, well, these are the juke's. We're not gonna give you the real name. So, uh, interestingly though, they, though they were all related, these criminals all had four different family names that they were using, which can kind of make sense if, uh, if you look

at like Earl Warren, the governor of California, and later on, the Supreme Court Chief Justice, if you have somebody who claims to be a member of his family, their name doesn't have to be Warren. This is true, right? So if you have three daughters, that kind of thing. So they're all using different names, but this guy is like, oh, they're all part of the Duke family,

right, which now you're starting to call into question a few questions of like, who are you, including who you're not. And now because of this oddity, he dug deeper and he found that there were actually 29 male blood relatives of whom 17 had been in and out of prison, who were considered part of the Duke line. Doug Dale lived up to his name again and digging

into the history of the surrounding New York County Jails and poor houses and found that this hill family had a storied past of dealings with the law. As best as he could, Doug Dale constructed the family tree and found that they all linked back to a common ancestor, Max Duke. Again, pseudonym, which kind of pisses me off. Anyway, Max had been a direct descendant to quote 180 had either been in the poor house or received outdoor relief to the extent of 800 years. That is like you add up the amount of you got three months, I got three months, that's a total of six months, right? Right. Continued.

There had been 140 criminals and offenders, 60 habitual thieves, seven lives sacrificed by murder, 50 common prostitutes, 50 women venerally diseased, contaminating 440 persons and 30 prosecutions. This was in addition to 18 brothel runners, so it's kind of nice to see that the Duke family has some management material and two people who are deemed feeble minded. And since they were Dutch, I'm going to say that they weren't Jewish. I'm going to assume that that feeble mindedness was not an inherent trait of Judaism. Yeah. Okay. So again, there's some problems with the way

that he's counting these things. For instance, he started in 1874, and so he's going back to the common ancestor who was, if I recall correctly, is it this family or the other family? Anyway, this goes back to a guy that got here in the 1700s. So if you go over 100 years and you spread that tree out enough, get an outdoor relief or being in the poor house for any amount of time during the Great Pan panic of 1837.

And basically every 20 years you're having economic depressions. It's weirder to not have that. Yeah, you know, it would be more statistically meaningful. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, and then how are you tracking the 50 women of the narrowly disease contaminating 440 persons? Like that's really, really good sociology you're doing there, but I don't know if you have the tools to do it back then. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if you'd even have the tools to do it reliably now.

Yeah, frankly. Like we're just just we're living through a pandemic still. And we couldn't get contract days tracing down in any school district that I knew of. Yeah. And that's when people were like home. Now, a woman called Ada, again, a pseudonym, married one of Max's sons. And so she was tagged with the moniker, the mother of all crime. And what's fun here is that Doug Dale's obsession with genealogy led him to telling the New York state legislature

in Albany that the Duke family had collectively cost the state over $1.3 million in 1877 monies. You can know. yeah, go on. Mother of all crimes, was it crimes or criminals? Crime. Okay, mother of all crime sounds an awful lot like welfare queen. Right? Like, I had to say, nothing, nothing is new under the

sun. Like, yeah, okay. Now he claims, Doug Dale claims that quote, over a million and a quarter dollars of loss in 75 years caused by a single family 1200 strong without reckoning the cash paid for whiskey or taking into account the entailment of popperism and crime of the survivors and succeeding generations and the incurable disease idiocy and insanity growing out of this debauchery and reaching further than we can calculate. Wow. Wow. Um, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm thrown into Owen Wilson territory. Like, wow, is kind of all like someone to, to a statement like that that begs so many

questions all at once. Right. I mean, here's where I get mad that just anyone can write fucking anything, right? Of all the jokes. Of all the jokes that Doug Dale accounted for. He himself admitted that it wasn't a single family, but 42 different families. Like, he's not even doing like, like, Davenport level. Yeah.

And, you know, what gets me is like, okay, well, we're going, I can trace them all back to one common ancestor. Well, you know what, if you go a little bit farther back, motherfucker, you probably find that a whole bunch of them are descended from Genghis Khan. Right. Like how? Like, that's how it's so many levels how can you be this bad that you make galt and look reasonable you know I don't know if I'd go that far but yeah

at least it was like well once you get one you know level out the except of the reality of the stuff yeah okay on that level family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's family's winnily. Okay wait. So you married into third a third of the people he's talking about married in. Yeah. Well okay no fuck you man. But he gets all the mark in about it. He's like, and he says quote, environment tends to produce habits which may become hereditary. Oh fuck you. Like no. Yeah. No, either this has to do with the bloodline or it doesn't. Right. Like you don't get to pick both sides at once.

Yeah. No. Oh my god. And that's like, that's just the intellectual honesty part of the argument. Let's, let's not. Even, even worry about touching on the overtones of racism and, you know, classes. These are classes. Classes. And kill people in New York, if you take a look at a map that that can stretch down into Appalachia, you get into

where Mollungen folks are. Right. Yeah. Yeah. There's your racism. There's your classism. Yeah. I'm like, right, ism. Come on, motherfucker. Like do a little real work. Yeah. But of course, you know, in every case we're going to talk about here. I know that they've all started from an answer in their cherry picking evidence to support that answer. Yes. Because that's how all of this works. Mm-hmm.

Which is, God damn it. Now we're going to fast forward to 1915. Okay. Estherbrook, that autocrat kept trying to switch to Eastbrook. So if I say Eastbrook, it's Asterbrook. A renowned eugenicist who worked for the Eugenics Reference Records Office wrote the juxtaposed in 1915 as a follow-up. And he actually up the estimated cost of the juxtaposed to 2 million even.

His critique of Doug Dale was that Doug Dale's study quote, does not demonstrate the inheritance of criminality, popperism, or harlotry, but it does show that heredity with certain environmental conditions determines criminality, harlots, and poppers. I love the inclusion of harlotry. You got to get that that Protestant dig in there. Yes, like you got it, you got to get that that Protestant dig in there. Yeah. And, and the, the moral equivalence attached to popperism, harlotry and, and criminality. Like being only one of those things should be a crime. Yeah, criminality. You know, yeah, criminality. Like, are

we talking about armed robbery theft? Yeah, actually we are like if you go back to the list that he had yes, those two. Okay, okay But yes, we can we can make a case for criminality being a thing Harlitary Like you know Presentism presentism aside, you know, whatever your feelings on, you know, sex work is work, which it is for the purposes of this podcast. But you know, whatever your feelings on that issue are, that's not nearly the same kind

of thing ethically as, you know, threatening violence against somebody to take their stuff. Mm-hmm. And, uh, populism, like, you don't go out and commit, populism. Right. Popperism gets committed on you by the system. Like, like, I don't't there are people stealing the labor. Like,

and, and, and that immediately for me ties back to the massive ethical problem or moral problem, we in this country have descended from our Puritan roots as a nation, as a state construct, that this is a Calvinist idea that if you're poor, well there's a moral failing involved in the fact that you're poor. And you being poor, well, you're a drain on the state and that's morally reprehensible. Like, no, I'm a pauper because generational wealth doesn't get distributed in an equitable kind of way. Right.

And I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my fucking mouth. So how about you fuck off with the moralism and find a way to systemically help me out here. But yeah. Yeah. So he says that like, look, he didn't, he, S. Brook critique, Stugdale, and says like, he didn't show that there is an inheritance didn't show that there is an inheritance at a genetic level, but he does show that genetics mixed with environment does lead to these things. Now, notice that Estherbrook is not saying to what extent that comedy is mixed. Oh, it's wheezy hard. Yes. He also added another 2111 juxta to the 709 that Doug Dale had found, which ironically, you're almost at the end of your cup.

Ironically, this actually diffuses the amount of criminality that the family was supposedly genetically responsible for because you add over 2,000 people, but the amount of crimes doesn't go up that much. This means that, uh, uh, like, but Estherbrook still declared them unredeemables, and he stated that it was all about genetics, which means according to Estherbrook, that the New York government should step in and stop them all from fucking anymore. And the juke's were proof of what happens if you don't step in and do what's grimly necessary. Now this is not the only family study. Because of course it is.

No, no, no. In fact, these come into vogue in a big way. The calicax are probably the most famous, although the juxtaphr are the easiest to say. The calicax are probably the most famous, although the juxtaposed are the easiest to say. The CaliCax are another pseudonym, and they become another genetic punching bag for eugenicists. Now, there is a book, a study that I read, and the copy that I read had in its opening pages,

written in a halting kind of cursive quote, to Dr. Shuttleworth and recognition of his great and valuable work for the feeble minded and incidentally, his kindness to me personally, with heartiest greetings from the author, Vineland, New Jersey, March 4, 1913. Very first, very first page of contents to the copy that I read is and it's a first edition copy. It's fucking signed by the author signed to the doctor of an asylum. It's a picture of Deborah Callacac quote and is the caption appears today at the training

school. Now, by all appearances, Deborah Calakack is a perfectly typical and Calakack is another pseudonym, but she's a perfectly typical looking brunette posing for a picture while sitting with a cat on her lap and an open book in her hand. Now I did find their names. Her real name was Emma Wolverton, and she lived until April of 1978 when she died at the age of 89, which is long enough to possibly have seen the sitcom that was named after the CaliCac family that lasted for only five episodes on NBC. It launched and died Stan died in August of 1977. She spent 81 years of her life in an institution. The sitcom

starred David Huddleston. You'd know him as the legless big Lebowski. You'd known him as well as one of the Howard Johnson is right from. Yeah,, yeah, yeah, okay, okay Also, it starred Bonnie Ebson buddy Ebson's daughter and could he mcclurk? Okay, it's largely about a get rich beat the system family from Appalachia who operates a crooked gas station It only lasted five episodes. Okay, but it lasted long and or like she lived long enough that she might have actually seen a sitcom only last five episodes using the name of the pseudonym of the family of her own family. Yeah. Anyway, back to something truly awful. Henry H. Goddard wrote the Calacac family a study in heredity of feeble mindedness in 1912. Goddard is the guy who translated the Binai test into the English for Americans and helped to

disseminate it here in America. He added the word moron to the medical terminology. Oh, lovely. Yes. He also is from Goddard is from a Quaker family within a affinity for polyglottery. Henry Goddard has got a history of being that helpful kind of bigot. He was part of the first effort to get blind and intellectually disabled children access to public education. He helped write the first law for that. He also helped advance jurisprudence for those with disabilities

by testifying that people who had substandard intelligence ought not be fully responsible legally for their crimes that are, you know, that responsibility should be only for people who are typically intelligence. Those are actually really valuable things that he did there. This is in 1914. He also advocated hard for standardized intelligence test and a number of institutions, which makes sense given the above. But it's his study of the calicax that really stands out to me. Goddard was the head researcher at the Vinland training school for the feeble-minded girls and boys from 1906 to 1918.

During his time there, he developed the idea that democracy was when people chose their leaders and let themselves be told what to do by, quote, selecting the wisest, most intelligent and most human to tell them what to do to be happy. Okay, stop back up circle to play though. Yeah. Most human. Yeah. Um, I, I didn't realize that that was a slight scale. I thought that was a, that was a binary you either are you aint. No, because he, he remember he translated the bena test I have a problem with meritocracies most human okay you know I never mind I'm not you know what I can't Especially now finished three beers deep. I can't I can't defend the position. Yeah, like yeah

Most human most human. Oh my god. These people are and yet he did do good shit for people with disabilities Well, you know people are allowed to be complicated. Yeah, well, legacies are allowed to be complicated. Like, I'm totally fine. This is part of that well-meaning, does damage. Yeah, because he would not have separated this part from the other part. I'm the other part. Yeah, they all come from the same well for him.

He's a quaker trying to make the world better. Right. So I guess the real lesson here that the papers are really the problem in America. But, well, you know, I joke, I joke, they're like, you know,

no, they're like per capita. They're the ones that were the most abolitionist. Yeah, well, yeah, this is entirely true. You're entirely and the most conscientious objector like yeah, yeah, um, doesn't mean there were deep wells of, oh, fuck, you're wrong. What the hell? Yeah. Wait a minute. What? Um, would you like to hear the names that he gave to the core tiles for IQ test takers? Hold on. Uh-huh. Patriot. Sanctite.

Go ahead. So on an IQ test, right? Yeah. Um, if you got a zero to a 25, right, you were officially an idiot. Okay. A 26 to a 50, you were officially an imbecile. Okay. A 51 to a 70, you were officially a moron. Okay. A 26 to a 50 you were officially an imbecile. Okay. A 51 to a 70 you were officially a moron. Okay. I couldn't find his classification for above 70.

Okay. But those became the terms. Okay. Got a psychology degree in This would have been 72 Mm-hmm. I want to say and the term for an IQ below 100 yes, but close to 100. Yes, was dull normal. Yeah. Okay. So that that I don't know that the first deviation away from the guy. Yeah, I don't know if that's this guy, but it would have been in response to this guy or build off of what this guy did. Okay. Yeah. All right. So in his study, in Goddard's study of the Calacac family, they all came from Martin Calacac, the revolutionary war soldier.

And again, this is the Wolverton family, I think. Although I don't know if it's Wolverton all the way back, you know. Okay, but they're all, they're all direct line one way or another descendants This guy is from one individual. Well, interestingly enough. Oh, no, they're not. Our determined that a bunch of people were very angly, distantly related and that they all came from Martin, right?

Martin's first wife was a good, quaker woman and all their offspring were fine. That's right. Right. She's right. Right. She had Isaac. Um, he then also determined that Martin had stepped out on his wife with a quote, nameless feeble minded woman. Great. So that's a lovely. Yeah. Okay. So wait a minute. He stepped out on his wife with a with a nameless

Feeble wine woman. Yeah, so that immediately throws And an awful lot of sketch onto any attribution We might have of well this person is descended from the nameless Feeble-minded woman because she's fucking nameless Well, and I come. Also, I'd point out, like you have a man who is otherwise of good seed, look what happens when he breathes with somebody who isn't.

That weakness just threads its way through. Okay, but like, historiographically. Oh, yeah, I agree. There's bullshit, okay. But anyway, so stepped on his wife has very Abrahamic roots to me. Oh, oh, yeah, Isaac and Ishmael. Like, oh, very much. Yeah. So the name was people minded woman. This coupling led to quote a race of defective degenerates. quote, a race of defective degenerates. And quote, wow.

Tell us what you really think there, pal. Right. Now he goes back to his wife and he abandons this woman and he ignores that child. Now the child of that coupling, whose real name was John Wilverton, Jr., which tells me then that Martin Caliac's real name was John Wilverton. Yeah. John Wilverton, Jr. the child of the nameless feeble minded woman then went on to father a bunch who also fathered a bunch and so on down the line. This led to a bunch of children on the feeble minded side. And the problem with the feeble minded relatives was that you couldn't tell just by looking. It's invisible. And therefore it's impossible to segregate against them

without a bunch of research and legislation. Now, Goddard absolutely was in favor of preventing them from fucking, but he stopped short of saying things like they should get killed. He wanted colonies for them instead. And institutions, literally like the one that he met Deborah Callacac, Emma Wilberton, in. An institution where such

people could be taught menial labor, freeing up the rest of us. So there's your more locks. Great. And by the way, the reason that she was institutionalized was because she didn't get along with other children, which is clearly evidence of bad breeding when you're eight. evidence of bad breeding when you're eight. I hate everyone involved in this fucking episode. You see why I took a question so much. This isn't the part that caused me to take a nap. But the juke's and the calcax were used in psychology textbooks

through the 1950s. Yeah, I can believe that. Yeah. Now what's important to note here is that Goddard's book was nearly made into a Broadway play. Wait, what? Yes. Oh my God. Okay.

Yeah. And again, I bring that up because again, we're here to analyze idiocracy. I mean, we're not going to get to it this episode, but there's just some pins. I'm putting out there that I want you to pick up when we get there. And also a decade later, God had agreed with his critics that his conclusions were actually groundless. Later, it was determined that this was the case because God had straight up made shit up to sell his book and to make his stuff hang together. Okay.

Yeah. And at the same time, God had worked at Ellis Island, adjusting and norming the IQ test that were given to immigrants who were coming here for a better life starting in 1913. And here's what's wild. He genuinely meant well. He fucking meant well. This was supposed to be an improvement over just letting an untrained guard look at someone and decide. You got to have standards. Okay. And after four years of work, he published the study that only focused on immigrants who were found in steerage. No first or second class passengers. Okay.

Why bother? And he selected out before even beginning, those who are obviously not feeble minded. So at first, more than 80% of the population that he had selected were determined to be feeble minded. And this finding was widely publicized and definitely fed into the 1924 Immigration Act. Goddard later would renorm the test because he's like, wow, 80%'s a little high. So he renormed it. He's like, ah, 40%. That meets the requirement of calling them morons.

Never mind the fact, they don't speak fucking English. Right. Never mind. And you're going from French into English and then into whatever that target language is. Yeah. Jesus. Okay. Now hilariously, God had thought that these IQ tests would help determine who'd be fit for

democracy. And we gave the test to Army personnel. He determined that they weren't fit for democracy. For his part, when God had realized the extent of his wrongness, he did actually seek to correct it, but the genie was already out of the bottle. People absolutely clung to his early shit, ignored his later shit. Similar to how so many older white folks cite Morgan Friedman's discussion with Bill Wallace, or with Mike Wallace from back in 2002. Remember where he's like, you know,

why do we have to have a month? Do you have a Jewish history month? Why do I have to just get a month? Why do you just call me a man and I'll call you a man? Don't call me a black man. I won't call you a white man. Or a Jewish man. It was that interview with Mike Wallace, right? So a lot of white people really

like citing that one despite the fact that Morgan Freeman's opinion changed over time and also despite the fact that Morgan Freeman, last I checked, is an actor with a really cool voice and not a legal sociological or ethnic study scholar. Indeed. Now, I'm not discounting his experience as a person and whatever he wants to be called, you should call him that. But he also in the last 21 years has changed what he said since then, but people still go right back to that. It's kind of the same. These people like, look at all this good shit that like feed my racist ideology.

Similar, similar vibe. Yeah. Look at all this good shit that like feed my racist ideal similar similar vibe. Yeah Now as these family studies came into vogue along came the idea that social change was futile If futile if society wasn't going to select out the unfit After all there were pictures there were charts there were graphs there, and articles, and all of these things were written by learned men who explained it in very complicated terms. And therefore, the only true way to improve society is where we're going to start with next week. Horst sterilization. Oh, I love this.

Oh. Love, man. Yeah. Okay. And remember, all of this is to analyze a movie with Luke Wilson in it. Oh, lovely. Yeah. Okay. And remember, all of this is to analyze a movie with Luke Wilson in it. Yeah. Wow.

And that's shepherd. So what, what, what have you glean? Um, that, that you need to, if you are truly going to be intellectually honest, you need to be willing to interrogate when you are begging the question. Yeah. And you need to consistently be prepared to face the fact that you have implicit biases. And you need to constantly make yourself aware of them and work actively to counter them because so much of this shit, so much of this is rooted in not doing any of that. You know, and that if you have a monetary or a prestige motivation For a particular idea to be correct It is going to be very hard for you to not find evidence Even if that evidence is bullshit. Yeah to support that idea. Like, oh, hey, oddly enough,

I can show that all these folks are related and they're all descended from this one individual, and I can sell a book based on the idea that, well, we need to keep the stuff under control. Right. What anxieties can I pull on to make money on this? Yeah. Or to out. Yeah. Yeah. And, and you can totally believe 100% of what you're saying. Because you have a vested interest in believing it. Absolutely. You know, it's... There's a gay fable. Yeah, you're gay faving yourself.

And so, you know, the idea and speaking, you know, from my own point of view, I think it's really it's it's it can it is consistently fascinating to me. Mm-hmm. How much how much philosophy, how much political thinking, how much everything from the mid 1800s up through the 1930s, 40s, was specifically built around somehow this idea that like of all the groups of people in the world, we as Americans needed to be looking at the example of very specifically the Anglo-Saxon English. Like not like, you know, the legacy of Western Europe, not the legacy of Rome, not, you know, but like specifically, no, no, the Anglo-Saxons. Like all the groups of people in the world, like they were, they were Germanics who converted to Christianity early.

Well, and the concept of Anglo-Saxon is a relatively recent one too. Yeah, like 1800s that they developed that as a conflict. Yeah, largely. Yeah. And it's tied up. Yeah. Well, yeah.

And it's tied to the same time period as the birth of nationalism and the idea of nations being tied to a linguistic or ethnic kind of group. And like I can understand that, but the fact that so many people who themselves were not a hundred percent Anglo-Saxon clung to it here in the United States, like of all the groups, like, you know, even even if we take at face value the idea that well like okay we want like Nordic's right? Well Nordic if we're if we're going by the bullshit theory of latitude like okay well so so by that logic the Swedes the Norwegians and the Scots should be the ones that you're looking at. Not the Anglo-Saxons.

Like they're in mercy for fuck's sake. Like what do you, come on. Right. And the, yeah, just the consistent intellectual dishonesty involved in so much of this. You can't even racism consistently. Like, okay, is it linguistic or is it genetic? What are we talking about here? Is it, you know, yeah, and it's, there are always folks who want to try to point to, well, you know, look at, look at what kids were learning in school and the standard of what a test in, in school

looked like in, you know, the 19 teens compared to today. And like, you know, what, what, what, what are they learning at the, at like in the middle school level? And I And like, you know, what are they learning at the, at like in the middle school level? And I'm like, okay, yeah, we can do that. But let's also look at the fact that grown adults, like we're not like as a class of people, white Americans, we're not utilizing the ability to look at all of this shit and go, well, that's internally

inconsistent on its face. Right. Well, and I'll just look at the dropout rate. This is fucking bottling. And the employment rate. Like, yeah, that's true, but also the dropout rate was roughly over 50% at that time. And employment was largely guaranteed. Yeah, you could feed your family on an eighth grade education. Not having passed that final, you know, or or or a sixth grade education for that matter, but right. So, you know, yeah, so I guess that's that's kind of my takeaway is like the sucks and you know and it kind of always has. Yeah. Yeah. Well it's going to actually get worse. I mean you know I knew you were going to say that but I didn't want to think about it. Sorry. It's okay.'s what we do. Anything you want to recommend to folks? Not at present. How about you? Yeah, actually, I'm going to continue to give you the salt and the sweet.

Saint Mick, my journey from hardcore legend to Santa's jolly elf by Mick Foley. Nice. He's a relatively relentlessly positive fellow. And he often talks about how he got dealt a bad hand genetically in terms of, you know, wrestling is very much about how you look. And he's right. Like he looks like us. Yeah. And yet he was one of the most popular, most over most beloved wrestlers of all time. Mm-hmm. So, yeah, I just, I love his positivity. So, anyway, I strongly recommend that.

So, all right. Nice. Do you want to be found? At present, I do not want to be found. Now how about you? Yeah. Go ahead and find me on thread or threads rather, duh harmony, and then work in our podcast be found.

The podcast can be found at woobahwoobah.geekhistory Time.com. We can be found on Stitcher or the Apple Podcast app. Obviously, you've found us somewhere. So wherever you have found us, please take a moment to give us the five-star review that you know Damien's research has earned. And hit the subscribe button wherever it is, please. and hit the subscribe button wherever it is, please. And then otherwise, we collectively for the moment can be found on Twitter as gay history time. Good. Oh, I actually update and sorry to step on you on this one, but in fact, Stitcher no longer exists.

Oh, Spotify and the Apple Podcast. And the Apple Podcast app, so there you go. So, there you go. All right. Cool. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock, and until next time. Oh, my balls!

balls.