I Don't Know About That - Experts with Tom Nichols

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

In this episode, the team discusses being an expert with author of "The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters", Tom Nichols.See omnystudio.com/listener for ...privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:02:17 That's wild. Get smarter CBD from NextEvo Naturals and get up to 25% off subscription orders of $40 or more at nextevo.com slash podcast. Promo code IDK. That's N-E-X-T-E-V-O dot com slash podcast promo code IDK. art both on your wall and garfunkel socks they can be on your feet or as a puppet can they do anything else you don't know maybe you'll find out and i don't know about that with jim jeffries hi welcome to i don't know about that with jim jeffries i'm jim jeffries i'm here with the sailor and the bear Hi, welcome to I Don't Know About That with Jim Jeffries. I'm Jim Jeffries.
Starting point is 00:03:06 I'm here with the sailor and the bear. The sailor and the bear. You can decide who's who. 93.8, the sailor and the bear. Yeah, you log on to KWNBC and listen to the sailor and the bear. It's funny because I know I'm Cali Bear, but I do have a captain tattoo, so I technically could be the sailor and the bear. Yeah, I thought you were the bear and he was the sailor
Starting point is 00:03:28 because he has a boat. Sailor and the bear. That's a good radio name. I'm still thinking about socks. You nailed the art one. You said both on your wall and Garfunkel. That was good. Then you were like, socks and feet.
Starting point is 00:03:42 I was looking at Luis's socks. He's wearing socks and sandals. You're only supposed to do one. This is the way you normally do it. You go blah, blah, both blah, blah, and blah, blah, and then you do one, but you tried to do two of those. I got it all out. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:57 I got it all out. I stand by it. He's had a lot on his mind lately. Both on your wall and garfunkel. No, that one was good. Yeah, that one was good. Then socks. What was socks?
Starting point is 00:04:05 Socks is on your feet or uses akel. No, that one was good. Yeah, that one was good. Then socks. What was socks? Socks is on your feet or used as a puppet. Are there any other uses? Yeah, that's too much. You just got to do one there. I think puppets and feet. Masturbation. People jerk off in socks. I've never understood the masturbating.
Starting point is 00:04:20 You put your dick in the sock and you jerk off. I know, but it's the fabric going against it. It kind of hurts. You'd have to get fancy socks. Who needs to do that? I've cleaned up cum with a sock that's been on my floor next to me bed. I've mopped up my fair share of cum with a sock. It's traveled to three houses with me, this sock.
Starting point is 00:04:39 This is my cum sock. A lot of memories. You can't get your foot in there anymore. It's like a surfboard. Yeah, your children are there. Speaking of surfers. Wait, we're in a new studio. Do we want to mention?
Starting point is 00:04:49 Yeah, no, but I want to hear about the shark attack first. Oh, we're in a new studio, everyone. Yeah. It's like the old studio, but it's a different place. Did you notice the balloons? The cunt balloons? Yeah, who gave us the cunt balloons? My friend Desiree owns Badass Balloon Company,
Starting point is 00:04:59 and she wanted to help us celebrate the new studio, so she sent these. Wow, that'll look good wrapped around a bit of marine life. Everyone will know it's us. We'll cut the strings first. Everyone will know it's us, and there'll be some fucking... Cunt balloons inside fish.
Starting point is 00:05:12 No, they won't know it's us. That's their company on it, right? Yeah. Technically, they'll get the point, yeah. I like how it's full stop at the end of the word cunt. Like, that's the sentence. But we're here. We're here.
Starting point is 00:05:24 We're finally... No one really seemed to care that we were moving around different places no but this is our new home we'll be here for a long time so i hope you enjoy it um we as i said stiff as a surfboard we did a show last week on shark attacks and we we i think we use the term they never happen never ever a shark attack in australia they once in a blue moon. The day we recorded it, what happened, Jack? The day we posted, there was a shark attack on the Gold Coast. Dead though. Killed. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:52 That was what we said. Most people don't die. Not many people die from shark attacks. Yeah, it's very rare. The very day the podcast came out. Oh, yeah. It was in Greenmont Beach at Koolangatta. Koolangatta. Yeah, I like how you tried your best Aboriginal voice there. Koolangatta? Koolangatta. Yeah, I like how you tried your best Aboriginal voice there. Koolangatta?
Starting point is 00:06:09 Yeah, that's what I was doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it would be an Aboriginal word for by the sea or something. I could always crack those words. Yeah. We have a town called Wagga Wagga. Yeah. And that's because I've been told, and correct me if I'm wrong,
Starting point is 00:06:23 because Aboriginals didn't used to use numbers they used to just say things why are you asking us to correct you if you're right yeah but it could be so wogga wogga because there was two of them or something i don't fucking know sounds like it was named by the muppets or something like you buy you buy a car and you go how many dollars is this they go dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar dollar until it gets like 50,000. That would be horrible. How do you buy cars in Australia? So is this, I guess it's time for Comment World.
Starting point is 00:06:53 All right, let's do a new jingle. Comment World, Comment World, come to get your comments. If you have a jingle that you want to send us for free, feel free. Yeah, and then we can say if it's shit or not right underneath it. Yeah, exactly. A comment world jingle? Yeah. We've got enough fans there.
Starting point is 00:07:12 We're not going to respond to any one-star comments. If you put one star up on our podcast, you don't get your comment read out. That's not how you get it. But if you want to write an abusive comment and give us five stars, we might read it. We'll consider it. We'll be a little inclined.
Starting point is 00:07:27 This first one on the topic of sharks. This commenter mentioned that bull sharks swim in saltwater, brackish water, and freshwater, including rivers. So they're fucking cunts, he says. We mentioned that, though, on the podcast. I wasn't sure if we did. No, he did. He said estuaries, which is like brackish. Why is this guy writing to us?
Starting point is 00:07:47 I don't know. I call bullshit sharks. And then this other guy said that there's a golf course pond in Australia where bull sharks are happy living. Locals will throw steaks into the water to feed them. Really? Who throws an entire steak away? Why are they giving away steaks? I don't know.
Starting point is 00:08:02 And who carries a steak in the Australian sun? In their golf bag. They get to the ninth hole in their golf bag and go, are they raw? I've got that for the sharks. They give you your ball back that way. I say that's bullshit. It's not like the sharks are sitting there waiting for the steaks too.
Starting point is 00:08:20 So they throw it into murky water. It sinks. And then they're like, yeah, my shark's going to eat that. We're not going gonna see it there's a whole lot of sharks that have starfam trays in their stomachs like how much money do you have to have to just give away steaks to sharks yeah that's bullshit yeah i call bullshit send us a photo it didn't happen yeah uh people were upset with your um sparkly hat oh that was from my elton john outfit. What do you mean? I love that hat. One guy goes, what the fuck is that hat?
Starting point is 00:08:47 One person says, Jim looks like someone's fashionable grandma. I do. I look like my grandmother's going to bingo night. That's a good one. She doesn't want to show her hair anymore. Jim loves looking like a gay roadie for a rock band that only travels by dirigible.
Starting point is 00:09:01 Dirigible? I don't know. I assume that was an Australian word. I like how you didn't read it before. You said, I'll give it a go. I forgot about that part of it. They travel by didgeridoo. I thought he was trying to say didgeridoo.
Starting point is 00:09:15 No, digerible. And then what a terrible hat. Jim looks like a bedazzled Crown Royal bag. Oh, yeah. That's kind of nice. Aren't those Crown Royal bags purple? Yeah. Is that crackhead
Starting point is 00:09:25 Elton John or has Jim went to Vegas for a week that's how it's phrased I don't know I'm glad you're proofreading this Jack also if you're going to comment
Starting point is 00:09:33 fucking speak English Jack you had one thing to prepare I read the comments as written yeah you had one thing to prepare and then you come in
Starting point is 00:09:40 dirigible yeah it's like I don't know what this word is and this sentence is not deceivable and this one just put letters. All right. I'll tell you what.
Starting point is 00:09:48 This one isn't a comment. This is my tax return. I want to tell you how it was in the 80s back in Australian school systems. So you get your report card where they tick your attendance and they tick the little boxes, whether you're good, bad, or they give you little star ratings. And then the teacher leaves a comment,
Starting point is 00:10:04 and that was back when my name was Jeffrey. And one of the comments that this guy thought was acceptable to write on my report card to be handed to my parents. This was a teacher, right? His handwriting looks like an epileptic had a fit with a pen in its hand. And I look back at it now because I read it when I was back there. It was my old report cards. And I read it like, why did my mother lose her fucking shit?
Starting point is 00:10:25 All my mother did was, you have to get better at handwriting. We used to have it where you had a grade for what your performance was, like, you know, academic wise. Then they had an effort number. And then they had a conduct. So they grade you on like how well you did in your studies. Then, so A, B, C, D, E, F. And then one through three, one being the best,
Starting point is 00:10:47 three being the worst in your effort, which is like bullshit. Who cares what your effort is if you get the good grade? And then your conduct, A, B, C, D. And in one of my classes, I got an A, 3, F, where I was like, I crushed the course. They didn't think I was trying hard enough, and I was a dickhead in the class. That does sum you up.
Starting point is 00:11:05 You're a smart boy that doesn't try. A3F. I remember my mom being like, how do you get an A3F? I'm like, it's pretty hard to do.
Starting point is 00:11:13 So, yeah. What else you got there? One guy asked, I'm in a three for effort right now, by the way. Thanks, man.
Starting point is 00:11:18 Do these guys always laugh like Ray Liotta in Goodfellas? I was just gay. Fucking. Funny like a clown? I don't think that's the line. Funny like a clown? What am I, funny like a clown?
Starting point is 00:11:33 You think I'm a clown? I'm amusing to you? For some reason the way you said it was really weird. Funny like a clown. It took me out of my body. Do you think we are funny like a clown? I had a Postmate guy the other day, yesterday, who came to the door. He came to the door and he was about 70.
Starting point is 00:11:51 He was obviously new to the country. This is why anyone can get a job. This guy didn't just not speak English. He had about, well, maybe six words. Six words that he had and he was working for Postmates. And he went, food. He just was standing there, this old man holding a bag of food. And for Postmates and he went, food. He just was standing there, this old man holding a bag of food and he pointed at it and went,
Starting point is 00:12:09 food. And I went, yeah. And he went, Sir Jeffrey. Sir Jeffrey. That's amazing. And I was like,
Starting point is 00:12:15 fucking hell that guy. And he got the order right. That's the ideal Postmate. When people talk about like Uber drivers or Postmates or any of that, they're like, well, they don't fucking speak English. I'm like,
Starting point is 00:12:23 good. I don't want to be talked to. Oh, this guy good man he fucking he's coming to this country imagine moving to a country and not knowing the language at all and then being told get a job yeah oh god and now you have to interact with people yeah if you had me walking around china i'd be like i could be a speed hump um what else you got jack this refers to when you talk about how your your uh junk is darker than the rest of your body yeah yeah uh this person says i haven't fact check it this is just a comment because little fun fact your dick and balls are darker because high hormone concentration on that part of the body so in short the more horny the person the
Starting point is 00:13:01 darker the genital area is so you must be be very horny. Let's get this guy on as an expert in dick meat color. You can still tell my dick's white by the size. Not by the color. How dark is it? So the hornier you are... There's a part of me that wants to see your dick, but I don't. But I just
Starting point is 00:13:19 need to know what color it is. Can we get some paint swatches in here? What part of you wants to see my dick? Not i'm just curious it's my left shoulder oh my shoulder kind i forgot about that i gotta bring that joke back what i have a theory that the the vagina is in the wrong place too close to the arsehole that's why it gets all the infections shoulder is a better spot up in the shoulder how okay would you guys like to demo how that sex works? Because we would go from blowjob to shoulder Shoulder cunt
Starting point is 00:13:51 Hashtag Make shoulder cunt happen Alright, more comments This person goes, love autistic comedians Unfiltered truth What does that mean? that we're autistic? I don't know if they meant to say Australian or the... Oh, Jim always talks about how he's on the spectrum.
Starting point is 00:14:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah. It could be either. But it just seems like a general, I love autistic comedians. Not like, I love this guy, he's an autistic comedian. I tell you what... We're all autistic, I guess. Autism is hot right now. They've got the dating show.
Starting point is 00:14:25 Did you watch it? I'm on series two autism is hot right now. They've got the dating show. Did you watch it? I'm on series two. It's fucking great. They've got the dating show. They've got the one where Amy Schumer's husband, who's a bit autistic, cooks with her. That's a good one. Or are you just saying that? No, he is.
Starting point is 00:14:37 No, he is. I'm not being mean. He's like Asperger-y. Yeah, he's a little bit that way. Yeah, nothing wrong. I think that's a term, Asperger-y. Asperger-y. Oh, no, they should have.
Starting point is 00:14:45 Is that a term? Or did you just say that and it's kind of offensive? And then there's HBO. I don't know when they did this documentary, but I watched a thing called Autism Arras or Autism to Go or something. They're a comedy troupe of autistic blokes. They got in an RV and drove around. They played Carolines.
Starting point is 00:15:01 What do you mean they're autistic? They're all autistic. Like Rain Man? Some varying degrees, but They're all autistic. Like Rain Man? Some varying degrees, but they're heavily autistic. There's one of them who's their leader, like Moe from The Three Stooges, right? And then there's four of them,
Starting point is 00:15:15 and they all get into a bus, and they do sketches. And people are either really supportive of them, but they do a thing. They did a stupid thing where they go, in the interval, they go, you write postcards to our next audience and we hand that to them at the beginning of the show it was like a cute idea and and they talk and then they'll and then they'll write like so some people's like hey had a great time you're gonna have a really good laugh
Starting point is 00:15:39 today or whatever but then they found out that some people were really honest and went this was shit right and they're like i don't want to give this to the next audience before the show starts right so they started writing themselves it's called asperger's or us asperger's or us asperger's or us yeah and it was an hbo documentary i'm on like episode three i'm gonna watch that there's some they're not they're not unfunny they're not unfunny. They're not unfunny. They've got some good bits. They've got some good bits, but them all getting along in the RV is worth a watch.
Starting point is 00:16:09 So Asperger-y is offensive? I don't know if it's offensive, but I feel like it probably could be. Yeah. Asperger-y? Asperger-y? Yeah, probably not.
Starting point is 00:16:19 What do you reckon? Because they say on Asperger's or us, they say Aspie, Aspie friends. Oh, yeah. They say that? Yeah, that's the thing. Wait, the performers say that?
Starting point is 00:16:29 Yeah, yeah, they go. They go, a lot of Aspies are coming to the show. No, but Aspie is shorthand for Asperger's, like, as a title of them. But saying somebody's Aspergery, it's like. I don't know. I mean, you guys can write us in and let us know if that's offensive. Aspie? The Aspies, the Aspie community. Yeah, they won an write us in and let us know if that's offensive. Aspie? Aspie.
Starting point is 00:16:45 The Aspies. The Aspie community. Yeah, they won an award. The Aspies. The Aspies. And the Aspie goes to. They can only give out one Aspie because everyone's too shy to get up on stage and get it. Or their speeches run 45 minutes too long.
Starting point is 00:17:00 What else is happening in comment world? Last few things. Either people think kelly is super hot i want to get her pregnant or they think she's an idiot needs to shut up people are impressed that i can read very well you can't you haven't proven this i have not so they're gonna go back on their claims validated why do they want to get kelly pregnant if she's pretty like that's such a thing that's that's how you get the good-looking kids. I thought they would just want to talk to you first.
Starting point is 00:17:26 I want to put a baby inside. I thought just, like, dinner first or something. Like, she's pretty. She's pretty, baby. Put her in. Take my seat. I see a lot of men who are trying to shag Kelly on the internet. All right.
Starting point is 00:17:39 Hey, Kelly. Have you ever seen one where you're like, this is the difference between a man and a woman. Because if someone said that to me, I'd be like, oh, give me a look at her. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just like, oh, gross, right? No, I don't think it's seen one where you're like this is the difference between men and women because i if someone said that to me i'd be like oh give me a look at it yeah you're just like oh gross right no i don't think it's gross it's flattering sure but i'm not like going through people's profiles and seeing you don't you don't check if they're uh i don't i don't even see them jack texts me some of them um but he also texts me the really mean ones and i'm like can you stop sending me the mean shit i sent you the mean ones about me, too.
Starting point is 00:18:05 Yeah. So it evens out. You have a lot of mean ones, Jack? Oh, yeah, I got some mean ones. I don't have any mean ones. Yeah, no. Somehow Forrest has gotten out of this scot-free with no negativity. Everybody loves me.
Starting point is 00:18:14 No, I'm kidding. Are you kidding? I know. Does Forrest get any sexual attention? Does anyone say? Yeah, Bianca. Oh, okay. Not that I've noticed.
Starting point is 00:18:22 Does anyone want the sailor? Not yet, but maybe now with the sailor name maybe they will i like how jack said not that i've noticed i i have never i haven't seen any of those in the history of comedy like i i've had i've very rarely hooked up with anyone as as a result of like after a show or something like that and it's usually been terrible i wouldn't know how to meet women without comedy, but they're always ridiculously. It was a lot.
Starting point is 00:18:49 It was a lot easier to meet girls in comedy clubs. You can make those in comedy clubs because you'd be hanging out in the club after you, but in theaters, there's no, you play an arena. You're not meeting nobody. That's why you got to stay stagnant.
Starting point is 00:19:01 I can play a 10,000 seat room and there'll be no single women in the entire crowd. None. None. Because their boyfriends have brought them. There's no group of women who have gone to a Jim Jefferies show. Come on, girls night. No, it never happened. Now, one of the worst hookups I've ever had was a girl that came up to me at a comedy show
Starting point is 00:19:20 and basically said she wanted to sleep with me. And I was like, yeah, I'm not going to do that. And I was working a weekend at Miami Improv with Patrice O'Neill and he convinced me, he goes, what do you do? You should just have sex with her. Like he convinced me to do it. So then she had given me her number.
Starting point is 00:19:33 This is how I knew it was a mistake. I called her to say like, hey, let's hang out. And she goes, really? Like that's how she was. I was like, oh no, I shouldn't do this. And then she came over and she was on her period and didn't tell me and she bled everywhere. She was a heavy bleeder.
Starting point is 00:19:48 And the end of it was her doing my laundry, trying to get the bloodstains. Oh, right. You didn't just go, you fucking do my laundry. That sex was something. No, no, no. She was like, I was like, you do, you're on your period. Like at least let me put a towel down or it was like,
Starting point is 00:20:04 it was heavy. Are you sure she didn't know or it was like it was it was heavy are you sure she didn't know there was like there was like parts of her vagina coming out i feel like it was it was like it was like she was like sheathing i don't know what that is but there's like i'm gonna say like once i was maybe fifth no no it was in scotland so by the way i don't mind having sex with women on their period i'm just saying it was it was i'm gonna say 18 years ago i had sex with this woman and i went down and she she came the most ferocious orgasm i've ever seen it was body shaking legs kicking around all that stuff i was like oh i did a good job there she was easy as hell to make her come she was one of those ones where you're lucky yeah yeah yeah lucky person anyway so i so so i
Starting point is 00:20:46 still kept on going down and then i looked down it was in the dark and and i picked up a little there was a little turd like a little tiny pebble shit right i mean what's this and i picked it up and i went oh and i threw the turd i threw the little shit across the room and And then she goes, what's wrong? I go, I think when you orgasmed, a little bit of poo came out. A little poo came out like that. And then she just looked at me like, yeah, what's wrong, you pussy? Just like, yeah, that happens when you have a big orgasm. What?
Starting point is 00:21:17 Yeah, she looked at me like I was being an hysterical bitch about the whole thing. It doesn't even sound like you made a big deal about it either. You just chucked it across the room. I did go gross and chuck it across the room. It was hard as a rock it was. What do you mean you chucked it? I would have just stopped if someone took a shit. It was sitting there and I went
Starting point is 00:21:35 it was sitting on the sheet. You just got rid of it and let's dive back in and you sit on the bed. I went, what's this? Like that. It was a poo. This is when you're saying comfortable. I threw it across. I went, oh, yeah, it's poo. Poo. This is when you're saying comfortable. I was going, poo.
Starting point is 00:21:50 And then your hands smelled like poo. Yeah, I know. I wasn't happy. And then she was like, stop overreacting. It'd be one thing if you were having anal and you got poo on your dick or something. Because when guys freak out about bodily fluid and stuff like that, it's like you're sticking a dick in a butt. Yeah, no, no, no, no. You've got to accept poo when you do. I've never heard of a poo pebble coming out during an orgasm it's like a pez dispenser i guess i'm not getting serviced well enough yeah no i i haven't seen it before
Starting point is 00:22:14 i haven't seen it since it was a one-off we should definitely talk about some other things before i bring our guest on okay uh well you said that was Scotland, right? Well, that leads us into the last comment, which is people are still pissed that we don't like Iron Brew. And... Get over it. They said they didn't put less sugar in Iron Brew. They changed it to a sugar substitute because, feck, Jamie Oliver, that English wanker,
Starting point is 00:22:37 pushed the sugar tax. Who? Jamie Oliver. I'm going to nickname him. His HBO show, you mean? His HBO show pushed it? I'm not sure about him as a chef, I guess. Oh, not John Oliver. Jamie Oliver. I'm going to nickname him. His HBO show you in? His HBO show pushed it? I'm not sure about him as a chef, I guess. Oh, not John Oliver.
Starting point is 00:22:49 Jamie Oliver. Jamie Oliver. For some reason I think John Oliver had something to do with Iron Brim. John Oliver ruined that. And I'll tell you another thing about Iron Brim. Jamie Oliver is the best. I fucking love Jamie Oliver. Is he Scottish?
Starting point is 00:23:00 No, he's English. So he had something to do with Iron Brim. I love Jamie Oliver. His recipes are so easy to do. And you feel like a genius afterwards. And there's nothing. And it's just like, throw a bit of thing. Pucker, pucker, pucker.
Starting point is 00:23:11 Smash this thing against here. And then you go, wow, it worked. Let's get him on. Everything's crushing something with the back of a spoon. He's not like Julian Vegetables. You just cut him up with a fucking hacksaw and throw him in. And then you're like, it always tastes good. He knows what he's doing, man. He knows how to treat morons love that he's got a lot of
Starting point is 00:23:28 a lot of kids there's one person said a lot of mean things and said iron brew is amber gold and tastes of all things beautiful and bright yeah shit wow you guys said it tasted like rust that's what they told us yeah they said it's from girders. That's what they're going to say. It tastes like rusty water, yeah. That's what it's supposed to be. Let's get some in. I'll try it. We'll order some iron brew.
Starting point is 00:23:54 We'll have an iron brew taste. Oh, yeah. You haven't had it, right? I haven't had it, yeah. You've got to have it cold. If you have it warm, it's... We'll make it fair. Make it really cold.
Starting point is 00:24:04 And, you know, if you like ice but we'll do whatever if anybody has any suggestions on how to drink iron brew or to mix it with vodka yeah that we'll try it that way too but it's gonna be bad iron brew and and whiskey i think that's like a like a whiskey and dry like a whiskey and iron brew i think yeah because it'd be it kind of has it's it's not like ginger ale but i could can see how it might be in that realm. Let's start the show. Okay, first let's just make sure, if you guys want to follow us on Instagram, it's at idcatpodcast. But rate, review, subscribe, and we're only doing comments that are five stars.
Starting point is 00:24:37 Yeah. Go suck a dick. All right, let's start the show. Okay, that was comment world. Jack Hapkin. That was comment world. Jack Hacker. That went well. Such a natural. I know.
Starting point is 00:24:49 This isn't edited in. Okay, so normally, this is our 20th podcast, by the way. Number 20. I didn't think, they said we wouldn't make it. And look at us. We're at number 20 and we don't have ads. This thing's really rolling along. Yep, we're doing number 20 and we don't have ads things really rolling along yep we're doing this for
Starting point is 00:25:06 free um so for our 20th podcast we thought we'd do something a little bit different um you know normally we have on an expert in some field and then we reveal to you who what their name is jim you guess what they do we tell you what they do i mean everybody knows what happens to the podcast so we have experts on but so we thought today we'd have somebody on to talk about experts um somebody that you met before you already know it's not a surprise i've forgotten your last name on it i know you're tom tom nick tom nichols nickel tom nichols who is well i only get seen the things when they it's okay jim we're off to a great start yeah tom was on the jim jeffrey show yeah which i hosted oh everyone wonders why everyone goes why did you call it the jim
Starting point is 00:25:53 jeffrey show because if i called like yesterday today or something like that they could fire me they fired you anyway what they did instead was they fired everyone. Oh, yeah. Okay. Sorry. We were all fired because of my name choice. You would have had Michelle Wolfe doing the show by now, but no, it's all over. I didn't think about that. What a dick. Yeah. So Tom Nichols is our guest today. He wrote a book called The Death of Expertise, The Campaign Against Established Knowledge
Starting point is 00:26:21 and Why It Matters. He's also a university professor. Thanks. Welcome to the show, Tom. Thanks tom thanks for being here yeah good to be back and and tom tom's an expert and expert i mean yeah i mean would you call yourself that an expert or expert and experts or um that's what we're going to title the show at least yeah you know i'm not i'm not an expert on other experts i'm an expert on uh why people have become insanely resistant to listening to experts. So, yes. I don't know about other people's fields.
Starting point is 00:26:51 I just know why people don't listen to them. Yeah. So that's why I wanted to have you on because our show is we bring on people that know more about a subject than at least us. We call them experts, but they know more about a subject than, than us. And they range from university professors to people that are just you know beekeepers yeah the beekeeper but he's a generation yeah yeah beekeeper we had a woman that was that knew a lot about cheese and you know and
Starting point is 00:27:17 so um and nonetheless people still think they know more than these people in the comment section in our youtube uh comments or they write to us direct messages. The anti-vaxxer. We had a lot of people angry at us about anti-vaxxers. We get a lot of, well, actually, and it's fucking annoying. But I often wonder about that. We're probably about to cover this. What makes an expert?
Starting point is 00:27:42 Is that one of the questions you're going to ask me? I mean, i wasn't gonna ask you any questions we're gonna have a discussion about it why do you want to be quizzed on experts i think i know what an expert is all right go ahead shoot yeah go let's do it well i don't know what makes it you can't you can't qualify as an expert you just people just around you assume you're an expert like i don't know if i'm an expert in anything nothing would you say i would say comedy no i i know how to do stand-up comedy but i don't know if i'm an expert in anything nothing would you say i would say comedy no i i know how to do stand-up comedy but i don't know anything about the history or anything like
Starting point is 00:28:09 that i don't have any expertise in but i think i could set up a comedy room really well to make a really good audience with the right size stage and the right so i think i could set comedy clubs up perfectly if i was given the opportunity that i don't want. Is there something that you've written that like where you define what an expert is or? Yeah. And, you know, actually, it's a good question because people, they bristle at the word expert because when they hear expert, they say, oh, somebody with a PhD like you. And that's not at all what I mean. I mean, you guys are bringing up people like beekeepers and, you know, cheese experts. I mean, if I wandered into a field full of bees, I'd want to be with a beekeeper. You know, I mean, Jim and I are useless. You know, I'll talk about nuclear weapons and Jim will crack jokes and we'll both die from a billion stings.
Starting point is 00:29:00 But I have learned about bees. I've had a podcast about it. Now he's an expert. Now you're an that right because you talked to somebody once so that and i've recalled all the information there's one queen bee who gets gang banged by the rest of them and they make honey by rubbing their feet together i i remember all of it we're expert adjacent here you know some of it is is surviving long enough i mean you guys were just talking about is jim an expert in comedy well you know if you of it is, is surviving long enough. I mean, you guys were just talking about his gym and expert in comedy. Well, you know, if you do it long enough and you're, you're, you're paid for it and you're, you know, other comedians or other professors or other beekeepers kind of affirm that
Starting point is 00:29:34 you know what you're talking about. It's not just people with advanced degrees who claim to be experts. There's a, I had a house fire in this very house. And, you know, everybody except me was an expert at that point. A fire marshal, a carpenter, the plumbers, the guy that was running the wiring. How many people were in your house when there was that fire? Everyone knows what you do. You get down low and go, go, go. That's what they say in Australia. I think he means rebuilding the house.
Starting point is 00:30:04 I was lucky. But, you know, that 10 minutes after I stood there going, wow, these are flames, you know, real experts came in and saved my house. How did your house catch on fire? This is off subject, but how did your house catch on fire? I had a, my house was built in the 50s and there was a defect in the fireplace that was not visible until it like caught fire.
Starting point is 00:30:32 Didn't have a chimney. Just a hole in the wall, oversight. It's worse than that. The guy, whoever built it back during the Eisenhower administration decided that he was running behind. So he decided to level the fireplace with wooden shims I like that you made it political by the way, you're like back in the
Starting point is 00:30:52 Eisenhower administration Eisenhower builders those are the fucking worst so yeah so how do we know who to trust then? how do we know who? not those Eisenhower anything built in the 50s i don't know what the fuck they were doing
Starting point is 00:31:10 because i always say you defer like i always say you need to be the person that defers to them you have to have but i don't think people have that ability anymore to be like this person knows more and that's the problem like in any room of people there are going to be two or three people with dispositive knowledge like better authoritative knowledge about something than other people. And all you have to do is say, look, I'm not the guy who knows about this. You know, your air conditioner broke. Fine. The air conditioning guy, that's the expert. He's going to fix your air conditioner. You know, you're on an airplane. The pilot is the expert. People have a really hard time saying, no, no, I don't know about that. They have to say, I'm competent in everything. I know all kinds of, you know, they're all like Fredo and the Godfather. I'm smart. I know things. I can do stuff.
Starting point is 00:32:04 has some background, has some experience. And I think it's important to say, like, how do you know an expert plumber? Well, he's licensed by the state or has passed the examination by other plumbers to become a master plumber. There's a reason that we have all these kinds of affirmations. You know, as I say in the book, you don't want to get in an elevator and look at the certificate and have it say, good luck up there. You right you know you wanted to say an engineer who is works with other engineers and who is part of the engineering profession looked at this elevator it's okay to go to the 50th floor right but this this isn't a new occurrence that people ignore experts correct this has been going on since forever or is it because of social media this is a new thing it's well social media put it on steroids right but what's new and i when i say new i would say pretty much since maybe the early 70s it's not that people people
Starting point is 00:32:53 distrusting experts that's that's as old as time you know your doctor says i saw your leg off and you say whoa whoa whoa i you know i'd like to talk to another doctor i want a second opinion it's people now saying i am smarter than experts right it's not doubting experts nobody likes intellectuals nobody likes college professors no we're all used to that yeah yeah we're worst i had a university professor who's sadistic tony madewell i hope you fucking rot my brother ran a bar and i was hanging out with him there got you know it's great to have a brother with a bar. And I left one night and a guy at the bar turned to my brother and he said, so your brother's a professor, huh? And my brother said, yeah. And the guy went, hmm, seems like a good guy anyway.
Starting point is 00:33:34 Jesus Christ. You know, which is, you just get used to that. But what's different is when people say, oh, you're a professor? What's your area? And I said, well, you know, Russian affairs. They said, oh, okay. Let me tell you about Russia. Right.
Starting point is 00:33:46 They tell you that? And it's like, when did that begin? And I think that begins, that tracks with narcissism. That tracks with the growth of a very narcissistic society that we developed into after the 70s. Well, we get that in comedy. We get people afterwards telling us what we should be doing. Yeah, I've got a pitch for you.
Starting point is 00:34:04 Yeah, this is how you should be doing it. That one joke you told, not good. I'm sure people have walked up to you, Jim, and said, you're good, but let me tell you about timing. I've had variations on that. I've had a lot of like, you don't need to swear and all that type of stuff. This joke works and that joke doesn't work and blah, blah, blah. You had a famous actor once call you
Starting point is 00:34:26 to tell you how to do comedy, remember? I did. I did have a famous actor who, and I won't say who it is. Oh, come on. No, no, but he saw me perform at the Laugh Factory and then he rang me up the next day to tell me where I was going wrong.
Starting point is 00:34:41 And I told him, I gave him a Macbeth fucking monologue and trying to fuck off and get that back to me and see how that goes so i think that is interesting because i think that's sort of a premise of our podcast too is when we do have people on they know more than us is what we always say and you said so in this room including you that everybody in this room is an expert on at least one thing because we know more than the other people in the room. Right. So. And I mean, you know, how good an expert are you? Well, sure. You know, you guys know how to create a podcast. Are there people that are better at it? Sure.
Starting point is 00:35:24 It's only your 20th show. And we're nailing it. There are people that have done hundreds and you could say, okay, are there people that are more experienced and know how to do this better? You know, sure. But that doesn't mean that therefore, you know, anybody can do it. And I think that's the problem is they say, but you're not, you know, this good an expert or you made this mistake.
Starting point is 00:35:43 So therefore you're not an expert at all. Is there a word, there's the amateur and there's expert. Is there a word in between these two? Because I'm in between on a few things. Maybe professional. What are you in between on? I know, I guess I'm an amateur Beatles enthusiast, right? So I guess, but there's no point being an expert.
Starting point is 00:36:03 Okay, so let's say i'm an i'm an amateur driver but i think i drive very well and i have a license and everything okay in this room what do you think you know more than anybody else about in this room yeah yeah uh all my siblings i know their dates of birth and stuff like that i know i know i know more about my family than anyone i think i know more about about the Beatles than anybody else in this room. I think I know more about Crowded House than anyone else in this room. Crowded House? These aren't good things. I think I know more about the manufacturing of Holden cars in Australia
Starting point is 00:36:34 than anyone in this room. I think I'm well-versed in pies, meat pies. You did pretty good. We had a pie episode. I think I know more about... I think I could probably name more porn stars and maybe not then, Jack. No, I don't know. You can't beat me. Do you know a lot of porn stars, Jack?
Starting point is 00:36:54 Are you a porn enthusiast? There is something more than an amateur and less than a professional. There are people who are hobbyists and enthusiasts and people that are highly literate in a particular field, but they may not be experts. For example, there are people who know a lot about the law. And they know, like, they will write books on, you know, on the Constitution and the founders and the creation of the Bill of Rights. That doesn't mean that's the person you call when you've been arrested for drunk driving. They're not lawyers. Right. They're not lawyers. They know about the law. They can hold a very good conversation with a legal expert about things. They may even know, in fact, people like that know more than a lawyer about what George Mason or John Adams or James Madison might have
Starting point is 00:37:41 meant. Nonetheless, if you're asking, you know, what is a lawyer as an expert, it's somebody who actually knows how to navigate that system. Who's done, who's been to court. Australian history. I know more about Australian history. Okay. Hold on. So I'm going to guess that Tom knows more about Russia than any of us.
Starting point is 00:37:58 I would hope so. Why would you want to learn about Russia? It's never been a good one. It's never been good. I tell you what, throughout my whole life life i've toured all over the world i've been all through asia been all through europe i've done slovenia and i've done eastern europe countries and i've had no want to ever go to russia i've seen the pictures it looks shit the fucking like you've got that one building with the fucking ice yeah with the ice cream cone tops.
Starting point is 00:38:26 Yeah, the Kremlin. Right? Right. Those ones. The ice cream cones on top of it. That shit. How do you know it's shit? You haven't been there.
Starting point is 00:38:33 I've seen pictures of it. All right. There. That's where it is. You've got your square. You've got your square. What about vodka? What about vodka?
Starting point is 00:38:40 Vodka? I can get it here. Yeah, but you like vodka. It's like... No, Russian. That's the same... Expert opinion. Russian vodka is the best vodka there is. Yeah, I know but you like it's like it's like russian that's the same expert opinion russian vodka is the best vodka yeah i know but i can still buy it i can still buy it
Starting point is 00:38:50 and have it over here it's like these fuckwits well what are russian who live up in the napa valley because they like wine we can still get it you don't have to live next to the fucking vines we can all buy it all right i didn't study it because i was initially in love with it jim i studied it because i grew up next to a strategic air command nuclear bomber base. And it occurred to me at a very young age that whoever they were, they were going to melt me into the ground at some point. And so I kind of got curious about who were these people and what are they about? And why do I have to hide under my desk every time somebody looks at somebody else cross-eyed? And that's actually what led me to do it,
Starting point is 00:39:28 was being a Cold War kid and saying, why am I living this way? Who are these people on the other side and what are they about? When the Cold War ended, was that sad for you? Oh no, that was... I've got nothing to talk about. I need a little excitement.
Starting point is 00:39:47 Well, you know, they might put a McDonald's in those queues. I'm going to go all expert-y on you, and I'm going to quote a great line from a John le Carré spy novel. I felt about the end of the Cold War the way this spy in a John le Carré novel did. He said, the goal of my life was to end the time I lived in. And so when the cold war was over i was like now i can you know do other stuff but they're back and russia's back you got to give it to russia in many ways they always they're like we are we are giving it to
Starting point is 00:40:19 russia they're like everything's okay we're all good friends. They're always lurching around, being sneaky, the Ruskies. We're 100% getting hacked after this episode. Wait, okay. I want to go back to something real quick. What people are experts are in this room, at least. You said Jack. You know a lot about Pornstar? No, Jack knows a lot about The Grateful Dead.
Starting point is 00:40:48 Now, Jack, what are you an expert in in this room? I could probably do cameras and lights. Over Louise? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, you studied university. I like that Louise gave him approval to say yes. Thank you, Louise. Do you physically know how a camera works?
Starting point is 00:41:02 Yeah, I did. You could explain that? Yeah. God, no wonder you don't get laid. These are things you don't need to know, Jack. This is why I date cinematographers. Learn how an orgasm works, Jack. You'll be fine.
Starting point is 00:41:14 You date cinematographers. They can make anything look good. It is like, just put a small Coke bottle next to the penis. There you go. Now it looks bigger. Tic Tacs. Cameras and lights. Anything else?
Starting point is 00:41:29 In this room or? No. Among the people that are in here. Guitars probably. Guitars? Yeah. He's an enthusiast.
Starting point is 00:41:36 He doesn't know. Yeah. Yeah. I know more than the room. You think so? I think I know a lot about musical theater in comparison.
Starting point is 00:41:42 You're done, Jim. Sorry. We're talking to other people right now. One day I'll have my own podcast. And then you'll all fucking hear about it. You can keep throwing them in there. I'm writing an extra musical theater. Okay.
Starting point is 00:41:53 Luis, have you ever talked on this podcast, Luis? Absolutely not. Oh, wow. He's got an American accent. Oh, wow. That's nice. Jim's never talked. What a debut.
Starting point is 00:42:05 And you guys can't see it, but he's wearing socks and sandals right now. Yeah. Socks and sandals and a Hawaiian shirt. I'm an expert on fashion. Clearly. He's an expert in being comfortable in COVID. Luis Castillo, he's the guy behind the podcast. He puts the whole podcast together for us, records it.
Starting point is 00:42:26 And what is your title here? I don't even know. We never given you a technical producer, technical producer. All right. You have your own podcast, too, right? So not quarter boy. It's the first time he's in a corner. Normally, he's just on the he was at the end of a table before.
Starting point is 00:42:41 And what do you think? So he's the expert in production. I mean, the thing I always tell people is, who would you turn to for an authoritative answer on something really important? I guess so. That person is the expert on it among you. Among us.
Starting point is 00:42:55 There's always going to be a better expert. All right, I got a game. Throw us a topic, and I'll tell you who would be the best expertise in the room. Throw us anything. I'll tell you. I'm off. Who are you talking to, Tom? Anyone who wants to throw us a topic tom will do it yeah tom you don't really
Starting point is 00:43:09 know us that well i mean so just throw out any topic uh okay um you're not an expert at this i'm an expert it's um you know stalling uh okay ah, stalling. Yeah. He's all about Russia. Stalin, Lenin, Putin, putting things down. Chess. Chess.
Starting point is 00:43:41 Uh, Forrest beats me. I'm terrible. He's X. Yeah, but I know how to play it, but we're bad at it.. Forrest beats me. I'm terrible. Yeah, but I know how to play it. We're bad at it, but Forrest beats me. I would say that Jack would be the best person at it.
Starting point is 00:43:50 I went to chess camp. Oh, you did? Yeah. You went to chess camp? Yeah. I lost because the little shit I was playing against was a cheater. Oh, yeah. It was a week long.
Starting point is 00:44:01 It was at school during the summer. It's incredible. I learned about queens raid yeah was there any girls in chess camp i don't think so was it in the library or something it was in the spanish classroom how bad did it smell that room it was fine it was yeah i think we're like we're like 12 okay oh wow i smile then. There's some teacher who made up that class. We're not playing chess at chess camp. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:44:29 Your move. Checkmate. All right, chess. I'm sorry. I looked at you and thought girls don't play chess very much. I've never played chess in my life. See, that was it. All right, so it remains the same.
Starting point is 00:44:42 Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I believe that number one and corner boy do you know no no no no he doesn't he doesn't yeah okay if you say sucks and sandals i got a winner for you all right let's do two more let's do a couple more topics all right tom you're on the spot again uh ceramics ceramics ceramics ceramics that's like like because i know what a place if you're gonna ask me to free associate you gotta take what you're gonna get all right i'm gonna say in this
Starting point is 00:45:13 room that i know more about ceramics than everybody else that you know and i'll tell you why because my mother collected ceramic dolls maybe i don't know how i don't actually i don't know how they're made but i've looked at a lot more are you sure they're ceramic or porcelain? They're porcelain. Is that different? Yes. Yes. All right, take me expertise off the table.
Starting point is 00:45:31 An expert would have known, Jim. Idiot. Okay. I know I've made pottery. I've fired up a kiln. Kiln? Kiln? Kiln.
Starting point is 00:45:44 I'll tell you the things that Forrest is an expert in. Manatees. In this room, yeah. Manatees I definitely know more about. I'll tell you the thing that Kelly's an expert in. Calming down drunk women. I've seen her do it. I've seen her do it at parties.
Starting point is 00:45:58 She sits down with them and she goes, everything's okay, time for you to go to bed. Time to go night-night. She's the drunk girl whisperer. That's so true. Okay. What about Luis? Luis, he knows more.
Starting point is 00:46:13 We already said this. He knows more about sound engineering and stuff like that than the rest of us. And I think he would know more about, just from his hat, I think he knows more about baseball than me and you. Okay. I don't think that's true. No, no, no. I don't know about that.
Starting point is 00:46:26 I just live in LA. He's like a fake fan. No, I'm a relatively new Dodger fan. Oh. Yeah. The Dodger menu, though. Yeah, he's a big Dodger dog guy. You got the all beef.
Starting point is 00:46:39 You got the vegan. You got the... What else do you want? I reckon... That's it. I reckon I know more about McDonald's than anyone else here. What about Jack? You didn't do Jack.
Starting point is 00:46:48 Jack doesn't know anything about McDonald's. No, what he knows most about. Jack knows the most about, he knows most about chess and the Grateful Dead. Okay. He knows a lot about the Grateful Dead. He knows how to repel women. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Super expert.
Starting point is 00:47:04 Give him the mic. He's well versed. He, yeah, yeah, yeah. Super expert. Give him the mic. He's well-versed in that. You know, walk up to him, act creepy, say something wrong. He's got it all. Okay. I want to talk now about the Dunning-Kruger effect, Tom. Oh, yeah. If you can explain what that is.
Starting point is 00:47:21 Well, named for Dunning and Kruger two guys amazingly enough who discovered it they they um figured out that the worse you are at something the less likely you are to realize how bad you are that's not true i have really know how bad i am at golf i am a terrible golfer and i keep trying but that's why you're not a but that's and so i imagine you don't spend a lot of time playing golf and bragging about no i do i do you don't brag about it i don't brag about it yeah oh if i do one good shot you'll hear about it all day the dunning kruger effect is the guy who's who you know says uh comes off the karaoke he's tone deaf and he comes off the karaoke stage and he said i was awesome yeah. I'm terrific.
Starting point is 00:48:05 Oh, we have a lot of them in the stand-up comedy community. There was this bloke I started out with in the UK, really good guy, but he used to fucking rip the roof off every gig he did. And it was like, what fucking gig are you watching? He thought that if he wasn't booed, he was crushing. I'm killing it. I'm killing it.'t booed he was crashing yeah right i'm killing it i'm killing it yeah and he was hopeless well it's kind of like american idol right you've got those like really terrible singers and do you think it's that people are that delusional or it's uh that the people around them are so supportive that they think they are that they are that
Starting point is 00:48:39 and there's a there's a thing that um these guys they call it metacognition, which is the ability to step back from what you're doing and to be able to look at what, you know, like what you just sang or what you just wrote. Like writers, I think this is really important. This is why I don't think any writer should ever work without an editor. You always need other people's eyes on things. That you can step back, look at what you did and say, now, am I really being honest with myself? Was this any good? Can I recognize something that's any good? People who lack that tend, look at what you did and say, now, am I really being honest with myself? Was this any good? Can I recognize something that's any good? People who lack that tend to look at everything,
Starting point is 00:49:09 like students who write crappy papers, and they say, but this is awesome. I wrote a really great paper. Or the guy that you hang out with who you're terrified to get into a car with, and he says, but I'm an awesome driver. I'm a fantastic driver. They can't step back and say, like, I admit it. I'm a terrible driver. I'm a fantastic driver. They can't step back and say,
Starting point is 00:49:25 like, I admit it. I'm a terrible driver. I'm just not a good driver. I'm not, just not, I get it, right? So I don't, I'm long past that adolescent need to say, well, I'm a guy and I know how to handle a car. You know, if my wife wants to drive,
Starting point is 00:49:40 I'm like, yeah, I'm not that great. I'm an awesome driver. I think I might have that syndrome. No, it's kind of like, yeah, I'm not that great. I'm an awesome driver. I think I might have that syndrome. No, it's driving. But it's kind of like saying like the dumber people are the more confident that they're not dumb. Yes. That's a huge. And it increases their confidence to say, I mean, you know, teachers encounter this all the time.
Starting point is 00:49:59 Like I said, with students who do really poorly on a test and they go and they say, but this answer was fantastic. And, you know, you find yourself saying this answer isn't even in english this isn't yeah yeah um but they they're like no i'm the i'm very bright um and so yeah there's nothing more frustrating than that when somebody that's i mean i tell you it sounds elitist but if somebody's like really dumb and then they don't think they're dumb but they're very confident that very very few people think they're dumb i i think i know a couple of my weaknesses that that are but some people don't know any of them one of my big weaknesses is i can't fill forms out at all at all i don't know if that's a weakness no i i just don't know what's happening people give me contracts and stuff like that and i look at them and i read
Starting point is 00:50:43 the information i still don't know what's happened. You're reading legalese. Is that really a character defect? People are like, I'll tell you a thing about Jim. Can't fill out forms. No, but I can't even compute it into my head. I don't know what's going on. What about character defects?
Starting point is 00:51:01 It might be a focus issue. Character defects. Character defects. Oh, no, I'm perfect. No, no, no, I've got some character defects, but that be a focus issue. Character defects. Character defects. Oh, no, I'm perfect. Oh, okay. No, no, no. I've got some character defects, but that's nothing to do with expertise. I have a short fuse, but I calm down quickly.
Starting point is 00:51:14 So that's a good and the bad. But I will calm down. That's got nothing to do with expertise. Exactly. But Forrest is just trying to make me go, and I piss in a cup off the side of my bed. I know, I tricked you. I mostly just jizz on my stomach and rub it in and never use a towel or anything,
Starting point is 00:51:38 and then I don't bathe for days. Not an expert. They don't use the word dumb by the way they'll say less competent at something some people are less competent who's they? I use the word dumb
Starting point is 00:51:50 I'm trying to get Tesla tiles on my house like solar panels at the moment right and so what I have to do is I have to take photos of all the different things why didn't you come to me? I'm a solar expert
Starting point is 00:52:01 yeah well I I worked in renewable energy for 11 years. She used to sell solar panels. I don't know where all these panels are. And they're just like, take a photo of this, take a photo of that. And they're all named different things than what they were named in Australia. And so I just had to write to the person, look, I'm a moron. I don't know how to do this.
Starting point is 00:52:20 You have to send someone out. Here at Tesla, we don't send them out until you've got the photos. I go, just tell them I'm mentally challenged or elderly or something like that that i need special things and this guy just wouldn't help me in the end i could bring in then there was an australian lady and she goes she means the fuse box and i went oh yeah i know that what did they say i'll tell you another way i'll tell you i'll tell you how dumb i am right so i had these these automatic blackout blinds these electrical blackout blinds set my house it makes the room completely dark you press a button it goes and they're not the room just shuts down right in two of the rooms
Starting point is 00:52:53 anyway i bought these fucking things right and then the fucking all of them started to break down around the same fucking time right just these things were just fucking pieces of shit they lasted two years and then they just started breaking down so i rang up the company to abuse them yeah it turns out batteries they got batteries in them oh i thought it was just uh magic i thought that they bought shit that all broke down around the same time they have like a two-year warranty and break right after the warranty's over. And then the guy's like, have you replaced the batteries?
Starting point is 00:53:27 I went, of course I have. You fucking idiot. Of course I replaced the batteries. What are you, a fucking moron? I'm not a moron. Then I went, look, I have to go to work or something. And then I hung up and just replaced the batteries. I'll call you back.
Starting point is 00:53:44 Here's something that we wanted to talk about because this relates to something currently going on. Why are people so quick to write off experts when they change their mind due to new information? Like, for example, when Dr. Fauci had a different stance on masks early on in COVID and now, but that happens a lot. So, yeah.
Starting point is 00:54:02 There's two reasons for that. One is that people are basically very childish about this, that they want an answer and they want it 100% and they don't want any ambiguity and they want it to, you know, kind of packaged up neatly with a bow on it. If Fauci, you know, in March says something and then a month later says,
Starting point is 00:54:22 well, we're still looking, we're trying to figure it out. They don't want to hear that. Increasingly, I think, especially the American public has like zero tolerance for nuance. And the other reason is that people don't understand science. They just don't understand how science works. They don't understand how they look around at the world and they say, well, everything just works, right? I mean, how hard can it, and I think this is really a big part of it. How hard can it be? How hard can it be to fly an airplane?
Starting point is 00:54:49 How hard can it be to, you know, run a show? How hard can it be to do comedy? How hard can it be to make the lights go on? Because things around them work. I think we used to have a better understanding that the world was complicated. You know, that it's not, you know, that people like even driving a bus, you know, right. Ralph Cramden, the honeymooners, the everyman, even driving a bus is a skill. You have to know how to handle a vehicle that size. You have to
Starting point is 00:55:15 know how to deal with the people on it. You have to know the streets of New York. Now people look around and say, well, how come Fauci didn't know this, you know, in the first 10 seconds, everything is easy. I could have done it. And that's the part that is really the part that that I think is the new aspect of this so anybody could have figured this out I mean you know the government anybody can run the government anybody can figure out a pandemic I often think about how far would the world be along if everyone had my brain like every man woman and child we all had my brain and this is the entire intellect of our society become everywhere no i just no i don't know if we would have figured out plumbing we'd have fire we wouldn't have figured out you just piss anywhere
Starting point is 00:55:58 i've seen you before yeah you wouldn't have cared about you wouldn't have even tried to figure out plumbing plumbing is that bush over there. See the pool? I don't know what inventions we'd have. I reckon one of us would have cracked the bicycle. You know, I'll tell you the thing. It's like we all drive, we drive cars. And now it's even, it used to be you turned a key. Now you just press a button.
Starting point is 00:56:23 So I don't think, cars are so complex. And when they break down, you're like, I don't know. I've just been driving this thing my entire, I've driven this thing 150,000 miles. I still don't even know where the starter is. I knew how to fix things in cars. I knew how to buy a part back in the old days. I knew how to do a little bit.
Starting point is 00:56:38 Yeah, but now. But now there's nothing to. I used to do a joke because I was, I don't know if you know this, Tom. I was a marine biologist in a former life He's an expert in manatees In this room, there's a lot of people that know more about manatees than me I don't know
Starting point is 00:56:53 I'm the foremost expert on manatees They don't count them as good as you But all the times that people have asked me about manatees, I go, I've got a guy And water quality You never bring up water quality that people have asked me about manatees, I go, I've got a guy. And water quality. You never bring up water quality. You've never brought it up.
Starting point is 00:57:10 You know about water quality? Sure, that was a big part of my journey. Grab a little bit for us. pH levels, you know, dissolved oxygen, salinity. Wait a minute, college boy. Let's see if he does know. What does the PH stand for in the PH levels? The numbers? What does PH stand for?
Starting point is 00:57:31 I don't know what PH stands for. I thought I saw it in your song. Hydrogen. He knows! You didn't know what PH meant. Because Russians have water. I was also a five-time Jeopardy champion, guys.
Starting point is 00:57:45 Five-time what? I was a five-time Jeopardy champion, guys. You were what? Five-time what? I was a five-time Jeopardy champion. That's how you do it. Oh, shit. You were a five-time Jeopardy champion. Why haven't you brought this up? Holy shit, I love Jeopardy.
Starting point is 00:57:54 What is what the fuck? I didn't know that. I think we knew that actually from the show, but we didn't. You're a five-time Jeopardy champion, which is Trebek as nice as they all say. Look, the man is having a health crisis. He's not the. That doesn't mean he's not nice. Well, he's very polite, but he's not the warmest guy.
Starting point is 00:58:17 He doesn't. He's Canadian. Yeah. But he's a little reserved. Wait, so is this last? My fiance, she loves Alex Trebek. Yeah. But he's a little reserved. Wait, so is this last? My fiance, she loves Alex Trebek. She thinks Alex Trebek is the shit. She thinks he's wonderful.
Starting point is 00:58:31 She goes, it gives me faith in humanity that there are men up there like Alex Trebek. She loves Alex Trebek. And she only found out about Jeopardy last year. I think I made him mad at me during the tryout because I asked him about being on the show Cheers. And I was like, hey, that was really cool. Was that your idea? And he kind of looked at me and said, no,
Starting point is 00:58:54 that was NBC's idea. And I was like, oh, okay. Too soon. Maybe I kind of poisoned the well right off the bat. Hold on a second. I looked you up in, I guess, 1994? I was on back when they retired you after five wins okay but you just kept winning no no he did five times yeah but they retired you after five did you win the old five i actually won depending on how you
Starting point is 00:59:20 count it i got i i won six because i was ruled incorrect in my fifth game and the show was wrong and i was right so they invited me back for one more and then i won that well well i don't want to brag but uh i was on a little tv show in australia called vidiot which stood for video idiot when i was 14 and uh i won two out of my three shows and won a camcorder and a TV that I still have in my parents' bedroom or my bedroom in my old house. Yeah, big time game show guy.
Starting point is 00:59:54 When I came second, they gave me a camcorder, V8 juice and jelly beans. V8 juice? Is that a punishment? But you get all the money, right? You get all the money that you bank. In those days, only if you uh if you won so uh you know if you got the um if you came in second that you didn't get any of that money so they gave you consolation prizes and then you
Starting point is 01:00:17 had to pay taxes on the consolation prizes see this is the thing i've always said okay so british game shows right i love british games they have one good countdown which is the thing. I've always said this. Okay. So British game shows, right? I love British games. They have one good countdown, which is the hardest game show on fucking earth. It's just spelling and maths the whole time. And it's tricky. Like, it's not hard in the sense that you could do it poorly, but to do it really well.
Starting point is 01:00:35 And to get like nine letter words out of these scrambled things in the amount of time, and then do this maths. And at the end of it, you're like the greatest speller on earth. And they go, and you've won countdown. And they give you a fucking dictionary, man. You're like, I already know this shit.
Starting point is 01:00:49 British game shows are like, and you've built this house for us, and you bought some antiques, and you sold it, and you spent four days. And then you'll get the money difference. There's your 10 pounds. I'm not kidding. That's how British game shows work. So British game shows, you have to be really smart and then you get 10 bucks, right?
Starting point is 01:01:07 Or, or a fucking dictionary. And in, in America, in American game shows, the dumb of the game show, the bigger, the price,
Starting point is 01:01:14 the bigger, the bigger, the moron you are. They go door A or door B and you go door B. You've won a car. Yeah. American game shows used to, they, they used to be lower paying. And when I was on, they actually put a ceiling on how much you could win
Starting point is 01:01:33 because of the old game show scandals. So I actually had to sign a thing that said, if I win more, I think it was like $100,000. If I win more than $100,000, I have to give it to charity or something like that. So they used to put, now it's millions millions of dollars so obviously i got i peaked too early yeah i dated one of the girls that i was competing against i was 14 wow may or may not have been my first fingering don't want to it was wait you got fingered for the first time it was uh you know when i was 14 i dated the dated one of the other contestants,
Starting point is 01:02:06 and I was like, oh, that's all right. It's all right. These game shows. The real prize. So last year when, what is his name, Holzhauer, was on that winning streak in Jeopardy? I'm reading a comment by you. You weren't a fan of his.
Starting point is 01:02:17 I was not a fan. You said that he's ruining the show. You said his winning streak is as exciting as putting a camera on the sportsbook room in Caesar's Palace. Exactly. Why didn't you like him? Why are you throwing shades? You know, the thing that made Jeopardy such a hit back in the day was it was ordinary people.
Starting point is 01:02:34 Right. You say one of the first big winners on Jeopardy back in the day was a guy who was a New York City transit cop. And he just like ran. He just won everything. He was like the most legendary in the Hall of Famers. who was a New York City transit cop. And he just like ran, he just won everything. He was like the most legendary in the Hall of Famers. And he said, wow, it's really cool. You know, a New York City transit cop who's also this kind of, you know, brainiac
Starting point is 01:02:54 or a mailman or your old school teacher. Or just like you, a professor. Back in the day when these ordinary people came on. I have to tell you, professors generally don't do well because their knowledge is too narrow. And they're too uncoordinated for the buzzer. And hey, don't knock the buzzer. The buzzer is everything.
Starting point is 01:03:14 That's how you win that game is developing those reflexes to hit that button. But Holzhauer kind of said, okay, I'm going to beat the algorithm and just practice at this and then rack up so many wins. Cause I'll tell you the other thing I can tell you is somebody had to, you know, people had to go up against me after I'd won two or three times. Once you're, once you're in the, uh, kind of the rhythm of the game of jeopardy, new people have a much tougher time beating you. I never thought they should have lifted the cap on the five time winning thing.
Starting point is 01:03:44 Cause once you've won four or five games, the new guys are like, where are the lights? Where's the camera? Yeah, there's probably an intimidation factor, too. I want to go and I'm putting it out there. I want to go on Celebrity Jeopardy. Right? Do they have Celebrity Jeopardy? They do. They do. They dumb it down. And the questions are easier.
Starting point is 01:04:00 Lotsy. They're very easy. The sky is what is blue? Let it snow. Let it snow. What is what is blue. Let it snow. Let it snow. What was let it snow? Let it snow. Let it snow. Why do you want to?
Starting point is 01:04:11 Is that it? You just want to be on there? I would like. Okay. Look, I had an inquiry for me to be on I'm a Celebrity. Get me out of here in Australia. Oh, God. I don't want to sit in a jungle and eat fucking bugs.
Starting point is 01:04:25 And to our Australian listeners, several reasons. I don't want to fucking eat animals, weird animals in the thing. Plus, I don't think I have a personality that should be filmed for 24 hours a day. I'm really a one-hour guy. You know what I mean? Like they might give me a contract in the forest and I'll be like, I can't do it.
Starting point is 01:04:43 And I'll break down and start smashing things that would be your challenge just filling out a form we've broken him and so so i i didn't there was many years ago i got asked to do uh celebrity boot camp this is right before my hbo special i just got a little profile in britain and a celebrity boot camp where like like drill masters were going to call me maggot and all that type of stuff and scream make me do push-ups and stuff it was like me and ex-boy band members and all that type of stuff and scream and make me do push-ups and stuff. And it was like me and ex-boy band members and all this type of stuff. And then I got my HBO special and I went,
Starting point is 01:05:09 all right, we'll be doing boot camp. Let's get back on the gear, right? And so then I thought I'd lose pounds and sober up a bit and all that type of stuff. I thought that would be fun for me. And then we did, when I said gear, I'm not on heroin. Please don't take that the wrong way. Anyway, and then now all I want to do is celebrity game shows,
Starting point is 01:05:31 but they don't put me on them. I don't think you're famous enough to be on Celebrity Jeopardy. I'm looking at the cast right now. What are you talking about? Here, let me tell you. This podcast is kind of like Celebrity Jeopardy. I had my own night show. I've had a sitcom.
Starting point is 01:05:41 I could be on Celebrity. Are you more famous than any of these people? Anderson Cooper? No. Jodie Foster? No. of these people? Anderson Cooper? No. Jodie Foster? No. Ashton Kutcher? No.
Starting point is 01:05:49 Ashton Kutcher? I know. I've got to do you up. Do you up. Harry Connick Jr.? No. Neil Patrick Harris? If you've never been punked, you're not famous enough.
Starting point is 01:05:55 Neil Patrick. Neil. I'll tell you what I think about Neil Patrick. Jesus. Take it a turn. Remember, LGBTQ. No, nothing about him being gay it's just he's one of those blokes that's like i can tap i can this i'll do a bit of magic he was in a sitcom like he was in a couple of very successful television shows i don't mind
Starting point is 01:06:19 his acting it's it's when he it's when he pushes the magic on us he starts going and i can do magic i've never seen him do mad where are you hanging out he's doing magic on us. He starts going, and I can do magic. I've never seen him do magic. Where are you hanging out? He's doing magic. You watch. He's obsessed with doing a bit of magic. You watch. You know how I feel also.
Starting point is 01:06:31 Also, I feel about Ed Helms. You're very funny. Stop singing. Just stop it. You're annoying me. I used to. Every single time I watch The Office, a ring, ding, ding, ding, ding. And you're like, what are you fucking doing?
Starting point is 01:06:41 And you're bloody singing too much. No, I used to think that you were banging on Ed Helms so much and where we recently were watching like office just we watched like five episodes in a row and he sang multiple times in each episode every episode yeah it is any movie he goes him him and josh gad get together when they get a role and they get a role the two of them get together and they go like this they go okay so uh this is a movie about the holocaust and it's going to be a very serious film. And then they're like, and I could sing a song? Maybe I could sing a song.
Starting point is 01:07:12 No, no, there's no need for singing. And you're not a particularly good singer. So we're wondering if you could, I brought my banjo. No one asked you to bring your banjo. No, the two of them love to sing in movies. Like Josh Gad found a way to sing in the movie pixels how did that movie need a song that was the video game yeah yeah don't understand that all right so um back to this uh what what are some signs like to look for like for information
Starting point is 01:07:40 to get to see if we're like getting false information, we're not getting this from the right person. There are things that we can look out for. I mean, it's great for us. I mean, I wish other people knew that because there's so much like misinformation and fake news and all that stuff that is out there, but is there like, get off Facebook? Now you've got me trying to remember what the song was from pixel. There are ways to recognize you know this
Starting point is 01:08:07 is basically the bullshit or not test right i mean how do you know when you're reading something that's reputable the first thing i always tell like i would tell students when they say you know how do i know a source is reputable first of all anything that doesn't have an editor and a corrections page is probably not reputable look at the mass that are there editors are there fact checkers? Do they ever admit they're wrong? Is there a page that says, Hey, you know, yesterday we said that, um, you know, I don't know that, uh, Walter Mondale is dead, but he's actually alive. We regret the error. So that's the first thing is there isn't an outlet that will actually own
Starting point is 01:08:40 its mistakes. Is it associated with an institution that you would trust? I mean, if you're, if you're reading a book that was published by the university of chicago which will kind of answer for this and say yeah we're a bunch of smart people we thought this was worth putting but fake news to fake news press in a garage that's a different kind of book fake news is real i'm not a big trump supporter it's fucking real i'm telling you i've had it i've experienced it well sure it's real but he but he calls the new york times oh no no he's like no that's the thing and that's a that's a i mean the president's the president thinks any fake news is anything he doesn't happen to like at the moment right right i mean you know if the new york times turns around and says donald trump is leading by 20 points. He says, that's the most
Starting point is 01:09:25 reputable source in the world. That's the one you got to trust. And he doesn't have any connection to the real world. So what the president thinks is fake news. I think, do they actually try to edit their sources so that they have to present facts that are checkable? so that they have to present facts that are checkable. I just don't trust any print journalism. Any of it. I don't trust any of it. I've done interviews.
Starting point is 01:09:52 They misquote you and shit. Or they write a review and they say... Yeah, but you're talking about entertainment journalism. Which is more opinion-based. I don't fucking... If I can't see it on video, I don't fucking believe it. If you bloody write it down, they're all fucking clickbait puns. They'll fucking write whatever they can. I just watched a documentary on Netflix called The Social Dilemma,
Starting point is 01:10:10 and they talked about that's why social media can be so dangerous in these scenarios because if you engage with something that's fake news, the algorithm feeds those type of articles more into your feed, so then people create these echo chambers of fake news. And then how do you discern what's real or not when everything you're surrounded by is some clickbaity conspiracy theory? You know, it's going to be weird for somebody who participates in social media as much and as extensively as I do to, you know, crap on social media. I'll do it. You know, my answer to this is, look, if you know, Facebook,
Starting point is 01:10:47 and I think unless Facebook and Twitter and, you know, YouTube, unless they start policing themselves, they're inviting government regulation. But in the short term, here's a simple answer to not getting misled on Facebook. Don't get your goddamn news from Facebook. Yeah, that's a, you know, that's a simple answer, right. So where should we get our news? Because I find in America... Print journalism, Jim. I don't trust print journalists. And in America,
Starting point is 01:11:13 they don't just give you the news, they give you their opinion. CNN and That's video. You just said you like video better. Videos are the worst. No, no, no. I don't trust that news either. What news do you trust? I don't watch anything anymore. So how do you get news? I don't. that news either what news do you trust i don't watch anything anymore so how do you get news i don't you know what jim is i i just found out it was fires because of the smoke but but what jim is saying actually happened to me in a conversation with somebody where they
Starting point is 01:11:36 challenged me on this and they said look okay you're telling me i don't get my news from the right source well what what should i do i said well take 20, 20, 30 minutes a day and read a reputable newspaper, whether it's your local, you know, I mean, I live in Rhode Island, whether it's, you know, the Providence Journal, the New York Times, whatever it is. He said, well, what do you read? And I said, well, I'm an old, I used to work in DC. So I start my day with the Washington Post. He said, well, I won't read that inside the Beltway stuff. I said, okay. I said, the newspaper of record is the New York Times. He said, New York capitalists. And, you know the, or he said, the New York cultural elite. I'm not reading that.
Starting point is 01:12:08 And I said, well, okay. The Wall Street Journal is not a left-wing newspaper. And he interrupted me. He said, capitalists. And finally, what he really meant was just tell me that the stuff I click and troll through on the internet is good enough. He didn't really want a recommendation. He just wanted somebody to say, please tell me that all this bottom feeding I'm doing by going down these rabbit holes on the
Starting point is 01:12:28 internet is news and that's good enough. And it's not good enough. Cut the cable with getting their news. A friend of mine asked me what I thought about something on Facebook the other day. He sent me a message and it was a meme. And he's old friend of mine and i said here's my reaction to that stop getting your news from me yes i trust the bbc and the abc because the government abc is australia australia there's an abc here too no abc is australia yeah no i get all my news from the goldbergs standing and here i am and yet the bbc has been accused of bias but it's i think it's a perfectly reputable news source. Of course, they tore into me because I don't like Indian food, and I had to get an earful of it from the BBC.
Starting point is 01:13:11 Yeah, but what did you say? What did you say? Did you go, I don't like, did you wobble your head as you said it? What did you say? I said that Indian food was terrible, and we pretend it isn't. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's terrible here in America. It's fucking brilliant in the UK. no no no no it's terrible in here in america it's fucking brilliant in the uk it's amazing it's amazing in the uk have you had it in london
Starting point is 01:13:29 have you have you gone down to i have i i have had it in london i actually a friend of mine said it since you don't like indian food um and he sent me to um chutney mary's i don't know i haven't met a lot of indian people called mary i like uh several times but that was the kind of he said you haven't really enjoyed indian food i just don't like it and i made this kind of snippy you know glib because you said you said we pretend i'm a racist you know from i like indian food everywhere so i don't know where but i will say when I... I don't like Ethiopian food.
Starting point is 01:14:08 That's shit. I'll try that. I'm not the cancel. My fiance's obsessed with it. She loves it. So different strokes. So I mentioned this to Jim when we were in England and I was watching the BBC, is that it's very striking as an American when you watch it
Starting point is 01:14:24 that they're just reporting the news and there's not like a lot of opinion or anything and you were telling me it's because it's government funded right government they can't give an opinion either well they're not meant to yeah so it's like when you watch it it's very it seems almost boring is the wrong word to use but when you watch it's just like and then this happened and then this happened and then sometimes they show video footage of stuff and they don't even put any dialogue over it. They're just like showing you something. 40 people killed in the Gaza Strip.
Starting point is 01:14:49 Yeah, and they just show you how many. And it almost seems boring. And so we've been conditioned here to have these lower chyrons and thirds scrolling by and stuff shooting around. I'll tell you my problem. I don't really watch Fox very much. I sometimes watch it.
Starting point is 01:15:04 When the president's done something I like to watch how they spin it and we have a dog fashion show today and it's like he committed two war crimes what the fuck so I sometimes watch that but CNN is guilty of this this is CNN all over
Starting point is 01:15:17 everything's breaking yeah things are breaking for like fucking 12 hours yeah the 24 hour news cycle breaking breaking breaking it breaking, breaking. It used to be when I was a kid, like if you were watching a TV program and then they'd have breaking news, they'd cut into your TV programming. Oh, a space shuttle has just exploded.
Starting point is 01:15:34 You know what I mean? Like something good has happened. Not good, but you know, something you paid attention. They throw around breaking too much on the fucking... Wolf Blitzer, if that's your real name fucking wolf blitzer right wolf blitzer he's always breaking everything he never stops breaking i i actually mentioned this in the book and i and i specifically mentioned cnn's uh you know breaking news right that and i'll tell you why they do it i think is because
Starting point is 01:16:06 again it goes back to this narcissism problem it makes you the viewer feel very important like you know when um wolf blitzer says you're in the situation room i always say no you're not the president probably isn't even in the situation room right now you're in your living room pretzels yeah it's a way of pulling you in and saying you are at the center of great events and we need your thoughts and that's part of why this this is why people are saying so many kind of stupid things about outside their areas of expertise because social media encourages you and i've i've fallen you know i am part of the problem i admit it um i've fallen into this myself social media says you must have an opinion about everything all the time, every 10 seconds.
Starting point is 01:16:50 And it's very, very important. This is the thing. I try not to comment on things. I try not to comment on anything. Especially I try not to negatively comment on things. I comment on my friends' things. But I got caught up the other day. I sent a negative comment.
Starting point is 01:17:04 I wrote a negative comment i wrote a negative comment oh no no the bank i fucking went at you're on a bank ranch the bank wouldn't give me my money i went i went to buy something and i said i rang up this jam and they wouldn't give me my money and so i said i know but you i you hardly ever use social media and i just log on twitter and jim's just like give me my money, attacking bank. Over and over and over. And I'm like. I guess you got their fucking money, yo. Give me my money, bank.
Starting point is 01:17:32 They wouldn't give it to me. And my bank account was called Smart Access. It was all in there. And I wasn't allowed to fucking access it. Anyway, so now I sent out a few tweets in anger. And then the bank rang me up very quickly. And me and the bank are all good. I'm still dealing with those fucking blind people with their crazy fucking blinds that involve batteries.
Starting point is 01:17:51 What was I talking about? Oh, I thought you meant blind people. I was like, what did they do? Comment section. Oh, I commented on my football team in England, Fulham. I went in there, and they lost four zip to Arsenal, and I just got enraged. Not enraged. enraged I just went
Starting point is 01:18:06 oh this is bullshit because every time we get promoted to the Premier League they buy like 3 nobodies and go oh we got a team we couldn't win the fucking championship and now you want to go up
Starting point is 01:18:15 into the Premier League with fucking the same team that infuriated me also Kenley Jansen from the Dodgers sometimes I lose me shit but apart from that I don't comment on anything else.
Starting point is 01:18:25 But I always feel guilty afterwards because I hate when people just negatively like when people log on to our podcast to write something negative. It's like, what did you why are you watching it? It's such a pet peeve for me because people people don't even realize they're so dumb to how social media works. It's like, OK, let's say you hate the Kardashians. There's an article in your feed and then you comment fuck these whores blah blah blah all all the algorithm sees is that there was there was activity there it doesn't read the comment doesn't see that you made an angry face so now your feed puts more kardashian content in there so you're the you're responsible for your own misery of your social media feed i'll say i'll say i very rarely write back i sent this to forest yesterday this is this is good uh a bloke a bloke wrote to me a bloke wrote to me and he writes me
Starting point is 01:19:11 every now and again he watched one of the clips of the show and he wrote he wrote uh he said you're getting fat right so so a stranger wrote that to me so i just hit the block button very casually didn't even think about it right and so his mate wrote back to me and So I just hit the block button very casually, didn't even think about it, right? And so his mate wrote back to me and goes, why did you block my friend for sending you a joke about losing weight? You've gotten too sensitive, Jimmy lad, right? So I didn't respond to that. He goes, can you please, please, please unblock the name of the person?
Starting point is 01:19:39 He's a big fan and he's very upset that you've blocked him. He's gone from calling me fat to being, why was I blocked? Like, can't fucking crack the code, right? And I go, hang on a second. Hang on, a second ago, I was too sensitive and now he's very upset that he's been blocked for calling a stranger fat.
Starting point is 01:20:00 Seems a little sensitive to me, right? And then he wrote, dude, I love your stand-up, love legit, love the thing, your stand-up specials. Getting a reply from you is a dream come true. Fuck that guy. He's a sensitive cunt. There is something with your fans. I think because you have such a crass sense of humor and you can go hard on things,
Starting point is 01:20:20 I think your fans think that you'll enjoy them being negative and shitty to you, which is fucked up. If you love Jim, don't come on his page and say shitty stuff like i know it's it's all right for the most i think it's annoying but it's very easy but they do it to everybody that's it's not just yeah but you've been you've been doing it to the indian people what's that you do it to the indian people i've gotten people come on and you know like totally trash me about something and finally just say okay fine block and then i got an email saying why did you block me yeah you know i i really and i'm like what are we girlfriends yeah you know how did i don't i'm not required to interact with you and i think again it's that
Starting point is 01:20:58 there's that immense sense of entitlement that goes with social media saying well i you know i read something you wrote in a newspaper i have the right to talk to you for hours about it no no you don't i you know i'm dimensions i have a family i have a life there's nothing worse than a twitter profile where someone um brags about the people who are who are i know when they go blocked by this person blocked by that it's like oh well you oh, well, you acted like an asshole. Yeah, you said some really mean, threatening stuff. Like, your account should be blocked. Also, I find that the people who make negative comments, too,
Starting point is 01:21:31 the minute you go back to them and you're like, well, that was fucking shitty, and they're like, why are you attacking me? It's like, you started this shit. What the fuck? I did that once, and then I doubled down with more hurtful comments. Like, okay, you win. I'll stop. And then Jack was like, oh, I'll see you at dinner, my man.
Starting point is 01:21:52 I don't care that I'm blocked by your jack um i told this story about about about the time that people wrote nasty comments and there was one like on it oh yeah yeah you told he told a couple so by the way just this has been up on my computer for a while uh tom uh in pixels josh gad saying everybody wants to rule the world in the arcade scene or something. Just so you know. Oh, no. That would be so bad. I had a young daughter and I watched it a whole bunch of times, but I might have blocked that part out.
Starting point is 01:22:15 You blocked Josh Gad from your memory at all? I like the movie and my daughter, I should say, is a big Josh Gad fan in Frozen, but I don't remember that time. I didn't mind Pixels, but should say, is a big Josh Gad fan in Frozen, but I don't remember that time. I didn't mind Pixels, but Adam Sandler gets a lot of shit sometimes. They're very watchable films. I didn't mind Pixels.
Starting point is 01:22:33 I haven't seen it. You watch it with a fucking five-year-old, great movie. I liked Pixels because I played all those games when I was 12 with a pocket full of quarters. Were you an expert? No, I was not. I was mostly a guy who ran through his allowance not being an expert. I say I know more about pinball machines than anyone else in this room.
Starting point is 01:22:51 Yeah, that's definitely true. Just dated yourself by saying pinball machine. What are you called? What is it called? What are you called? No, no. What are they called now? Antiques.
Starting point is 01:23:01 No, no, no. They've had a resurgence. In the last five years, pinball have been selling better than it ever, ever, ever, ever has. Is this like vinyl coming back? Yeah, exactly the same. Down the street, there's a full pinball arcade. It's hipsters. Hipsters brought it back.
Starting point is 01:23:17 They used to sell like 10,000 pinball machines a year, and now they're 50,000, 60,000. It's booming business at the moment. Look at that. That's something I'm not an expert in. I had no idea. I want to talk about something relevant right now as it relates to experts and stuff before because we're getting near the end.
Starting point is 01:23:34 It's COVID-19. There's a lot of people that are getting this. What are you talking about? New York Times. There's so many people that are just getting bad information from that and they think they're experts in it.
Starting point is 01:23:48 And specifically the people that piss me off the most are the anti-maskers. Like, I just don't get why. It's like these people think they know more than scientists. And that's, I don't know. Well, part of the problem is what you were saying earlier is when we have the experts, like the Fauci, and then they change their opinion. opinion because because begin with it was don't touch anything. Don't do this. And now I'm hearing things like it can only travel through your nose, not through your mouth.
Starting point is 01:24:13 The esophagus is fine. And then I heard to begin with, we heard if we held our breath, we could hold our breath for 10 seconds and you didn't have it. Where did you hear that? Oh, that was really that was like that was on Facebook. No? Oh, that was... Really? That was... That was on Facebook. No, no, that was all around the internet and also it was said by the guy with the mustache who's always... Geraldo Rivera.
Starting point is 01:24:32 Geraldo said... That's me getting your news from Geraldo Rivera. Okay, I think you've identified the problem. Crack the code. Geraldo Rivera? He's Fox News, right? I'm saying it wasn't true. I'm just saying that was things that people said.
Starting point is 01:24:44 I gave it a go, passed out. So you had it. Turns out I have the lungs of a small child. It's still to this day, people are saying all this. What's happened is people have fused these things to their personal identity and their political tribal loyalties. So it's like if I think saying anything good about masks is going to hurt president Trump, I can't accept that. So I have to say masks are bullshit.
Starting point is 01:25:13 Right. You know that this is the, and this has been happening, you know, Trump, Trump didn't create this. Trump surfed this. Trump used it to his advantage four years ago, but it was, you know, whether it was climate change or abortion or gender or whatever it is, people are saying science is the thing that empowers me and it's kryptonite to you. And my understanding of science will now become fused to my political identity. Once that happens, you can't talk people out of it. You cannot possibly reason them out of it because it's too threatening
Starting point is 01:25:49 to their own sense of their identity. And they could just kind of shut you out and say, you know, the sun revolves around the earth and that's important for me because that's my political tribe. And I don't care what the astronauts and the pointy heads with telescopes say. And that's become really dangerous. Big big question how do we fix that how do we um not tie in science to people's political
Starting point is 01:26:10 beliefs because i have relatives who don't believe in global warming and think that i'm a fucking hippie they think i'm not um you know i the problem is jim if you'd asked me this when we you know met back back a few years ago i would have said well if something terrible happens like i don't know say a pandemic that'll shake everybody out of it that was my answer back then right um i'm not so confident about that i used to say look you've been proven wrong we've been stuck indoors for six months confidence levels low i think it's important for experts to admit they were wrong so i was way wrong. I thought that a disaster, well, you know, you see it in other countries. A disaster in other countries did shake a lot of people out of this. Like, okay, we get it.
Starting point is 01:26:51 We have to wear masks. We have to do it. Other countries. Well, I feel like, okay, so let's give an example. The fires that happened in Australia, the worst fires in my lifetime I've seen anywhere in the world, right? And they went over January, December, Januaryuary and they kept going and going going um it did change a lot of my father's generation into the whole idea of global warming because they hadn't seen anything like this either so that that sort of it took a while though because for a while your dad was like yeah it's fine same thing yeah yeah it took it took
Starting point is 01:27:18 months even even if these fires weren't you know i mean because it's there's there's a difference between climate and weather and sometimes accidents happen and forests burn. But sometimes it takes a very visceral, immediate event to kind of shock people out of their notions about things that are just wrong. um so sometimes that can happen but it you know it is really i think you we underestimate how much people just kind of fuse this to their sense of identity um and say you know even if i end up in a hospital on a ventilator i'm just not going to believe that covid you know did it because i know that i can't because i can't climb down out of that tree. I know the way to fix the world and to make everyone believe in science. The way to fix the world. And we can't actually do it.
Starting point is 01:28:11 It just has to happen naturally. We have to lose Florida. The water has to come up. Everyone in Florida has to drown. I'm from Florida. I know. I know. Very well.
Starting point is 01:28:19 We're here. We rescued you. So Florida has to go away. That way the elections won't be decided by the people in fucking florida and we'll all go look we lost florida the thing is when you look at the election whether whatever side you think you are in the election when you look at florida it's down the middle it's not like the whole fucking state is morons there's a lot of people there somebody made a great point that florida you could say would you like a million dollars or a kick in the face?
Starting point is 01:28:45 And it's still going to be $49.51. Yeah, there you go. Did you guys see this video that was going around, the anti-mask rally? It was like it happened a couple weeks ago, but the one in Utah. Oh, no, I didn't see this. I saw it. Let me just play this. It was terrifying.
Starting point is 01:28:59 Let me just play here. It's literally terrifying. It was in Utah and it was a couple weeks ago, but here, just listen. Now hundreds have gathered here in front of the Washington County Administration Building I just want you to hear the people. No more masks! No more masks! Not on the backs of my kids or you're going to get more federal funds.
Starting point is 01:29:23 That's how I feel about that. Right, here we go. A passionate call for action Friday morning in St. George. Several police officers on standby. As many locals called concerns about coronavirus spikes overblown. The flu kills more than coronavirus. Others calling the virus a hoax or stating that asymptomatic carriers simply do not exist. And they cannot be forced to wear masks anywhere as citizens of the United States. Hold on.
Starting point is 01:30:06 Good analogy. and then he died. And now we're wearing a mask and we say, I can't breathe, but we're being forced to wear it anyway. Good analogy. The best one's coming up right now. Have you seen this one? Parents are demanding. They have the right to decide what to do with their children. I'll tell you another reason I hate masks.
Starting point is 01:30:16 Most child molesters love them. School administrators. Actually, she has a point. She has a hell of a time at halloween that woman people in masks everywhere i know a guy but you can see it right you can see that what they're saying is if i reject science i'm gonna go i can go on tv and say i'm important i'm crusading for something i'm all about the constitution i'm saving children from child molesters. I matter. And instead of just saying, hey, I'm an ordinary person. This is a national emergency. Shit happens. I got to put a mask on. We have gone,
Starting point is 01:30:55 we're too narcissistic for that now. We have to say, no, I am, everything is, you know, I am, I am Batman. I am the Avengers. I am stopping Thanos from destroying half of the universe. We can't just go on with our lives and say, hey, sometimes, you know, like when I was a kid, sometimes you just got to sit in line for gas because, you know, that happens. Sometimes, you know, inflation is bad and sometimes there's a pandemic
Starting point is 01:31:19 and sometimes there's a war. Why do child molesters like masks? Everything is about me. So they can't be seen. So no one knows who they are. Oh, the child molesters like everything is about me so they can't be seen so they know what no one knows who they are oh the child molesters like wearing the masks yeah oh i thought they liked the children wearing the masks of course not i thought it was a fetish if you talk to somebody like that you will realize that they they can't that none of it will make sense and what they really want
Starting point is 01:31:44 to be is they just want to be mad and they want you to talk to them pay attention to me um and so and for that we're now i just i think by the time this is out we'll we'll be hitting 200 000 people dead from yeah right which is almost unthinkable it's strange to me that people are willing to be wrong like they're willing to risk that when the chance that they're wrong is so high like a guy guy from my hometown was a total covid denier he got it gave it to his parents his dad and his mom spent like 72 days in the hospital they and ended up recovering but the kid died and it's just like what would you do if your parents died and you survived that the guilt that you would have to live with for the rest of your life is just but i also think that's a that's a consequence of years
Starting point is 01:32:28 of things actually being pretty good because when you tell people you know there could be a pandemic one day people go i don't know what that means i got a flu shot you know my my parents get a flu shot how hard can again it goes back to that how hard can it be thing right um you know science will fit well if there's a pandemic they'll come up with a vaccine in 20 minutes which is trump that's why trump gets away with that oh vaccine's gonna be right around the corner people believe that yeah they really believe that you know you just kind of go and there's a and there's a vaccine when the vaccine happens we have a whole lot of people who won't believe in that yep yeah i won't take that yeah so all right so we're gonna we're gonna wrap it up here tom thank you for being with us but
Starting point is 01:33:05 would you uh you know you haven't listened to our podcast yet huh uh no nope just found out about it when you guys um but but uh i i feel like we're on we're doing a good service so here to experts on this podcast that's what i say. At least the people that are more experts than us. And people should listen to our podcast and get all their information from it, is what I think. Happy to put it out there for you as long as I have to slap that not safe for work label on it. Oh, yeah. You can put whatever. I'm kidding.
Starting point is 01:33:44 I don't think anyone should. I mean, we usually have like one fact that we're like, don't play this at the daycare center. Well, I mean, Tom, you're a really great follow, though, on Twitter. So I highly suggest people to follow. Follow him. You're what? At Tom Nichols, right?
Starting point is 01:33:59 No, no, no. At Radio Free Tom. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Great. His other page, fuck Indian food. at Radio Free Tom. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:34:02 Great. His other page, Fuck Indian Food. And Tom's book is The Death of Expertise, The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters. Go out and buy that,
Starting point is 01:34:15 please. And thanks for being here, Tom. Thanks a lot for having me, guys. Thank you, everyone, for listening to the show. If you're at a party
Starting point is 01:34:23 and someone says something that you don't know about, just go, well, I don't know about that, walk away, and then tell everyone you're an expert. Good night, Australia. Hey, everybody, Jason Ellis here from the Jason Ellis Show podcast, reminding you that my podcast, new episodes every Wednesday, downloadable where all podcasts are available. Come see my friends, Michael and Kevin,
Starting point is 01:34:52 as we talk to you about what's awesome, what sucks, fitness, fighting, parenting, life, spin kicks, LGBTQ community, how to defend yourself against a shark if it attacks you out of nowhere, and much, much more. So come join us.

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