Hi everyone, Joe for jaspy's case breaks.com coming at you with a four box break of 2021 tops stadium club baseball Random team break number three brand new release just dropped today all card ship a lot of fun stuff here one spot gets you three teams So let's triple you up. There's one there's two and there's three and all 30 teams are in Let's roll it. Let's randomize it two and a five seven times their names and teams one two three four five six and seven six and seventh and final time Got I capola down to Jonathan two and a five seven times for the teams one two three five six and Seventh and final time after seven we got the brew crew down to the Dodgers All right capola with the Brewer's Jonathan with the Rockies Paul with the reds John for the Giants and Mets Kevin with the Tigers Jonah the Mariners and the A's capola with the Pirates Cory with Hello the Phillies Corey has the Pirates Courtney has the Marlins Corey with the Rays Kevin has the Indians Paul with the Padres Kevin with the Cardinals Jonathan with the Twins Cory with the Yankees capola with the Braves Courtney with the Astros Jonathan with the angels Courtney with the Nationals There you go, Jonathan with the Red Sox, Orioles, and Cubs, Paul with the Diving Back, Jonathan with the Rangers, Courtney with the Royals, White Sox, Blue Jays, and Jonathan with the Dodgers. So let's sort by column B. And while you're considering trades, let's see which four boxes we're going to do right here. Let's select a die.  One, two, three for the left side, four, five, six for the right side. And at six, I'm going to the right side right here. This side we'll save for break four. I don't think we're not going to have time to do break four tonight, but I'm sure we can do it tomorrow. So we'll kind of mark those with number four so we all know they're from the same case. All right. Any trades? Yeah, randomizer helping you guys out. Trade window going once. We kind of kind of have a busy night ahead of us. Trade window going twice. All right, let's close up the trade window. Trade window closed. Let's print and rip. Two autographs in every box. All card ships. So if I happen to miss like an important variation or parallel, don't worry. It's all going to go to you. It'll be well packed, well shipped and on its way to you as soon as we can. Thanks everyone for getting in. Nice in my pocket. Let's go. Nice start with the box topper. That's Ryan Mount Castle. Nice Orioles, Jonathan. Let's put this aside over here. Eight cards per pass. See what's going on here. I'm sure we have some final scores by now. Astros Tigers were postponed due to rain. Brewers walked off the Rockies 5-4. I guess, oh it was a double header, but that went to extra innings. So in eight innings the Mets beat the Phillies 2-1. See what other games are close. We got the second game with the double headers. Phillies up 1-0. Both low scoring games. That's the bottom of the sixth. Orioles and Blue Jays are tied. The Bird teams are tied. Top of the eighth. Top of the eighth. Rays is a lead on the Angels 4-3 in Tampa Bay. And Cincinnati braved her up 3-2 in Miami. Marlins up 9-2 on the Nationals in the bottom of the sixth. Boston socks with a narrow lead on the Yankees 4-3. And Texas Rangers up 4-2 on the Royals. Bottom of the fifth. 6-5. Cleveland, who's in Minnesota. Mariners 3-1 leading the White Fox 3-1 in Chicago. Pirates at Cardinals. They're tied at 4. A's Giants just started. Diamondbacks Padres about to start. Dodgers Cubs a little bit later as well. Those are your games. Yeah, I heard Schwerber hit another one too. And the baseball must look more like a beach ball to him. Having all these cards flipped around and all that. It's a little bit of a hassle but it'll work through it. And again all card ships. So you're going to get everything here. There's a red parallel. One more common short prints.  We've seen that a few times. And there's the autograph Christian Javier. He's a top of the rotation guy. That's Courtney with the Astros. We've got him working on the bullpen right now. The old school designs right there. There's Randy Johnson. Great photography. Superstar Duos for the Nats. There's a Cabrion Hayes rookie. That'll go to Cory and the Pirates. Let's even find some parallels for that guy too. That'd be nice. Got a stadium chrome. Randy Johnson for the M's. Yeah, there's Kyle Schwerber right here. And he's been killing it. It's Jazz Chisholm for Florida. That's going to be for Courtney and the Marlins. Scherzer again for a second there. I thought maybe the Nats might be sellers but they've been playing pretty good baseball lately. I wonder if they may end up being buyers? They're in second place in the east at the moment. Only three or four games behind the Mets. So that division is definitely definitely winnable for them. And a redemption. First redemption I've seen. And he guesses on the redemption for bragging rights. Could be anybody.  All right, Jonathan guessing Mount Castle. All right, so behind it Bryce Harper with that show hair, flowing their base card autograph of L Los Angeles. Los Angeles Angels and Los Angeles Dodgers. Okay, Los Angeles Dodgers, Keeper Ruiz. It is. And that's for Jonathan and the Dodgers. Catching prospect for my Dodgers there. And the next box. Oh, and an autograph box topper. Wow. That's Vlad Guerrero Jr. That's awesome. Courtney Bishop, Toronto Blue Jays. Nice. A little bit. See, that's why I don't like these rattling around in the box. You can see a little bit of some corner issues there, but it's still really cool. Nice. Congrats. I don't really have a top loader for this. I'll just kind of carefully put this aside here. Actually, I want to do a recap. So I don't want to include that in the recap. Let's get that carefully there for the moment. Second box, out of four. Good luck. Milwaukee Bucks up 87-51 on Atlanta. Game two. Try a three, honest. Yeah, why not? It was short. That's the front of the room. All right, next box game. Here we go. Wonder what Walker Beeler did. He seems pretty happy. Home run maybe? Nope, there's the autograph. And that's going to be Anderson Tehada. Rookie autograph for the Rangers. That's for Jonathan. Last bottom mojo strikes again. 70% of time, I would say. Last bottom mojo hits 100% of time. There is the die cut. Triumference, Justin Verlander. Going to go to Courtney and the Astros. Another die cut. That's Joe Adele. It's like red foil on that one. So a parallel. Jonathan with the halos. I want to see more short print parallels. We've seen some red foils and then some black foils. Let's see some shorter prints here. I still want to know what's happening here. And there's an autograph. It's Rookie autograph, Alec Baum. That's Capola with the Philadelphia Phillies. That's Ken Griffey Jr. I wonder if the gang and I were just here at the shop. We were just talking about how great Brandon Crawford's been playing. Nice shot of Jake Cronenworth. Rookie for him. Reggie Jackson. Thurman Munson. Crone. All right, two more box to go. And the box hopper, a Mike Trout for Jonathan. It's pretty cool. All right, onwards. Atlanta Hawks not making a dent in this lead yet. Yeah, sure. You can do that. You are everyone here in the chat. You're my witnesses. Hollywood saying I'm going to give that Trout box hopper to Sean. Next box. Tease Crone. It's Kyle Schorber again. And there's a Cabrion Hayes right there. If you want to do that, you can shoot us a message to our shipping team using the support button, Jonathan. So they'll know that going forward. And there's for the angels, Anthony Rendon, another one for Jonathan. Oh, there you go, Shane. Well, thanks for getting in. I appreciate that. You put yourself in a position to win all those things. So I appreciate that. Thank you. You think he's happy or do you think he's mad right here? I'm not going to do that. Sorry. His break takes long enough without doing additional things. Sorry. I think Kyle Tucker was happy or mad that he looked like he was throwing his bat away. Triumference Bryce Harper. Guy Cut. He's mad. He hit Homer. Like a happy kind of mad. I don't know what kind of mad that was. But he looked like he was like throwing that bat away. He didn't want it anymore. Looked like he popped out and looked like a pop out. Look at that. He's like, he's throwing that bat away and disgust. I remember that play. There's a Victor Robler. That's a nice shot. Outstretched for the catch. And a Joey Bart autographed red foil auto. Nice. That's Jonathan with the Giants. And that's 20 out of 50. There you go. Great catching prospect for the Giants. Him and Adley Rushman could represent the catchers of the future. Sixo Sanchez for the fish. What's happening here with Raphael Devers? He's just like, I think he wants a replay. I think he's like, no, I want replay. Go look at the replay. And final box. And the box topper is Randy Johnson for Jonathan and Seattle. Nice. Confirmed what I think about Otani being in the home run derby. I love it. It'd be great for the home run derby. Have they announced, we've been talking about this, have they announced anybody else? I feel like no one else has committed to the home run derby. Is everyone scared? Once they're like, Otani's in it. All right, forget it. We're not going to win it. Maybe people are scared. At this point, I'd like to see Schorber in the home run derby. That'd be cool to see Schorber in the home run derby. Let's see what we got in this last box here. And there's a Albert Abreu rookie autograph for the Yankees. Cory Christian with the Bronx Bombers, you know, for the home run derby. I think they should put a pitcher in the home run derby. Take whoever the best hitting pitcher is at the moment and say, hey, I want to be in the home run derby. I think that'd be fun. Outside of Otani, of course. There's Bo Bichette die cut. There's a chance within the next year or two that the universal DH is going to happen and we may never see the traditional pitcher spot actually hitting in a game. So let's honor the hitting pitcher. Let's get, I'm sure, I don't know, get Madison Bumgarner out there. He can hit the ball, right? 96-59. No, I'm good. Who won? Mike Jazz. As long as Sean, he's not the one way. No, I'm good. Thanks. And Daniel Johnson for Cleveland. That's a great shot right there. Cleveland. This is for you. Kevin Crouch with that one. Oh, they might be hand numbered. Yeah, we'll take a look at that really quick. All right, that's the break, ladies and gentlemen. Four box. Random team number three. Let's do a quick little recap right here and we'll take another look at that Vlad Guerrero box topper autograph. Not a bad break. Let's see what we see if we have over there. So there's his autograph. Oh, there it is. Eight out of 10. Hand numbered. Eight out of 10. That's really cool. There you go. Congrats on that. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Joe. I'll see you next time for the next 8am club break. Bye-bye.


Smell is another chemical stimulus, and so it's picked up by chemoreceptors found in your nasal epithelium. The olfactory receptor molecules' cells are found embedded in the olfactory epithelium that covers the superior portion of your nasal cavity. So they're actually covering the superior nasal concha.  I never draw pictures.  Do not be confused. I put my mouth at the top, but now I'm putting my nasal cavity at the bottom, and I'm just doing that because, you know, it makes it a little bit easier to visualize. Just like with the tongue and taste, we have cells, and these are specialized neurons. And in fact, this cell, I'm going to cut it off there, but it has an axon. It is a neural cell, but it's like a modified neuron. And it actually originated in the central nervous system. So this is kind of a central nervous system born cell that's reaching outside of the central nervous system.  Remember how your eyes are actually extensions of brain tissue?  Kind of the same thing with these cells embedded in the olfactory epithelium. I'm just going to throw a nucleus in there so you don't forget. It looks like a little Pac-Man ghost with an anglerfish lure on top of its head. Guess what? We have on our olfactory epithelium. But of course, we must have sensory receptors. And these sensory receptors are going to bind to smell molecules that have entered your olfactory epithelium.  There's so much crazy mucus in here. You even have specialized cells. They're not goblet cells, but they're special mucus barfers that are in this olfactory epithelium and their only job is to make this beautiful mucus layer. So if the molecule binds with the receptor, I'm going to tell you the mechanism of action. First, molecule binds with receptor. Second, what happens? Second, messenger cascade happens, which is going to amplify our ability to pick up very small amounts of odor stimulus. And third, I have to write this down for you because it's going to be harder to draw this. Our third event in this series is that we're going to end up with sodium channels opening. And guess what happens if sodium channels open? Of course, sodium channels are going to open.  Sodium is going to rush in, and what does that stimulate? All it's going to do is stimulate an action potential that's going to travel down the axon of this modified neuron, and it's going to barf out a response. Here's my axon terminal. There's also some neurotransmitter out there, and it's going to barf out to, who do you think this is? Cranial nerve number one, that's my olfactory nerve. Of course. So you can see that we actually have a little sequence here, but this is how we get the information to the olfactory nerve, and then ultimately to the brain for processing. There are, just like we had five primary sensations of taste, guess how many smell sensations we have. In your mind, 100, 100 possible sensations of smell, and there is smell blindness, just like there is taste blindness with PTC paper. I'm sure you all did this in general bio.  And if it tastes like paper, like it does for me, that means you're taste blind. You can be smell blind too, and color blind. I'm smell blind to formaldehyde. What?  All right, that's it, you guys. Let's talk about hearing next. Let's give them another mechanical sensation.


Hello and welcome to Digital Freethout Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM live right here in Knoxville, Tennessee Today is Sunday May 3rd 2020. I'm Larry Rhodes or doubter five and as usual We have our co-host Wombat on the phone with us. Hello Wombat I Surrender all I surrender I'm beginning to see a trend my precious save your eye Very well done. I'm gonna have to hop in two minutes after we start. Oh, really Our guests today are Joy Woods J. W. Kennedy Chad the impaler and booed row Welcome Chad. He's not here yet. And dread pirate. He's dread pirate. Hicks is here, but Anyway, I didn't leave anybody out Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought humanism and the sciences And conversely we also talked about religion religious faiths. God's holy books and superstition And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in Knoxville or East Tennessee for that matter You're just not there are several atheists rethinking irrationless groups that get together right here in Knoxville And we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show break Although also did you know that there was a streaming atheist television show broadcasting here from Knoxville? Oh my god I want that I love that show. I didn't even know you know about that show The whole reason why I became a scientist was because of like basically the show because you would have Bill And I come up and he'd be like hey man science is awesome And I'd be like science is awesome, and I'm like maybe I should be a scientist when I grow up He's like you could totally do it, and I think it's really good for kids like watch really educational show So I'm going up on TV. So I'm sure they touch on science, but it's not the bill my show It's an atheist show and it's a calling show and they've been doing it for 10 years But you can find it on YouTube now They're streaming live every week and I'll talk to you more about that the details after the mid-show break Right now. We're just about ready to get into our topic first if you have any comments that you'd like to Throw into the show or bring up questions You can always go to the digital free thought radio or Facebook page and post those comments there Use the messaging function. So now some in the YouTube comments as well, too. Really? Yeah, and Jw we're ready for your topic. I think you were Ask gonna ask uh, why do we care? well, um, this is um Usually we'll we'll cover a topic that we usually get from Theists or or the religious stands Today I thought it would be interesting if we could answer the question that we get from both sides because a lot of atheists Ask this question to atheists agnostics and non-religious is that why do people like us who are? Atheist agnostics and non-religious have a YouTube channel and have podcasts and vote and All those things and then get get so involved with this and it's I think it would be an interesting topic to see Why we each individually are here and why we each individually are so passionate about being vocal and politically active about the topic and Yeah very cool. I Wrote an article on this very topic on my blog digital free thought Dot com slash blog. It's called what's so wrong with religion anyway, and it goes on and on It got probably a dozen different items in there that I fleshed out pretty well but Way the way I hear people ask me is why do you have to be out here talking to christian? Why do you have to why do you have to be annoying and ask an atheist table? Why do you have why do you care? What atheists believe? and To me it's it's the answer is short and simple religion causes great harm in the world And we have to address that harm and hopefully work to eliminate as much of it as we can And now we're going to details in the show, but that's basically where I think we're all coming from It was that Boudreau looks like he's got something on his mind Boudreau, what do you feel about this? Yeah, but uh, I guess what strikes me about that immediately is Religion wouldn't be nearly as bad if there was just one It'd be it'd be unified I mean that's what the pope was thinking the entire time like that's the whole point of the crusades That was the point like when you think about it. It all was with a greater good. Yeah Yeah, that's that's a philosophy with no One religion does sound kind of uh totalitarian to me even though there are three major religions that have uh, very totalitarian tendencies and are have had it like christianity has had a history of totalitarianism, but you've kind of seen it kind of relaxed over the past century in a sense at least um And in certain countries, but then we have um certain people like in america trying to bring bring back certain or Because I mean in america originally we were secular, but now we have people in america trying to Bring back or bring in um certain christian principles. So but anyway, uh to the to the main main topic I just said to to have one religion that even that It does sound kind of kind of concerning to me, but I mean maybe it's just because religion is concerning Interesting topic. I always thought that america was never absolutely secular But that we just didn't want to worship the same way how an already established church worship And I feel like whenever you have different people they're going to have different ways of wanting to worship Even if it's the same religion, there's just going to be schisms that are natural By virtue of the fact that people are different and that's what's so hard to keep it all in the same umbrella Yeah, well, I I use that term loosely in a sense because um, uh, god isn't mentioned in the constitution and there were a lot of um deists and agnostics that were involved in the writing of the constitution and the um The declaration of independence thomas pain thomas jefferson those kinds of people But anyway, I was just saying like one religion I mean, uh, I guess it could be a really good religion or a really bad religion who knows But I'm curious I said, um, mudro like why Why does why does one religion seem less threatening than multiple religions? Well, like I said Kind of ended it with it it would unify things and and make it harder to to disband. I think one of the Lucky things about being having so many religions is that you can just point to Multiple religions as an argument against any religion, right? But if there was one single religion, I feel like we wouldn't have wars over believing in different gods We wouldn't have you know, I I guess maybe it would be harder for atheists to argue With theists, but I think it would be a lot more peaceful Even if it was and we may have less war wars, but it doesn't mean that we'd have less atrocities Exactly True go ahead. The idea that That people have a connection to a higher power That creates division just in and in itself Because if you've got priests who are closer to god than the people then right away you've got conflicting views on Who's got the closer connection to god so even internally? I think there's a potential for a lot of conflict and back when there was only one religion like in England people came to america you talking about how america got started was because it they found it Overburdening and oppressive and and they they wanted to worship different ways So you would have a society where people if it was all one religion all over the world Then you would have those societies that would rebel they would try to At least gather among themselves and fight the established rule Oh, yeah, I would they go and that doesn't even consider space. Oh, I am inside I was thinking atheism they would ground if they if they don't like the religion If there's one religion only one religion you can't have any more if they have a problem with that religion There's only one place to go underground or Atheism man. I don't want a lot of angry atheists who are literally angry at the one true god I'd rather just have outcasts from everybody But but that doesn't even talk about science. I mean If the if one religion ruled the entire world science would have a really hard road to hoe Because every single establishment would be combined to back up any any resistance to a scientific advancement So Larry brings up an incredible point because when you have muslim scientists who and in islam is like, well, we don't Hard believe evolution like humans come from like evolved, you know Previous animals and then you have christian scientists who also discover that evolution has points and muslim scientists Discovering that you know evolution has points and maybe you have like hindu scientists to cover it It seems like there's an objective truth that's apart from whatever anyone's particular societal upbringing or tradition is that science is very much an independent body That's you know exemplified by the fact that regardless of whatever religious review you have when you do the scientific method properly You come to this one conclusion and I feel like there's value And having different perspectives reached that same conclusion as just a demonstrative I've heard I've seen a meme online that uh, some atheists agnostics and non-religious believe that if there was one religion and it was unified that would actually be evidence of a higher power because unity among the religious Seems to almost be nearly impossible So yeah, it'd be more compelling for me for sure more compelling. It's a good way to say it I don't think it would be evidence. It'd be evidence to just be bad evidence It would be compelling, yeah And that's one of the reasons why I like the whole list of reasons why I decided to believe uh, christianity Is is that it just acted like any other major religion at least monotheistic with all of its divisions and the book itself promised Super natural unity among believers that just there.  It's just What's your standard and are you willing to accept it here or higher, right? Yeah higher the standard better We bread or white bread because I think that would change it. Oh, it's super important Super important because you got I mean what what what jesus do you think best exemplifies a person born in the middle east in mesopotamia mera? You got to get that wheat baby, right? I will say this this is to eric's point of view I'm going to play uh some devils advocate because I think I see I think I understood where eric was coming from It's like if you just had a religion that wasn't as oppressive that was very much just the mundane sort of loosely held spiritual just be connected with yourself like find a congregation the guys to work with Improve your society and who knows what might happen in the future But at least we will spend now making heaven here basically like in a sense like that I can get behind just the mindset and you don't necessarily have to have a god-believed and have a religion Like it's just more of like a practice of how you you know behave and and and deal with some Some relationships with yourself and other people like you can you can express that religiously without a god-belief And maybe if there was one non theistic god-belief Maybe that'd be cool. What do you think? Yeah, um And uh if a religion that just makes me think like if if a religion has supernatural claims that You don't really that there's a lackadaisical attitude about believing Like there's no threat of hell or reward of having to believe these supernatural claims How many generations if not in the one generation matter was originated would it last? Just like Judaism doesn't really have a strong Yeah, Judaism doesn't have but the afterlife Uh, at least like like a moderate Jew doesn't Like um non-orthodox I guess right so but that's that yeah that one's lasting pretty long Yes, but a lot of them identify culturally as jewish, but intellectually as atheists There's something yeah, yeah too. Well a lot of the eastern religions too They don't have an afterlife belief other than a reincarnation or something on this world um They may think that their spirits uh still In habit the earth or whatever, but there's there's not a whole heaven health a good bad place To go after that, but they're more philosophical religions anyway Dreadpire you might tell me about the pacifarian belief of the afterlife and um how How relevant it is to actual pacifarians? Well, oh, it's it's quite relevant.  Oh, no Good incentive to be good I didn't know there was a hell in the pacifarian world view. There you go Well, if you don't follow the eight, I'd rather you didn't You know you're taking chances there And I don't even like regularly one may touch you in a bad way. Okay Someone's gonna have to explain to me like how to Properly enjoy beer because every single time I try it. I'm like I would rather drink juice Don't you know about apple juice in a box? It's the best drink ever Have you tried a dark beer? Like Guinness It's meal in a glass like isn't this just wheat fermented. It's just like this is pretty gross. Isn't it like hops and stuff Juice tastes better You can make beer out of honey for that matter Uh, so why do we? I was just gonna you know just to talk, uh, you know with jw here on his topic Um, you know, this is something I remember from matt dillahunty is that uh, you know beliefs Have uh inform our actions and actions have consequences And that's why it's important to me Uh as a person to engage people about their beliefs especially religious ones because uh When the world is full of magic and unpredictable Um, it's it's a world I I really wouldn't want to live in And that's why I depend on science as a methodology for investigation So that sounds like there's a strong there's a strong personal benefit for you to care Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that's uniform for everybody.  I just talk about what the georgian calendar is because God worked for six days in the book He worked for six days and took a rest off on the last day of the week, right? And let's name again to the fact that all seven days are named after different gods, but Sunday is the first day of the week named after the sun, but I'm lovingly in there. It's the first day of the week in hebrew, uh, that I think from what I remember when I was studying hebra roots, it's um That they just number of the days In in in the hebrew language one two three four five six Sabbath Works for me I think but sunday is the first day of the week and on a georgian calendar Saturday is the weekend. It's the weekends the ends of the week Why are people taking saturday off? Why aren't people taking saturday off? That's my thing saturday is the Sabbath day Like that's the day of rest. Why aren't why are people taking the first day of the week? I feel like they're trying to get the double day. They're trying to Be going on when I was studying hebrew roots This was that they the catholic church or the early church before right before became my catholic There's there was a lot of animosity Against the jews because they blame the jews for killing jesus So they came up with all these doctrines to make them so Distinct from from jews and then they they tried their best to justify them with scripture and one of them was Jesus was raised from the dead on sunday, which he really wasn't you could actually make a good argument that he got on Wednesday and rose on saturday But jesus was raised on sunday jesus did away with the law at least the laws that we don't want to do Um, and so that they was just part of that part of all that like we don't have to do this anymore We don't have to do that anymore and anybody who does that anymore is cursed and blinded by satan And so it was just the whole re-empt of oh, this is the new testament. This is the new covenant This is what we do. So basically in in in short in simple terms. They just made stuff up So they would look different I feel like talking about jesus is sort of like talking to a batman fan about where superman died And it's just like no no no he died in chapter 40 episode 46 of what it's like. No wait wait Destro came by from the planet jesus is like it's like everyone It's very contentious, but there's a lot of different narratives competing with each other If only there was like some sort of council that can like choose which chapter is going in the bible or not Gary i'm still sorry for interrupting you Well, that's all right, but I did you know because I was talking about my grandson who like I said just You know he cherry picked something that was convenient for him to use as an excuse to not work on sundays right, you know Like I you know, I I've had a chat over coffee with with my grandson. It's posted on my youtube channel And we talked about santa claus And I was trying to see if there was a way to bridge His because he used to believe in santa claus. I used to be the Community santa claus every year for a number of years. You know, I remember him looking at me with complete awe and astonishment as I was on the slave on the parade through town Um, and he'd come up and he wouldn't recognize me But you know, there was a and then he did then he realized that there is no santa claus And so I was trying to bridge that sort of realization with his current belief in in the deity But it didn't seem to happen or if it did he's still using it as a means to excuse himself from work on sunday so like I say, you know about the connection of You know our beliefs and former actions and actions have consequences. So Yeah, plus it's easy to take a day off.  You don't have to go there. Yeah, but I think also if um Our beliefs inform our actions, but it it informs our actions even more depending on how seriously We take that belief because um in my 27 26 years of being part of christian church There were a whole level a whole spectrum of people of how how serious they were about their faith And hey, how you doing? um Good thanks. Keep going joey And how serious they were about their faith so It it it it it's there's just a wide range of people and so I think if uh with me You know how serious I was about my faith and how serious I was about the You know, if the bible is true, then I need to obey it That in in time led me out But what the puzzle is what what do you guys think? Uh when you're talking to someone or you know somebody that just has a lackadaisical attitude about it all Well, what would you say to them or how would you get them to that take? You know supernatural beliefs seriously or take take the fact that believing in things that don't have good evidence How would you get them to to see that it's it's a very important thing to Not believe something Without evidence if they just had this lackadaisical meh kind of pocket attitude I will I will awesome right hey if you asked the question joey. We're gonna taper it here But I'm saying like I'm I'm going to take a line from what I heard uh nathaniel say yesterday It's like when is it a good time to be an advocate for the truth? And it turns out there's not really a bad time to not or there's not a bad time Yeah, not be an advocate for the truth. You should always try to be an advocate for the truth That's what compels me and I imagine all of you guys as well to present what is What we believe to be a more objective reality than what's being perpetrated behind a church pew And we and there's of course nice means of doing it and there's you know Really mean ways of doing it when we've chosen like the more cordial way of engaging people Who are willing to have conversations with us and and hopefully through you know a brief conversation Give them the opportunity to change their own mind. It's not something that we're going to do for them It's something they can do only on their own they have to that's yeah And it doesn't work in it. I mean even with a five minute conversation It's not going to change at the end of that conversation But it'll be a pebble in their shoe and I bet you your grandson is going to remember I had a very pleasant conversation with my grandfather My mom says he's an atheist or like as a posthumous or something like that But when my pastor says atheists are bad people I'm going to think about good conversation out with my grandpa I'm going to imagine that he came out and cared about me to the point where we just had a conversation didn't push me anywhere That's going to stick with me a lot more and I'm going to wonder how hard it's going to be for me to get out of this religion What would be like if I said hey Like what kind of like you know hurdles would I come I and are these hurdles representative of the fact that I Believe this is true or that I'm just here because it's more convenient like I have to do that weighing in myself And this is one question I've sort of tossed around in my mind because of course he's he's 17 now And he's he's getting close to the point where Mom's going to be asking him to you know Forge his own destiny and climb on to the mass. I thought you're going to say checks checks Forge his own checks. I didn't know Well, you know You're so inclined. I'm not I'm not sure. Yeah, like jail is free health care. So you might as well But I I would certainly you know, again, it's about fostering that relationship and And you know making sure that when he does get to the point where he's out on his own That you know without the constant influence of his familial Surroundings On him that he may realize that you can't pay rent While you know Saying he he refused to work on Sunday for religious You know for religious grounds, right? Yeah, absolutely may just come to realize Uh, this is the real world after all So the this is your your daughter's son This is my daughter's son. Yeah, so does your does your daughter have any um Restrictions about you talking about post-afarian Well, or And I don't necessarily I just did an se thing. So I didn't really talk uh, past-afarianism. It's, you know He he gets I mean he sees me in the community You know fridays I walk around with the tricorn in the community and uh, you know, I Say ahoy to everyone that I meet and Um, that's just you know an image. I've been building up over time in the community But underlying all of that is, you know, rational free thinking, right? You know just drawing attention to the fact that The differences in our beliefs You know what what we believe is it is important and it has an impact and That what I have to say about my beliefs, you know, while some people think it's crazy When you really look at it, it's About as crazy as everybody else's beliefs, you know when it comes to religion. So So she so to answer your question she doesn't She doesn't limit my in my um interactions with him because for instance, I did ask her directly if I could Have this interview with him and showed on youtube So she was okay with that But partly I think because we didn't talk directly about His god please Mute your mic if you're not talking guys Someone's playing like Or at least turn off the music in the background. All right, so um I just want to say thank you for sharing that story gary. Um, and I I can't tell you how hard it is for coming out of religion To return back to having normal conversations relationship with family members who are still in religion I have a sister that's Muslim. I have a mom that's Jehovah witness I got other family members that are christian and when we have Thanksgiving together It's a very awkward situation because they all look at me like i'm the one that doesn't know what's going on I'm not praying So, you know, I I'm really thankful that I've learned about how to have these kinds of conversations And I'm also really happy that it's not hard to just reach out and talk to someone And I'm I would love to plug that video that you did with your grandson Towards the end of this conversation. So we'll get that link ready and in the meanwhile gary All right larry. We're at the bottom of the half hour. How about you have us out? Well, sure. Uh, this is digital free thought radio hour on w o zio radio 103.9 l p f m Right here in noxville, tennessee will be bright back after this short message Oh, it's the short message the short message of the day go outside You want to play have a volleyball day learn a spike all day? That's my way Oh, what do they say? There's your songs. We're atheists. We do this all day long and we're back to the show 103.9 f m What was oh radio? digital free thought radio hour Very good very well done. Thanks today sunday mark may third 2020 the second half of the show Let's talk about the free thought groups that you can join here in noxville. We'll just mention them shortly It's the atheist society of noxville. We're in our 18th year with over a thousand members come join us You can find us online at noxville atheists dot org By the way, if you don't know, uh, if there's a meetup in your area, you go to Meetup.com and look for it. If you don't find one Start one Uh, another large free thinking group here in noxville is the rationalist of east tennessee That's r e t and you can find them online at rationalist dot org Uh earlier in the show we said we talked about the noxville's atheist calling tv show Is called the free thinkers united coalition of noxville and the reason they say that You were talking last week about uh, ask being the perfect name because it's a great name. You should ask questions The reason they call that free thinkers united coalition is because this tv show is is done by all the different groups Uh ask r e t uh other people who are involved in the other groups. They're here in noxville the uh the sunday assembly Just generally, uh, they all try to have some kind of input So they decided to call the youtube page a youtube channel the free thinkers united coalition of noxville And that's why And you can find it there on youtube if you're interested in getting involved in the tv show or the radio show just come to our, uh, digital free thought radio our web page on facebook Or you can go to um, let's chat And talk to uh, one bad about it Yeah, absolutely point out And we are now back our topic. We were talking about why can't we just leave religion alone? Why do we why don't we just let people believe what they want to? Yeah, and of course we mentioned that the answer is that religion does great harm in the world And maybe we should talk about talk some more about the harm itself.  Um If if an atheist hurts somebody harms somebody they have to go to that person and ask their forgiveness And and and make retribution sometimes in order to get that The forgiveness where a believer can just go in the bathroom in their home or whatever a bedroom Kneel down and ask God for forgiveness. That's fine for the for the person who does the problem And uh creates the problem or causes the trespass, but it doesn't do anything For the person who was harmed all Also, buddy. I mean this was an article that one of our uh Digital free thought blog members brought up It says it it lets the if you free like Christianity always says, you know, you need to forgive the people who trespass against you Well, that's fine unless they're a serial trespasser Like uh, like a serial rapist or a misogynist or somebody who does this all the time and you forgive them It just lets them off scot-free And uh, they don't have to answer to the authorities about things like that when you just let it go They're they're free to continue doing what they're doing And I think in the bible that only references people who are within your same belief system So like if you're a samaritan who you know wrong the Hebrew.  Go for it. Go for it We um, hi for those who haven't met me and Bruce and random kid from new zealand Hello Bruce. Welcome um Would you say that those harms are more to do with The fact that that belief system or religion isn't universal as opposed to the belief system itself So like if everyone is that for me or Larry or anyone anyone really just like if Well, I think like take any of those examples that you used if they applied equally to the people who Had trespassed against you for example Those issues you raised wouldn't necessarily be an issue, right? So it's only an issue because they're talking to or trespassing against someone who's not sharing that perspective Well, I think it's just something I'm throwing out there. Not necessarily when a mindset is dangerous Whereas that's in them kind of thing and that just gets into a lot of stuff Well, I think if it applies to your religion Then it applies if it doesn't then don't worry about it You know if you're if you're like an eastern philosophical religion where you don't have that belief and we're talking about That belief and forgiveness You know per se Then I would I would kind of ignore it But if it if you belong to a religion who who has that Percept Then maybe you should take it hard My thought would be if it was universal it would be less of a problem But it's still a fundamental problem sort of like putting a band-aid on a bleeding wound Like there might still need to be more fundamental work being put on there And yeah, if it's universally that's like putting the band-aid on but the real problem is we all have this mindset that isn't necessarily based on like Value and critical thinking that's getting us possibly motivated to move around in circles and not actually progress forward Yeah, you know one thing I find You know this this question about why we care Um, you know, it's not just about religion, right? So if you if you got magical, I mean if you're thinking magically Things like homeopathy work for you. Yeah You know what I mean and and that then ties into you know, a bunch of people believe in homeopathy They talk to their You know elected officials and and then that becomes included in the health care system and all of a sudden You're your your your health care resources are now being allocated to Systems or alternate medicines that clearly do not work except in magical thinking And that has a real real impact. Yes I mean, it's the same thing as if someone said and on a political scale Yeah, I think you should wear a mask and then next you know 600,000 people are buying up all the n95 masks That a hospital needs to do its work properly so that these people can wear them in non-sterile environments Put them on with non-sterile hands and pick up groceries and throw them away after wearing them for way too long with their design use and so There's there's it's even in science even outside of religion even outside of homeopathy There's just a value towards how do my actions Influence other people and what are the consequences of them in a societal environment and everything has consequences and we have to think about Okay, if that's the case, what's the best course of action? What can I determine is good things and bad things to do moving forward? And if I don't have that critical mindset to parse good actions from bad actions We as a society could practically fall apart and that's why I'm thinking like we're being held together by a glue Of critical thought and we need to make sure we we hold that And and share how that works. That's that's beautifully put. Yeah, we're being held together By a glue of critical thought and we need to work to make sure that that's good. Yeah, bruce. What do you got? um, I was thinking if if you would like if you were to apply that to religion Then you would want to apply that to non-religious actions and thoughts as well, right right, which essentially Insinuates that there's one ideal way to live Because every other everything else that's below that is going to have some kind of impact that's low like, you know It's like it sounds like a very utilitarian Approach to life walk that down even more fundamentally instead of saying there's one good way to live say there's a good way to determine how to live Right and then what is what is real versus what is not real? Yeah Based on your situation your final answer might be different from someone else's but there's a good mindset to have To determine what good actions are between bad actions An outcome might be different for other people, but it's all about the epistemology and what determines when the outcome is different We can talk about this more offline. This sounds like it'll be a lot longer conversation in just 15 minutes Brute Bruge. Oh, what do you what do you think about this so far? Boudreau, what do you think about this? Oh, uh, I heard uh, I heard brew. Uh, I thought it was bruce brew. You're good. Sorry. Sorry Yeah, yeah, uh, no i'm i'm uh I'm liking this that it sounds like we're kind of getting into that area of morality where you're trying to use And philosophy or ethics in general. Yeah, we're trying to use science to inform ethics morality Which I think is the best thing to do and I think that's the way we can come up with something objective Across the board doesn't matter skin color religion anything. There is There's a weighted Way of um, best way to live. Yeah, I have a question. Oh dealing with religion. I mean dealing with reality We've got a quick question throughout uh, and and I'll throw this out to gary in fact because he beat me twice So gary go for it and then I got a question out go for gary I was just gonna say that You know critical thing of course is about you know, a reliable a reliable methodology for investigating The world that yields reliable results You know, and that's kind of what I think about when I'm you know, I don't know if you're familiar with uh shirmers of bologna Test kit detections kit a bologna detection kit. Yeah um, and you know, I just see I'm I've been actually putting together this idea that I should go to the local college And see if I can put on a small course on On bologna detection and just use their their course manual because I think the value Of those critical thinking skills is immeasurable. Yeah, absolutely. And it's not something that's regularly taught You have no it's not and it's something like you can forget it Like if you don't do it long enough it can go away. It's not like riding a bike You have to train yourself do it in school. It seems like we are taught to retain information and repeat information right What to think not how to think and there's always a right answer and you have to do it And it's better to guess than to say you don't know which in a lot of times is actually the best answer Um, hey, I got a question. This is going back on boudreau's point. He said that what if there was one kind of religion? Would that be better? Hear me out go on a limb with me. What if it was just one kind of atheism because we all know textbook definition atheism is just not believing a god There's a lot of different people who don't believe in god. That's fire. But when you talk to people There's clearly Beyond just the idea that they aren't convinced that it gots true. They have different compulsions and flags and and and things that they the support don't support And it appears from the theistic point of view that there's just so many different kinds of atheists and they aren't really Yes, I agree with each other and that there's no general unison or consensus and that's why they're so angry with each other and Wouldn't it be better if there was just one straightforward platform for atheism? Yes Larry, what do you think about that? um One straightforward platform for atheism. Yeah, just what there is there not Just we I I preface this question with that but like if you talk to someone who also doesn't believe in a god, but also says they're um The also I mean Atheism is one answer to one question. Right.  He's crossing his arms while he answers this I love I love this time because what do you got? This is something I think we brought up before that one of the past Presidents of an atheist group got up and and talked to a group of atheists and and and yelled at them and said look We have a problem We don't all identify as the same thing. Exactly. We have nuns. We have atheists and that's n o n e We're the free thinker coalition. We've got the rational east of tennessee. Yes, it's like come on guys We we should all band under one name epithet whatever you want to call it because then we can check a box on a demographic Is a good label. What is? Stacular humanism. I think that's a great label, but again, we're not all picking it and then there are spiritualists There are our agnostics and asians Positvarians So when we fill out a form And and we're trying to get some kind of political power behind our voice We're all checking different boxes or choosing not to check a box or none. Yeah. Yeah, I love I love this thought I I think you're right. We need to kind of all I agree. Yeah, we have so much more powerful You showed me the docking scale. Haven't you like multiple on multiple occasions? I would say like once you're past a certain number you're this Yeah, but you can always be different numbers of this. Yeah, but you are this Oh, eric perfect question for you. Yeah, so it's a it's a seven point scale richard dockins put together uh, basically to kind of define your your your belief in Or disbelief belief in yeah, you're six, right? I'm sorry. He said he yeah, he said he was a six He actually was The first one to convince me that I wasn't a seven a seven is you absolutely believe there's no god You know it a hundred percent true, right and a one as you absolutely believe there's a god A hundred percent is true and then you've got range in between but but yeah, you're right He he claims he's a six because he doesn't know There's no god. He just doesn't believe in one. So he's an agnostic atheist exactly And that's what I think most rational atheists are I am But yeah, you still like food fighters. So yeah, kind of I I never really thought of that being united under one banner and continue ourselves one people group Dredpire, what do you think about this? I'll get you from Wayne I you know and thanks for asking. I actually put myself at a seven I think uh, I for a long time Tried to sell myself as a six But that's essentially a pascal's wager proposition you know, I've just everything I just you know Yeah, I'm a seven everything I'm a strident atheist. Are you saying are you saying you know every single possible proposed god? Or are you saying you're talking about knowledge versus belief? Yeah, that's well a seven combines the two unfortunately I actually might be a seven Yeah, I'm yeah, I might why I think I I think I'm a seven Because it's more of I forget the guy who said he says he's he's a militant agnostic He's he's an I don't know and you don't either So if I'm pretty sure that no one else can really know what was before the big bang or No one else can really know if there's other dimensions that are super naturally or Or that there might be a god somewhere else in the universe Or another and if we don't know then we don't absolutely know that it doesn't exist. That's why Up within our head that's not based on science can't possibly be Of the reflection of reality. Yeah, here's the great thing about I don't know is I don't have to figure that out I can just be not convinced that it's true And I think that's good enough a place for me to be at But if you very well define the god that we are talking about like incredibly well defined I can see myself as a seven if it's Absolutely not possible for something like that to exist or if it's in itself contradictory So certain gods. Yeah, I can be even like a 7.7 or 7.0 6.7 whatever But when it's just does god exist, I have no idea what you're talking about I don't know is the better answer and 999 is fine until you convince me Then I have no reason to believe that and I don't know if that's true I can see six is like it's again. Yeah, it sounds like seven is like nothing that will happen Will make you believe in god like if god appeared right now and like made your great grandfather come back to life and Something like that and Yeah, or whatever example you could think of and that would still make you not believe in god Seven is more. I really think that's highly unlikely to No, no, no, no that's not how the docket skill works, you know, it's highly six is the highly unlikely. Yes Yeah, I'm closed-minded. Yeah seven is absolute a one is an absolute both of those are scary places to be very No, no offense to someone to pick a seven. I was a seven I had to stop and I'm a 6.9999 almost repeating right depending on what we're talking about. Yeah Yeah, that's that's such a great point. So you're the asymptote of atheism sure sure well That's rude Gary watch it. We have a we have a speech filter here And I don't want to edit everything all over once you get past the three you're an atheist on the scale So atheism isn't in question here. It's Gnosticism. That's in question. There you go. That's why I like it And we can all be atheists even with that even with all this kind of I'm with you I think it's a belief scale and we're not talking about knowledge And I've got the scale up here and it says strong theists or strong atheists. They're not talking about Gnostics They're talking about atheists. Well, there there is another dimension to it too. There's there's supposed to be a box where you It's on how you word atheism. It's just like I know there is no god or I have no reason to that's Gnosticism So just to summarize so just if I may address Your bruce's we we're running out of time won't we're running out of time. So we're just going to summarize Clearly even in this boardroom of you know, well like minded friends that like meet and talk on a regular basis There's still conflict with regard to labels and and I guess diagrams and stuff like that And so I think this speaks to the idea of It be worthwhile to just have like a unified front I think there could be some advantages there unlike religion where I can find that stifling I feel like for atheism to have our voices be heard at least on a political scale. It could be really valuable Um guys, we are down to the couple last couple of minutes of the show Gary, can you please tell me about that video that you're talking about with your grandson and how we can find it? Well, sure. Yeah, uh, so my youtube channel is mind pirate and pirate is spelled p y r a t e And I have a number of videos up there. Um I Can't remember off the top of my head which one it is but he looks like a young fella. Um, so What's it called? What's the name of the video? What's the name of the video? Um, what's the name of your grandson?  So it's a clearly made up name. So I just I'm sorry I don't have it right in front of me It's on mind pirate cool Yeah, um, joey, I think it's a santa claus or something is in the title too. So cool joey What can people find your stuff and uh, you just started your channel mind plugging that again? I um, I don't I don't have any videos or any content on either one of my channels right now for my music and my comedy It's going to be just jw kennedy. Just look up jw kennedy on youtube and uh, jwk Hates the news on twitter and for my street epistemology Accounts it's going to be speak your beautiful mind.  Cool bruce. Thank you for joining us. Uh, you're always welcome to come back for a longer extended discussions Is there anywhere that you post stuff or any videos and stuff like that that you like anything you want to promote? Uh, no Okay Nice and short and sweet. Woodrow. What do you got for us? I keep threatening that chat and I are going to release our Our video we recorded it last week. I'm going to do some edits and some cool stuff I will post that out and share it here But in the meantime go watch, uh, my covet 19 cover of overkill. Yes, man at work. It's hilarious It's very very good. Also props to vivian for an awesome flute solo. She was she was a star Yeah, it was great. It was great. Uh, so i'm let's chat. You can find me on youtube under let's chat I've also got a twitter at five minute chat. That's the number five m i n c h a t Uh, because of the quarantine thing we've I've had a lot more time to be making videos So there's a whole new suite of videos from cpac 2020 that you can find Talked to a guy who thought taxes were in christian talked to a guy who thought he had a right to believe in god And that's why he believes in god and then also talked to a guy who was from alaska Came down to cpac and was basically terrified of republicans and just wanted to see Okay, these guys are determining a reason. Yeah, how my state's being ran I just want to see if I can talk and have a reasonable conversation with any of them And is there a good way for me to have that kind of conversation? Man, it was a great talk I'm so glad he ran into me Find those on my channel. They're coming out every thursday larry all of all for you Okay, just before I get into that uh, budgerow. I did look at it a little closer I see the knowledge portion of it under each one. So you're right. Thank you Good job. Good job. Okay, everybody be sure to visit digital freethought.com click on the blog button You can also find our radio show archives there Atheist songs many articles on the subject including the one that we were talking about today or The subject anyway, it's called what's so wrong with religion check it out It's very itemized long list If you have any questions for the show, you can send them to ask an atheist at noxfilatheist.org And we'll try to answer them on future shows. You can also leave comments on the blog or the Facebook page for digital freethought radio hour or the youtube channel That tyrone has uh, yeah, let's chat go there and you can find our show with the video And you'll also find our show on podcasts like itunes stitcher luminary podcast.com, etc And as a reminder like I remind everybody every week Everybody is going to somebody else's hell The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hell's and souls are real Until then don't sweat it.


Okay, we're back for live. This is think tech community matters. And we're going to talk today about a program that we're setting up for September 30 and days away. And this program is called burning national issues. Legal chicken legal egg. And for this discussion we have to legal people. Not to say whether the chicken or the egg. There's a former dean of the William S Richardson law and a constitutional lawyer of his so I for and Richard Walgrove and he is runs the environmental department, if you will, and William S Richardson school of law. And they're both friends of think tech. And I guess I would, I would start by saying good morning. Thank you for appearing on this preview of the chicken egg program. Morning. Good to be here. So, I'll be, I'm sorry to have to ask you this question, but talking about here with chicken and egg, legal chicken, legal egg. Well, I think the implication may be that we have to be careful and walk on eggshells, but we don't get what we want. And we don't even have to argue about which came first, or crossing the road. This is an intriguing title, as often is the case with what Jay fight comes up with. Okay, and you're going to moderate the program the program includes abortion in America with Kimi, eat a foster gun violence prevention with Chris Marvin. The challenges of climate change with none other than our present company Richard Walgrove, voting rights in America, Sylvia Albert, she joining us from Washington she's in common cause, and beyond insurrection with your friend, Jeff Portnoy, who may or may not be on a cruise ship, sailing the oceans at that time. I want to see how that works. We are, we are coming from all directions on this. So, Richard, you know, if you ask the School of Journalism in the Department of Journalism, what is it the journalism program in the communication department you age but what the most important story of our lifetime is, is they will say without hesitation, climate that's what they will say. Now there'll be some people who don't agree but I think they got a point there don't they. Because this this is an existential threat that we make all other threats, all other legal threats irrelevant. If we do not survive on the planet. So you know you're in a special category here. And I guess on the chicken egg level what do you expect to cover. I think it's an interesting framing, and I think the idea that climate changes and existential threat does make it a little bit different. But on the other hand it's a threat that doesn't seem like it's at hand right we it's not one of these threats that seems soon salient and certain to borrow other people's words. And so part of what I think is interesting to talk about on this issue, particularly as it relates to things like abortion and gun regulation and voting rights, and the right to future generations like we have with some of our colleagues I think that what's interesting is in the legal egg, legal chicken legal egg context is what comes next. I mean how are we putting all these pieces together in a coherent way that ultimately serves the public interest that's what I always want to talk about. We're going to fix things. Yeah, well and know the fix work. You know it's like one great big experiment on all of the topics that I mentioned and especially perhaps you. You take a whack at it, you change the law, sometimes with great difficulty, you spend the money sometimes with great difficulty, and then it's the end of the day you find it didn't work. And then you have to try again, or you found it work but the effects were not exactly what you anticipated. And then you have to try again. It's, you know, it's an experiment. Maybe it's an experiment. I mean everything we do is an experiment right because we don't know what comes tomorrow. But on the other hand, you know if you think about climate change and fundamental terms, Al Gore's got this great quote when he's talking about it. Even if he's unpopular in some circles I think this particular quote everybody can agree on that we already know how to pull carbon dioxide out of the air in fact the most efficient way of doing it is the machine that we call a tree. And if we do that at scale we call it a forest. And I don't know that allowing forest to grow where they're supposed to be is all that much of an experiment really it's maybe more about putting back things the way they were before we disrupted it with our experiments. You know I was telling you guys about Timothy Snyder history at Yale, and he went through a whole hour of orienting his students about history, and then he said I want you guys to give me one word that defines history. History is the essential word for history. And, you know, I figured it out. I gotta tell you I'm so happy with myself. I figured it out. The word he was looking for, which Richard alluded to is change. It always changing history is change. And, you know, the planet is changed to its changing, whether we like it or not, it's changing if we try to fix it or don't. And so, you know, you have you have a challenge there. If I make you King. And I would like to do that. Sorry, I mean I like some other day I'd like to make you came. Absolutely. You know which is not easy. I mean to be King these days and to have absolute power. You know you could think of things that would really help us on climate change. What would be your approach on that. So here's your legal chicken and legal egg question, Jay, is that the answer is pretty simple let's stop dumping carbon pollution into the air at rates that are unprecedented in human history and indeed you know a couple hundred million years to global history.  What would the, what would the ramifications that be right if people feel that we're overstepping our bounds. I read an op ed in the LA Times the other day, pushing back against the idea that we should change the cars we drive and stop burning gasoline. And the central argument was, I really like working on cars, and I can relate that I'm, I can relate to that I'm a car guy too. And so, what I would want to do is King is to make sure we're taking account of those sort of fundamental rights that people have and that we cherish and that we hold, and convincing folks it's not it's actually not a matter of waving a wand and changing things, convincing folks that fixing this climate problem is in everybody's interest, whether you're a car guy or not, because I'm not going to be able to work on my car with my son. If we are dealing with no food because we know we've ruined our global agricultural system. Priorities. Yeah. Well, I mean, in the end, you've got to get the legislation through King's down well in some countries they still have the power but in democracy you've got to get it through and we have trouble doing that. So, you know, what do you think, what do you think about Richard's approach to this. Is it going to fit within the chicken and the egg. Well, I think is he's exactly right about some of this being so obvious that even the current disputes about, you know, should we listen to science. Look, silly, compared to what he said at the beginning, for example, trees are good for the environment. Why don't we have more trees. I mean that doesn't take a lot of faith in sophisticated science to figure out. Now, there are always counter arguments, of course, and I think a key thing and this gets back to what both of you that kind of at least pointed to is that victory is not forever. So even if you were to win. There's a great Faulkner quote, which is whoever wins it won't be for good, and it won't be for long. And I think that's certainly true. So there is in law, a lot of evidence of that in constitutional law, even more, I would say, and that's kind of shocking to people that you don't get things settled. And they weren't settled by the framers and they weren't settled by the second constitution after the Civil War, and they're not settled by this hope by the current Supreme Court. You know, not that it's directly relevant, but what I heard recently is the Constitution, as far as the original language guys are concerned, has a fatal flaw. It never says that you have to read the Constitution in the. I know you've heard this before, you have to read the Constitution, using the language of 1789 or whatever. And if they were really smart, they wouldn't said you have to keep on reading the Constitution the original context. What do you think would that have improved things. One of the things, one of the reasons that I go back to the Faulkner quote is, and this is something people don't realize, perhaps, until they get to law school at us hope they do, while they're in law school, that you can win at the federal level and lose at the States have their own constitutions, very different state by state. And so, in that sense, it's a never ending dialogue, or more than a dialogue there are a lot of voices. So even if we read the original Philadelphia Constitution, in the meaning it had and one of the strange things about the current so called textualists who seem to dominate the court is they pay no attention to history. And they actually pay very little attention to the words, as they meant something then as they mean something now and I just noticed a new moves that they've got, which is they call something a doctrine. And once they've pronounced something a doctrine, they can do whatever they want with it, and they, they can say well we're not doing anything about the text, we're just construing a doctrine, and they've done this in the environmental area in particular. There's the major question doctrine, where did that come from, where's that written down, it's not, but it's what they use to try to limit the power of the EPA, when it comes to our air. So that's the latest that was at the end of the last term. Is that is that helpful to the cause of saving the planet Richard. I have strong feelings about about this particular doctrine as we're calling it now. I think there's a there's something bigger going on and it's a it's another legal chicken legal egg. It's the abdication of judicial responsibility and it's not just happening at the Supreme Court and it's not just the West Virginia case that Abbey just mentioned, and not just the major questions doctrine, we've got court after court after court saying climate change is such a big deal, we can only solve it by deferring to legislators, never mind the fact that we had legislation, what 50 years ago now that said protect our protect our air please environmental protection agency. The legislation is there I think I think we're seeing a really tragic breakdown of our judicial system. There's a particular case that I think Richard may have in mind a ninth circuit decision, and it was a very important doctrine developed by a federal district court judge in Oregon, and she said we got to take into account future generations and they have standing and we have to take into account their interests as well as people around now. It's a very peculiar nine circuit decision with a very courageous district court judge who dissented, even though she's just a district court judge sitting by designation she's not there most of the time. And the judge who wrote it is a judge I largely admire and he's someone I've known for a long time Andy Hurwitz, and he basically as she said walked right up to the edge, and then he said that there's nothing we can do about this. I think we know that the judges often have complex problems to remedy. They don't remedy them all but all the time they're in their pitching. And it was really striking and scary that he advocated as as Richard just said. Well, you know maybe that's part of the chicken egg thing in the sense that you have all these factors going on you have this deterioration from whatever source whatever source I mean it could be natural deterioration. It could be social deterioration be technological effect deterioration, but then you have the law. The law is also a changing factor, and you throw them all and you know in the hopper. And what do you get these days to get chaos. And I asked, you know, your colleague Kimi E. de Foster, what happens after chaos is chaos lead to order. Anybody got an answer on that she said, she said chaos leads to chaos that is worse. You know chaos comes in gradations you know. I don't think that's what they mean by chaos theory.  We got voting rights, and we got insurrection we could have picked others but those are the five that seem to be most poignant right now. So, do you have a thought about what the, you know, the common denominator is in addressing the changes chicken egg issues, the chaos possibilities for those five. Well, I think I may differ from Richard on this that our, our essential problem in some ways is paying too much attention to the Supreme Court. The parallel to that or link to that is the Supreme Court paying too little attention to what the impact of their decisions is, which they ought to do, and which many justices over a long time has said they are doing this court says we don't care. And I think, as we are seeing the abortion decision is a prime example, where there was Chief Justice Roberts, who is not a hero when it comes to voting rights, for example, a very activist judge if you will. They're trying to say hey not so fast, right. I don't I'm going to say that Mississippi laws okay, but this is going to have consequences, and the current majority just filed ahead, and they, I think are influencing the next election by doing that. And that wasn't hard to see as something that was going to be a consequence. And so, you know, for good or ill, I mean it's not to say the court should always follow the public sometimes it should lead the public ground versus Board of Education is the classic example. But even there, and they pay too much attention, perhaps the public response with what's called Brown to the implementation wasn't really there. That I think comes out on Richard side of application. Instead of just trying to do it in Brown to they said well local conditions and all deliberate speed, famously or infamously which really allow the buildup of southern resistance. Yeah, well I mean there's some people think Richard that you know the social compact is torn here that you know people do not understand. And, and then you know the government, including the courts are disconnected they don't understand what people want. They don't understand as obviously just about leadership. And you know what's really interesting we we did a survey on Mar-a-Lago, and to summarize in general the results of the survey. And I guess you would say maybe 25 30% of the people said, you know, Trump may be right. He may be entitled to keep those documents or hold them incredible. I really don't know who is on a survey but that's extraordinary. And another, you know, 10% or so said, but they said, and the, and the balance though, said, it's too early to tell. It's too early really, and it's been in the press for a lot of months. It's too early to tell. So what you know what you get out of that is, is that people do not read and understand what's going on in the world. And then you take the legal, you know, the government, the legal apparatus that's supposed to deal with this, and you find they're disconnected, they're disconnected, even from that. So I think we already have a kind of version of chaos and I think it's particularly appropriate to look at it through the lens of climate change. Not only is it existential threat, but I mean people don't seem to care about it even though it will ultimately affect all of us. You can't seem to get all the necessary legislation through. And there's a disconnect between the reality and the government, and there's also a disconnect between the people and the reality. So I'm getting, I think I have to go have lunch now. But how do you, how do you reconcile all of that. Is that one for me today. He wasn't on what to have for lunch chicken. Oh, thank you, thank you. Yeah, I think there's a thread here so I'll plant a seed with Avi in his moderator role. And I think the thread here is that if we're seeing chaos in the sort of that the public and governmental understanding of climate change and the solutions to it and how easy or hard they are and how beneficial they are how costly are who they cost and who will impose costs on who it won't. None of that is an accident. It's an intentional public relations campaign we were the documents are coming out every day right the oil industry being sued the documents come out how there's been an effort to hide these facts to obscure the facts to have folks misunderstand the science to diminish the sort of importance of the science. And so I wonder the question for Avi and other panelists I wonder how much of that sort of PR work is affecting these other issues. We call it gun control that sounds really scary. The last time I checked the Senate second amendment talked about regulation, so why aren't we calling it gun regulation who's making those decisions for us. I really feel the way we talk about these things is not given enough attention. And I'm not afraid of the chaos, we can unwind it people have done this before. You know, we as a humanity have been through difficult times and difficult issues, but if we keep lying to ourselves and we keep allowing people to lie to us just because they want to make a buck. That's a tough one to reconcile. And a nomenclature is everything and that means the media isn't it. It's a media often picks the nomenclature. And if you were monarch, if you were king what would you say to the media about climate change. But it's also, and maybe gun safety is better than regulation in terms of the public response. Well, Chris Marvin is calling it gun violence prevention. That's what he's calling it. Yeah, and he's very good. So tune in to see Chris Marvin as well as everyone else. One of the things that has struck me I just published something about this last week and op ed that is. So everyone's running around talking about their fundamental rights, one example being second amendment rights. The second amendment was not recognized to protect individual rights, until Scalia. There's a very strange reading of the second amendment said I'm not going to talk about the first clause only the second clause and overrule over well over 100 years of Supreme Court precedent, including very conservative courts. Everybody now is running around saying oh yeah second right like they've always been here they're fundamental. Another example and this is what I wrote about. There's the fundamental right of parents right and that's all over politics these days and school boards and so on. Well, where is that fundamental constitutional right. There's no mention of parents there's no mention of children or of education in the Constitution, and where it lies, if you really want to trace it back is to substantive due process the very doctrine that the very doctrine that the court said was illegal irrelevant wrong and egregiously so in Dobbs in the abortion decision can't use substantive process to protect the woman's right to choose, but you can use it for parental rights, which gets back to the 1920s. So, nobody's actually serious of is it in the Constitution, they're just running around saying oh we have these rights I'm not saying parents shouldn't have rights and children shouldn't have rights, but the Constitution is not the only source. And if you go back to your example of read the Constitution, you should read the Constitution, and you would discover it's not there. And therefore you're making an argument, which may or may not be one consistent to talk about in our full discussion about something that's so basic as Richard has been talking about that you don't actually need specific constitutional language. No, you don't. Not to have a free society. And you know you take advantage of all the morality that's been expressed by the courts for 30 years. You know one thing about the media of the I noticed an article in the I think it was the Times in the last couple of days about how there was a case wending its way to the Supreme Court, where they were expected where they are expected to opine on social media. And, and the tension is between freedom of the press, and essentially censorship for arguably the benefit of, of truth. And this is really, really, really interesting because, you know, it's, it's and I hope Richard that you'll agree with me that we cannot be confident that the Supreme Court will do the right thing. And we cannot be confident. God knows what they're going to do. And so we have we have a maybe a very profound change in the way information is delivered on to a good part of our population, who stands on the street corner looking at their telephones and getting all their information, all their opinion, all their thought process out of a phone. And that is, I don't want to say unregulated but that could be regulated in a different way. Once this court gets its hands on it. We don't have freedom of the press on our list. You know but made them maybe in a funny way it's there for every single item on our list of issues don't you think. I mean to the extent that I'm saying the way we talk about these things matters that the journalism is is a mouthpiece for all of that. I don't know that I have this. I wonder how much the sort of social media air as a flash in the pan and there's a natural natural function of our technology. I think that we may have to find new ways to regulate that, but some of the key principles don't change right can say what you want where you want the government can't interfere. If I'm using somebody's private platform. Why is the Supreme Court opining about that why is the taxes legislature opining about that. Is it because we're afraid of what people have to say. Well, we've always been afraid what people have to say right well how did the world work when there was no social media when one person got to decide what goes into the textbook and what doesn't. I think that's just as scary we figured it out then we can figure it out in the future. Yeah one scary part about the Ken Burns series on the Holocaust and what was going on in Germany in the 30s is the book burning. There's footage you have never seen before about the book burning in all the communities that he controlled. And, you know, after a time he controlled a lot more communities than he did at the beginning. And what he did for example crystal knock. He did in all the communities that he control was more more much more than Germany. And so the book burning was much more than Germany. And he's been Ken Burns spent a fair amount of time on that and when you think about the school board actions, particularly in the red states in the south, you know, courtesy the GOP, and how they're taking all the books off the library out of the libraries. You see, you know, is there a parallel. Is there a parallel we should discuss on it. Yes, that was easy. These are, I think, tricky issues. And one of the reasons they're tricky issues is the text of the Constitution doesn't resolve them to the extent it does it was entirely ignored by the Supreme Court and Citizens United, where they said, Oh, press corporations they can make money. Therefore, they went along with money is expression and therefore shouldn't be regulated. Well, there's a problem in that syllogism. And one of the problems is the text of the Constitution actually does protect the press, but not corporate spending. I think the United has a lot to do with our current problems actually, and they have not only not narrowed it they have been expanding it year after year and it's just shocking how much money now talks which gets back to what Richard said at the beginning. I'm sure that we've all revered the Supreme Court for most of our professional lives, and thought that they, you know, they surely make mistakes once in a while and they take the wrong position once a while but essentially they walk on water, I mean, up to a point. And now we find that, you know, you walk through those hallowed halls there.  I'm here to tell you corporations are not people in the sense they define that in Citizens United, nor, nor did they think about the consequences of their actions. In any yonkel, and I mean that the broadest possible term, any yonkel could see at the moment that decision came out that it was going to be problematic. But this court didn't see that. I didn't understand the law, the concept that we all learned or should have learned in law school, and they didn't look at the consequences. So I, you know, myself I have, as you know I don't have a lot of confidence in their decision process going forward. And if you're looking for a common denominator, am I right. The Supreme Court is the common denominator for all of these issues. And these issues that we're talking about are going to wind up in that courtroom. Well, certainly they, it's talked about a lot. I think that's an important function of the Supreme Court as we talk about those decisions, even when a decision from a circuit court or another court might be as important or more important. Again, they have been playing games, I think, and they're very significant, not deadly games in some of these matters. And I think you can find their fingerprints these days all over some of our greatest social problems. I think I have to disagree with Jay for once about. Okay, it happened before too, I can tell you the reverence for the court, which I think is accurate in terms of our upbringing, but ought not to be. The court has been pretty bad for most of our history and particularly about things like race. You know, one of the things that in saying, well, it's not in the text in dogs in the abortion decision. There is a slight exception that might be allowed says Alito, and that is for deeply rooted concepts deeply rooted concepts in our tradition. But what's the one of the most deeply rooted concepts of all racism. That's not what he's talking about. And racism, the court has been at least complicit in the growth of Jim Crow and legitimate, you know, and racism throughout most of our history. Well, to talk about dogs for a minute, you know, I think that hits it right on the chicken and egg piece. So you have the court throwing out Roe v. Wade. Okay, everybody disappointed you all of a sudden women have lost rights. People have lost rights. That hasn't happened a whole lot where you have them one day and they go away the next. And extraordinary thing is that they throw it into the, the states and let the states decide, you know, it's kind of perverse federalism. And so now you have chaos, and you have the states doing the strangest things. And now you have an egg. It's an egg. Okay, now you have to have the chicken come back. The chicken has to fix the egg. And but it's hard to fix the egg because the egg is different in 50 places. So just help you out of it or not just be careful here because little biology. So you have the sperm and the egg and maybe this is not where you want to go with your metaphor.  I mean, Lindsey Graham wants to federalize, right, a particular rule. I mean, this is not our federalism of state sovereignty and stays right. It's the opposite. So you have the switching of sides about the issue as they see it, but no concern whatsoever for consistency and it isn't just the court. I guess I should say it's also and this is kind of where you let off. It is our institutions and it's certainly, you know, people think the filibuster is constantly required. That's nonsense. It's not, it's not constantly required at all. But there we have complete gridlock, because the filibuster is so much honored and the filibuster of course was primarily for racist reasons that we have this hold on what a more enlightened Senate might do. Richard, do you find this as provocative as I do. These issues are fascinating. I maybe unlike Avi that the chicken and the egg to me is working in a lot of ways. But in some ways I don't know that it's a reaction action reaction sort of thing. I think it might be that, you know, we adopt a position based on federalism say or perhaps based on textualism picture poison there. And then all of a sudden, you've got an egg and the chicken that grows from it is not the chicken you want it, because federalism isn't getting you the political outcome you wanted. Textualism isn't giving you the decision about, you know, the administrative power of the environmental protection agency. So what do you do when the chicken you get from the egg isn't the chicken you thought you laid I think that's that's what I want to figure out. That's provocative to me. Oh, I mean, we are so looking forward to this program. We may have trouble. But don't do the, don't do the egg and the abortion context, please. Thank you for that. And we saw for Richard walls grow to the players important players in our program called national burning issues, legal chicken legal egg on September 30 at 10 o'clock in the morning, all over the world, and to examine to see just exactly what our condition is and what it's likely to be going forward. Thank you both gentlemen. Thanks Jay. Great fun. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you so much for watching think tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at think tech Hawaii.com. Mahalo.


What is up, everyone? Happy Wednesday, December 20th, 2023, and three trades today, all winners, plus 8.59, so nice number there. Start off with a volume runner in Airbnb, and then did two mighty 90s in Roku. I don't do that very often, but they were pretty good looking setups based on the volume, and we really didn't have very many good setups when it comes to volume today, so thus only three trades. There was a couple I missed out on based on price action that I had considered getting in, but did not. So just three trades, so let's go to Airbnb. So big volume bar here, bigger than the first. So it popped up to right here, and I got short, and so I wrote it back down, got filled on half, and then a quarter when it when it pushed back down here, and then it popped up, and I got out of it like right as it was getting back up to this point right up here. So I was glad to be able to get this bar here was going down, coming up, going down, coming up, and when it popped up, I got short, came down, was able to get out of some, and then it bounced. So it wasn't in it very long, and then Roku, so had a mighty 90 right here, so I got in down here, and it popped up, got out of half, and then wasn't watching it, and it rolled back over here, and ended up cutting it right there, because it technically had given me two bars, and then it gave me another good look at mighty 90, and so I got in down here, and it popped up, got out of half, and I just held it, and it popped up here, and I got out of a quarter, and then as it started to come back down, I just closed the rest out. So a nice winner there on that bounce up, you can kind of see it's gone ahead and rolled back over. So not very many trades, but the ones I was in, I took advantage of, so plus 8.59. I will see everybody back tomorrow on the live stream. Talk to you later. Peace!