Welcome to Ear Biscuits. The podcast where two lifelong friends talk about life for a long time. Okay What if I started doing that? What if I tried to introduce that? I’ve gotten it in a few different places. I mean why are we still talking about this intro? It’s old news now. No, but I almost changed it. If there’s something freeing about just letting something, just go, you can do it on your part. You can’t change it, No I don’t wanna change it. until you’ve established. Just I’m – And you’ve messed with it so much. Sometime in the, as you explain what we’re too gonna to talk about, just hold out a vowel. Holding out a vowel brings health and vitality. And who are you? I’m Rhett. And this week at the round table of dim lighting, oh, and I’m Link. See you messed me up. Yeah. Unless we say, It was all a test. This week at the round table of dim lighting we’re talking about, what are we talking about? We’re gonna be answering some questions. You know, we’ve been talking about a lot of things about trips and preparation for trips. And we’ve been, you know, arguing about things. Just gonna shoot the breeze today. We’re gonna just talk about some things. I mean, it may get heavy and you know you never know. It may get heavy, that’s what we should have said. It should’ve been welcome to Ear Biscuits. It may get heavy. But the general disposition Is that it’ll be light. Is that it’s light, we come in light. Very light Very light. But then things started getting a little saturated and we get heavy. I gotta give an update on my medical condition. Okay, how’s it getting heavy right from the top? I suffered an injury. I tangled with wildlife and messed up my face. I saw this yesterday. For a number of days. On the video chat. I actually started getting scared. Christy confessed last night as we were going to sleep, she was like, you know I got a little scared that you were never gonna be the same. That your face was gonna look like that forever? Yeah, she was like, you might have to wear a mask when we make love. I was gonna think about that. And I was like, yeah I could wear a mask of what my face used to look like. This is the conversation we had last night while falling asleep. And I think that’s the moment I fell asleep. I was like, yeah, I would just wear a mask of my own face of what I used to look like. That raises some interesting questions that we can discuss a little bit later like. A mask work? I’ve never done any mask work. No, I mean, That’s what you’re asking. Not to make it a serious unnecessary. Not to make it heavier I get you. But like there, it happens quite often, not quite often, but it isn’t uncommon for like one of the people in a relationship to undergo some sort of transformation. Like sometimes it can be extreme. Like the woman who had her face torn up by a chimpanzee. Oh gosh. No I’m saying for real. And then she had to get a face transplant. So I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t know if she was in a relationship at the time, but like to think that, you know I’m not throwing Chris under the bus. I know she was probably joking, but you know, I don’t think you can, I don’t think that- She was joking. To put on a mask. She was joking. I think it’s to find acceptance in the new face. Yes, of course, I mean, yeah, I wasn’t, I didn’t take it personally. Well, I mean, I immediately fell asleep. I was not, I didn’t take it to mean anything. While you had a running with wildlife, it was not nearly as serious as a running with a chimp. It was, not to minimize it, but I did notice it on our video call though. I know you did. And that was many hours later just, okay, so let me, let me tell the story. So I went mountain biking on a Saturday morning and we’re near the end of our ride. And well first of all, we’re like trucking up this, I’ll call it a mountain, more like hills. But a lot of uphill, and a lot of working, working, working and then finally get to the top and then you’ve got a lot of downhill on these single tracks and some of it’s quite sandy. And Nick who I go with he’s faster than me. I never like to go in front when we’re going downhill. I always let him go first, go at his own pace. I don’t want him breathing down my neck and forcing me to go faster than I wanna go. Has he got his new fancy bike yet? He got his new fancy bike. So he’s going even faster. He’s going to even faster, he’s got dual suspension and I still got the hard tail. So my butts I just don’t think I can- taking a beating. I’m too worried. Not about what Too tall. happened to you. But I’m just worried about, What? Add this to the list. So I’m coming down the single track and I took a wrong turn. And then I finally got back on the trailing, caught up with Nick who was waiting for me. And then to finish out the run, I went ahead of him and like two minutes of going ahead of him, just trying to get the end of the run taken care of I’m going faster than I actually wanna go. ‘Cause like just subconsciously I don’t wanna be like the chump that’s slowing somebody down. And I hit this sand patch and my wheel turns to the left but the bike keeps going straight. Yeah. And there’s this moment where everything slows down and you’re like well, I’m I gonna fight this or I’m I just gonna fall in the most controlled way possible? Which I elected to do. You fell? Oh yeah, I went off of the bike in front of the bike This is why I’m not going. I hit the ground and did like a stunt man roll. And in the back of my mind, And you don’t have on like pads or anything? No, it was sandy. I could have hit a rock, but not with my head, but with my shoulder or something, yeah it could have. I did a stunt man role and part of it was not to injure myself and part of it was to kind of look cool and purposeful ’cause I knew I was being watched by Nick who was coming up behind me. You know and not that he gives a crap or that I give a crap that I fell off the bike or you know. But still subconsciously you don’t wanna look- Well you’re fine, you gotta land into something. You gotta target into something. So then I’m like, I’m fine. I get right back on the bike and I let him go first. Yeah. And then we get down and we, exit off the single track and we’re on this fire road going the rest of the way to exit out. We’re going pretty fast, but we’re it’s no longer treacherous territory. So my guards down and that’s when I get hit in the forehead with a bug of some sort. And I’m like, dang, that was a hard bug kind of. I mean, like a windshield Exoskeleton. And then I realized I feel a crawling that’s happening, like under my sunglasses in between my eyebrows. So I instinctively, You’ve got sunglasses? You got like bike sunglasses? I had these Like NASCAR. Prescription sport sunglasses. That’s tight. They’re Oakleys and they look really stupid. But you know what, They’re like mascara. but they are the best. But they are really light and they- From the practical side. Yeah that’s where I got ’em. I hate that they became associated with a certain Well they’re, yeah. I think they’re the best glasses. I wish I could make them look good because when you put on like cool sunglasses, they let too much light in the sides and you can’t really see. Yeah. You put on those Oakleys that are like numb and I’m going to a NASCAR race. Like you can see everything. And they’re not the most aggressive tint either so I can wear them They’re so light. in lower light ’cause I need them for the prescription. They don’t hurt your face. And I’d rather not wear my normal glasses like I’m wearing right you know. Well they don’t protect you from what you’re about to tell us. Yeah so it’s like, I feel the crawliness, and I’m still trucking down the road. And so I just grabbed the arm of the sunglasses and I just yanked them off of my face and then like throw them down behind me. Like I don’t throw the glasses down, but I like, I try to,well how would you describe that for the listeners? Just kinda jerk, Jar them off, fling. Jar the insect off. So I fling it yeah. Yeah. I fling the glasses in order to get the thing off. And then I flung pretty aggressively and I’m still peddling pretty aggressively. And then I just slammed my glasses back on my face and I got stung by a bee right in between my eyes. Like not in between my eyebrows, right in between my eyes right there. Did it not On the bridge of my nose, cross your mind to inspect the glasses. Like you flung, but then just- I flung so hard. There was no way I thought there’s no way this bee or bug or whatever it was could be- Can hold on to anything like. Well yeah they can. Just look at it. Oh, he’s still there but. I’ll do Do that next time. I’ll do that next time because let me tell you it hurt. And I was like, I just got stung by a bee. I was like, oh shit and then I like stopped you know, And that bee died for you. But he thought he was protecting his colony or something. His colonies are like 300 yards behind at this point. I mean, I knew I got stung it did hurt, but it didn’t hurt that bad. But then a few seconds went by and it started hurting a lot more. Face is a bad place to get stung. I mean, it could’ve stung me right on the eyelid or the eye ball. The eyeball. It could have. If it was crawling right in front of the lens, when I slammed it back on my face and my eyes are open. You would have closed your eye. I bet you it could happen, but I think it’s pretty unlikely. You would have gotten out not stung. You know what happens if you get Stung in the eye in the ball. In the ball of the eye. I don’t think an eyeball can swell Probably doesn’t even hurt. Yeah. It’s probably awesome. Probably can’t even feel it. That makes you see better. Probably like man what is that? I see a fuzzy bee really up close. It’s stuck permanently to my eyeball till I blink it off. The pain spikes after a few seconds, as it turns out. And then it sent an immediate headache across the whole, stratus of my head. When was the last time you got stung by a bee? It’s hard to remember Rhett. When you had a bee beard? Is that the last time? I think that was it, yeah. When we did the 50,000 bees all over my face, and then after you blew them off with a leaf blower, one of them was clinging to my neck. It was 10,000 but 50,000 does sound better. Okay let’s say 50,000. And it probably wasn’t 10,000, but that’s pretty good. And now that one didn’t hurt that bad on my neck. Yeah next landed on his face. It was like a glancing sting. Also that was a different bee. Those were juvenile calm bees. And I think they probably, I don’t know, maybe they don’t have much as a stinger. This one was so wild man and aggressive. Could’ve been a killer bee. So I’m like, well let’s get the, one of those murder hornets that’s around? No just like an Africanized bee. So I was like, well, let’s just get back to the car before my whole face swells up. But by the time I got back to the car, which is like maybe 15 minutes later, You were on your way back? Yeah, yeah. If you hadn’t been on your way out, would you have turned around and gone back home? No. Okay. ‘Cause I’m not allergic to bees. It’s not that big of a deal, you know. But then by the time I got back the pain was subsiding and I was like, okay, fine. Now the thing I didn’t do that I wish I would have done was inspected to see if there was a stinger and then like try to like scrape it out with my fingernail or something. Just to make sure that it wasn’t still in there. And then eat it which like I did when they took this thing out of my brother, when I was a kid I don’t know why. It’s like a ceremonial rite of passage. I was just sitting there watching my parents take it out. They put it on a paper towel. I was like, I’m gonna eat that, and I ate it. It was so weird. I know I eat everything, but it’s just such a weird choice. Yeah, that is weird. I’ll eat the stinger. And then they were like, what happened to it? And I was embarrassed, I was like, oh I ate it. You were embarrassed. I don’t know why, It was super impulsive. Wow, that’s strange. I don’t do that many things like that. I don’t just eat things that aren’t edible, unless I’m being paid. You must have been starving. You must have been absolutely starved. It wasn’t for hunger. It was so strange. I think maybe I thought it would be like a honeysuckle or something. Is that what the honey comes out of? It’s like you got a honey nozzle. You wanted to suck all the honey maker. I think maybe I took it and was like, I’m gonna suck the honey out of it. And then I just ended up eating. I know that’s not how honey works okay. I know but I was like five. I wanna suck the honey out of it. There’s gotta be some It’s venom. residual honey in there. It’s venom. I know it’s a completely different part of the body. I mean, it’s when a bee stings you, it’s not injecting you with that. I know, the honey is just comes from the stomach and they spit it out. Oh man. Honey is bee vomit, the other end of the bee. And they don’t die when they give it to you. So I drove home, I told the family the story. I didn’t think much about it. You know, that was, I mean, like nine o’clock in the morning That evening, it was just, you know, it’s just a normal Saturday. That night I stayed up till like 1:00 AM. I started to notice that, like, there was a red line when I would take my glasses off. But I just thought my glasses had been on my face. You know, I just wasn’t concerned. And I go into bed that late, I was planning on sleeping late, but then I woke up at like 6:30 in the morning kind of frustrated but like, even before my eyes were totally open, I could tell that like out of the bottom of my periphery like you’re laying down and you’re kinda looking, you know, trying to see what time it is without opening your eyes all the way. I noticed that all I could see was flesh. When you can see yourself, you know, something’s up. Yeah I was like- You could see your own face. And then I immediately got scared and I didn’t want to wake up Christy ’cause I didn’t wanna scare her. But I went downstairs and I went to the bathroom and I, I mean, that’s the first picture I took and- That’s in the morning? That was in that morning so, and it got worse than that right. But like I tried to take like a video where like you could really see that it was- What is the redness on there? The redness on the right side of the bridge of my nose is where it stung me. And then it’s just that redness is just swelling. And then it’s starting to swell. The eye gap. You know the flesh on the bridge of your nose in between your eyes but like below your eyebrows I call that the eye gap, that started to really swell up. And then my cheek started to swell out right under my eye as well. And then- It doesn’t so much- Later on that day I tried, you know. It kept swelling and I took a selfie ’cause I was gonna send it to Nick and tell him like, remember that bee sting. And then I took that one and then I was like, nah, I’m gonna take one where I smile. Because I don’t wanna look miserable. That doesn’t look like a smile. That was a smile. Are you allergic to me talking about bee sting? Well the funny thing is, it doesn’t strike me. Because of the way it’s so perfectly symmetrical, it doesn’t strike me as you with an injury. It strikes me as a different person who actually- With a F, a F Yes. Like a fat nose, Like, Bridge. It’s not- And when I put on my glasses, it covers most of it up so you really can’t tell. You look almost the same. I look kinda normal. But I was kinda scared and I looked it up and I was like. You know, is this gonna close my airway? I’m I gonna have a major allergic reaction? Not a day later. Yeah not a day later. It was what they call a moderate reaction. Which is I wasn’t having any hives or any other reaction anywhere else except right where it stung me. And then I felt better when I read from the Mayo Clinic that, you know, it would be 24 to 48 hours of swelling before it goes away. And of course, this is now the third day and it’s, I’m looking pretty normal again right? But what’s today? Tuesday. Yeah. You know it’s interesting because, I was already under the impression that, and we talked about this before that you look different without glasses than you used to look without glasses. Yeah. That like, you wearing glasses for an extended period of time has done a very slight something to the bridge of your nose. Has it? That makes you but now I don’t know if just I’m seeing the residual bee sting. But I’ve thought that for years that like, Whenever I- You started wearing glasses in like 2005 or six or something like that. Yeah. And then like seven or eight years- It’s more of my face into it, I was like, oh Link looks a little bit different than he used to look. I mean you also have aged eight or nine years. But like can that happen? Is my nose bridge starting to slouch because of. It’s not slouching, Under the support of glasses. It’s very slightly wider. Wider? What’s wider? Yeah. Right here in between your eyes. No, no, no it ain’t wider man. That’s from the bee sting. Right now that’s what I’m saying. For right now that’s what it is but, it’s definitely the bee sting right now. ‘Cause it’s not all the way down. When you take your glasses off, I’m like. That doesn’t look like Link without glasses. That looks like a very slightly different person. Yeah and it’s like, kind of like my dad too. My dad doesn’t wear glasses. I’m starting to look more like my dad. But when I came home, I mean, when the kids woke up, they couldn’t look at me. They were like so freaked out they’re like, dad you looked like a different person. And Lily was like, you look like, in the movie Avatar Yeah. when like the guy goes under and then he becomes his avatar and they kind of, it looks like the guy, except the space in between his eyes is bigger. Yeah ’cause they almost make their eyes look like cat like. What happens on a cat’s face, right here. Yeah, yeah. It’s a little bit wider. Fat nose bridge. And yeah. I got the avatar I don’t know if- It’s not as much well, It’s not that much right now. You know once a month we do like a company-wide zoom call and Link was a little bit more swollen yesterday. And he was telling the story and he like showed himself. And then Emily said that he looked like the baby man mask. That I wear. That you wore on the, I guess the first time you wore- ‘Cause it’s got a wide nose bridge too. Yeah and I was like, yeah that’s exactly what it looks like. Yeah so, I mean, I’m sure that Christy would be fine sorting mail with me in the long-term, but in the short term, she was joking but I mean, there’s some truth in a joke. Maybe I need a mask. Like I need to make a mask if when my face goes back to totally normal, I need to go ahead and make a mask of it. It could also be something that we give away to the mythical society. We could give away, like. Well, you know they made those like hyper realistic old people. Halloween masks of us. They’re like, you know, they made of like silicon or something, silicone, whatever the correct word is for that and then they, the way they fit around the eyes is like really perfect. Yeah. Like I wonder how much it costs to get one of those made. Like, that would be crazy to get. Very creepy, but kind of cool. How come and I’m sure this does exist. Doesn’t that exist? Don’t they make like that old man mask that you see people wearing and it really legitimately seems to transform them into an old man. Are there celebrities that you can just become or is that a bad idea? Because then people will just become those celebrities and do heinous things. It doesn’t look that real. Have you see one of those things? I mean are you talking about like Mission Impossible, like Tom cruise ripping off- Just recently on Twitter I saw a dude just put one of the old man masks on and like pull his collar up above the thing. And it’s just like, But you have to glue around the eyes- No, it’s fitted to his eyes, I think. Oh really? And so of course the old person thing works because their eyes are a little bit, you know, more sunken and like fleshy around there anyway. So like you just see like an extra fold and you don’t really Oh. think about what it is. Maybe we should have had these masks. Old man version of Renton Lake. No we’re becoming old men. Yeah. So let’s just get the masks made now, mythical dot com. Well we’ll march it up. So I’m feeling relief that this morning a, the air quality was better you know. At least the It was weird though. Yesterday morning, it smelled like smoke in the morning. But then the air quality, but then it looked fine. I don’t know. There’s like three different things. This morning was great and my nose was normal-ish. Sometimes it’s smoky, sometimes it’s ashy, and sometimes it just smells like smoke, but it’s clear. I don’t understand. And today was the first time it was like totally in the green and quiet. Seemed normal. You know what, I appreciated it for the first time. I was like, I’m walking around, I’m in Los Angeles, but I’m free to breathe for once. You know, it’s the little things. Once they’re taken away, because the whole place is burning. So I’m feeling good. I’m feeling like I’m glad you’re okay. I’m back to my norm, back to myself. Of course, then I get in here and I’m waiting for you to get here and I’m trying to do something on a computer and I, my day gets ruined again. I don’t know if we can talk about that if you want to, but I don’t know if you want me to go. If you can withstand some negativity. Oh well, let’s see. We might come back to that if it naturally occurs. We’re now gonna answer some of your questions. But first we’re gonna remind you that we have grooming products. We stay relatively well-groomed. This week you know, I mean, speaking of chimpanzees. Think about how much I care about my face. That’s all I’ve talked about for the past 15 minutes. Yeah so if you care about your face your body, fixing your hair, your skin and your. We’ve got things that can make that Your beard. better for you, Your beard, your lips, your hair, grooming. And if you want the things that we have now, we will not have them forever Right? In the current that they’re in. And some things may be going away forever, so I’m just, we’re just giving you this subtle warning that like, if you’re into the grooming products and you wanna make sure that you have some of these for posterity and maybe some of it it’s just because you really liked the current packaging, then I would say gobble it up, mythical.com. I will note that I’m wearing the shirt that you wore of mine on the podcast Yeah. a couple of episodes ago. Your shirt that became my shirt. And I just wanted to demonstrate that. I wasn’t wearing your shirt. When I was wearing it in my mind it was my shirt, you had given it to me. Well here’s the thing I have. And then you took it back. I have given you some shirts because some shirts are like borderline too small for me and then they get washed and then they become too small right. But because I have a precedent, there’s a little bit of a precedent doing that, sometimes my shirts get put into your area. I know you didn’t give me the shirt now. Right. But I did think you gave me the shirt then. But this shirt is not too small so. I don’t know how I ever wore that shirt now that I see it I mean. It’s almost too big for me. It fits you just right. Yeah I was actually experimenting with wearing larger shirts and now I’m done with that. Oh that one’s, I mean. Is this one larger? That one is larger, I mean, It’s larger down here. we both went through a tight shirt phase but I’m going back. Your tight shirt phase was so much too. Yeah too much. Did you see the rock? Yes. So, Yeah well what was up with that tightness? Well, he did his like endorsement of Biden and Harris famously, independently, political. The Rock came out and supported Biden and in the video, He had on half a shirt. There’s some of the things people have said about this shirt and like how he gets it on, it’s like. I think it was Eddie from, you know, Gus and Eddie. He like tweeted, breaking Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson endorses the tightest shirt of all time. Which it just struck me as Yeah it was a bit strange. But he almost looks like the grapes from Fruit of the Loom, you know like his muscles. Packs. His packs and his, everything is so developed. Wow. And then it was like so tight. And then somebody observed, how does he wear a shirt this tight and you can’t see even a hint of his nipples? Oh, really? I haven’t looked. I was like man you can’t see the nipples. And he’s like ’cause it’s a video. I think ’cause he puts, You think he tapes he puts tape over. tape his nipples? Puts tape over ’em. I think he just has really small, soft nipples. Might have had them removed surgically for that reason. For the smoothness of his tight shirts. Smoothness and tightness. But when you see a dude that’s that muscular wearing a tight shirt, you kind of just like, okay, first of all, I get it. You know, you’ve got those muscles Yeah. might as well show them off. Also, I assume that it’s hard to find a shirt that like imagine. Imagine the Rock in a shirt that fits like the one that you have on right now. Like how big would the shirt have to be to like have this extra in the sleeve? Yeah. Like, I mean, he would look ridiculous. But if you go back to like, I don’t know what year it was. I mean, what do you think was peak tightness? I mean, I got pretty tight, but you got extra tight. What was peak tightness? Like 2000 what? The thing is- 2012, 2014? I don’t know. I’d like to develop some sort of excuse or rationale as to how it happened. It was in the style. I think it was also, I would get really attached to shirts and then they would shrink. But I would really like the shirt and then I’d keep wearing it. Yeah I have a built-in sort of, ‘Cause I get very attached. I have a built in buffer for that because if the shirt gets tighter, it also gets shorter and then it’s so, Yeah. then it gets where I’m just like, you can see my belly when I reach for things and I’m like. That doesn’t happen to me. So I don’t even have the, you know, I don’t have the option, I gotta get long shirts. I get long shirts, wash them and then they become normal shirts for me. This is an extra long shirt which I’m surprised is why you wore it. I feel supported in a tighter shirt. I prefer sleeping in a tighter shirt ’cause I feel snuggled. Really? Yeah. Yeah so it actually makes me feel more secure. It’s like a dog in one of those security blanket things where you like when you sync a dog up Yeah. with something on its back. Like a baby in a burrito wrap, that’s like me. I didn’t do it for anybody. I didn’t do it for the look, I did it for the feel. So it makes you feel like you’re in the womb? Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Or in the loving arms of my mother. I mean maybe your mom had a much tighter uterus than my mom. I don’t care to comment on the tightness of our mothers’ uteri. Man that’s messed up, man. How big of a baby were you? Do you know the. I wasn’t that big of a baby. If I put a gun to your head and I wouldn’t do that. But if I were to do that and I want to say, if you can’t tell me how much you weighed as a baby, I’m gonna kill you. I’m gonna sting you with a bee. This is just a gun that has a bee on the end and Imma sting you on the face. I’d say I was seven pounds six ounces with confidence. And put the gun away. Really? I don’t know. Yeah I don’t know either, a seven something. Yeah I would just go for something believable. Let’s answer some questions. These are questions that we liked that you asked a while ago that we never got to. First one comes from Shell, the velvet hook. Oh, here we go A long time mythical beast. She’s got a picture of a, Me. You. You’re in the upper right hand. My nose and beard is in it, but we’ve got Patricia. Okay Patricia, Patricia. This is after the Golden Globes, she says- We did not go to the Golden Globes, but we went to a Golden Globes after party, which we talked about on Ear Biscuits. Right and we’ve done that several times. We’ve gone to after parties even wearing tuxedos. And it makes you seem like you went to the awards but you didn’t because you couldn’t get into the awards, but you can get into the after party. I think this was- It’s just a PR tactic. This was the first and last party that we attended wearing tuxedos. Which we now own because they said don’t rent the tuxedo, you should just buy it. That way you’ll have one whenever you need one again. And I’ve never worn it again. Well because I mean, COVID. COVID happened. I mean now no one’s wearing tuxes. But this is going up against 2019. This was like January, it’s a long time ago. Well the question is, I’m forever wondering what happened at the Golden Globes after party last year that led to Link Neal holding Patricia, I don’t know why I can’t see your name, Arquette’s award. Y’all never said anything about it when you talked about the party on Ear Biscuits, please tell us. Does this moment that’s captured here, does it, I mean, I’m firmly gripping and looking down at her award. She’s making eye contact with me and starting to grab the award. Does it look like she’s trying to take it back or that she’s finishing handing it to me? What is she looking at? She’s probably looking at you. She’s looking a little, I think she’s making eye contact with me. I think she is too. It’s a little too high for you. Yeah she’s looking at me. She’s like, why are you grabbing my award? That’s not what she’s thinking. Her husband’s right beside her. Don’t make this stranger than it is. I don’t know if that’s her husband. I do. You do? Yeah ’cause I remember that I met the guy and I just got that vibe that it wasn’t a handler. It wasn’t like an agent or like a, a professional person, this is a personal person. And the other reason is because here’s how this happened. This is what I do remember. Yeah. A girl came up to us like a teenager, Yap. and she was a fan and she was like, Oh my gosh, it’s so cool seeing you guys here. I’m a mythical beast. And then she ended up saying, I’m Patricia Arquette daughter. And then was it in the same moment that then she walked up or I think then she was like, sorry, I gotta go. And then she like followed her mom. And I think her dad somewhere else. Yeah this is the whole family right here. That Harlow is the daughter. Okay. Shout out to Harlow, mythical beast. But then we were mingling- She’s got quite a name, Harlow Olivia, how do you say that? You know you need to preserve her privacy man. She’s a celebrity’s daughter, man. Yeah, but she’s not a celebrity. She’s I think she’s a, Yeah she is. I think she’s an oter. Okay. So we’re mingling around this party and the best that I can recall, we like say hello to her again. And then we started talking to like Patricia was talking to a lot of people. I mean, when you’ve won, she won the Golden Globe for best performance by an actress in a TV movie or mini series for Escape at Dannemora. Which was, it’s a true story of a woman who worked at a prison helping two guys escape. Seems pretty cool, never saw it. Directed by Ben Stiller. You know a lot about this. Well I had to look it up because I couldn’t remember any of it. And she gave an acceptance speech. Like a lot of it was bleeped because she was talking about her, her janked up fake teeth and her janked up real teeth. And then she was using the F-bomb a lot. But she’s a very spirited person. And she always, when she wins a lot of stuff because she’s super talented and she has these famous speeches where she like takes a stand on issues- She’s like I’m up here, I’m gonna take advantage of it. She’s always the talk of the town the next day. So even that night after she won and had given this memorable speech, I believe about voting actually. Voting in 2020, ironically enough. And voting in 2018. No that for 2019. So she was way ahead of the game on that. And so a lot of people are trying to talk to her and get a little time with her, but like we had an end because of her daughter. And then she turns around and I don’t remember what happened, but I’m sure we said something that made sense, or at least you did. And then I’m like congratulations or something. And I’m pretty sure I was just like, Can I hold it? Can I hold it? Yeah. I mean, how often do you get a chance to hold a Golden Globe? Well, I think our only opportunity is probably gonna be, Then. At the after party. at the after party when we ask someone who won one. Right I’m like can I hold it? And it’s like, I wonder if anybody else asked her that? Or does anyone ask anybody that? It’s, I mean, It’s a little, It kinda comes full circle though. You know what I’m saying? Because, For a man who gets embarrassed for falling off of his bike in front of his friend who doesn’t give a shit, I don’t know why. I think you get embarrassed by much. Yeah, I wasn’t- So I think that the, I held it, look, I’m holding it right there, it’s proof. The instinct to ask if you can hold it, which I completely relate to and understand is sort of based in, you know, being from Harnett County right? Because when you boil it all down, we’re just a couple of guys who grew up in Harnett County. Yeah. Who the idea of a Golden Globe is like, can I hold it? You know what I’m saying? ‘Cuase it’s foreign. I mean, by definition it is foreign. It is foreign. And so, but then the difference between me and you is I’ll think that and wonder and think, but I don’t want to necessarily just reveal that I’m from Harnett County. And then you’re like, well, I don’t care. But the interesting thing is when I’m saying when it comes full circle is that, by actually going full circle and asking if you can hold it, I don’t think that Patricia Arquette thinks that, Oh, this guy’s a redneck. I think she’s just like, Oh, this guy just, he wants to hold the Golden Globe. Patricia is the releast of the real. I’m gonna hand it to him. And I’m like, you know, you might as well just check our potential at the door when you’re interacting with Ms. Arquette. She graciously, she was like sure. But the thing that, And we held it and I think I said something about how heavy it was. Well of course that’s the only thing you can say. Yeah ’cause what else? It’s kind of like being a celebrity and saying, Yeah. You’re shorter than I thought you’d be. Right, right, right. And we’re gonna say this is much lighter. It must be hollows. Yeah this is cheap. Is this the real one? Yeah right. And it was heavy. One of the things, we talked about this before that we’ve learned about these after-parties is streamies are not that heavy. The photographer, you know there’s people going around taking pictures and like, you wanna create these moments. That’s why we, one time we, we fake the fight at the GQ party or wherever it was. And we’ve got a picture taken. But the, Look on my face. Is that what were gonna talk about? No, I’m just saying that, That’s a dumb look. You holding the Golden Globe, I’m staring at it. You could think, Oh this must be someone that she really knows and is connected to because she’s letting him hold. You know what I’m saying? You don’t, It kind of looks like she’s trying to my award. You wanna tell a story. It was like, oh this guy, who’s that guy? Did he win one? Right. So I’m saying that doing these kinds of things is ultimately a good thing because you will get good photos taken. Yeah, I have many people congratulate me on my Golden Globe. Nope, that’s not true. Let’s ask another question. So we cleared that one up Shell. Long time coming but we did it. 1iron4 Put the rumors to rest. 1iron4, this doesn’t keep me up at night. I think ’cause we asked you guys, is there anything that keeps you up at night? But that when we sleep, we just see the back of our eyelids. Like our eyes don’t turn off or anything. It’s just covering them like sunglasses. The way you just read that, seemed like you were just reading it to yourself. Can you read it again in a way it can makes sense to me? Well it’s not really phrased as a question. It’s a statement. When we sleep, we just see the back of our eyelids. Like our eyes don’t turn off or anything. It’s just covering them like sunglasses. I know what’s up here. For the longest time I thought whenever I would sleep or even just close my eyes. I honestly thought, I’ll say as a child, okay. That my eyes rolled in the back of my head. I thought that like, as the shades came down, the eyes rolled back. You mean like a baby doll? You know like if you lay one of those baby dolls down that is what happens. Their eyelids are weighted, so they come out there. There’s a weight on the back of some baby dolls eyelids, so that when you turn it like that, it swivels and then covers. But the eyeball The eyeball stays the same on the babydoll. Yeah I thought the eyeball rolled back in the head. And then, Can you feel what that feels like though? Because then when you open your eyes, I mean I guess they- When you open your eyes after being closed for awhile, it kind of has a sensation of them rolling back. Well they might go back a little bit. That ain’t true. But they move around a lot during REM. But no, what 1iron4 is talking about is what you see. So earlier on when I was a child and I don’t return to this as much anymore. I’ll think about it but like I just noticed it when I close my eyes, if I really stopped and focused, I could lock into basically a light show that has the sensation that I’m like traveling through space and seeing stars pass by me. Like a bunch of little dots right. And in the way to enhance this is is if you just take your eyes and you press on them, it will enhance that effect. And also potentially hurt your eyes. No, I’m just pressing very lightly. But then there it is, okay. Now I have focused on this like membrane. This does not happened to you? No, but, I think you haven’t focused on it. I haven’t. I think you have to see something. I looked up an explanation for it. And when I read the explanation, I was like, I’ve never experienced this and it is what you described. So let me read that explanation and then I’ll try it. A Huffington post article. You close your eyes and right before you fall asleep, he noticed something, a twinkling. A swirling pattern of stars and colors producing a makeshift light show on the inside of your closed eyelids. Yeah. That’s what you’re describing. Many people who have seen this visual phenomenon think it is a light induced after image of what they had seen before they closed their eyes which It’s not. I mean, if you stare at a light or something bright and then close your eyes, you still see an after image. That does happen, But that’s not at all what I’m talking about. And in this agrees, but an after image may only be part of what they are seeing. The real reason we are treated to this fuzzy fireworks display behind closed lids has to do with phosphenes P H O S P H E N E S phosphenes are the moving visual sensations of stars and patterns we see when we close our eyes. They are thought to be caused by the inherent electrical charges the retina produces, even when it is in its resting state. So it’s like you’re looking at a wire that has electricity going through it essentially. See I just close my eyes and I feel like I’m seeing, I’m definitely seeing some after images. We got some like strong light sources. You need to cover your eyes gently and press on your eyeballs gently. Man I’ve still got swelling. And then you have to stop. And then there is like a, it’s very difficult to acknowledge it. But once you acknowledge it and focus on it, you can actually follow like the fabric of space time that you’re seeing inside your eyes. Sometimes it’s really, really easy and obvious, but hold on. Okay there it is, I’m locked in again and I can literally see like this, it’s like stars, but they’re super tightly packed stars. And they’re very, very faint. And do they move? Yes, it’s like constantly moving. Like you’re moving through them. It’s very hard to finally focus on and see, but I did it as a kid and ever since then I’ve been able to do. I can’t seem to do it. Yeah I think you just have to like, I think you just need some time alone and a lot of time. You know just- A lot of time alone? You need a lot of time alone because it’s. You know what it is? It’s the same exact sensation. It’s a totally different principle, but it’s the same sensation of staring at one of those weird things in the mall and all of a sudden seeing it. Oh it was there all along, but I had to like cross my eyes a little bit. Like that’s how it feels. Here’s something strange, you talking about that weird guy who would always sit in front of mrs. Fields cookies and like make you not want to get a cookie ’cause he was like, why is he always on that bench? Do you know what I’m talking about? Yeah, yeah. The things that you look at where you sit. The hidden images. What do you call ’em? We put one in the Book of Mythicality. Can’t remember what it’s called? Did it work though? Did the one in the Book of Mythicality work? No, once we decided that we didn’t have the capability to create one, we made it a joke that on the next page we revealed that there was nothing there. Right, ’cause it’s not easy to create one. But we thought oh sure- We did not want to spend the money, Surely there’s a company, to hire those people. that does this, but it’s not as easy as you think. Well, sometimes if you’re just with your eyes open, if you’re staring, like if you’re just like relaxing and then your eyes just kinda. You’re like your eyes open, but you’re not really using them. See floaters, You can start to see floaters. And it’s like, you’re seeing things on the surface of your eyeball, Looking at a- moving around. Looking at a clear blue sky, Like, I mean, Yeah. The funny thing is, as a kid I already had floaters. I guess I got more now. But I don’t sit around and look at them anymore. But like as a kid, I would just look at the sky and then I would start following the floaters and I would try to like move my eye Right. not too fast. I can do that. You know that’s totally different thing- ‘Cause it’ll start drifting and that’s really your eye drifting I think. ‘Cause then when you try to focus on it moves back. I think that it’s slowly moving across the surface of your eye Oh. ’cause your eye is wet. But then if you focus on it, it will move. It moves with your eye. Yeah and that’s when you can start to feel like it’s on there. But I highly recommend the phosphenes. Just closed eye visualization. Okay. It’s gonna get a little heavier. Let’s get a little heavier. Okay, yeah let’s do it. Swaine, Michael Swaine. What is the Achilles heel of the human race? We always talk about finding the Achilles heel to aliens if they came for war to defeat them, what is ours? And can we do anything to bolster it? What is the Achilles heel of the human race? I think because my mind is still in this largely in the same place it was when we recorded the last episode. Which I know kind of ended on a downer when I started talking about how we’re hopelessly divided as a country and I had this hopeless feeling. It’s been weighing on me. I think, as we get closer to the election it’s- But by the time this comes out, we’re barreling down Like two weeks yeah. on the election. So, And who knows what will happen between us talking about this Between now and then. and being that much closer. But the rhetoric and the heated dialogue and the people getting into their trenches. It is so pronounced right now. And so I’ve been thinking about this like, and just one thought I have, I’m not gonna say this is the Achilles heel, but I think one of the things that has happened. Because I’ve been thinking about like longer term, more global things and like. You know, it’s one thing to talk about the impending demise of democracy in the United States. Which, Let’s say potential. I’d like to have some hope. Well, I’m just saying, yeah, the potentially impending demise. I’m not saying it’s definitely gonna happen. But again, when you think about the United States, I mean, we’re still talking about. If you think about all of human history, we’re still talking about a very small period of time that the United States has been around. It’s not gonna be around forever right? What worked a generation ago might not work now like. But if you think about like the human race and the history of just us as a species and our future, which I think is kind of the 50,000 foot view that Michael Swaine is talking about. Like the whole human race. So I think that a big issue is that our technological evolution has outpaced our moral evolution. So you’re talking social dilemma. Well, to me Which I watched recently. it’s bigger than the Social Dilemma. But yeah, the social dilemma is like a symptom of it. But I guess ultimately what I’m saying is like, it’s just from a general, like almost a mathematical logical equation. We’ve developed the ability to destroy ourselves before we’ve developed the collective will to protect each other. And so if we don’t continue to evolve morally to a place where, you know, empathy wins versus sort of this self-absorbed group mentality. Yep. It will end. As we know it, civilization will end. I’m not saying that the human race will go extinct. Well I mean it- But what we understand human civilization to be will not last unless those things balance out. Now that we have to just talk about the Social Dilemma. The documentary connecting the dots that I felt like I was aware of but it was like, it was a nice packaging of it. Yeah. Of just connecting the dots between how the information is served up to you is so customized for you that it’s not about truth. It’s about whatever you will click on. And that we are the commodity. Our eyeballs are the commodities that are being sold to advertising. A different product yeah. And it felt weird to be, you know, In our business. To be in the business we’re in. That we’re creating content that then. You know, we attract certain eyeballs and then people buy that, you know, even on this show. So that’s like, I don’t wanna, That’s a whole different podcast. That’s a whole different conversation but you know. Just being struck with the reality of how divisive, how customization leads to division. You know, when everything’s just for me and everything is presented to each person, whatever they will respond to the most, not what is the most truthful or the correct thing. Then you get in these bubbles where if you google, the the things that stand out for me is that if you google climate change is depending on who you are and what Google knows about you and where you are, who you are, the more information they can get, the more it’s gonna fill that in with something that you are going to respond to. Not something that’s going to give you facts. Because the algorithm is- Global warming is a hoax. Right. Or global warming is is true, you know, it’s just one example. The thing that was news to me, again, like you said. Like, I think everybody has a little bit of a sense of this. That these are the polarizing effects of like your Facebook feeding your newsfeed. But the google thing was striking because you start seeing it like, Oh yeah, this algorithm which is. The algorithm is not programmed with truth in mind right. It isn’t fact checking itself. It’s just like, my goal is to keep you user on the computer connected online as long as possible to expose you to as much advertising as possible. So it’s definitely like one of the things that happens is, you know, some people are super, super fear-based. And so they’re gonna just, any news that is telling them about all the shit that’s going down somewhere and how things are getting really, really bad. Like they’re addicted to that type of information. That kind of dooms day situation. And so they’re gonna click on those kinds of things. And you’re like, oh crap, it’s like, how have I been susceptible to this. If you’re scared, you’re gonna, if you feed off of fear, then you’re be fed more of fear. If you’re fed off of outrage or anger, you’re gonna be fed that. On either side, Yeah. you’re gonna be pushed to an extreme because that’s what we respond to, extremes. Well and the crazy thing is if you’re scared of something being told that you shouldn’t be scared of something is not a strategic way for an algorithm. You don’t wanna swage the fears. You want to enhance and feed the fears. So you wanna keep giving you the stuff that ah the cities are falling apart or whatever. And it doesn’t happen to one group. It happens to, the more entrenched you are, and the more involved you are Yeah. with the algorithms on whatever platform. It polarizes you in both directions. Because for me it’s, you’ve got people like for years now I think. Like Sacha Baron Cohen the comedian, Borat you know, has been very vocal in sounding an alarm about this. He’s not the only one, but, you know, it’s just like, I was like, I think he’s in an interesting position because of how he kind of, his entertainment has been to psychologically manipulate people and expose people’s true colors right. But he’s very outraged in how people are being manipulated without them knowing. Yeah. But it’s not something that, you know, okay. It’s not that fun to listen to somebody get that upset and it’s not that, but then you. The documentary is really well made. It makes it a little more palatable to explore the ideas. But then it’s kind of like watching Super Size Me and then saying, are you really never gonna eat McDonald’s or fast food again, not really. You know, it’s like, which is so entrenched. And like we’re not on Facebook and the way that we’re on Instagram and Twitter is like, it’s professionally and it’s different. But I feel like we’ve been on the outskirts of a lot of this. And I just haven’t understood the extent to which people will only get information that works for them. And so it’s like, whenever you think, how could anybody believe fill in the blank. I mean, all this information I’m reading, it’s a foregone conclusion that X, Y, and Z. And then it’s like well, because someone else is getting a completely different set of information and it’s scary. But I don’t think you’re getting that this being the Achilles heel of the human race right. Well, I am You are? in one sense, because, you know if you think about it- It’s the fact that you were gonna say like, is it ego? And I prefer if there’s a tie. Well no. Yeah I guess what I’m getting at is, this is not unexpected at all right. So if you think about the history of humankind like we actually have not adapted to believe truth right? In fact, it’s more strategic from a natural selection evolutionary standpoint to believe things that aren’t true. In fact, I think it was in Sapiens where he explains this really, really well. Where he just talks about like, as a matter of fact our ability to believe things that aren’t true, that are kind of outside of the natural realm to kind of hold onto a thought, an ideological idea is what enabled us to kind of come together and do things. But we’re always coming together at the expense of another group of people. So take it like two examples, like you’ve got two villages. It’s more advantageous for my village to believe things that are not true about your village. And also to believe things that are not true about my own village. Because if I’m trying to pass my genes on and my village wants to win versus your village. It’s like, I’m gonna make things up about your village. Like they’re nasty, they believe crazy stuff, they deserve to die. And if I can believe that then I can go and I can feel justified in killing them right. And we’re kind of seeing a version of that. We’re not necessarily, I mean, people are killing each other. But the more common thing is people are just completely riding off a whole group of people and thinking certain things about them, having all kinds of assumptions about them. And then feeding themselves with all this information that makes them feel better about being able to believe that and kind of perpetuates it. So if it gets back to this idea of like our technology, I mean, you could say things like well, we develop the ability to literally destroy our planet. Like flute nuclear weapons right. Before we developed a respect and an empathy for one another where we wouldn’t be the enemy. ‘Cause what did we do? We developed a nuclear weapon and then we used it on a population. We dropped two atom bombs on two cities. Like within a couple of, you know, decades after, I can’t remember, I don’t know the timeline, not that many years after developing the technology it was used. And it’s a wonder that it hasn’t been used again. But I mean, listen, I go back to. And you’ve got these really smart computer dudes who’ve just like created these algorithms in order to engage people and connect people socially. And it, but it has all these, they’re not, I mean, you see the hearings. You see Mark Zuckerberg at the hearings it’s like deer in headlights, but people come into grips with, and I haven’t read all the articles about it, but, you know, Jack Dorsey or whatever the head of Twitter is, and like the journey that he’s gone on like. Finding yourself in this position of you’ve created this thing, which may very well be a monster. Then it’s like, that’s not what you set out to create. And it’s, but now you have that amount of power like, it’s like, it’s scary. Yeah. And it is comparable, it’s comparable. I think it’s a huge piece of it. Like, yeah, it’s exactly what I’m saying like. The technological advance to be able to connect the world in this way that seems so promising, but yet you’re connecting people who haven’t morally evolved. We haven’t morally evolved to a place where we can actually be more interested in the interest of another person than ourselves. Like we haven’t gotten there yet. And you know, you tell- So, selfishness and, I’m trying to pinpoint that Achilles heel. And just trying to To me, pinpoint what you’re saying. I’m just saying ultimately, it’s the pacing of the technology getting ahead of the moral evolution. Because I do think that there is a place that I, you know. I think the natural, it seems to me that the natural sort of progression of humanity, even though, especially from like the background that we come from, like an evangelical christian mindset is what we were raised in. And the narrative is that things are getting worse. It’s one of the reasons that evangelical christians tend to be conservative because there is this idea that things used to be good and the world is in decay. And things are moving towards the end times up until the point where Jesus will come back. So things are getting worse as you go. Whereas a progressive mentality is actually things used to be pretty shitty. Like people got killed all the time by each other and by disease and, you know, as time has gone on we’ve actually gotten things have gotten better for more people. Steven Pinker has a great book about this that kind of explains how things have actually gotten better just by the raw numbers. Things are moving towards more connectivity and more equality for more people, right. I mean, it’s tough to get there. But I just think that we haven’t gotten to a place where we can really put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. And now, it’d be one thing if we got to a place where it was like, yes, we were super empathetic and we were cooperative and we saw ourselves as one human race. We saw ourselves as stewards of the planet. And then we develop the ability to be interconnected. Like the things that we could do would be amazing. But we haven’t gotten there yet. I mean, think about this is 2020. We’ve known the science behind global warming for decades now, right? It’s relatively simple science. It’s that very small changes in the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere and other greenhouse gases leads to more retained heat. It’s complex, but the overall principle is pretty simple, right? And lots of people sounding the alarm. Seeing all kinds of the beginnings of like more and more evidence building in this direction. Everyone who looks at this as seeing more and more evidence. But yet there’s a whole group of people, including the president who are saying that this is not happening, right. They’re saying this is not happening. And in fact, this is a government’s attempt to overreach and control and all this stuff. And the amount of misinformation around this issue, that could be the only thing that matters a hundred years from now. It could be, I hope it isn’t. And it’s hard not to see that as just trying to protect. The people entrenched on that side, trying to protect something that they want to hold onto dearly that benefits them personally. And maybe that’s an oversimplification by being on the other side of the issue. Well here’s what I would say. To me, it doesn’t like you don’t even have to get into the science of global warming to like be pro green technology. I mean, like, if you just think about it logically, if you think about, we currently are based in a system that is taking advantage of a finite resource that took millions of years to develop. And we’re depleting it in a couple of generations. Like, it doesn’t matter. Even if global warming wasn’t a thing transitioning to primarily renewable energy would be a no freaking brainer. And we’d be like, who knows what’s gonna happen. Maybe we’re gonna get hit by an asteroid someday, and we’re gonna go into a nuclear winter for a few years and we’re gonna need to burn this coal and need to burn this oil. We need to hold onto it. The only thing that you can point to and again, this is somebody, I was a evangelical christian, conservative for most of my adult life or a good portion of my adult life. And so when I thought about the issue of global warming, the only thing I thought about was I’m not supposed to believe that that’s real. Because it’s not consistent with my ideology and my platform. I can’t believe that that’s real because that’s some sort of conspiracy that’s just designed for the government to take control of everyone. And so did I ever stop and think, but like. So in other words, I was allergic to actually investigating it and looking into it. I was allergic to any sort of viewpoint that might be the opposite of what I thought at the time. You’re saying you had a blind allegiance. I think the thing that’s difficult is that, I mean, if you look at the COVID experience in the United States and you look at how poorly, you look at the numbers compared to the rest of the world. And there’s few countries that rival the number of deaths that we’ve had, it’s just, I mean, It’s not as simple as, we as Americans just haven’t been willing to place the greater good above our own current needs. I mean it’s personal needs or wants or desires for freedom or ideology or whatever the reasons are. That is true for sadly, a bunch of people, I think. But then there’s also these people who are like, their livelihood depends on it. When you think about like a dependence on fossil fuels yeah you got all of this money. The most profitable business in the history of our planet is the fossil fuel industry. But then you’ve got people, By far. Working class people who their livelihoods depend on this industry, you know. And so you’ve got to address, that has to be part of what’s addressed in order to, to get through. To get through COVID, to stem the tide of climate change is that there are people who are in dire straits, or will be as a result of the necessary changes to stem the tide of our own decimation. And a lot of people, it’s just like, I gotta survive tomorrow. Yeah it’s a very short-term mentality for sure. But it’s sad when you zoom out that it’s really driven by the ultra rich. Who are fueled by and fueling these industries when it comes to climate change. Manipulating the conversation and manipulating the information and making it seem like, well there’s a debate here right. And I mean, I think that’s true a lot of the big issues, when you look at healthcare, if you look at like universal health care and you’re like, why wouldn’t anyone want everyone to be able to get treatment when they needed it? You know. It’s like, well, it’s just a lot more complicated in that. And that’s a sad reality, but that doesn’t, I’m not saying that it’s not complicated I’m saying it is, but that doesn’t change the fact that well at a certain point, we have to band together to do the right thing. And unless we do, these things will never change. That’s what’s so sad is that it’s gonna take all of us, right. I mean it’s- Well, Because the change is, You know. happening at such an accelerated pace. It’s gonna take a majority of us, you know. Well if unless democracy completely collapses. At that point, and in some senses in America that has already happened and it has been the case. It’s like the people with money, they’re in control, and they’re manipulating the conversation and have a very much higher influence in the conversation so. But yeah, you know, I like saw the thing where the governor of California, Gavin Newsom was talking about, okay I mean he’s got this executive order where you know. We’re gonna ban the sale of gas powered cars by 2035. And he didn’t say he was gonna ban gas powered cars period. If you have one, you can still drive it. But the sale of new cars in 15 years from now. And, And just cars like small. ‘Cause industrial, like farm vehicles, trucks, and stuff like that it’s 2045. Like I said, we’re giving them 25 years to get on board. Now predictably but still like so sad saddening to me is like the response, like nine out of 10 responses to this on Twitter are, this guy is crazy. This is incredibly crazy. So what we got, is we’ve got a situation where I hope that they’re wrong, but the people who know a lot more about this than I do are telling me that I should be worried about this, right. That I should care about what’s happening. This is what’s happening on earth. And this is what could happen on earth, If we don’t do anything about this. And then somebody in a position of power says, all right, well, here’s what I’m going to do. And then he’s just, he’s treated as an idiot. So until, those people are never gonna go away. There’s always gonna be people who are like gonna just, you know, not believe, you know. Maybe a hundred years from now when there’s absolutely no doubt that climate change happened and that the humans were responsible for the vast majority of this particular portion of it, in this point in history, it’ll just be like, yeah there used to be people who said it wasn’t happening. Yeah, I mean, they were wrong. It’s so frustrating But, Why can’t we just have a conversation about how we’re going to deal with it and not if it exists or if we should deal with it. It’s maddening. But the real question is, is a hundred years from now have things changed so drastically. I mean, I’m an optimist. As much as I might seem like a pessimist. I do think then I’m like, surely they’re gonna figure this out. Like technology like they’re gonna find some way to get the carbon out of the air. We’re gonna transition to green technology. We’re gonna look back and be like, Yeah there was this weird time in the early 2000s where like everybody was confused about what was happening. There was all this misinformation. There was this weird thing happening with social media. People were confused and nobody knew what was going on, but we got through it Yeah, it’s just like, and it gets pretty bad. once we have a vaccine for COVID everyone’s gonna forget about the whole mask fiasco. You know, I don’t wanna have to wear a mask because I’ll just wait for the vaccine. You know, it’s like, and I feel like we’re in a position, we’re in a privileged position. You know, because we’re well off, we’re privileged and it look at it from almost any angle. And I just Yeah. you know there’s, to me honestly, I feel like, maybe this just exposes me for like a lot of critique, but I feel like it. I’m in a bit of a more objective place because you know, I’m not going paycheck to paycheck. My livelihood is not directly tied to a certain ideology. I mean, us talking like this, we may lose fans, but we’re not being threatened. I don’t understand why. And I think that’s why celebrities like movie stars and people are like, who when they speak out, people will say things like just shut up and be a basketball player, or just shut up and be an actor you know. You get to a point of privilege where you can say, I have so much money. I think these superstars like Leonardo DiCaprio or George Clooney, they have so much money that they can actually say, you know what? I can actually do the right thing. I can afford to do the right thing. And I don’t think that’s why they’re doing it, but it’s like, to me, you can listen to those people who are saying these things, because they’re trying to do the right thing. That’s the skin they have in the game. And I feel for the people who, you know, it’s hard for them to do the right thing, because it directly affects their livelihood. Like are they gonna get another paycheck or something like that. And then you got the people who have all the money, who aren’t doing the right thing. Who are only thinking about themselves. I think there’s a stark contrast there and so. Well, and there’s also you know. And we saw this when we told our deconstruction story it’s like, you know. We have one perspective on the world that we came from and the world that we’re in right now. Well people who are still in that world are like, well you guys are in a cult now, you know what I’m saying? Like you guys had it right. You were in the right place. You had the right mentality, the right ideology. And then for personal reasons you know, because you wanted fame and fortune, and you knew that you had to adopt these liberal mindset and be vocal about it in order to receive the blessings of the masses. And of Hollywood, you had to do these things. So you guys are just following a script, a very predictable script. And that’s the only reason that you talk about this stuff in the way that you talk about it now. And for someone who believes that, which I would have believed that, at this one point in my life. I can’t say anything that’s gonna be convincing. There’s nothing that I can say. If I can say, well, the reason that I left the place that I was in, what I was actually concerned about truth. And I feel like I followed the evidence in the data to a different place. Now, I’m I some fricking robot who only makes decisions based on data? No. I’m still part of the human race. I’m still susceptible to the group mentality. I’m still susceptible to buying into ideology. I’m still susceptible to buying into a whole platform. Yes I’m still susceptible to feeling like I have to say something just to make people feel like I believe the right thing. It’s like, yes, I’m still a human. But because I came from a place that was, the ideology was very strong and it was very developed and the thinking was very systematic and there was a herd mentality. I became uncomfortable with that. And I was like, I kind of feel like I’m being told to believe a certain set of things, because this is what makes it all seem to fit together and makes us all feel connected. But like, I actually feel like some of it’s not true guys. And what ended up doing is I ended up getting out of that. And so. Which is why I now worship Bill Gates. So Jessie and I, The guy who can. Yeah we’re really sensitive to this because I don’t want I’m really, this is why politically I’m an independent. I’m not a registered Republican or a registered Democrat. And I’m not saying that as like a point of pride, but for me it’s like a principle. Because I’m like, I don’t want to jump out of this camp that’s basically supported and sort of bolstered by ideological thinking, and then just move into this other camp. And again, this may sound like, oh, well, you’ve done that. But I try to be as critical of it as I can. But when it comes to this, like the issue of climate change, which again, I think is sort of supersedes, it might not. But if what they’re saying is true then it does supersede everything else. And it is sort of the problem of our generation and the biggest threat humanity’s ever faced. And the one thing that we actually need to agree on and tackle together. I’m in the boat that’s like, all right, what if it’s not as bad as they’re saying? What if it doesn’t happen? Like what does coming together and working together on a problem. Like, how does humanity coming together? How is it bad? It doesn’t make sense to me. Like I’m not threatened by unity in the way that I used to be. Like the idea of like our borders not being that important and coming together this whole idea of like one world. Like I actually, I’m encouraged by that now. ‘Cause I think it’s the only hope for humanity. I don’t think that this let’s separate, let’s build the walls, let’s differentiate ourselves. Like we’ve already seen what that does. That results in death and destruction. Yeah I think the Achilles heel it’s that deeply rooted drive for self-preservation. I mean, ironically for survival on an, On an individual level. Yeah, which i.e. selfishness. And it’s tricky ’cause it’s not just individual. It’s individual and then it’s group. But it’s very difficult for the empathy to spread outside of the in-group. The in-group and out-group mentality. It’s funny, the irony of becoming super connected through technology, but not having developed the brain. And I’m not saying this is not how much stupidity or intelligent, I’m just saying our brains have not developed to a place yet where we actually can get out of the ingroup and outgroup thinking, all of us. And the technology has instead of connecting us its enhanced the in grouping and out grouping. In a way that like, we’re more divided now than we ever were. Like people, I saw a guy tweet. He was a liberal dude, progressive dude. And he was talking about how his Trump supporting neighbor was locked out of his house and it was raining. And he was like, he tweeted like my Trump supporting neighbor is locked. My MAGA neighbor is locked out of his house. What should I do? Oh God. And the people started like saying, well you should just let him sit out there in the rain and all this stuff. And I was just like, how is this a question? I don’t care, honestly, I don’t care who the dude supports. I mean, I may care and I may disagree. But like, if my neighbor is locked out of his house, and needs me to help him, needs me to call somebody. That’s what we should be doing. You know what I’m saying? Like we’ve lost the ability, we’re like, I’m not gonna help you because I disagree with you politically. Like, I’m not gonna help you with a basic need. Like what the hell has happened to people? How is this even a question and how is it that you can ask this question on Twitter and people, I mean, some people were like, you should help the dude. I mean, okay yeah you disagree with him politically. You may stand against every value that he has, but he’s a human in need, help him. You know, and I see that and I’m just like, that is not a lot of hope. There’s not a lot of hope. And that to me it just seems like common decency. And I just don’t get it. I don’t understand you know. I’ve got lots of people in my life who are gonna vote for Trump. And I got lots of people in my life who were gonna vote for Biden. And I can have intelligent, you know, respectable debate with them. And I may like really, really, really have strong opinions about this. It may even get heated at times, but the moment that they get hurt or they need something basic my connection to them as a fellow human supersedes my political ideology. And if it doesn’t, we are doomed, doomed. I thought you said this was gonna get heavy. All right, well at least we just solved it, it’s my rec. I’m gonna try to turn it back to something light. I’m gonna recommend, I’m gonna go back to our board game episode. Yeah good. I talked about the board game that I had ordered called Parks. So rec baby rec baby one, two, three, four. This is my recommendation. You can get it at Target, Barnes and Noble, Amazon Parks by Key Master Games. I had ordered it through their Kickstarter campaign. They raised like over half a million dollars to do the expansion pack because this game is so popular. And you know what? It’s not here yet because I didn’t order through the places I just said. My game arriving was delayed until the expansion pack was produced as well. ‘Cause I joined this like a higher level of Kickstarter. ‘Cause that was just excited to play a game about national parks. To hopefully get my kids into games and national parks at the same time. The artwork is really great. The workmanship on these things is really great. I’ve already talked this up, but then in the mail, I got the game. Before the expansion pack is out. And inside there was a note from the people at Key Master Games. They had heard our conversation about, They sent you an early copy? Yeah. Because the game itself is available other places. And they had that in stock. They went ahead and sent that to me, along with like a personalized note about having heard our conversation and like getting more kids and families into playing games. It was a very sweet. I keep the letter from them in the game. I paid for it, they didn’t give it to me for free. I mean I didn’t want it for free. And this is not, again, this is not a sponsor. And I’m still waiting on an expansion pack, but we started to play it. It was a little, it was a bit of a learning curve having not played a lot of games. And then like the family, they didn’t have a lot of patience. Chris was like, you know what, why don’t you like Spend some time with this. Why don’t we put a pin in this. Maybe you can watch a video that like shows how to play the game instead of you trying to figure it out and teach us at the same time. I was like, you know what? That’s fair. So we like, we reconvened, I did some research, I watched some play throughs. And then I knew how to play the game. Hot tip, if you’re gonna teach your family how to play a game, you should already know how to play it. ‘Cause it could be- Or maybe just show them the video. very slow and frustrating. Well, I watched like an hour and a half play through. Okay. I’m now that guy. I watched board games being played for an hour and a half on YouTube. That’s what it took. And then we played it. And then last night after dinner, Lily and Lando were like, let’s play Parks again. Like the two of them hardly ever wanna do the same thing. And then we played again last night. Very good game. Well worth the 50 bucks which you have to pay to get the game. What is the object? To visit parks and have just an amazing experience with lots of great memories. Basically to have the most number of points at the end of the game by visiting the most parks. And there’s like resources involved. How do you sabotage other players? You can block them out of getting to places on the hike that they need to get to in order to reach their personal goals in order to rank up their points. Isn’t it funny if the object of the game was just for everybody to get what they wanted and everybody to have a good time you wouldn’t enjoy it? I mean, I’m just saying Yeah. the reason I asked that question is because, it goes back to the conversation we just had. There’s something inside of us that we, we don’t want everybody to win. We don’t want everybody to win. Only one person can win the game and you have to, yeah. You’re trying to do everything strategically in order to yeah. But that appeals to us. To block people out. That appeals to something that is so deeply. In other words, what I’m saying is, and I’m not trying to be the downer. Again I know you tried to bring it up. But it may be that that mentality is so deeply ingrained in us that there is no scenario where all of a sudden we become nine, 10 billion people on a planet and it’s just a utopia. Like maybe it’s not possible. Maybe there’s always gotta be a winner and always gotta be a loser. It’s something in our brains that we are never gonna be able to let go of, unless there’s some sort of deprogramming. And so we’re gonna build the population up and then we’re gonna decimate one another and then it’s gonna start again and it’s always gonna happen like that. Well, I’ll say because of the artwork is so beautiful and because it’s about experiencing parks, it feels better. It feels better. And like I enjoy working my brain in order to strategize to get as many points as possible. But if I lose, I still find myself being pretty happy. Maybe the key- Lincoln doesn’t though. I’ll tell you. He gets upset? Lincoln in competitive. Okay yeah, good for him. Here’s the thing, I’m very competitive as we’ve established. But yet I still want the world to work together. I want us to get to utopia. But I just kind of feel like there’s not enough people on board. And that’s what I was trying to say about celebrities. It’s like, in a lot of ways, I feel like I’ve gotten what I want out of life. It’s like the Bill Gates of it all. He’s gotten what he wants out of life and now he’s devoted his time, his energy and his massive resources to making a positive difference. It’s like I’m not gonna say You mean controlling. You mean, I’m not gonna say that Controlling your mind and manipulating your idea. Does he have completely pure motives? Does anybody? But like, he’s one of them. He’s in a position that makes him, I deam him more trustworthy. And I feel like, honestly, from my own experience. I think that was mostly Melinda. Okay. I think she was the one who was like, All right. I think Bill, Yeah. We’re the richest people on earth. Yeah. Let’s do some good. And I think she talked him into it. That’s kind of what I think. I take it all back and apply it to Melinda. It is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Yeah. after all, I was gonna make a statement about alterior motives and like figuring all that out. But I don’t want to go back there. Just enjoy Parks, the board game. Enjoy Parks and just enjoy parks in general. If you can get into one Oh yeah do that. Hash tag EarBiscuits. To watch more Ear biscuits, click on the playlist on the right. To watch the previous episode of Ear Biscuits, click on the playlist to the left. And don’t forget to click on the circular icon to subscribe. 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