Transcript
Speaker: Lights start changing and there's wires in the air and the asphalt. Man, it's all around me. And I look down and my shoes are so far away from me.
Speaker: Man, I can't believe it. I've got a real indication.
Speaker: Um, Pierce. Yes. Matthew. Yes. And Derek. What? Host a podcast called Chamber of Reason. This is... oh get on with it!
Speaker: Um, and so guys, I have a question for you. whoa Would you rather have... Another would you rather, huh? Fire...
Speaker: powers Real Would You Rather vibes with this question. Water powers. Wait, can you repeat? Fire powers, water powers. yeah Electricity powers. plant powers.
Speaker: m plant powers And you can only have one. And by the way, if you pick water powers, you don't also get ice powers. Okay. And if you pick plant powers, you don't get ground powers. So you can't control Does that make sense? um And I feel like plant power is fire power since fire is what happens when you burn plants. I think you both don't think that actually.
Speaker: Okay, well, lightning, electric you said electricity powers? You guys have seen cartoons with powers in them. and In no shows do powers, like plant powers and fire powers intersect. disagree. Those are normally two different characters entirely.
Speaker: I think in Bionicles, the Bionicles kind of work together to burn to burn the plants. I mean, the fire power is just, everyone knows about fire. that Dinosaur power is just petroleum. Do you say they work together to burn the plants? Well, kind of. I guess I was going to say that... doesn't make it plant powers and fire powers the same, does it?
Speaker: All fire powers do require fuel. I mean, no unless someone who has fire powers just has... you say Captain Planet, they yeah, the guy with the ring, he can just shoot fire out of the ring.
Speaker: What is fire, though? It requires heat, fuel, and oxygen. So where is the fuel coming from with fire? It's power. oh It's just magic. Yeah, Derek's right. It is just power with firepower. What's burning when you make fireball? Someone who's like shooting fire out of their hands isn't sending a rope of vines of like flaming vines out at people. But still, just there's some kind of jellied gasoline or petroleum or an aerosol. That's gasoline powers. That's a different thing.
Speaker: You gotta to believe in magic. you can't just have foger it You can't just have fire. Lightning power makes sense because there's some kind of electrical ah ion process that you can maybe channel the the ions. You can't just have lightning without a universe.
Speaker: Without a universe for the lightning to be in. I think so this is the lightning ti unite this power i think lightning actually, it does require like a little speck of dust or something to catch on lightning.
Speaker: Right. Is that true? Lightning power is someone who is bitten by a radioactive thundercloud. Firepower is someone who is bitten by a radioactive gasoline. No. Waterpower is someone You're about gasoline power again, and that's different from firepower. Firepower is just fire that's floating through the air. You can shoot a fireball or whatever. You're not shooting, like Matthew said, it's not like a big piece of kindling that comes out of your hands and then it then it catches on fire because it's covered in gasoline.
Speaker: It doesn't take anything away from the magical ability of the firepower user. Like, oh, I found out that um the human torch, when you actually like go slow motion as you watch this fireball, you can see that there's a little bit of aerosol. like I don't think anyone would say that he's a fraud. Is the Torch's power that he grows skin at such an incredible rate that it can be burning all the time and he's fine?
Speaker: Yeah, his skin is the fuel source. It's like his power is that he can create fire. But as you know, to create fire, you need fuel. And so the Human Torch has two powers. Plenty of superheroes have two powers. his secondary I just don't understand why you need kindling. can grow dry skin. Ask our fucking ancestors why it's so important to have fucking kindling and fuel for a fire. You can't because they died from fire, I guess, right?
Speaker: Yeah, they've died from fire. They burn. Didn't most of our ancestors burn to a crisp? Or they all are ash at this point, right? People always talk about fire like fire's dangerous. I mean, it's it's obviously really important, but it is dangerous. Like, is it that dangerous? Fire? fireplace?
Speaker: People are saying this to you. Fire is important, but it's dangerous. Scientists and theorists and philosophers and intellectuals. guess I would ask, is there anything in this world that's important that isn't dangerous?
Speaker: um Kisses? No, you can actually catch feelings from those. um What's important but isn't dangerous? Bubbles?
Speaker: Soap bubbles. Bubbles are not important. Right.
Speaker: thinking of things that aren't dangerous um no i think that's true you got to be dangerous to be important so start by trying to be dangerous yeah that's why the three of us are uh such bad boys because we care about importance i guess breasts breasts are important but not dangerous yeah they can yeah they can't be important I know they can be important, but they can't be dangerous.
Speaker: Oh, I see. Breasts are important. Do you count breast cancer as a danger of breasts? No, that's a dangerous thing that can happen to breasts. Right. But I think breasts can pose danger to people. Like, I think you could slip on the milk. You what? You could slip on the milk? Yeah.
Speaker: I think it's dangerous if you can slip on it. Imagine like you're like your breast pump detaches and it's like you spill all this stuff all over the kitchen floor and like your grandmother walks in like slips and and like hits the back of her head on a cabinet. That's a breast pump being dangerous. That's breast power. That's milk power and that could actually hurt someone.
Speaker: if your grandmother If your grandmother slipped on milk from a spilled breast pump, they would say that your breasts killed your grandmother? they would say the breasts were dangerous but important? I guess, yeah. they would say that yeah that was Those things that you're using were important, but now they're going to have to be removed because it's been determined that they're dangerous. They actually killed an old woman.
Speaker: Yeah, sure. There's that old ah newspaper headline where like a woman took her top off and then there was a ah tin car pile up and the headline was Bears 2, Rams 10.
Speaker: Whoa. So breasts can kill because of how distracting they are. Yeah, but you can make a funny headline out of it too. What does Bears 2, Rams 10 mean? It's like a football score or something. That's what sounds like. But really, it's just describing this tragedy.
Speaker: Yeah, for for a Bears fan, it's always a tragedy when you read that headline. it It already sounds like a tragedy. her breasts. Oh, see. see. Yeah, got it. She bore them. oh oh i see i see yeah got it for them So would you guys rather have fire power, water power electricity power, or plant power? Water power. Can I generate water just like fire?
Speaker: What do you mean? Like make kindling first and then it gets wet? No, no, no. I'm saying your rules. Fire just spontaneously appearing with no source. Just it is fire. What would be the alternative? you create the necessary materials to have fire. So for water, I'm just assuming that the water droplets are coming out of your or whatever. I think we all know the recipe for water, right? H2O. You guys remember this from school, H2O.
Speaker: Yeah, you can shoot hydrogen out of one hand and oxygen out of the other, and then when you put your hands together, you can form water molecules. Yeah. I think you can make the water using the power bank. What? Yeah, I would get water powers. The water is drinkable, Derek? It's drinkable. It's water. That's a horrible answer to my question. yeah It's water. That's what you'd say to someone who asks if the water is potable. Water is drinkable.
Speaker: It's pure water. It's fresh water. It's new water. It's not water that's being teleported across the globe from like a river in India. It's drinkable water. I would want to create the the life-giving and and increasingly scarce ah fluid that is water on command and solve the water crisis. That sounds great Every time you produce water, though, it does take from your water consumption, either in the past and dries you up or in the future. i can only produce as much water as is it in my body?
Speaker: No, you can produce more than that, but then you have a debt. And so you can't die from it. In the past, I get drier. in No, you just in have, like, let's say you produce an equivalent of like a swimming pool of water.
Speaker: You are now thirsty. ah to that degree as if my piss becomes that yellow yes but i'm not dead i just need to drink up swimming pool's worth of water after i produce a swimming pool yeah and you will experience like the pain associated with that level of thirst without it causing you to die so basically having water power having water power means that you can generate as much water as you would need to drink in order to survive No, I think you can drink i think you can generate more water than you'll ever drink in your life, but you'll just experience agony of thirst representing the gulf between yeah that goal and what you're able to drink.
Speaker: And if you have firepower, you'll never be able to catch on fire. Even if you want to. Using up all the fire you you ever touch. Either are in the past or the future. But the present, lots of fire coming out of you.
Speaker: I guess plant power would be good too. They're all pretty good except I think firepower is pretty useless because all you can do is shoot fireballs. Firepower is an attack power if you want to cause destruction. Yeah, you could also just get flamethrower and then you could, that's the same. It's not really even supernatural to have fire, to create fire. You could maybe like ah start like a very small power plant. I don't know how much stuff you can power with just fire. No coal, no gasoline, oil, whatever.
Speaker: Just fire. That's what I'm saying. if Just fire is useless. if you're not If it has no fuel source, then it's just a speck of flame for a single molecule, like a second. It doesn't have to be used as an attack. You could use it to like toast toast your girlfriend or something.
Speaker: see Babe, can you please use your fire powers to toast me? I'm cold. Stop hogging all the blankets. Then you just blast her with a fire but a fireball. It's a power that's good against girlfriends.
Speaker: I'm cold. Yeah, you don't want to use water power against someone like that. Can you create hot water with water powers, Derek? No.
Speaker: It's cold ice cold, just like water is? Do you guys think the default for water is ice cold? I would say... No, I'd it's... think the default for water is ice. I'd say it's air In the universe. Air temp. So room temp. Tepid. It's room temperature, but if you're in a really cold room, I think it is cold.
Speaker: Okay. You think room temperature is default for water? Most water is in rooms? I never said that. I said i said this power... i think yeah it just has to do with where you are. Because I think it's sort of...
Speaker: so almost like it's using the oxygen in the air. It's not really doing that. Here we go again. no because if it's using the oxygen in the air, you'll suffocate no matter where you do it.
Speaker: Here we go. wait i If I shoot a fireball, is it going to suck out any of the oxygen in the air? because if you're going to It will suck out some of the oxygen in the air because that's just how fire actually works. As soon as you generate fire, some of the oxygen will go away. And it will turn all of the water in the room into steam. And, you know, even plants with the plant power also ah uses some oxygen, doesn't it?
Speaker: Yeah. This is why your questions about powers is just ridiculous to me. Well, you have to choose. Wouldn't plant powers generate oxygen and use use up carbon? Are there any powers that you that generate oxygen? Yeah. Lightning power, I think.
Speaker: Really? Mm-hmm. yeah Maybe. Maybe you're right. Well, that's just ah it's unrelated to lightning. But but just there's just oxygen. To me, it's easy. it's You have to pick water because there's there's it's so easy to understand. You just create water and then it's just like, where's the water coming from? Aren't humans already definitionally water power beings?
Speaker: So you think it's more of the same to create water from nothing? Humans are water dependent. They don't have water powers. We move water. When? I'm moving water right now. When? What do you mean? I'm moving my mouth to talk you guys. It's made out of water. My mouth is filled with water. That's all water.
Speaker: Mostly, right? Mud, I guess. Yeah, it's mud because you have little spikes of dirt in your mouth. Humans have mud powers. Yeah. Humans are filled with pumping red mud. Every American is a red-mudded American with all this hot red...
Speaker: ah you know, Ferris mud pumping through, shooting globs of white mud on someone's muddy face and ass as they shit brown mud into a muddy toilet.
Speaker: We have some fungus fungus powers too. We can control fungus. There's some like tapeworm, like athlete's foot. like that humans can grow on their bodies. Yeah. do You think a worm is fungus?
Speaker: I think ringworm is a fungus. You are right to say that. But why why is it called ringworm? Just because the ancient Greeks didn't know the difference between worms and mushrooms. But they actually have worms, right? Ancient Greeks, yeah.
Speaker: Tapeworms are the stuff you buy online to get skinny and hot. there there are There are actual worms. There are worms you can get, yeah. Not every worm is fungus. That's not what you're saying. No, I'm not saying that at all. But tapeworms.
Speaker: I mean, ringworms are. What are tapeworms? Tapeworms are a worm. If a worm circles around and starts eating itself, eating its own tail... and becomes a ringworm, it becomes fungus, i guess. I guess. Matthew, what power would you like to have?
Speaker: ah Plant power, because it'd be nice to be like... don't know, I just always think it'd be nice... I always think it'd be nice to have, like, a big trunk, and for someone to, like... know, it'd be nice to live so long and have, like... I know, like, people could...
Speaker: People could sit on my big branches.
Speaker: they could. You mean just being a tree? Yeah. A giving tree.
Speaker: I would chop you down, Matthew. yeah but that would be my gift to you, my wood. But first I'd give you my apples. I would chop you down and I would throw your apples in the trash.
Speaker: You'd be helpless to resist. Well, that's okay. I don't have any feelings. And that's also one of the benefits. It hurts to be human. Matthew, are you all these existential crises are you an atheist? Am I an atheist? Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. then I would do a Dane Cook thing to you and I would shop you up and print the Bible on your paper. The ultimate disrespect. Well, aren't, isn't that already what happens? Aren't all trees atheists already? They don't believe in God.
Speaker: Not quite because there, there's actually a famous case of a woman becoming a plant. Terry Schiavo. They said she's a vegetable, but she was, she still believed.
Speaker: She still prayed. Um, Jesus. They know that she still believed as a vegetable. She had no brain activity, but they say that her hands made a ah prayer.
Speaker: They say that you don't need brain activity to believe in God. Ha! and In fact, it helps. Ha! When Christopher Hitchens was on his deathbed, three priests entered to attempt a deathbed conversion.
Speaker: It was successful because three atheists walked out. Ha! Ha!
Speaker: Terry Shivo, lot of our listeners or readers for people who are reading the transcript of this might not know who she is. If they're under, they don't know if they don't know.
Speaker: So yeah, she was just a woman who in trouble, right? She was troubled. Yeah. She was like a David Lynch character, a woman in trouble. Do you want to know what power I would pick?
Speaker: What? I feel like feel like I don't know. so tell me Well, Pierce, you picked water. Matthew, you picked plant.
Speaker: And so if I want to have a unique power, I have to do lightning or fire. And I guess I would say, oh I get to be avatar? Yeah. does that mean? All the powers. Yes. All the powers. That's a really good one. Mm-hmm. Lightning and fire are so similar, I think. They're not. But actually, you didn't say lightning. You said electric. Did I say electric at first? we Yeah. We know what I mean, though. Yeah, you said electric at first. You really did.
Speaker: Okay, so I would pick electric slash lightning. peka peek I've always thought of you like Pikachu. Like in in terms of my power. Yeah, in terms of how you interact. Not my personality or how I look or anything. Just my power. No, just in terms of like how you exercise power.
Speaker: Yeah. And I've always thought that you like you have an ever stone. What's that? Oh, you never evolve. You never become a Raichu. Wait, what is, how do you become Raichu?
Speaker: Don't even worry about it, Derek. No one ever does, so it's not relevant. You ain't going be Raichu. It's crazy how no one's ever become Raichu. I don't know how long this universe has been going, but no one's become Raichu. Everyone has been given an Everstone at some point because none of us are becoming Raichu. Not even slowly. like It's not even like a gradual, like, oh, let's slowly reform the system.
Speaker: Yeah, let's check the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Let's look at the data and see if if anyone is trending towards RYTU gradually. No. Trending away. So Derek, you would use electricity to do what? To turn on your computer? No, that would just fry the computer. If you shot a lightning bolt at it would turn on. It's not always lightning. You can just, you know, do normal circuit stuff. Just do a circuit.
Speaker: That's not how the power Put your hand someone's head and then make this circuit. You can control lightning, but without any control. you just Lightning just is around you. yeah When you say something dastardly, there's a thunderclap.
Speaker: if Water power just means you're constantly slipping on water and there's like water jetting out of you randomly. Fuck! Soaking shit. That's not a water power. That's a water disability. Water curse. That's what I think you're saying about lightning. I think you should be able to turn...
Speaker: I think you should be able to stick your penis in a socket and like, correctly... Well, if you can control your computer with lightning, why wouldn't you be able to control your computer with water? Why don't you just use a few molecules of water to go into the circuit board and type the commands or whatever you're talking about.
Speaker: Go into the circuit board and use water to type. Fuck it. it's Everything's a power. It's just a power. Yeah, all these powers are interchangeable. Exactly, that's power is. Just do whatever you do every day anyway.
Speaker: create like Use lightning to create something drinkable. Use electricity powers to power a desalination plant so that you can turn ocean water into fresh water. e Use fire powers to power... Just use anything to power a power plant.
Speaker: You can use lightning even to toast your girlfriend. You could use hot water to scald to your girlfriend. Okay, so you're saying that you just shoot lightning, but you wouldn't use a circuit? Like, if I had electrical powers, I would walk up to a bad guy or a good guy, put my hand on his forehead, and just create a circuit.
Speaker: zi Create a powerful circuit. And then what what happens after you do that? You complete the circuit. Then you just leave?
Speaker: yeah You do that to a bad guy? Or a good guy. Or someone, just an infant. put ah Put your hand on their forehead, create a circuit, and then walk away. And what does that do? That makes them, like, you can control their bodies?
Speaker: It makes it so that the circuit is closed. It's closed circuit. Well, you don't have that power. You have water power, so... What is this movie, Matthew? You don't know this movie? Matthew just sent the cover for a movie called Powder, and it's a bald ah wan man running with an opened button-down shirt.
Speaker: He's shirtless otherwise. He's wearing black cargo pants, and there's an insane lightning storm behind him. It says beyond everything that makes him different is everything that makes him human. Is this a real movie that you're familiar with? It's a real movie from 1995. It's about an albino man who's very smart and has powers and he can control lightning.
Speaker: We have to watch this. They kept him in the basement for many years because they were ashamed of him because he's albino and because he can't be near the sun. but Then he goes up until the he goes out into the world and can actually control lightning decently well.
Speaker: ah Damn, this rocks. Yeah, it's pretty good. We should watch this on Chamber of Region livestream. Yeah, but we should cut out the Jeff Goldblum parts because I don't want to see him.
Speaker: Okay. Guys, I have a question. Can I please read it?
Speaker: If they said they would destroy your childhood home... Would you take one last trip around the place? Your bedroom, the mailbox, and the largest window?
Speaker: Would you glide your fingers on the dusty mantles? Would you take a cursory lap around the exterior? Or would you simply let them knock it all down and let your memories persist without being performatively rewritten?
Speaker: If they said they were destroying my childhood home, well, who says? They, just the powers that be. Or like imminent domain? Are they building like a highway or like an apartment complex? That's a good way of thinking about it. Yeah. and Eminent domain. No, I wouldn't go look at it. I would probably come look at it after they build the new building because that would be more interesting to look at.
Speaker: i already know what my my childhood home looks like. It's it's very small. It's shitty. My mom still lives there, of course, and she has these three big dogs and they just wreck the place and it smells bad. So I would not like to see that now, even though my dear old mom is or still in the building.
Speaker: um But I'm hoping that when they tear down the house and they put up this nice new kind of cyberpunk city or whatever you're describing. This sounds really cool, Pierce. I hope they give my mom like a free condo on the top floor, free bedrooms, balcony.
Speaker: Then I would definitely come by. But you're not interested in you're not interested in taking the trip down memory lane. You don't need the memories themselves are enough. You don't need to look at it with the finality, the sort of premise of whatever that French expression is.
Speaker: You don't you don't want to decorate your mind with a final burst of a solemn surrender. No, I mean, if it were up to me, I would even sort of forget the stuff I already know about it because it's such a crummy place. Okay, well, I feel like some people would relish the opportunity to see a place that they had distaste for, even if it was crummy. They might want to get one last sort of, you know, like a villain playing with their food. If could replace my childhood home...
Speaker: with a 50-story Chinese mall, or whatever you're describing, Pierce. I mean, it's your question. I would absolutely put that into my past. um Derek, by the way, for the record, for our listeners, Derek did grow up in China. right That's why it' would be replaced by a Chinese mall.
Speaker: Well, in my memory, I did, but in real life, of course. Mm-hmm. For the record, I'm not saying the eminent domain thing is a good way to think about it. But I will say, don't assume that they're going to build something in the place of it. They have simply decided that their number one priority is to destroy your childhood home. It may just be an empty lot when they're done.
Speaker: Does that change anything for you, Derek? Or would you still just let them do it? You wouldn't visit it one last time. I would probably visit the empty lot after they tear down the house.
Speaker: But no, I don't need to. I don't need to visit that place. I guess unless my mom needs help moving out. or Are you saying they like crush the house with my mom inside? would They would let her come out. Would you do one last trip admiring the house if your mom was about to die?
Speaker: If they were about to crush your mom, would you admire the dusty mantles and take a cursory lap around the exterior house? And there's no way I can save my mom even if I go into the house and and take a look around?
Speaker: No, she's... There's like a force field and she can't get out? Yeah. She can get out, I think. Okay. They let her out. And the dogs, too. All right. i guess I guess I get what you're saying. You know, it's if if you don't have any feelings of tenderness, is ten it's Tash. But that's me. That's me. Do you guys love your childhood homes? That's where the question's exploring, I think. Like, Derek, you have negative feelings about your childhood home.
Speaker: So maybe you lack that kind of, like, positive nostalgia. um I don't have a feeling of having a childhood home. So i don't... I have places I lived very briefly. You don't have the the sort of home that stepped up in your memory?
Speaker: You don't have the one that kind of um that feels like that's where child that's where little Matthew liked to be? i guess I have like a few places that I think of with affection like of having lived there but I don't they're not like they're one that's like it's like one place among many and they're sort of interchangeable and i don't see that like i feel like a childhood at home is something you bring with you into adulthood as like oh my childhood room and like that's where my parents are spiritually still or uh
Speaker: I don't know. I feel like my relationship with child with where I lived as a kid is similar to my relationship with places I live now. it' like ah That's where I spent like 2011. Got it. If that makes sense.
Speaker: But I do, ah but honestly, but I don't feel negatively about those. Even places where a lot of like horrible things occurred. I do feel deeply nostalgic and have enjoyed driving by places I've lived in Los Angeles when ah whenever I'm in the neighborhood.
Speaker: Let's say that they decided that they were going to destroy every single... they send Let's say you get a letter in the mail, Matthew, and they say, Dear Mr. Golden, we have decided, as the powers that be, to destroy every home that you have ever lived in as you grew up from ages zero to 16. Yeah.
Speaker: um Here are the addresses of all those places in case you can't remember where they were. You have one last chance to visit each and all of these places before they are permanently destroyed.
Speaker: Can i interject with a and another part of the question? Sure. So when Matthew gets to go back to all these old places, um since you know his family doesn't live in these places anymore...
Speaker: um Is he kind of like visiting um somebody else's home? Like there's a bunch of other stranger shit in the place. And um he can take that stuff? Like if he visits these apartments? No, you can't take anything. But he can look at but at their clothes?
Speaker: Well, yeah. Let's say that you can be invited into all of these places if you are to visit them. If it were up to, can I also jump in here and just say, if you asked me this question, would I visit Matthew's um childhood homes, but a stranger lives there now? I think my answer to that would be yes. Because it'd be interesting to just go check out where people live. Mm hmm.
Speaker: Well, that is getting at something else, which is would you like to see how strangers live? And that question is, and while very interesting, is where is this question coming from for you, Pierce? I mean, did you have like a rumpus room growing up or like you have some fond closet that you love? I spent a lot of time in a suburban home and ah yeah, I guess I did have a bit of a rumpus room. And I remember taking one last like sort of forced emotional lap of my entire house before my parents were about to move out of it. So it was empty. Everything was out.
Speaker: And I walked around my empty house one last time. And I made a special trip to go there. it was like a two and a half hour drive to go do that. And in hindsight, I kind of wish I hadn't done that. It's an irreversible thing to rewrite all of your childhood memories with an adult's gaze that you're doing for the sake of...
Speaker: just that feeling, trying to capture that feeling. And, you know, maybe maybe I shouldn't have done that. That's just a thought that I have. Because when I think about my home, the first the most available memory to me is performatively walking around and taking it all in.
Speaker: a um So that's where my question is coming from. Wait, when was this? When I was 19, maybe older, maybe I was 21 or 22. You shouldn't have done that. I also, i mean, it occurred to me, i wrote this question um when I was leaving Fire Island after a trip.
Speaker: And ah I think it was just, I was hanging out with a guy who grew up on Long Island and he was talking about like where he grew up. And it was kind of making me think like, damn, you get to a certain age and you still can't help but think about like your hometown.
Speaker: And There's kind of, yeah, like an auto fossilization process that happens no matter how performative, really nostalgic you are. Like you really do look back on your childhood with forced rose tinted glasses or forced ah dagger, dagger glasses. Like you just, you, you think of it with spite, but it always feels a little bit performative to me.
Speaker: i mean, even if you have a terrible childhood, I feel like as you get older, you look back on it nostalgically Because even if you're constantly abused, everything is terrible as a kid, you at least have the innocence of a victim, the innocence of pure suffering, kind of unaware of what's happening to you. Right. If only you go back.
Speaker: When you suffer in adulthood, there's always part of you that's just like, well, I mean, i was asking for, I got into that situation. i should have known better. But yeah, getting tormented when you can't have known better, it is, there is something nostalgic about that.
Speaker: I don't know. I mean, I think I look back at my childhood with regret because you shouldn't have done that. Even if I was whining a lot about sort of like not liking the place and wanting to leave from like a pretty young age, um I didn't really do anything about it. I never ran away from home. I never rode the rails. I never like burned down my house, which a kid I know did. um So I don't know, like, I think I look back more with like, I, you know, a good question for this podcast might be like, what would you do if you could go back in time and inhabit your childhood body?
Speaker: You know, something like that. And mine would be, well, I'd run ah i'd run away, I'd ride the rails. Of course you do things like, uh, buy stocks and Apple and other stuff like that, become a supervillain, whatever. But, uh, mostly I would be, I would cause a lot more trouble than I did.
Speaker: Right. You'd go back just so you could be a bad boy, bad kid. Yeah, I'd be rude. Yeah. But like in a cute way, like in a fun way, not like in a mean, like, you know, kind of evil yeah child way, but like in a kind of like, damn, Derek's such a rapscallion, you know?
Speaker: You'd go back in time and ride the rails and head over and just move to La Tana. No, actually, take that back. i don't want to ride the rails. That's stupid. Like, every time you meet somebody and you're like, oh, I rode the rails when I was a teenager, they all they seem all, like, fried and, like, weird. I think riding the rails makes you fucked up.
Speaker: I'm not going to ride the rails. Be with hobos and get beat up by the train cop or whatever. Seems like an awful time. Just yell. Just... pause pro just I should have yelled more when I was a kid. Yeah, I think so.
Speaker: you should destroy I should have tipped more things over. Chairs. I did that. I tipped things over. in class? I definitely destroyed things in class, yeah. Yeah. Okay, i actually I did do some of that. It was nice. Yeah, it feels good. Pantrums. Two years back, I was walking through the neighborhood of my like first childhood home with with my mom, and we were peering through the window. is where I was like born and spent the first few years of my life. And we peered through the windows.
Speaker: And a woman inside noticed us and opened the front door and asked who we were. And we explained, like, we we lived there, you know, a number of years ago. ah Maybe, like, maybe you guys are the next people who live there. And she invited us in to show us the house and what they'd done with it.
Speaker: and introduced themselves and we just saw a like parallel version of us it was like two parent like parents who did the exact same things as my parents they had a kid who was exactly my age who had gone to the same preschool that I was going to at that time and followed like every every part of the track that I would that I would have been on basically if I'd stayed in that home and saw how they turned out as like a 25 year old and uh it made me feel nostalgic but for yeah the sort of the life that i almost that i didn't have very strange feeling that's interesting i i like that story what happened what happened to that guy what happened to that preschooler did he grow up i think he grew up yeah i think he survived let's get him on the pod let's get him on
Speaker: Let's go to that let's go to that street. um I hope you guys enjoyed my question. Maybe it was a little bit too sentimental. Maybe it's hard to riff about this. No, I really did. i mean, I would say that I, ah yeah, i I mean, I went back to see that house, so I would walk around. You would do I would the place, yeah.
Speaker: I have an anti-sentimental question. Okay. um If you could go back in the past to when you were a kid, but you're an adult, you're in your adult body, would you kill your childhood self so that you didn't live this life?
Speaker: and then ten And then you can do whatever you want in the past, but you're an adult who has no has no past and no future. And no origin. yeah no origin. So the question is, would you go back to the past? Yeah.
Speaker: You could go back to the past, but you have to kill your childhood self to stay in the past or else you disappear. Okay. And you can kill your childhood self any way you want. And it's kind of, it's not that immoral, even though you're killing a kid and that, that sounds really bad because it's like you. Yeah. It's like masturbating or something.
Speaker: Or not that, but like, yeah, something you're doing. You can jerk off your child self too. And it doesn't it count. Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. um So you're saying once you do that, then you do the normal time travel thing and you start investing in stocks or whatever, and you become rich. You can do whatever you want. Yeah, but does it even matter if you kill your childhood self? If you have your childhood memories, it doesn't really matter what you do to that freak, right? Yeah. Yeah, but it's just fictional after you kill the kid. It's just like, oh, it's like having watched a bunch of movies. It doesn't matter.
Speaker: becomes irrelevant. Right. Well, isn't that already kind of how it is? Yeah, may as well kill the tyke, right? Just do it. Yeah, I would do it. And how would you do it? Poison.
Speaker: um A green bottle with a skull on it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah pour pour it in his ear while he's sleeping. Pour it in his ear or in his soup. What kind of soup did you eat when you were a kid?
Speaker: ah or if you If you never ate soup at all, then you wouldn't be able to get killed in this way. Yeah, then have to do the ear pouring method for sure.
Speaker: Or strangle. I think I would try poison a few times, and then if that didn't work, I'd strangle. I'd probably just sit on his head until he died. You don't think you as a kid would have been able to get up from you? Probably just sit on his head and hold his hold his wrists down and sit sit on his head until he suffocates or his head cracks. And because of the way it works, you would remember this, by the way. oh you'd remember it.
Speaker: You'd remember getting killed by you. Really? That's one of my memories. Wait, but why? But the version of me that dies doesn't grow up. Oh, no, just because it's funny. Yeah, it is funny. Just because it's a good idea.
Speaker: I'd remember eating the soup. I'd just have someone else kill me then. i'd hire a hitman. You'd hire a hitman. I'd just hire a child-killing hitman.
Speaker: Are there hitmen like Willem Dafoe and John Wick with like ah you know like ah a nice assemble... Like they can assemble a sniper rifle in little parts and put on a silencer and get the perfect shot, but they do it on a four-year-old. They specialize in four-year-olds. Yeah.
Speaker: Every hitman has an age range of like 10 years that they specialize in. Most specialize in like 40 to 50 year olds. But yeah, for some, it's little different.
Speaker: A little different. I think um when I was a kid, I liked that movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 Secret of the Ooze. Mm-hmm. And I believe that in that movie, um they they kill Shredder by like throwing him in a trash compactor. my God. And so that was a very vivid image when I was a kid.
Speaker: And I think child me would get some kind of, it would feel like almost um closure, or like the fulfillment of something that could have been bound to happen if you took me as a kid and threw me in a trash compactor. So I guess that's the way I i would do it.
Speaker: It'd be nice. you know I'd be like, oh, like Shredder. That's what I would think as like my head was getting popped. Shredder, yeah. Wouldn't it make sense for Shredder to be shredded rather than compacted? with learning fiveset i don't I don't know. he might have gotten shredded in one of the other movies, but in one of them, he definitely gets crushed. I just think your name should determine how you die. Matthew? Yeah, I died from poison gas.
Speaker: Matthew Golden.
Speaker: Your name should be how you die. Well, I mean, with pierce, it's obvious. Yeah, pierced. Sword. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Clit piercing gone wrong. yeah ah yeah with Derek, it's a bit tricky. Derek, ah someone dared him to get the ick.
Speaker: Someone dared someone named Rick to kill him. Yeah. I have a question for you guys. Let's just hear it. ah To what extent would you be willing to be the cause of a tragic afternoon?
Speaker: What is the closest you've ever come? Hmm. An afternoon. So we're talking it has to be from between noon and the evening. So from 1 p.m. one p m to roughly 4.30 p.m. Roughly. But I think also if you're ah if the event that you're causing is impactful enough, you might cause a tragic afternoon the next day, even if it happens at night.
Speaker: Oh, so you can technically do something in the morning of one day and have it cause a tragic afternoon three days later. i think so. I think that could cause like many, many tragic, tragic afternoons. What's a tragic afternoon? You just like ruin a day trip or something? No, tragedy needs to occur. like i think tragedy has to strike. something Someone cries or someone dies.
Speaker: a day trip? I mean, the day trip ruining a day trip would be tragic if it's like, in order to like keep everyone in the country alive, you have to plan the best day trip ever.
Speaker: That would be tragic if you ruined the day trip. I've come very close to letting people's cats out because it's never something that I understood or considered or have sense for. But like I would sometimes leave doors open and cats would either come very close to get out, getting out or fully get out. And then I would see like the light leave someone's eyes when they realized that left the door slightly open and the cat got out. This when I was quite young. Do have better sense for that? Like now when you, when you have a cat?
Speaker: Now that I have a cat, for sure. But yes, when I was young, I think up until I was like maybe 12 13. Now pretty tolerant and people poison your cat because of all that. Because of all that You've seen the other side, so now you're pretty tolerant when people like poison or let them out.
Speaker: Matthew, when you asked this question, did you do air quotes for tragic afternoon? No, he did cause. That's what he did. Cause. Cause. Okay. Was tragic afternoon like of is that like a phrase? I've never heard that before. Tragic afternoon? You've never heard that?
Speaker: What's a tragic afternoon? Like the Boston bombing or something? I think so, yeah. To what extent would I be willing to like cause the Boston bombing? I'm searching tragic afternoon and NY Times. Yeah, a lot of results.
Speaker: It is just a way to say something bad happened, but it sort of gives it like, um you know, like a lunch. It gives it a lunch. Like, you know, this is this is what it's comparable to is when you're watching a nature show and the hyena eats the lion cub and the... and and What's his name? The British guy just goes, lunch.
Speaker: So, you know, it's obviously not lunch, but it's a good way of... of just describing what is when you're like full like you already ate lunch or before because either way it could be a tragedy like if you're really hungry and then something bad happens you're probably not going to be able to eat for a couple hours because you're too busy like cleaning up body parts yeah but if you're really full that's kind of a weird feeling too Um, yeah, I wonder if I've like ever been responsible for something really tragic happening in an afternoon.
Speaker: I mean, I'm sure I have, but I'm sure I just try not to think about it. But the question is to what extent? Well, there's two questions. But the first question is to what extent would you be willing to be the cause? And I guess, I mean, that's an easy out. I would do anything.
Speaker: Well, i would just not do it. I would just not cause and a tragic afternoon. I would do anything to be the cause of a tragic afternoon if it was for the right reasons. Yeah, if the people experiencing the tragedy are like kind of non-entities. I wouldn't even do it if it were for the right reasons. You would withhold tragedy even if it would be a net positive?
Speaker: I would wait until the evening. Right. it Cause a comic afternoon and a tragic evening. I feel like... I've somehow been responsible for the extinction of a few animals in my lifetime. The extinction? Yeah, the extinction. Not the full-on... I didn't personally kill the last surviving member of any given species, but... Just my carbon footprint, my lifestyle. I'm sure that I have caused the subliminally tragic afternoon of the last surviving species of some bug has died in my lifetime.
Speaker: And, you know, there's the my hands aren't clean. I'm part of the Anthropocene. Yeah, you're probably right. Apparently conservationists are constantly causing extinctions of parasites. Really?
Speaker: What's the logic? of parasites um So in an effort to like preserve like an endangered species, they'll like capture all extant individuals of that species and like clean them up and fully eradicate parasites that are dependent on that one species. And yeah, the parasites aren't considered like ah good. I did air quotes before coming up with the word. They're not considered, you know, parasites not considered. not considered. That's true.
Speaker: Yeah, we don't consider them. Do you guys think that it would be fine if we extincted all parasites? Isn't there some argument that's like, oh, but some animals eat their eggs, but i don't I think that that just gives them a parasite.
Speaker: It'd be better if there were no parasites, right? don't know. what It wouldn't. Aren't some parasites basically just chill? I don't think so. Where they take your they take your energy? Yeah, isn't that bad?
Speaker: i think all parasites are bad, but symbiotes are pretty good. Yeah, like the um the cleaner the cleaner fish. Like in Spider-Man, when um he wears the suit, that's called the symbiote.
Speaker: And that's good. I know what it does is it gives him additional powers. um He's basically even stronger and it gives him a black suit instead of his regular um red and blue suit.
Speaker: I know. i know. I know. Actually, didn't know that. I didn't know that at all. You know about his symbiote suit? i didn't know was that way. And honestly, actually, the symbiote in Spider-Man is a little bit closer to a parasite because it does give him additional powers, but it also kind of, he becomes addicted to it.
Speaker: And it changes his personality. um And eventually he has to get rid of it. But then guess what? Eddie Brock is waiting around the corner. And then he finds the suit and he becomes who? Venom.
Speaker: Yeah. so Oh, Spider-Man isn't Venom. no No, Spider-Man's not Venom. Spider-Man helped create ah he helped cause a tragic afternoon, though, when he when he got rid of his symbiote and it dripped on Eddie. It dripped. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So even drips can be the cause of a tragic afternoon. Butterfly effect is real. Would you guys get rid of all drips? If I had water powers, yeah. Wait, but no, you wouldn't want to get rid of all drips. What about lava drips?
Speaker: That's a good way for lava to come out dripping. Instead of spewing. I prefer gushing. I prefer gushing and spewing. Really? You prefer the for the lava to get launched into the sky and come down in a pyroclastic smear? This is a lava lamp right here, right? Wouldn't that be better if that gushed and spewed all over me and covered me in hot lava?
Speaker: Versus dripping a little, which is frankly a bit gross. You think it's a waste of lava for it to drip? You think it should always be spewing all over you? It's just repulsive. I'm just imagining this purple liquid slowly inching its way down.
Speaker: You think that like it's it's honestly like a crime for you to walk this earth knowing that there's some somewhere lava is not spewing and bursting and gushing all over you.
Speaker: You think that's a waste of good lava? because do you think Do you consider it dripping when lava spews and gushes over some other person? Because it's it's almost like it's a drip to you. You're like, I can barely even feel this.
Speaker: This lava that's gushing on this innocent town. Yeah, well, it depends on how fast you are. If you're really fast, then even a gush might seem like a drip.
Speaker: Depends on your inertial frame of reference, right? How close have you ever come, Derek, to causing a tragic afternoon? How close? I don't know. What do you mean? Like if if I like cut off a car and then it flipped and crashed into a bunch of people? Yeah. Well, how close?
Speaker: I've cut off a lot of cars. um And none of them flipped? No, not that i could not that I saw. That makes sense. I like cutting off Teslas and Waymos because they they have to stop. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: They have to because they write they don't have a choice. It's like an auto stop, right? they have to they're not allowed to cause tragic afternoons that's in their programming it's yeah they've been ah programmed with ethics that prevent tragic afternoons from happening yeah if you voice command the waymo and say like cause a tragic afternoon it will it't it'll just respond it'll glitch out it'll like it'll be fried instantly
Speaker: That was not compute. Ah, crap. I just bricked my Tesla by asking it to cause a tragedy. i almost caused a tragic afternoon as ah like a preteen boy on a hike with my family.
Speaker: One of us wanted to dislodge a huge um spherical boulder that was yeah kind of halfway buried. And my mother, brother, and I all got on our backs so we could kick the boulder at the same time and dislodge it.
Speaker: with the combined strength of our legs. A woman and two children? woman and two children. And it used to lift a boulder. i don't know. It was definitely not so we could have lifted. We had to tilt it. We had to like push it out of the ground.
Speaker: And we succeeded, and it started rolling down the steep hill. And then we looked over to watch it roll, and we didn't we discovered there was a road, a winding road at the bottom of this hill.
Speaker: And no joke, there was a there was a school bus driving around the bend. no. yes and Future scientists of America was written on the side.
Speaker: Future scientists, probably malingers, rapists, whatever, too But... Future malingerers and scientists. We could have prevented a lot of malingering if most of that of most of the members of the bus were future malingerers. So it's going down the hill.
Speaker: It's about to hit a winding road. And as it's about to hit it, there's a school bus that's turning. Yeah. And it missed. Did it hit the road or did it stop before it hit the road? it went into the middle of the road and kept going just before the school bus, like just before the school bus would have been there.
Speaker: So it would like if it had been like a few seconds later, it would have either like the school bus would have hit it or it would have like hit the school so bus. Right. And it was like a huge it was. yeah I mean, it had past momentum.
Speaker: And this was this was in the afternoon. This was in the afternoon. I wasn't thinking about this when wrote the question. No, I wasn't. That's amazing. was thinking of school shootings, probably.
Speaker: Oh, like bullying the weird kid? i guess. Yeah. If you're the bully, if you bully a weird kid, you could be the cause of a tragic afternoon. If you're the one, if if you're the final straw. Has there ever been a school shooting where the bully came forward and took credit for it? I mean, I think when you look at those like articles where they talk, where it's like interviews with all the people who knew the kid and they're like, we always thought he was a strange one. He kept to himself.
Speaker: Those people are the bullies. I completely agree. I wrote... This was... I mean, this is cringe, but I wrote a play about this ah in high school. It was called The Thunder Thieves, and it was about ah a bunch of people who claimed to have influenced the Zodiac Killer in some way or another. Like, the Zodiac Killer's identity gets released, and then a bunch of people come forward were just like, I was foundational in him becoming a psycho murderer.
Speaker: I always chalked up his behavior to youthful exuberance, but now I realize I should have told someone that he was storing rabbit bones under the deck. Or, yeah, I was always calling him gay and picking on him.
Speaker: ah But yeah, that was a play that I wrote. was about people taking credit for someone's psychotic break and murders. That's awesome. Maybe we should do read-through for the next Chamber of Reason episode. We could read all my high school plays. Yeah.
Speaker: We should go through all of our juvenilia. It's not a bad idea. People would like that. People would. I'd eat that slop up. But I like that concept a lot. So genuinely cool. Not not just as juvenilia. It's actually genuinely awesome.
Speaker: That's actually genuinely awesome. it's it's really well written. and It's getting me going.
Speaker: Derek, you should always wear sunglasses for our podcast. It's bright. it's really It is really bright. But also, i don't i don't know where I put my glasses, but I have my sunglasses sitting nearby. Isn't it crazy we're all under the same sun?
Speaker: No. And we're all on the same planet Earth. We're not, though, are we? No, we're not. You guys are on the East Coast. Different sun. catch different.
Speaker: Is it orange there or white? It's more orange than white, but yours is probably more orange than our orange. No, it's white here Really? Yeah, I'm looking into it right now. let the song Did you know that when white is all the colors in the world combined? In the world?
Speaker: Well, no, that can't be true. In the world? ye that can't be true. Because black... Black is just when you turn the lights off. Brown... Black is just the absence of If white...
Speaker: if white If white were all the colors, it would be brown. Yeah. ah Brown is a combination of all the colors, but white is a combination of all the brown colors. Brown is what happens when you put all the dirty brown brownish colors and you mix them all up and you make a big brown. And if it's not if it if you mix up all the colors and it doesn't look brown, just wait a little bit and it'll become brown. It'll brown.
Speaker: Even white will become brown if you give it enough time. You guys ever see like old jizz? It's brown, right? It's orange. Well, it turns orange and then brown. Well, anything orange turns brown.
Speaker: If you combined red jizz and blue jizz, would be purple. ah for a bit until it browns. Someone being like, oh I'm so excited. I was able to mix red jizz and blue jizz and I made purple jizz. All the jaded old timers just go like, yeah, that'll be brown soon. That'll be brown. Well, I think it's because jizz is so delicate that it it doesn't need... gets sick. No, I don't think it's sick. I think it like it cooks.
Speaker: like I think room temperature is enough to cook and fry it. Like Yes, yes, yes. it draw yes yes yes deals It's very much like delicate ceviche. So normal cum is actually all the different colors of cum put together. And if you came into a prism, it would split. It would separate back into its discrete forms.
Speaker: Is it illegal to come into a prison and cover cover all the prisoners? Or yeah, right? If you visit a prison, just like, you know, you're a free person, you're doing the one visitation that you get per month, and while you're in the visitor's room, you as a free person rub one out into your pants. Is that an is that more of a crime? Do you guys think we should visit a prison? What if you do it as a free person outside of prison? Like standing on top of the cage, and you just come onto the floor. You mean like a guard? Like if a guard came onto the floor? Yeah, and it goes through all the bars. Yeah.
Speaker: Derek, your question was, should we visit a prison? Do you think we should do the next Chamber of Reason show at a prison? Who's that guy? Johnny Cash? That's a good idea. That's a really good idea. Do you think they would like that? I think so.
Speaker: Well, you know what we could do is we could start having a prison pen pal and we could start like having prisoners be guests on Chamber of Reason through their letters and questions. like That's a very good idea. You should do one of those programs where you reach out to prisoners and write to them and ask them if they have any philosophical questions that have occurred to them since they've been imprisoned. Well, in prison I don't think we have to go... You kind of have to go through like the ah prison mail system in order to reach them that way, but I'm pretty sure a lot of prisoners now just have cell phones, so we should just find them on Facebook or whatever.
Speaker: or let's just start sending them telepathic messages and attack through the prisoner says this... the prisoner in my own prisoner oh in your mind yeah yeah it's our ego our our individual egos are the are the prisoners that we own that's true and well said guys it's called the chamber of reason chamber of prison prison
