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S3 Ep219: Talkcast - August 2022
87 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about donuts, politics, personal responsibility, trauma fatigue, "outrage porn", cancel culture, and neighbors in this episode of Talkcast!
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Intro:
- Hollow Knight OST - Greenpath
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Transcript
Introduction and Donut Shop Experience
00:00:33
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? I'm doing ding-dang doodly. How are you? Snicker doodly. I'm doing pretty well. I just ate a donut.
00:00:48
Speaker
Oh, what type of donut did you eat? Right. Well, this is like this is just like line script. We were talking about this beforehand. But did you want me to say, OK, nice donut. Cool. Dunkin donuts or like from a gas station? No, it's a local place. But we learned after the fact that these are actually Republican donuts. And I haven't
00:01:15
Speaker
actually eaten Republican donuts before. They taste pretty good, but probably wouldn't go back. I mean, is it called Republican donuts? No, that would be a pretty good tell. So the story. All right. I'll stop forcing you into prompts to get one more joke. Yes, go for it. Was it run by a Dominican family? I don't think so. OK, that one was a stretch anyway. Sorry, go ahead. That was at the my mattress or whatever. Dominican Republican.
00:01:44
Speaker
Ah, gosh, I gotcha. Yeah, yeah. Um, so on the way back, um, from getting some food somewhere, we're like, all right, I kind of want ice cream, but you know, ice cream is a bit much. Let's grab donuts. Cause they're roughly equivalent and probably, I don't know. Um, but we wanted to try a place and it's local. And so we're like, Hey, uh, let's stop by this donut place that I almost named and it's a unique location. And again, I'm going to have to cut out dachshund.
00:02:14
Speaker
Um, but they have a, uh, they have a donut that is literally named, um, the Trump. And this might be indirect dioxin at this point. I don't care. The joke doesn't work if you don't, or like the story doesn't work if you don't get that context. Um, so we were sitting there like ordering our dozen donuts at this point to like try out different things. And I'm like, looking at this and I'm like, I'm not going to ask why that's there like a normal, rational,
Politics and Local Business: A Dilemma
00:02:44
Speaker
sociable human being. I'm just going to Google it once we leave. Right. And the reason that it's there is because when he was elected president, they're like, all right, to commemorate this big thing, we're going to, you know, name a donor after him. And Jenny and we're having a conversation and we're like, well, if they name
00:03:08
Speaker
if there's like a Biden donut or something like that, then they're just naming them after presidents, then it's fine. Right. But this is very clearly a celebratory donut. So like, how deep does this river run? Because I don't really care. Like, honestly, I don't care what someone's political affiliation is in the day to day unless they're actively interfering with my life. Because I just don't. But like.
00:03:33
Speaker
That's pretty public. So like what else is here? And like they apparently had like, um, like his face on one of their vans at some point and like a sign out front. And it's just like arrest, uh, Hillary for jail 2016, like a sticker on like the inside of the door and stuff. And I'm like, yeah.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah, I know where the intent was for this. I mean, was the donut good first off? Oh, so I didn't try the Trump, because that would have been a little bit weird to order. And before I knew how deep the river ran, I guess, or how long the river ran, I don't know what the analogy would be. I was like, maybe I can just buy the other donuts if this is a minor thing and never touch that one.
00:04:23
Speaker
So they won't make them. Right. That's that's the goal. But unfortunately, I think that the affiliation is a little deeper. It was like a cherry on top of vanilla cream sort of filled donut. I don't know.
00:04:39
Speaker
It sounds all right. I'm not a cream donut person myself because I also don't like icing. So any type of that, like just sweet feeling like, nah, give me cooked fruit or something. Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:55
Speaker
They did, I would say they had a bunch of different flavors. There's probably like 40 plus, you know, types of donuts up on the wall. And like they had like a legitimate donut. I don't know what the machine would be called that makes them, but a donut machine is what I'm going to go with in the short term and like videos of it and like this whole industry, like industrious process to create all of it. Like that's so cool. And I can't really eat here anymore.
00:05:25
Speaker
Not that you'd be supporting them. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, I've just been thinking about it since then because the donuts, we're still working our way through them. They're pretty good. If you don't like cream, then that disqualifies like 75% of them because they didn't have that many like donuts with a hole in it. Um, but they did have some flavors.
00:05:48
Speaker
You're shaking your head. The day of shaking his head for the listeners. French crawler is one of my favorite styles of donuts. It's good. And it definitely has a hole in the middle. It actually has a lot of holes in it. It is, it is basically sugar air, but I don't like cotton candy.
00:06:07
Speaker
Yeah. They actually didn't have any maple donuts, which is like the classic, you know, if you get like, um, what's the, uh, what's the popular, um, donut company? Dunkin donuts. There's Dunkin and then there's Krispy Kreme. Yeah. Krispy Kreme. They're like maple donuts is their, their big thing.
00:06:27
Speaker
Um, they didn't have any of those, but we did show up kind of like late in the day. So we got like second choice and donuts, but they were still pretty good. I just, yeah, I don't know. I mean, if a business is going to be overtly political, like, and, you know, potentially
00:06:53
Speaker
I wanna say like non-inclusive to people that disagree with them.
00:06:59
Speaker
then I don't necessarily want to support that either. Right. Yeah, it's it's a weird hand in hand type thing, what I'm going to call fanatical. So like if you saw me on the street, you could maybe infer my political leanings based on how I look and dress and how attractive I am.
Political Beliefs and Personal Interactions
00:07:21
Speaker
But like beyond that, you wouldn't really have a gauge.
00:07:25
Speaker
Whereas people, I mean, a lot of the people were like, I love Trump. Like they, it's everywhere. It's very, very up in your face. Um, but then like they don't want, again, this is an example of a generalization of one talking point I've heard not to generalize to literally everybody who's Republican.
00:07:45
Speaker
But with the whole Colin Kaepernick kneeling thing, it's like, oh, why do you got to bring politics into it? Just do your job. Well, it's like you're doing donuts, so shut the fuck. It's a weird mix of how people rationalize things, but typically people who are fanatical, it's just everywhere and everything, and they'll find a way to bring it up at any point, even when I'm unprovoked.
00:08:12
Speaker
Yeah. And that's basically where I was at. Like if this was a place that didn't have political advertisements on the premise and they didn't have disparaging remarks against another candidate in the form of a sticker that anyone could remove.
00:08:26
Speaker
you know, like on the inside of the door and all this other stuff, then like, I don't care as much, right? Like I still would rather you vote in ways that my own personal belief system is structured around, but hey, freedom and stuff, you know, like, you know, vote however you want. But the other side of that is like,
00:08:48
Speaker
I don't want that to be a foreground obvious decision, right? Like if I buy your donuts, is this going to someone's campaign, like political campaign somewhere? And there's always a percentage risk of that, but I feel like the percentage risk is a lot higher if they're outwardly, you know, basically campaigning for a candidate. So I don't know.
00:09:10
Speaker
So I guess then the question is, is it better to know or not know? Because I think anytime you have like these major elections, you find out major companies who have certain campaign donations to a given candidate. It's usually like big things like Nike, Gatorade, like large companies who have the money to actually contribute substantial funds.
00:09:35
Speaker
But a lot of those like you don't really find out about, you're not like looking forward to be like, can I get Pepsi products or like what's up with that? Like, right. So like, where's the, the line for you? Like if you knew, obviously you decide to opt out or not give them your money, but if you didn't know and then found out later, would you like cease your purchases? Mm-hmm.
00:10:02
Speaker
I think it's very difficult to say exactly where the line is because different people put different weight on politics and might care about different things. For me specifically, if it was just like Republican run establishment
00:10:17
Speaker
I don't really care. If it's literally like Trump, it's like, and you know, after everything that's happened, you've still got a donut named after him. I'm starting to like, I kind of want to distance myself from the place even more, you know, right? And that's not to say like,
00:10:36
Speaker
That's their choice, right? Like they can offer the donut, they can do whatever they want with their speech. But past a point, I think I just don't want to be involved if it's like that serious, right? And you brought up that's like, what is the point here? Or like, where is the cutoff? And like, what was it? I was reading somewhere on
00:10:58
Speaker
Reddit, there was a comment that was like, there's no ethical consumption of capitalism if you're a socialist or something like that. And to be fair, I don't really think I'm a socialist, but it was an interesting thought experiment. It's just like, how do you do this when your shoes are made by kids in another country and Amazon has people working in high temperatures and all this stuff?
00:11:22
Speaker
You're not going to be able to get away from all of it. You kind of just have to pick the things that you could impact. And I'm not too ashamed to say like the line is probably it probably falls on convenience for me. Right. Like down the down the street from this donut place is literally a Dunkin Donuts. And I don't want to go there if there's a local place nearby because I'd rather support local business.
00:11:49
Speaker
But if local business is somehow being more politically in your face, you know, more shutting down opposing candidates, stuff like that, like I don't want to deal with that. I would rather just go to Duncan. It's fair. So I will say Duncan, for the most part, like I'm not like it's donuts. You can't really fuck up donuts. But like any time I've had any other donut, I'm like, wow, this is this is nice versus this is acceptable.
00:12:20
Speaker
I will say a hail corporate story for Duncan. As I once went there, there was one nearby, our old apartment.
00:12:30
Speaker
And I went there towards like the end of the day. And I don't know why I was going to Dunkin' Donuts towards the end of the day. I can't think of a rationale that would justify me doing that. Hungry. Done. Yeah. But I mean, if I'm hungry, should I really eat donuts? Right. I can't remember what happened. Nobody here is judging your diet, Jake. That's fair. I am. I am just a little bit.
00:12:56
Speaker
But I went through the drive-thru and I was like, hey, could I get these? And the guy's like, sure. And he's like, hey, do you want like some donut holes? I was like, I mean, I don't want to pay money for other food, you know, other things. He's like, no, no, you just take them. I'm like, OK, sure. And he just like takes two bags and just fills up all the ones they were going to throw out at the end of the day. I was like.
00:13:21
Speaker
You're a saint. It is an absolute crime that the Catholic Church has not recognized you at this point in this year. But that was great.
00:13:34
Speaker
So two things I want to add. One, I have to jump back before I lose full context.
Family Influence on Consumer Choices
00:13:39
Speaker
I understand what you're saying with the wanting to socially distance yourself from certain things. That's why I no longer take my child to the Casey Anthony daycare. And then as far as the free donuts are concerned,
00:13:53
Speaker
Any, any place that is about to close, especially things that more so work in fast food, like for liability reasons, they can't keep the stuff and donate it. They have to really just get rid of it. Typically it goes to the trash, but if you're one of those lucky later customers, boom, you're in there.
00:14:13
Speaker
It's not that hard to do. You just have to figure out when that window is or just talk to them honestly. Be like, hey, when do you guys typically close up? When are you getting rid of stuff? And they don't care. They don't get a benefit from it either way. So they're like, oh, yeah, I'll help somebody out. Cool.
00:14:35
Speaker
And logically, I understand what you're saying, but from a theocratic perspective, I feel like you are downplaying the miracle. I mean, if you're not expecting that degree of generosity and then you get that, it is huge, especially in the form of food, which I feel is almost everybody's love language. Or at least they're bilingual as far as love languages.
00:15:05
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, it's that and French. Those are the two French and food. That's all you get. Um, but yeah, I don't know. It's, I mean, you, I think people, people have only so much, you can have like, what is it? What would it be like? Um, uh, not justice, but like, um, fatigue for the amount of.
00:15:33
Speaker
trying or caring all the time about all the things and so it's kind of nice to you know sometimes pick a thing and be like
00:15:44
Speaker
I'm not making any sacrifices for this, but according to my own evaluation, this is the right way to do it. So not this, right? When I was young, so Hugh Hefner was hired to run advertisements for Jack in the Box.
00:16:04
Speaker
And my parents took us to Jack in the Box. And I enjoyed Jack in the Box as a kid. And as soon as they found that out through some religious newsletter or something, they're like, that's it. Boycott, right?
00:16:23
Speaker
And the reality was they didn't have to change much, right? There's other fast food places that are available. Was it Jack in the box? I might be confused. Carl's junior, Carl's junior was what it was. Um, sorry, Jack in the box friend of the show. Um, but like, didn't take them any effort. They feel better about themselves for it. You know, I had to eat other hamburgers.
00:16:47
Speaker
Um, and, you know, they were following whatever their belief system aligned to at
Impact of Major Events on Social Awareness
00:16:54
Speaker
the time. So like people do it, you know, I get it. I've definitely done it to a degree before. Um, but at the end of the day, I feel like it doesn't make such a big impact. Mm-hmm.
00:17:13
Speaker
I feel like typically more so it's I find out about what somebody else is boycotting because it's like, oh, I like recently or something on Amazon and like, oh, Amazon, let me tell you. And I'm like, what do you want me to say? Are you going to suggest an alternative that I can buy myself through conveniently or what would you like me to write my congressman to say, hey, Amazon's business practices are shit.
00:17:40
Speaker
I feel like they know. I feel like the system itself is fucked in many different places. But at the end of the day, if somebody chooses to not do that because you're like, this thing sucks, by all means, please do that. It's just like religion. You can have yours and practice yours on your own time. It's when you get in my face about your beliefs.
00:18:09
Speaker
There's a great YouTube video of a news correspondent and she just goes off on religious people for like a good minute. She's like, I completely support your right to practice your religion, but don't enforce your beliefs upon me and how I live my life, which is true because
00:18:33
Speaker
That's what they are. They're beliefs. And everybody has separate beliefs. Some of them align. Others do not. Certain ones are built into society and we have to follow those rules because it is a construct that we've made. Otherwise, we're pure chaos. Outside of that, though, again, the people who do that are fanatics. Not necessarily, but...
00:18:56
Speaker
No, I get where you're saying though. I think we've had some interesting years recently, right? There's been anti-vax people, anti-mask people, we had Black Lives Matter, which was ongoing. Yeah, they're all nutcases. That's what I'm saying. Well, no, there was a lot of events that happened. Yeah, it was. Full shootings, all this stuff.
00:19:21
Speaker
And I think like people can experience, they underestimate like the effect of like trauma fatigue or like injustice fatigue, essentially, right? Like you can only, you can only put so many hours of every day into something, right? It's like, if we keep using Amazon as an example.
00:19:44
Speaker
maybe their workers in a given warehouse are under extreme duress because it's too hot and they're not allowed to take enough breaks and they're not providing enough water and stuff like that. It's just dangerous conditions. How many hours out of the day should I be calling senators to look at this?
00:20:04
Speaker
Any answer is maybe once would help, but there's also just like innumerable issues like this that I could be putting my time toward.
Social Justice Fatigue
00:20:13
Speaker
And the reality is I don't put that much time towards anything even related to that, right? But it's all going on all the time. So sometimes something does come to the foreground, right? Like we had the Black Lives Matter donation link we put in the podcast description some years back.
00:20:34
Speaker
Um, and it's not like I'm donating every month, right? Like that was a one-time donation for me. Yeah. Same with like Ukraine. Like I'm sure people saw and donated some degree or there was a degree of caring about that effort. And now it's essentially off like the main headline news and you've got other shit going on in your life. There's other, other things happening. So it.
00:21:01
Speaker
It's like, oh, this is important now, and then it shifts. Yeah.
00:21:05
Speaker
Not to say the importance of either of those has gone away at all. It's not in the foreground. So it doesn't have the same thing. Yeah. Which is why I get why places will campaign to a degree. There was the Lupus thing, right? I mean, Lupus has been a thing for a while. But there was the fundraiser. And now I get emailed constantly. And I'm like, I'm arguing with spam because you won't shut the fuck up.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah, but it's like the same thing with the Salvation Army and like the Santa who rings the bell in front of a Walmart. You're like, God, that fucker is so annoying. But here's the thing. If on your own, completely your own, would you just donate money randomly to a charity? No, you fucking wouldn't. Nobody would really. Because again, you're focused on your own stuff, your own day to day life.
00:21:59
Speaker
And then you see these things like, hey, do you want to round up to donate money to a things, Rick? Fuck off. So it's not really until something is very much put in front of your face like, hey, this is an issue. And you're like, well, that's bad. I would like that to not be the case that you start to get involved to a degree. And that is the cycle I find myself in all the time.
00:22:21
Speaker
I, I shared the cycle and I would second, I'm not saying that we shouldn't, you know, I'm not arguing against that. I'm not saying that we, you know, should discount all of these important things that need attention. I think it's just also important to realize as human beings, if this is the only thing that you think about, or it's the only thing that you're engaging with, it will drain you dry probably financially too, but also just emotionally.
Media's Role in Political Awareness
00:22:47
Speaker
Um, and you know,
00:22:51
Speaker
I mean, you could spend an entire lifetime and there's still gonna be things that need to be fixed and worked on. So the important thing is scoping it to where you can, you know, for impact. This definitely started at donuts and went into like social justice in general and things like that, but it's interesting. It's also the reason kind of like,
00:23:18
Speaker
We used to watch this stuff a lot more. I don't know if you do much anymore. I'm curious actually do you still watch John Oliver?
00:23:26
Speaker
Weekly, weekly. OK, every time. All right. Are there others like that? I know like Trevor Noah has done some occasionally Trevor Noah. I like some other stuff and then some of the stuff's like a little bit too hammy. And I understand like that's the the lighthearted tone of it, but it doesn't always resonate in the same way. It's not it's not as entertaining to me, I guess, versus like the wit of the John Oliver production. What about like John Stewart?
00:23:56
Speaker
I mean, back when that was a thing. It's going on again. He's got a podcast now. No, it's not the same. It's pretty similar. It's different. They don't have as many skits. But the reason I was bringing all of this up is there is literally just an industry for a term I'm coining outrage porn. It's basically what it is. It's just like, what should I be upset about this week?
00:24:22
Speaker
Right. And you take something that like practically no one has eyes on and you thrust it into the limelight and you give it like a week. Right. Until there's the next issue. And it's just like it's crazy to me. Like I.
00:24:47
Speaker
It's hard because like I understand the fatigue of like everything's going to shit. Um, I feel like a lot of, I feel like life's always been shit. We just now have more visibility of it because how technology has advanced so much in the past 50 years. Um, but there's definitely a point where, I don't know. It's.
Aligning Beliefs with Family Discussions
00:25:14
Speaker
It's such a rough topic to talk about. It is, yeah. This is what we get when we deviate from video games, people. Don't let us do this in the future. Give us a goddamn game suggestion and we're going to get really fucking deep.
00:25:31
Speaker
I briefly just lost my train of thought. That's fair. You're saying we're talking about outrage porn or fatigue for it and watching it week by week. So I don't need everybody to like, if I feel strongly about a cause, for example, like Black Lives Matter, I don't need you to be actively donating or like falling up on stuff or blah, blah, blah.
00:25:55
Speaker
But I just need you to not say, well, all lives matter. I just need you to not be fucking stupid. That's really it. I don't need you to be as gung ho or like to the same level that I am. I just need you to mentally be on the same page. It's like talking to somebody like the sky's blue. You're like, well, actually, shut the fuck up. Like you are. It's hard to discuss something with somebody if you can't find that common baseline of, oh, we agree on this, for example.
00:26:25
Speaker
All people should be treated equally and have the same rights. Okay. Right. And if BLM is just bringing, is just shining a light on, Oh, these people do not have the same rights. That's what it is. And then if we could just start there and move on. Cool. But counterpoint, the sky looks blue because we want it to.
00:26:52
Speaker
That's a reference to Transistor. Transistor reference. Oh, it's been a while. Yeah. I had to at least reference the game. There's a part in the game where you vote on what the OVC will be. Yeah, what the sky color will be. Yeah, exactly. And OVC. You all remember that intermission sound? Anyway. It's been a hot minute.
00:27:19
Speaker
But yeah, I get where you're coming from. I think I'm a little burned out on it, but it's I mean, it only takes.
00:27:32
Speaker
something being more personal for me to re-engage, right? And I really like where you went with it, which is your personal impact. Basically, are you part of the problem or are you opposed to the problem in general? And that's a pretty good baseline, I think, for people. Are you actively working to take away my rights? Then we're not gonna really get along. Are you backing someone who does that? Then we're probably not really gonna get along.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, like I'm not asking you to donate your money, you know Yeah, you don't need to like be on the exact and the exact same
Family Influence and Conspiracy Theories
00:28:11
Speaker
point. You just need to be like leaning on the same side So whenever I talk to my mom Mom, if you're listening, I love you but Big but and then the big but as far as transition, I didn't mean anyway Sweet home, Alabama
00:28:28
Speaker
But when I've talked with her on the phone, some of the things she talks about it just brings up of ... It's just definitely coming from that middle-aged to older person who's on Facebook and then just getting Fox News advertisements and stuff. She believes in some type of global conspiracy.
00:28:50
Speaker
And she's not actively calling me and telling me about it, but we just got to talking on some call and it came up. And I'm like, what are you talking about? And then she explained a little bit. I'm like, that sounds like a full on conspiracy theory. And then I called my dad afterwards.
00:29:07
Speaker
Do you guys talk about this stuff? What's she on about? And he's like, ah, your mom's being, and I'm like, okay, but what is the impact of this? Does she talk to other people in her local community? And then she's pushing that viewpoint, and now there's a whole bunch of
00:29:25
Speaker
middle-aged to older women who were like, oh, yeah, there is a global conspiracy. And then, you know, that feeds into other stuff. There's a full on Jewish cabal in the shadow council, and we've never been so proud. Different take on the conspiracy.
00:29:42
Speaker
As much as I hate Marjorie Taylor Greene because she's such a dumb cunt, I do like the idea of a Jewish space laser. It gets memed a bit and it's funny because of how ridiculous and absurd it is. But it's when people are just like, yeah, but the Jews in their space laser, for real though. And you're like, what are you talking about? It's when that tongue in cheek is just like gritting your teeth, like this is reality. And you're like, what is happening?
00:30:12
Speaker
I mean, the biggest lie the Jews ever told was that the convincing people that the JSL doesn't exist.
00:30:21
Speaker
For anybody who doesn't know, that is actually a really good biblical joke. Basically making equivalent Jews and the devil. So let that say what it does about Jake. I don't lose that much if I get canceled at this point, I think. But here's the issue, right?
00:30:44
Speaker
Um, I'll get canceled after I have something in the future based off the one Jewish space laser joke tonight. How do you feel about over on the subject? How do you feel about canceling? Because I a lot of what I ingest will be like,
00:31:01
Speaker
comedy like stand-up specials or like I'll follow some comedians podcasts and of course like that topic does come up and also just in the zeitgeist in general because Shit will happen with people They're essentially being hold held to term being held accountable for certain stuff But I also personally feel as I'm now just interrupting
Cancel Culture and Accountability
00:31:22
Speaker
your own opinions. I asked for Some of it goes a little bit beyond what it should right?
00:31:30
Speaker
Like, for example, like most recent thing, the Will Smith slap. Nobody should behave like that in public regardless of what you think of Chris Rock's joke.
00:31:43
Speaker
So I don't think he should be canceled, but like something should be, should happen because of his behavior. There should be consequences. Right. And like when Kevin Hart had that tweet about like, Oh, how he'd raises, you didn't want to raise his son. Like he was gay or something. Okay. It was 10 years ago. Like you can have him apologize for it and move on. But like,
00:32:07
Speaker
to interfere with somebody's career because of something that they fucked up for and then atone for. Like, where is that line? Right. And now I'll end my stuff to give you a chance to chime in. I mean, I agree for the most part. It's that I don't think we're going to solve in quotes cancel culture. No, I know on this on this on this episode. And it is like.
00:32:33
Speaker
It's fundamental that I disagree with that thing the person did. I don't want this to be supported. So how do I ensure that this doesn't happen in the future? Right. Like if Alex Jones spreads a bunch of lies about Sandy Hook, like what is your recourse to that? You call them out, right? I'm so glad that this ball is dropping. Like how many years after the fact? Yeah, they've been in court for like forever because he's
00:33:05
Speaker
really bad at helping them reach the resolution as it turns out. But to the point of cancel culture, I think you touched on the key part of it for me, which is if someone does something right literally now, evaluate the context for what it happens.
00:33:22
Speaker
What was going on when it happened and sometimes it's just inexcusable terrible behavior and sometimes other you know adjectives that should be thrown on that and in that case like Absolutely. They should be apologizing and absolutely people should be asking the question of
00:33:41
Speaker
Is this a one and done scenario where you made this decision to say this or put this out on social media or whatever? And that's it. We're gonna not have any affiliation with you anymore.
00:33:57
Speaker
Um, that's up to organizations really and society and how we treat that. And it's harder to say what the correct punitive measure should be. Generally, right? You almost have to do a case by case basis. Um, cause sometimes someone's like, Oh, I just had an off color joke and that was my bad. I wasn't, you know, where I should have been there. Um, I'm not going to do that anymore. Um,
00:34:22
Speaker
And I think a lot of people would accept an apology like that. If you're like, oops, accidentally used child labor and a bunch of kids died, you're like, maybe it's a little harder to just forgive. There's a scale for what's going on. But the other thing I think comes up, it's the more interesting case is the historical cancellation. The fact that everyone's lives are on the internet forever,
00:34:46
Speaker
Yeah. And people are held oftentimes to the same account for something they might've said a decade ago, as though it's the exact same position they hold now.
00:34:58
Speaker
Um, and what I think is there should be a guidebook for recovery in such a scenario where if someone went back to like found my hopefully non-existent, my spice profile and they're like, Hey, this band that you were listening to, um,
00:35:17
Speaker
They're a bunch of murderers and they killed a bunch of people I'd be like Well, I I don't really want to affiliate myself with them anymore So I would distance myself in the current tense. Alright, like be like, alright, I no longer share that belief. I don't listen to them I broke their CDs, you know took a blowtorch to him and
00:35:37
Speaker
That's not me going forward. And I think the world as it stands right now or society or social media needs to provide some room for people to prove that they're not that individual anymore.
00:35:53
Speaker
Yeah. I feel like the internet is a cesspool, so to speak. It was very easy to bandwagon on or against somebody for something that they did. And like sometimes
00:36:11
Speaker
In general, I feel that people should be held accountable for their actions. If I did something really shitty, I should have to atone for that if I got caught. Then I should be tried accordingly, but not in prison for the rest of my life type thing. Right. Because otherwise, why don't we just kill those people? They fucked up. They can no longer be part of society. Let's remove them entirely.
00:36:35
Speaker
If there's not a chance for them to get back and do something, what's the point? I mean, it's the same thing with prison. There needs to be like some degree of rehabilitation as an option. Otherwise, what the fuck are we doing? Mm hmm. Yeah. And make a divergence to like 13th Amendment bullshit. But there needs to be something. So one thing I think about Louis C.K. Mm hmm. Great comedian, great comedy.
00:37:04
Speaker
There was the whole thing about him being very sexually aggressive with people that he worked with. And I don't stand for that. And I haven't really listened to his comedy since, but he's now kind of like back in the comedy thing after like two years. And a lot of people have the opinion of, oh, he should never be able to work again doing that, or probably other things. I would argue,
00:37:33
Speaker
He should be able to. I'm not sure what that timeline is, but it shouldn't be forever. Right. Because again, then like I've fucked up in my life, done things I regret. I'm sure you have as well. Not that I would admit, but maybe. It just needs to end at a point so that you can live and learn hanging on the edge of tomorrow. Right.
00:38:01
Speaker
But like, it's the same thing you do with children, right? If they fuck up, you're not like, go to your room forever. It's no, you have time out. You have time to like reflect on what you're doing and like you learn from it or you get punished or whatever it is.
00:38:17
Speaker
It's just that like people bandwagon so hard on stuff. Yeah. Because again, like outrage, because they say like, this is definitely injustice. And I would say nine times out of 10, whatever that issue is probably is, but it's probably not looked at equally from all sides all the time. Um, and then like they don't give the person who they're dumping on, like any breathing room to recover.
Public Figures and Personal Responsibility
00:38:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think the internet doesn't have a sense. It has no proportional response is not a thing on the internet. You're all for something or you're all against something. And that doesn't lend itself towards passing a sentence, right? Like you mentioned the criminal system. I would think that, I mean, there's a lot of issues in the United States as far as the criminal system is concerned. So maybe not the best example, but in theory, if someone
00:39:13
Speaker
does something criminal and they're found guilty, their sentence should be proportional to the severity of the crime, right? The circumstances around it, all of that. Those are taken into account for variables. That doesn't really happen on the internet. You're either like a fanboy or
00:39:33
Speaker
actively working towards the destruction of something or literally not involved in the conversation. And those are like the two. Those are the three states you can be in. Not involved, super involved or super involved. Right. And that's that's probably where the issue really, really comes in. And you kind of you have to separate, I think,
00:39:57
Speaker
cancel culture, the idea of that away from other social issues. Because usually when the word cancel culture is used, it's like not for the most severe issues, right? No, it's like if you kneel on someone's neck and then some people are trying to get you fired. Yeah, that's not something entirely different. Right. That's something else.
00:40:21
Speaker
Um, so I mean, the terms we use are important too, but usually cancel culture, I think is used for an individual or an organization that did something and then a group of people disagreed with it. So they seek recourse in some way. And usually the way is deplatforming the person. Yeah.
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah, now that we're at the end of it, we define it. Thanks for sticking around for the definition of it. I think it definitely is that in and of itself, it's just because it happens on Spotify too, right? Like.
00:41:04
Speaker
A lot of people that maybe I disagree with, there's been movements and pushes to show Joe Rogan be on the platform. Oh, he's just a fucking idiot. That's the same thing.
00:41:18
Speaker
Like he has a bunch of people on his podcast who I don't know if he like filters or does whatever, but he had Alex Jones on. Yes. Like as an example, Jordan Peterson. I'm not going to do the name. It's it's hard. People know what it is.
00:41:39
Speaker
But yeah, I think it's if it becomes actively destructive, then yes, the platform that person or because like you as a company have some degree of liability for hosting that and promoting that. But if it's just something that's not going to actually directly impact people, it becomes harder to say if you just disagree.
00:42:09
Speaker
Right. But I think around maybe part of some of Joe Rogan's stuff is just some misinformation around... I was just gonna say vaccines in general. Yeah, vaccines, COVID, stuff like that. I think that's where a lot of it originated. Politics are kind of involved too, but part of the issue is if you find a major concern for something that you care about with an individual,
00:42:35
Speaker
like the gravitational pull, say like COVID misinformation for Joe Rogan, will now begin to pull in people who like have disagreements about his political guests and all of this other stuff. And I think that can sometimes be, it's great if you want to like generate a black hole that you just hit somebody with, right?
Comedy, Controversy, and Boundaries
00:42:56
Speaker
But it's not good for precision.
00:42:59
Speaker
I would like to be able to say, I think Joe Rogan should still be on the platform because X, or I think he should be removed because Y, and pick a specific thing. Here's a time that you really just brought in people that were getting people killed, not directly, but by continuing to spread misinformation and not fact checking at all.
00:43:25
Speaker
And honestly, just being like a voice for mistruths lies would probably be the word people would say for that, right? But I think you have to be specific like that because I don't want people to be d platform just because they disagree with me. I disagree with me on a lot of times and I don't want to be d platform. Yeah.
00:43:54
Speaker
It's interesting though, it's, it's, it's hard to have a like cut and dry answer. And so you do need to have a measure of, um, I don't want to say empathy, but stoicism or like a procedural approach to these issues when they come up, like, um,
00:44:19
Speaker
The other one I want to mention actually, while we're talking about this, I don't know how we get, this became the topic of the talkcast, but you can talk about whatever. But Dave Chappelle was the other one. Ooh, this is a fun one. So like, I'm sure people are aware, but he made some trans jokes and then kind of walked it back a bit. I don't know if he outright apologized, but he kind of like walked it back
00:44:47
Speaker
And then he kept doing it. And last I heard, maybe there's been developments, but he's still doing it. And this has led to, as you would expect, a lot of people pushing to have him deplatformed. But Dave Chappelle is huge since he came back. And it's hard to convince corporations to be like, don't make money. Or make less money is the more accurate thing. But I also specifically remember watching a YouTube video some years back.
00:45:17
Speaker
that it's like Dave Chappelle dodges lasers in comedy. And the whole thing was he'll touch on all these topics that other people won't touch on because it would be too toxic. It would be too dangerous to even make jokes about these things.
00:45:34
Speaker
But he tended to do it with a level of empathy and understanding, but also irreverence that he could get people that disagreed with him on his side. And it's really funny thinking back on that video with everything going on now, because he's just inching closer and closer to the laser beams.
00:45:55
Speaker
or depending on your personal take. Maybe he's literally just walking through them in this way. It just stops and he's backing forward and back. But it's tough. So it is. My personal take is, which is not, this is not a fully formed opinion as it's starting literally as we're having this conversation now. We'll take it out in post.
00:46:20
Speaker
So just take whatever I say with a green assault. I grew up watching Dave Chappelle. I've loved all of his standup specials. I think he's hilarious at what he does. I love his style of humor. He's very good at storytelling and like getting you invested. Part of it's like just his tone of how he does stuff. But even before, before Chappelle's show, like his standup style was very engaging, different style, but still very engaging.
Humor's Impact on Public Perception
00:46:45
Speaker
Um,
00:46:48
Speaker
Like when he's talked about that stuff, he said like he has no issues with trans people and that like for him, like he's just.
00:47:01
Speaker
Making jokes and people say like it's punching down or whatever. I can't speak to that Because I don't really have the know-how or the place to say it So like to me the jokes were not offensive to me because it's not a subject matter for me personally
00:47:20
Speaker
But if it's offending other people, that becomes up to him whether he wants to do it or not. And then people have to decide, oh, that is an issue to the point of I think it's actually I think some people think it's promoting violence against trans people, which maybe it is. And if that's the case, it is an issue and needs to not be encouraged, needs to be actively discouraged because it's causing actual harm to people.
00:47:48
Speaker
Um, but a lot of those, I don't know the full information on. So that's where it gets a little bit fuzzy. Um, but I will say at least from the things I've watched of him, his viewpoint is that what he's doing is not actively destructive or he does not believe that it is right.
00:48:07
Speaker
So I think it's again, all people have that whatever I'm doing is not the worst thing. Like I don't think anybody sets out with pure malice in their heart saying, oh, I want to shit on some people today. I think some people legitimately do, though. I would say some people like to just bring it back to video games for a second. Right.
00:48:34
Speaker
There's a question that's asked of Jacket in Hotline Miami and it's, do you like to hurt other people? And I still think about this question sometimes because it's really important when you're going through your life that you can ask yourself that question and continue to say no. When you disagree with someone and you have the emotional knife that you could twist,
00:48:58
Speaker
You still need to not do that, right? It's like when you have power over people that you disagree with or maybe you believe their lifestyle would be abhorrent or something like that. You need to not enjoy hurting other people.
00:49:17
Speaker
It's really, it's really important. And that's kind of like, that's kind of a side thing. But I was just going to say some people legitimately do. Right. There's some people who wake up and they crave violence and not in the good way. Or they choose violence, I guess. I do you violence.
00:49:34
Speaker
Yeah, back to Dota, thank you. I do want to mention, because I didn't have the latest information on this, you know, controversy, you could call it, with Dave Chappelle. And I don't have more information really now, but I just thought it was really funny.
Social Media and Public Image
00:49:50
Speaker
If I Google Dave Chappelle trans jokes,
00:49:52
Speaker
The two top article, the two top things right now are July 12th, Dave Chappelle gets Emmy nod for special field with transphobic jokes. And then July 21st, Dave Chappelle show gets canceled over transgender jokes. So if we don't have the answer, I don't think the world does either. Simultaneously getting an Emmy nod and then having it canceled is like.
00:50:19
Speaker
Renaissance of we have not figured this out. Yeah.
00:50:29
Speaker
I don't know. I'm open to discuss any of my current beliefs or stuff with people because again, I don't have, there's not a whole lot going on in my life. My life's pretty okay. It's pretty laid back, but I'm not close to a lot of issues because again, I'm a white guy in my 30s. Things are pretty okay for me.
00:50:55
Speaker
So I don't want to talk about anything with full authority. I want to give my honest and earnest opinions for the information I have at the time. So if, I guess this is my CYA statement of, listen, Twitter warriors. If there is somebody who disagrees with me about this or other things, I always encourage like, hey,
00:51:21
Speaker
let's chat and tell me why you feel what you feel or why you think that what I feel is wrong. Um, cause I love a good discussion. Uh, I think I got it from my dad who was very logical and argumentative and would win a lot of fights with my mom who was very, I've already mentioned how she did. Um, but yeah, I'd rather discuss and learn
00:51:51
Speaker
or possibly share information back because it's so easy to say, oh, somebody said one thing or did this one thing. And then that infers everything else about them.
00:52:05
Speaker
I'm not going to name names here, but have you ever met somebody where you're like, Oh, this person did an action and I'm not keen on that action or something that they said. And now it has essentially plagued everything else about that person. So when they mentioned, somebody mentions that person's name, you're like, Oh, that person. And then you have that memory of that one thing that you found is tasteful and it's just, Oh, that's who they are as a person.
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's important to remember that for most individuals, they don't really have the time to develop complex relationships with people beyond their immediate circle. So in a situation where you hear news about someone, your reaction is you pick a tool in the palette and you go down and you pick a color and it's like red for bad or maybe like green for good.
00:53:03
Speaker
And the tool that you pick is the paint bucket and you just click the person and you're like, this is exactly what that person is. They are good. They are bad because of this single attribute or the single event. And sometimes it works. And a lot of times it probably doesn't work. And a lot of people who do bad things also do good things. And you can't literally, you're not God, you're not putting them on scales. And you're like, I know the thoughts and intents of your heart.
00:53:33
Speaker
So you got to do the best you can and also do that without taking the work day for it, right? You're not like, crap, I just read this thing about Dave Chappelle.
00:53:48
Speaker
All right, let's read his autobiography and see if there's anything that corroborates or negates this. Yeah, it's not worth all that. We should call this the SCP Grey episode. Yeah. Because I feel like we've been middle grounding so fucking hard. Not like what was it? Because SCP is from the SCP Foundation. Yeah. But like a grey is a type of alien. Ah, OK. But also I wasn't sure it is between black and white.
00:54:18
Speaker
I like that. I wasn't sure if you were going for a CGP gray episode. Cause I was like, that's where my brain immediately went. But that's just like YouTube knowledge stuff. Um, SCP great makes sense too. I'm still young and hip. I got, I got some references here and there. Yeah.
00:54:39
Speaker
I think I'll probably move on to the next topic. We've covered three. So far I've got donuts, politics, cancel culture. Who authorizes this list? This is what we get when we don't prepare notes. It's just entirely off the cuff. But like Spider-Man, it's off the cuff and it makes a mess. I will say,
00:55:09
Speaker
I feel my judge of character for people who I associate with and like, Oh, I'm going to enjoy hanging out with this person and we'll get along versus not usually pretty good. Um, I usually know what type of people I interact well with or like from, so I've had some initial meetings from some people or I'm like, Oh, we're not going to hang out and be best friends. I'll see you and be like, Hey, what's up? But.
00:55:37
Speaker
Like we're never gonna grab brunch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The non-brunch club, I call them. Uh-huh. No,
Community and Inclusivity
00:55:48
Speaker
I get that. It's been a little while for me, because like a peer work from home environment has basically been like, I work for people, like there'll be people I interact with from a work perspective.
00:56:01
Speaker
There's no risk of me interacting with them outside of a work perspective because like I turn the computer, I cease to exist, right? Like technically, I guess they could send me a message on Teams, but for all practical purposes, I cease to exist.
00:56:18
Speaker
And so I'm not really meeting randoms in real life either. So I'm in the ideal scenario for me, which is like, I have a list of friends. I can just talk to people when I want to and pretty much willingly, willfully TCP engaged. It'll be like handshake. I'll send you a message like received handshake response, you know, whatever. Let's go through the thing.
00:56:49
Speaker
I guess I have met some neighbors recently, undercutting the entirety of my argument, but they seem nice.
00:56:56
Speaker
Well, I feel like that's probably like an impasse. Oh, hey, how's it going? We actually got invited into a slightly older lady lives nearby and both I and my wife were out walking and she's like, hey, how's it going? All this stuff. I had already met her like once before in passing, but she hadn't met my wife and she's incredibly friendly, like.
00:57:21
Speaker
top grandma tier friendly. She's like, Oh, you like want to see the house and stuff? And I was like, okay. And you know, like walk in and literally got like a tour of her house. Um, and it's just like ridiculous tier hospitality. Um, she like got some flower cuttings for us and like put them in a vase. And I was like, Oh, you can, you can take that. Don't worry about giving it back to us and stuff. And I'm like, this is pretty nice.
00:57:47
Speaker
You're probably not a serial killer. If you are, then, you know. Her internet was either out or she's definitely going to ask you guys for a whole bag of sugar later. Uh-huh. Yeah. I mean, I'd go running by it. I don't think we have a bag of sugar. That's too much sugar to have on hand. I will say having older neighbors is nice. They're pretty laid back, usually pretty quiet. Yeah.
00:58:12
Speaker
I had, the other story was, like, the lawn is not the best right now, right? It hasn't really been up-kempt. Previous owners didn't believe in chemical treatment. I believe in only chemicals. So that's the difference between me and them. So, like, there's weeds and there's dandelions and things like that, and the grass isn't that thick. And I'm like, okay, well.
00:58:35
Speaker
one of this other neighbor is recommending weed and feed, which is just like a nitrogen and weed killer, nitrogen and herbicide mix, right? Make the grass goes better, kill the weeds. And I was like, well, I share lawn, I literally share lawn with another neighbor. So I like talked to him about it first. And he's like, it's just lawn, man.
00:59:01
Speaker
I was like, you know what? That's a very Zen mentality to have. I appreciate that. So as he blows out a smoke ring. Just lawn, man. Just lawn. I just love it. I just love it. So yeah, I mean, so far we've gotten on pretty well with our neighbors, but
00:59:21
Speaker
We haven't put out a pride flag or Antifa colors hoist up the mast or anything like that yet. That might turn people's opinions pretty quick. We're incognito right now. Oh, have you been by the gay pirate house? Yeah. Yeah.
00:59:44
Speaker
I mean, honestly, if you guys have some extra plants or whatnot, they're like, I don't have a place for this. I technically was told I can plant some stuff at the backside of my apartment. Cause like my neighbor just fucking went buck wild or they had some stuff there already. And I just have mulch and I look like a fucking fool. What you do is you just gotta, you grow tomatoes, right? Just for the interaction.
01:00:13
Speaker
tomato plants looking very similar, very similar to marijuana plants. Oh. Yeah. Or you do a one to three ratio where it's one weed plant, three tomato plants. And then if anyone investigates it, it's just like, oh, yes, it's a tomato plant. She's tomato.
01:00:36
Speaker
This one hasn't grown fruit yet. And there's like visible buds and some collapsing from the weight. Who did this whole hydroponic thing? Just planning it outside seems to work okay. In the dead of summer. Across from a field, no less. Where kids often play outside because they have a summer program.
01:01:03
Speaker
Yeah, that's how they get you whipping tomatoes at the kids. Tomato, tomato, tomato, bud. Tomato, tomato, tomato, bud. Oh man. Yeah, that's pretty good. I actually, at some point we'll be getting some peppers, I think from Jen.
01:01:26
Speaker
So I'll see if I can keep those alive. There you go. That's the strat. I know we started with food, so I figure we can end with food too. We recently went to Sam's Club because we got a membership. It's pretty close by and it's going to save us a lot of money on food.
01:01:45
Speaker
um and they had like pre-packaged uncooked ready to be cooked like put in the oven um stuffed peppers and like i can't even remember all of the ingredients that went to them but they looked so delicious it was also like 2 p.m and i hadn't eaten anything yet that day but
01:02:04
Speaker
Looks so good. Um, we didn't get those. Uh, instead we got, uh, like, uh, it wasn't roast chicken, it was grilled, grilled chicken with like, um, we put some lemon, lemon sauce on, on it and stuff. It's not sauce, uh, juice. Juice? Juice, yeah. I was like, how thick is it? You just, you just pressed the lemon against the. You can have like a lemon, like remoulade or something. Um, I wasn't sure when you meant sauce.
01:02:33
Speaker
Yeah, the words, that word's definitely too French for us, but yeah, juice. It was good. Nice. They also have a gigantic pot pie, chicken pot pie. It wasn't the sandwich cup, what was the other one? Costco was the big one. Yeah, we tried Costco for like two months.
01:02:54
Speaker
With my one year membership, I went like twice. Oh, yeah. He's like, Hey, how much months of food do you want? You're like, I have one fridge. How many, how many instances of a hundred hot dogs do you, should I put you down? How many pounds of cheese would you like? You're like less than one. Yeah.
01:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's definitely true. We got to be a little bit careful with quantity, right? We were looking at the strawberries and we're like, no way. Zero percent chance. Anything like that, you have to have multiple guests over to be like, eat this quickly. But a lot of their pre-made stuff, they usually, I forget if Sam Club and Cosco are almost the same company or different.
01:03:37
Speaker
No, uh, yeah. Walmart, it's the same company that owns Walmart, um, which is like Walton or something, Sam, whatever. Yeah. And, um, Costco is cell phone, I think. Okay. Costco corporation or something like that.
01:03:52
Speaker
You said cell phones on like cell phones. What do you mean? Cell phones? Telephone? They call them up. All right. It's time to open. But as I say, a lot of their pre-made stuff is actually pretty good. Oh, yeah. It's like I know Costco has a great chicken salad. I'm sure Sam's Club has some great in-store stuff that's pre-made as well. Mm hmm. Yeah.
01:04:13
Speaker
No, it definitely looked like it, but we shall see. We will continue to judge them going forward, but picked up a bunch of crap the first time, so.
01:04:24
Speaker
It'll continue. I got like a bag of tortilla chips that is like you don't see how wide Jake is gesturing with his hands. It's so large. He's doing it. He's on the cross right now. Yeah, it's so large. It barely fits in our cupboards. Like I have to like do the couch twist thing to like finagle it in there.
Conclusion: Embracing Kindness
01:04:46
Speaker
But it's sheer absurdity. Yeah, it's used as one giant crunchy pillow.
01:04:55
Speaker
yeah that progressively gets less and less crunchy and less and less pillow eventually it's just memory foam you wake in the middle and i just reach your hand behind your head i'm a momo oh go back to sleep honey where are the crumbs in the bed i don't know that's such a bad idea i i'm getting passive anxiety imagining this but yeah you want to ask this is how we get ants that's fair
01:05:22
Speaker
Well, um, I think it's about time we call call this episode. Do you have any, any passing words for the people walking their paths alone in the night with our, uh, just catching us through their portable AM FM radio?
01:05:44
Speaker
My brain is still on food, so I'll go with something more generic. Don't be a cunt. Try and be actively kind towards somebody in your life or people who are around you who you don't know. Even just something like a smile and nod and passings. It's a pleasant interaction and everybody benefits from it.
01:06:05
Speaker
That's probably the best way to not end up canceled. That's step one. Um, yeah, just be awesome to each other. That's why I almost watched the new movie. I got 30 seconds in. I was like, nah, can't, can't do it. Can't do it. That's fair.
01:06:26
Speaker
Well, if you guys could do it, let us know what your impressions were. I guess we're talking about a movie or something, or send in ideas for games, or apparently like with the topics we covered tonight, pretty much anything's free game. Let us know what you want us to talk about. Send those ideas into soapstone podcast at gml.com, or you could join the discussion on Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:06:58
Speaker
you