The Biggest Solution
in the Universe - Episode 7
Transcription
courtesy of: Megan Pennock
(heavy
metal theme riff)
Maddox:
Welcome to The Biggest Solution in the Universe, I'm Maddox. With me is Dick
Masterson.
Dick:
Hey!! What's up, buddy?
Maddox:
And Sean, our audio engineer.
Sean:
Hello!
Maddox:
Welcome back, bonus episode #7.
Dick:
Yeyuh!
Maddox:
Thanks for the continued strong support of these, guys. By the way Dick, we
haven't really mentioned this on the air I don't think, maybe once, but every
single episode is now transcribed all the way back to Episode #1. So if you're
ever at the office or someplace where you can't download the MP3 but you do
happen to have Internet access you can download the transcript, there's that.
Or if you're deaf. That's really the purpose.
Dick:
Or if you wanna reenact them! If you wanna get the friends over and
everybody...if someone is Maddox, someone is me, someone can be Sean! You can
do like LARPing, but of this show. (Maddox chuckles)
Maddox:
We can license the rights for a very low, very competitive rate.
Dick:
Yeah! So you get those for the bonus episode by using the same download link
that you use when you buy the show.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
The season pass. And by the way, if you're having trouble with the downloads,
email ME. Right?
Maddox:
Yeah, I don't check shit.
Dick:
Maddox gets enough emails. He's working on big things, big projects. I'll
respond, I'm on my phone all day. I'll respond right away and fix your stupid
download problem.
Maddox:
Hey, speaking of big projects I'm workin' on, Dick, I have a big, big
announcement to make. I'm gonna tease it this episode and the one following,
but you'll see it on my website within the next 1 or 2 weeks.
Dick:
Really?
Maddox:
I'm gonna have a countdown, yeah. There's a big announcement, big surprise...
Dick:
Can I guess what it is? Is it, like, a Bruce Jenner-style announcement? (Maddox
and Sean laugh)
Maddox:
Dick, you're gonna spoil it! Spoiler crybabies. Yeah, I'm a woman.
Dick:
Speaking of spoiling good times, what was the voting from last show?
Maddox:
Yeah! Euthanasia, Dick, came in #1! The biggest solution from last time,
Euthanasia.
Dick:
Ahhh.
Maddox:
Uh-huh!
Dick:
Alright.
Maddox:
Yeah, big solution! And followed by -
Dick:
(interjects) Congratulations.
Maddox:
Followed by your horseshit Monkeys, your little... (Dick laughs) ...your
shenanigans you tried to pull.
Dick:
Oh, wait a minute! Wait a minute, there is a point of contention on that!
Maddox:
What?
Dick:
Because someone in the comments...lemme see if I brought it in, if I remember
the guy's name. Um, I don't think I did, but chimpanzees are not monkeys!
Right? So the chimps that got us into space that I was talking about and the
chimps that are participa-...that we're doing animal testing on to fix us,
they're not technically monkeys.
Maddox:
They come from the monkey universe! That's real nitpicky. However, there is a
torpedo in your shit Titanic that I'm about to sink.
Dick:
Okay, what?
Maddox:
That torpedo is that the first animal in space was a DOG. It wasn't even a
fuckin' monkey.
Dick:
Well yeah, but the -
Maddox:
(interjects) The Russi-...yeah!
Dick:
Yeah, that was the Russians.
Maddox:
Yeah, so your entire horseshit premise was exactly that: horseshit!
Dick:
Monkeys did more for us than dogs do.
Maddox:
Monkeys have done shit for us!! They throw their shit AT us.
Dick:
Uh, and Monkeys beat Guns? Is that right?
Maddox:
Monkeys beat Guns and Retirement Homes, which I'm okay with.
Dick:
Yeah. (scoffing)
Maddox:
I think monkeys are a bigger solution than retirement homes because push comes
to shove, you can eat a monkey. You can't eat a retirement home. So I agree
with that, guys. Good job on that voting for the solutions. Um, I got a comment
from Charles Jackson Fairchild. You remember last episode, Dick, the last bonus
episode I brought in that voicemail from my crazy-ass neighbor, right?
Dick:
Oh, yeah.
Maddox:
He says, "Maddox, it's funny how your neighbor calls you impolite and
you say, 'I'm not being impol- ' and she interrupts with
NENENENENENENENENENENENE.'" (laughs) Man, what a crazy-ass bitch.
Dick:
What a bitch.
Maddox:
Yeah. (laughs more)
Dick:
I got a comment from Richard Watkins. You know we had Guns in the last bonus
episode.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
He says, "This is the first time I've heard a reasonable discussion on gun
control."
Maddox:
Yeah!
Dick:
Referring to us.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Absolutely true. Gun control we can talk about in a civilized way with rational
arguments founded on logic. (Maddox laughs) However, gourmet dog food we will
tear each other's throats out over.
Maddox:
Yeah...yeah, we went on for like 2 episodes about that, ad nauseam. To the
point where our fans were pissed off. (laughs)
Dick:
Gun control though, no problem. Civilized discussion all day long about gun
control. (smiles)
Maddox:
You know what I think the reason is, Dick, is that both and you I have
researched it at such length. You came in with some stats that I knew exactly
line for line what you were reading it from, 'cause I read the exact same
sources and I read the same stats and we were both really well versed in that.
And it's something that you really have to think about in order to have an
informed opinion. That's why we have the "Uninformed Opinions" section
on our website.
Dick:
Right.
Maddox:
I got a comment from Chael Greer...whatever. Why don't you guys get simpler
names?? (Dick giggles) Huh? "Chael"? How the fuck...anyway. You
remember last episode, Dick, I said we should raise euthanasia awareness by
everybody changing their profile pictures on Facebook to skeletons?
Dick:
Oh, yeah!
Maddox:
For the rest of their lives?
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Yeah, um...he says, "I have legalized euthanasia of all types in every
jurisdiction due to my spooky skeleton profile. Thank you for the
non-slacktivism movement, Maddox. We have made the world pure." And his...
(cracks up) His profile picture does look like a spooky, spooky skeleton.
(laughs) Help raise awareness for euthanasia, guys. It's really important.
Dick:
Evan Wiebe said...
Maddox:
I think it's "Wee-bee."
Dick:
"Wee-bee." Evan Wiebe says -
Sean:
(interjects) Has anybody ever pronounced a name on this show without a hitch?
Dick:
No. (chuckling)
Sean:
No!
Dick:
"Hey Dick, there's no boobs in Demolition Man, asshole. Unless you mean
Stallone's." This guy...you remember I was talking about boobs in
Demolition Man and they were great boobs.
Maddox:
What? I don't remember that.
Dick:
Okay. (annoyed)
Maddox:
You said there were boobs in Demolition Man?
Dick:
In Demolition Man, 'cause remember you had the theory about action movies? How
there's boobs up front...
Maddox:
Yes.
Dick:
...and then there's violence and there's no more boobs?
Maddox:
Right.
Dick:
And I said, "Like Demolition Man." 'Cause movies were great back in
the day, '80s and '90s, 'cause you could get free tits with every movie.
Maddox:
That had boobs in it?
Dick:
Abs-...okay, so I looked up the scr-...I brought in the script.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Would you like me to read from the Demolition Man script?
Maddox:
I mean, no, I would like to see the boobs, but... (chuckles) I guess this is
the second-best thing. What a treat.(giggles)
Dick:
I probably should've printed out the boobs and brought 'em in here.
Maddox:
Yeah! Where are the boobs, man??
Dick:
I didn't bring 'em in. Uh, "'Demolition Man.' Int. Spartan's Apartment -
Night." John Spartan...
Maddox:
Uh-huh.
Dick:
...was Stallone's name in Demolition Man.
Maddox:
Okay.
Dick:
Cool, right? (smiling)
Maddox:
Pretty cool.
Dick:
"In the darkness, Spartan loudly bangs into something. Spartan: Ahh.
Lights." (Maddox chuckles) "Lights come up. The place is, well,
spartan." This is in the actual script.
Maddox:
Uh-huh.
Dick:
Jokes. "Exact same size and shape as Huxley's, but stunningly sterile and
unwarm. Spartan tragically takes in the place, pokes his head into a clinical
bathroom, a bathroom with no toilet paper and a strange shelf with three
seashells. Shakes his head." Now if you remember the movie, at this point
Stallone I think ad-libbed a, "Oh, he doesn't know how to use the three
seashells." (dumb voice)
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Remember that?
Maddox:
Yeah, one of the great improvised lines from the silver screen. (laughs)
Dick:
It's not in the script though, so I assume he must've improvised it!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
"Spartan's hands start to quiver towards a knitting needle and a ball of
red yarn. Curiously furrowing his brow, Spartan plops into a strenuously
uncomfortable futuristic chair and begins almost unconsciously knitting the red
yarn. He stops himself in a perplexed surprise. Suddenly a loud bopping noise
fills the air. A beautiful..." and in all caps, "...NUDE WOMAN
casually brushing her teeth appears in a vidscreen before Spartan. Nude Woman:
Hi Martin, I was think-...oh my god! I'm sorry, wrong number!" Remember
that??
Maddox:
I don't remember that at all, Dick. Thank you for the refresher.
Dick:
That was some of the greatest tits...
Maddox:
That was so worth...
Dick:
...in movies!
Maddox:
Big payoff. (Dick laughs) By the way, if I was going to fill in the sentence
"casually brushing her *blank*" and I was trying to think of
something...the least erotic word, "teeth" would be on probably my
top 10 list.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
"Casually..." (cracks up) "Casually brushing her teeth." I
thought it was gonna say her nipples or her ass or, um...I don't know. Even her
elbows! I would take elbows.
Dick:
Uh, it was Brandy Ledford. Turns out she's got a sex tape, a threesome sex tape
with, uh...with Vince Neil.
Maddox:
Dick, it's -
Dick:
(interjects) That I also watched today and didn't bring in. (giggles)
Maddox:
Is this all the fuckin' research you did?!
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
This is the most research I've ever seen Dick do! He's got, like, scripts and
stats and all this shit! He's got the script for Demolition Man and he watched
a porno. Good job, Dick.
Dick:
Alright. (amused)
Maddox:
AWESOME. I got a comment from Laurie Foster. So last episode I think we
mentioned that China has a really low crime rate. I was specifically talking
about Hong Kong, which is a different province. Like, it's a different,
um...Hong Kong has a different culture than mainland China. But Laurie said,
"I'm going to wager that the lower crime rate in China is because of an imposition
of the death penalty for just about anything. To quote a few..." Here's
some crazy Chinese laws you can get the death penalty for. "'Intruding
into a residence for the purpose of robbery is punishable by death.' 'Robbery
is punishable by death if it involves intrusion into public transportation, or
a bank or a banking institution.' 'Graft and bribery are punishable by death if
particularly large sums of money or property value are involved.' 'A city
official of Chengdu was executed in May 2008 for seeking and receiving
bribes.'" Selling tainted food, death; endangering public safety, death...
Dick:
So what's she saying, euthanasia is the reason that there's not a lot of crime
and shooting over there?
Maddox:
No, we were talkin' about gun control and we talked about how China, in spite
of not having guns, has a really low crime rate. However, Hong Kong is kind of
governed differently than mainland China. Hong Kong is still kind of its own
thing because they were under British rule for a long time. There you go,
dickheads! You learned something. You learned something by listening to the
podcast.
Dick:
I don't know what I learned. What did I just learn?
Maddox:
That Hong Kong was under British rule for 100 years and therefore it has a
different culture than mainland China!
Dick:
Oh, I...I knew that.
Maddox:
Okay. (laughing)
Dick:
I learned it in Rush Hour 2.
Maddox:
Oh, great. I bet you did. Anyway Dick, should we get to the p-...solutions?
(cracks up)
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Not problems.
Dick:
Sure.
Maddox:
I'll go -
Dick:
(interjects) I got some stuff from Asterios Kokkinos that I'm gonna play a
little later in the episode too.
Maddox:
Oh, great! Alright. Love that guy, and this is the first episode we're
recording since our Sneaky Greek came to visit us last time. (Dick laughs) But
Dick, let's get to the solutions. Let's get to the real solutions here.
Dick:
I do have one more good comment.
Maddox:
Oh, let's hear it.
Dick:
Okay. So you brought in Euthanasia, right?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
And I said that I think doctors somehow give you the unlock codes to the
morphine machine.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Because you know, they're in your room there, the morphine box...
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
...and you have cancer; it's plugged into your body and it will release a dose
of morphine on a timer.
Maddox:
Right.
Dick:
Right? And the easiest way to kill yourself is to just crank up the morphine.
Maddox:
Right.
Dick:
Right? So in an episode of House where I learned this, Dr. Wilson, House's
buddy, tells the nurse the code to the machine but he says it very loudly so
the dying guy overhears.
Maddox:
Oh, okay.
Dick:
So that's...I assumed that's what doctors did.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Because they're learned men; they don't take advice on how to care for the human
body from hillbilly car salesman politicians. Right?
Maddox:
Sure.
Dick:
Whose only job is to sell...is to screw people over.
Maddox:
Right.
Dick:
They're like professional hucksters. These are learned men! Right?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
So this guy comments, Adrian Cade. "Dick, doctors do not just 'leave the
lock off the morphine.'"
Maddox:
(chuckles) Okay.
Dick:
"That shit gets examined every single shift for how many times the patient
hit the button and how many times they got medication." That sounds legit,
right?
Maddox:
Sure.
Dick:
"If they got way more medication than was prescribed for them there's
going to be a massive investigation ending with licenses being revoked, people
being fired, and likely jail time. Instead people just become a DNR, get
hospice care, and have someone give them morphine per hospice's orders (usually
every hour as needed)." Right?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Maybe they don't! I don't know, I learned this watching House!
Maddox:
Yeah!
Dick:
Maybe this guy's right.
Maddox:
Maybe House is wrong! Who knows? I mean, who am I to doubt a TV show? But go
on, yeah.
Dick:
Very next comment...
Maddox:
Yeah?
Dick:
...John Adam, uh, Turcich. "My grandfather had terminal cancer and the
doctor loudly told the nurse what the code for the morphine machine was, so
yes, what Dick said is true." (Maddox laughs)
Maddox:
Yeah, eat that, whatever the first guy's name was!
Dick:
Yeah, well... (stammers) Do you know?! Do you work...are you a doctor?? Do you
work at a hospital or are you just putting this theory together in your mind
that there's gonna be a mass investigation and that they're gonna go through
the morphine codes like they're a black book? What are you doing? Are you
contributing to the discussion here or are you just making things up? (yelling)
Maddox:
He's...you know what he is? He's just a big "no, no, no." Hey,
speaking of "no," Dick...
Dick:
Go ahead. (cracking up)
Maddox:
Before we get on with the solutions, I just need to mention here the horseshit
shenanigans we had to go through at the start of this episode to get this
fuckin', uh, tombstone over here to run and start recording us -
Dick:
(interjects) My computer.
Maddox:
Yeah, your computer. (scoffing)
Dick:
Right.
Maddox:
You remember you brought in Encryption as a solution, Dick?
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
And we spent about 45 minutes to an hour gettin' this horseshit to get up and
running because everything was encrypted on it, and the drive wouldn't work and
programs were incompatible and it was freezing up!
Dick:
I mean, I don't wanna get into the minutia of why the computer doesn't work,
but I upgraded...this is the Solutions show. We're not talking about problems.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
I upgraded my computer, and Apple has this stupid little box that says
"encrypt your hard drive."
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
And not thinking, I assumed that was already on. Like, I was just kind of
whizzing through the update wizard.
Maddox:
Uh-huh.
Dick:
I hit "yeah, sure," clicked "next" and it's like,
"Okay, congratulations. Your computer will be encrypted in like 2
weeks."
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
I'm like, "Oh, uh...I need my computer between now and Armageddon."
Maddox:
Yeah, that's the general Apple experience. (Dick sighs) (Sean laughs in the
background) Everyone I know who has an Apple, their shit is always bl-...you
know what? You called me out on reveling in how much joy I got from you guys
having computer problems even at my own expense.
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
And it's because -
Dick:
(interjects) Yeah, 'cause you value pride above anything else. (Maddox and Sean
laugh) That's why! You value pride above time, friendships, relationships,
people's health, your own health...
Maddox:
Yeah!
Sean:
Look out, you're pullin' his covers! (Dick laughs)
Maddox:
Yeeeah. Oh, what a...
Dick:
That's why!
Maddox:
...what a winner! What a hero! (Dick laughs more) I feel SO good about myself.
Dick:
Right.
Maddox:
And you know what? It's because of smug Apple users. And then you put...I -
Dick:
(interjects) Is that me? Am I a smug...oh, you know what? I got a great present
for you this episode, because you're gonna be able to rant about Apple a lot.
Maddox:
Oh, really?
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Great! Good! Alright, well then let's get to the solutions.
Dick:
Go ahead, do your solution.
Maddox:
Yeah, great. My first solution, Dick, is Riots! (Dick laughs) Yeeeah! That's a
real fuckin'... (clapping sound effect)
Thank you, Maddox. Riots!
Dick:
Alright.
Maddox:
Wow, what a cool fuckin' solution! And so timely with the Baltimore riots going
on right now.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
You know Dick, our country...so I know everyone right now is gonna think,
"Oh, here comes Maddox with some liberal screed about riots and he's going
to shit on cops and..." (stupid voice) You know, whatever your stupid line
of reasoning is to tune out and dismiss points of view that you don't
necessarily agree with.
Dick:
Yeah. (amused)
Maddox:
However, our country does have a long history of riots! Way back...I mean, this
isn't even the first riot, but this is just one I picked. In 1933...have you
heard of the Wisconsin Milk Strike?
Dick:
No.
Maddox:
This is kinda interesting, I was lookin' into this. Sean's nodding
"yes." Of course Sean would know. I don't know why Sean knows such
weirdo information, but uh... (cracks up) This is the Wisconsin Milk Strike. So
the price of evaporated milk dropped from $4.79 for every 100 pounds...
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
...to $3.48, so farmers saw a 16 percent drop in profit while manufacturers saw
a 10 percent gain and merchants saw a 5 percent gain. So literally, the farmers
lost 15 percent -
Dick:
(interjects) Made a little bit less money?
Maddox:
Yeah, and everyone else made -
Dick:
Gained a little bit?
Maddox:
- that exact 15 percent, yeah.
Dick:
Okay.
Maddox:
And these are, like, dumb farmers in the '30s. They don't know anything, so
they're being, uh...you know, they're being...what's an expression for being
suckered?
Dick:
Conned?
Maddox:
Conned, but you know, a fun idiom. Whatever, they're being, um...what's a...
Dick:
A bunch of rubes?
Sean:
Flimflammed?
Dick:
Flimflammed!
Maddox:
Nah, not flimflammed.
Dick:
They're being sidewinded? What are they...let's get Asterios back in here and
have him -
Sean:
(interjects) Bamboozled?
Maddox:
Bamboozled, that's fun.
Dick:
That's a good one.
Maddox:
Okay, they were being bamboozled. So basically merchants and manufacturers were
strong-arming these farmers. These farmers who produced milk for bottling
weren't hit as hard by the recession, but the farmers who produced milk for
cheese and butter and cream were in poverty, so it kind of made this split in
the milking community. So farmers who were making cheese were basically going
out of business, and farmers who were bottling milk for some reason were makin'
stacks of money!
Dick:
Milk privilege. (Maddox laughs)
Maddox:
Yeah, I guess!
Dick:
That's what they had.
Maddox:
Yeah, they had milk privilege.
Dick:
Okay.
Maddox:
*White* privilege, you might wanna say.
Dick:
Yeah. (chuckling)
Maddox:
You might call. So -
Sean:
(interjects) Were those the 2 percenters? (Dick and Maddox laugh loudly)
Maddox:
('ding!' sound effect) (rimshot sound effect) Good job, Sean.
That's pretty good. (audience laugh
sound effect)
Dick:
So what, they had a riot 'cause they didn't make money? They didn't have enough
money?
Maddox:
Well, so first they decided...these poor, dumb farmers decided to do it the
nice way. They decided to be gentlemen. They said, "Well, we're gonna
strike by not selling milk," but that didn't work because all these other
farmers who were so fucking poor they were eating dirt, they said, "Well,
we're gonna scab and we're gonna sell milk. We don't care, we're just gonna
sell it at a low price even though we're not making a profit."
Dick:
Okay.
Maddox:
So then they tried to put up roadblocks to stop the milk deliveries, and so if
milk farmers refused to turn around, the ones who were delivering the bottles,
they would dump their milk or taint it with kerosene or oil -
Dick:
(interjects) Ew. (chuckling)
Maddox:
Yeah, and the milk farms retaliated by bombing some creameries and blowing up a
cheese factory with dynamite. (cracks up) Isn't that insane?
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
These milk farmers are havin' this war amongst themselves.
Dick:
It sounds like a cartoon.
Maddox:
Yeah, so this was also one of the first documented cases of a drive-by shooting
in America. Did you know this?
Dick:
Over milk?
Maddox:
Over...yeah, over this milk strike.
Dick:
Huh.
Maddox:
Yeah, there was a 60-year-old farmer who was killed at a picket line. He wasn't
even there picketing, he wasn't even one of the strikers. He was there
delivering food for people who were hungry because this was during The Great
Recession.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
And, uh...The Great Depression, rather. And this 60-year-old farmer was killed;
someone fired a shot into the crowd because his headlight got broken by someone
striking. So this poor old guy got killed! Anyway, so how's riot a solution?
How is rioting -
Dick:
(interjects) Yeah, and people are getting killed mindlessly. This is an old...a
poor old man delivering food just got murdered.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
This is a horrible problem. It's not a solution.
Maddox:
SOUNDS horrible. However, one of the people who witnessed this milk pouring was
this guy named Norman Borlaug. Have you heard of him, Dick?
Dick:
Yeah, I know who that is.
Maddox:
Norman Borlaug, 'cause I almost brought him in as a solution. I will at some
point, but Norman Borlaug is this guy, he's this, uh...he's a plant scientist.
A plant...what is it? He -
Dick:
(interjects) He's an agricultural engineer.
Maddox:
He's an agricultural engineer, and he had a degree in plant pathology. That's
what I was lookin' for, plant pathology. So this plant pathologist, he was so
distraught by seeing these people fight over food and milk because these people
were starving and they were clamoring for the milk that these farmers were
pouring out because they were so...just hungry.
Dick:
Uh-huh.
Maddox:
And he was so distraught by seeing that that he decided to go into agriculture,
this field, to solve the problem of world hunger, and he basically prevented
a...they're estimating up to a billion people from starvation.
Dick:
Sure.
Maddox:
Norman Borlaug saw this event, this riot, and was inspired to solve this
problem because he was so distraught by what he saw. We might not have the
strain of wheat that we have today because of, uh...if it weren't for that
riot.
Dick:
If it weren't for riots? So you're saying rioting inspires people to do good.
Maddox:
Yeah, sometimes!
Dick:
Huh.
Maddox:
Yeah!
Dick:
Um...
Sean:
Or one time.
Dick:
Yeah, one time. So this one time, it inspired a guy. You got any other pieces
of evidence why riots are not mindless mob violence and should be...stopped?
Maddox:
Sure do, Dick. (smiling) (Dick laughs) The 1919 -
Dick:
(interjects) 'Cause that was a shitty one.
Maddox:
Yeah, well I got more examples, buddy! Good thing you asked. I... (everyone
laughs)
Dick:
Well, I hope so!
Maddox:
I have the 1919 race riots of Chicago. Do you remember this? This was, uh, I
believe I got this...part of this from Wikipedia. It says, "...July 27,
1919. On that hot summer day on a segregated Chicago beach..." --
this is true -- "...a white man was throwing rocks at blacks in the
water at a beach on the South Side which resulted in Eugene William's
death." So tensions escalated when a white police officer showed up
and "did not arrest the white man responsible for William's death but
arrested a black man instead."
Dick:
Well... (laughs)
Maddox:
Yeah!
Dick:
Yeah, that'll happen. What year was that?
Maddox:
That was, uh, 1919.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
It could've sounded like 2015, couldn't it?
Dick:
No.
Maddox:
Really? Because objections by blacks were met with violence by whites! Listen
to this, listen to this. This sounds like this happened last week: more than 36
fires were started by whites -- WHITES this time -- in the Black Belt. Whites
also blocked fire trucks from putting out the fires in the Black Belt.
Thousands of blacks were left homeless.
Dick:
Yep, horrible. All horrible things that happened because of a riot.
Maddox:
Horrible things, yeah! Um, so -
Dick:
(interjects) Explosion of racism, race-related crimes, riots...
Maddox:
Yeah, AND -
Dick:
(interjects) Arson, riots, deaths, destruction...
Maddox:
And this was actually one of the first...another early instance of a drive-by
shooting, which was whites driving by black neighborhoods and just, uh,
spraying them with bullets.
Dick:
Okay.
Maddox:
Um...so this is from Patch.com. It says, "No white raiders were arrested,
and blacks began 'sniping' in retaliation." (Dick laughs in disbelief)
"Chicago's police chief admitted to the commission: 'There is no doubt
that a great many police officers were grossly unfair in making arrests. They
shut their eyes to offenses committed by white men while they were very
vigorous in getting all the colored men they get.' Twice as many blacks were
arrested as whites."
Dick:
Maddox, this is the wrong show! This is the Solutions show!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
All of these are problems!
Maddox:
Well, here's the solution that came from those riots. Have you ever heard of
the Haynes Report?
Dick:
No.
Maddox:
Nobody has, 'cause it's a fuckin'...it happened...
Dick:
What is it?
Maddox:
...40-50 years ago. It's a report by Dr. George Edmund Haynes, and it called
for national action against lynchings. So the undercurrent here, one of the
things that caused all this racial tension, was that more than 3,000 people had
been lynched in the year before the riots. 3,000!
Dick:
Mhm.
Maddox:
In 1918. 2,472 were black and 50 were black women. Haynes said that the states
had shown themselves unable or unwilling to put a stop to lynchings and seldom
prosecuted the murderers. And then Governor Lowden -- governor of Illinois at
the time -- he said...he appointed a state committee to study the
psychological, social and economic causes underlying the conditions resulting
in the present race riots. Well, good thing we solved that. Uh...
Dick:
So what is the...what is the good thing that came out of that? They made
lynching illegal?
Maddox:
The Haynes Report! Yeah, that, uh...that helped put lynching on the radar for
everybody and realized that it's still a huge, huge thing. Nobody was really
paying attention to it back then. Nobody gave a shit.
Dick:
So are you saying riots are good because they raise awareness?
Maddox:
No, nonono. See, first of all, Dick...yeah, sometimes! Sometimes raising
awareness is helpful. Sometimes it is. Like for example, you know how I hate
slacktivism, right?
Dick:
Well, 'cause I was gonna say it sounds like you're giving the same reason for
riots being a solution as people posting pink ribbons on their Facebook
profile.
Maddox:
Yeah, posting pink ribbons...if you do something that doesn't take any action,
that's slacktivism. That's a huge problem. However, this is when raising
awareness matters. Right? You remember a while back when everybody -- and I
said this during the slacktivism episode -- everybody changed their Facebook
profile to the red equals sign, or the pink equals sign.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
To show solidarity with people who are in support of gay marriage.
Dick:
Right.
Maddox:
That's one of the few times when it actually matters to do...to raise
awareness, because you are actually trying to change social perceptions in
society.
Dick:
So you're...you support slacktivism when it comes to gay rights?
Maddox:
Uh, when it comes to gay rights it's not slacktivism, because there is no
other...no better way to do that short of, say, buying a billboard and putting
your message up there. That's not slacktivism.
Dick:
How is that any different than any...raising awareness for anything? It's
exactly the same!
Maddox:
Well Dick, first of all, this is not slacktivism. 'Cause as you recall, these
blacks rioted -
Dick:
(interjects) It's throwing Molotov cocktails and bricks through the windows of
small businesses.
Maddox:
Yeah...
Dick:
Yeah, it's horrible.
Maddox:
...which is the opposite of slacktivism.
Dick:
Right.
Maddox:
Right.
Dick:
But you're saying that slacktivism is good for gay marriage, but it's bad in
general? Where is it bad then?
Maddox:
Uh...yeah, yeah! Yeah, correct. It's bad when you do something that...that you
think will help when it has done absolutely nothing. Like UNICEF had that
advertisement a while back that said, "This..." It showed a starving
child and it said, "This starving child has received 0 grains of rice
because of your 'likes' on Facebook."
Dick:
Right!
Maddox:
That's slacktivism because when people think that 'liking' something on
Facebook is accomplishing something instead of doing something that they
actually need to do in real life, that's when it's bad. But when it's changing
social perceptions, that's good.
Dick:
I...I think you're way off here! There's no gay married...no people got gay
married 'cause you posted a pink equals sign on your Facebook!
Maddox:
Dick, it helped...every little bit helps change the tide in favor of equal
rights.
Dick:
Then that's exactly...that's EXACTLY the same thing as saying every little bit
helps feeding kids in other countries.
Maddox:
But it doesn't!
Dick:
But it...by that logic, it totally does!
Maddox:
No, it doesn't.
Dick:
Overwhelming support for foreign aid going to feed the hungry or raise...like
the ALS ice bucket challenge.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
They made shitloads of money because of that just because of the marketing!
Maddox:
Right! That's not slacktivism. That's why I didn't shit on it. Everybody came
to me and they said, "Hey Maddox, why aren't you shitting on this ice
bucket challenge?" And I sat there and I thought about it. I thought,
"You know what? It's kinda slack-...it has every element of a
slacktivist...of slacktivism."
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
"However, the difference is that it actually did raise a lot of money so
it's not slacktivism." I don't think the ALS ice bucket challenge...I
think that I would say 40 to 60 percent of the people who took part of it were
slacktivists, but they still accomplished their goals.
Dick:
More than that.
Maddox:
It's not slacktivism. By definition, if you accomplish your goals it's not
slacktivism.
Dick:
Oh, but that's...you're making the proof, you're putting the burden of proof,
um...you're making it very amorphous. Because someone cannot say...you can't
say one way or the other that raising awareness of hunger has not lessened the
negative effects of hunger. Like, you cannot say that it's done absolutely
nothing.
Maddox:
Well no, raising awareness of hunger does next to nothing if you don't actually
donate. So the difference between the ALS ice bucket challenge and raising
awareness for hunger, for example, is that if you just post something on
Facebook and say, "Hey guys, don't forget some people are hungry
somewhere!" GREAT, that does fucking nothing. But if you challenge
somebody and say, "Look, do this silly thing and then donate to this
cause." Yeah, it's stupid and it's infuriating and I'm fucking tired of
seeing that shit. However, they accomplished their goals. I can't impugn them
too much. I mean yeah, it's annoying, it's stupid, but...they accomplished
their goals! They did something! And this isn't slacktivism either, Dick,
because when they sent in the National Guard they had whites go down there and
guard black hospitals. There were whites who were trying to attack black
hospitals...
Dick:
Uh-huh.
Maddox:
...and they sent white National Guardsmen down there to protect them, and that
kind of also sent a signal to the whites down there that "Hey, we're no
longer living in a segregated South." I mean, they very much were, but
legally they were trying to change that precedent and this Haynes Report really
put lynching in the spotlight. Like, there was a huge drop after that...after
1919 of lynchings.
Dick:
So commit as many crimes as you can to stop other crimes? Is that why it's a
solution?
Maddox:
No, not always. Well Dick, this brings us to -
Dick:
(interjects) 1 billion dollars spent on the LA riots fixing it. 1 billion
dollars of property destroyed.
Maddox:
Yeah, that's a huge problem. But Dick, this brings us to the Baltimore riots,
right?
Dick:
Okay.
Maddox:
'Cause you said...that's an important thing that you just brought up, and this
is from an MSNBC report. This guy's interviewing a woman who's down there
during the riots, and here's the first part of that interview. Listen to this.
[plays MSNBC clip]
Male
reporter: When you say that you want justice, what type of message do you think
it sends to the world when we're waiting on that justice and due process from
the police investigation that we see residents last night looting and rioting
in the city? Does that represent the population of the city?
Maddox:
[pauses clip] Okay, fair question,
right?
Dick:
Sure!
Maddox:
He said, "Okay, well, you guys want this thing to change, you want this
bad thing to stop. How does looting and rioting help that?" And here's
what the woman answered, and I think this is really important. [resumes clip]
Female
interviewee: No it doesn't, but my question to you is when we were out here
protesting all last week for 6 days straight peacefully, there were no news
cameras, there were no helicopters, there was no riot gear, and nobody heard
us. So now that we've burned down buildings and set businesses on fire and
looted buildings, now all of a sudden everybody wants to hear us. Why does it
take a catastrophe like this in order for America to hear our cry? I mean,
enough is enough. We've had too many lives lost at the hands of police
officers. Enough is enough.
[clip
ends]
Dick:
Yeah, 'cause you're a fuckin' terrorist. That's why. You're terrorizing people
into listening to you, so congratu-fuckin'-lations.
Maddox:
Well, the majority -
Dick:
(interjects) That's why they're listening.
Maddox:
The major-...first of all Dick, who's the terrorist? The rioters?
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
Or the people who instigated it by breaking a man's spine when he was put in
their trust and care for doing nothing more than carrying a switchblade?
Meanwhile you and your merry band of idiots are running around California with
guns, open carry laws, yet when a black person gets pulled over with a
switchblade they throw him in the back of a van, give him a rough ride, strap
him down, and then they severed his spinal cord in three different places,
injured his larynx, he went into a coma and then died! And then Rand fuckin'
Paul, that dipshit, came out with this news release and he was sayin',
"Well, it's the breakdown of the family. That's the reason we have these
problems." Well, you know what would help not break down the family? When
your son isn't dead because his fuckin' spinal cord was broken. And people were
peacefully protesting for 6 days; nobody gave a shit about it, nobody paid
attention, there weren't helicopters flying around, so guess what? People got
frustrated and fed up and they burnt a few things! They burnt down a few
buildings.
Dick:
Just burnt a couple buildings down, no big deal! No lives were ruined by that,
were they? Sorry you lost your son, but going around and destroying other
people's lives is not the way to deal with it!
Maddox:
I agree, I agree. That is a huge problem, Dick.
Dick:
That's what they're doing!
Maddox:
However, what's a better solution? We're talkin' about solutions here, so how
would you get your, uh...this problem, which is a huge problem. You don't think
this police brutality is a huge problem?
Dick:
I brought in Militarized Police in like the 12th episode! I think it's a HUGE
fuckin' problem!
Maddox:
Great, then we agree. So what's a better solution, Dick?
Dick:
How to fix the police??
Maddox:
Nonononono, I'm asking specifically about THIS. They're trying to get
people...they're saying enough is enough. What this woman said is important,
and I think she's very astute. She said, "When we were protesting
peacefully, nobody paid attention to us. Nobody gave a shit." And by the
way, this woman isn't violent and the majority of the people who are protesting
are not violent. This is a very small contingent of people who are looting and
robbing some stores. And the CVS? Really, their lives are ruined?
Dick:
Uh-huh.
Maddox:
That entire fuckin' store and that franchise is insured to high end.
Dick:
You don't think any small businesses...first of all, so it's okay to be violent
as long as someone has insurance?
Maddox:
No, no.
Dick:
'Cause that applies to a lot of things. Is it okay to be violent just because
it's a big corporation and you personally can't imagine people getting hurt by
that?
Maddox:
No.
Dick:
Is it okay because it's spread out amongst...? Like, why is it okay to burn a
CVS down but it's not okay to burn down Joe's Liquor?
Maddox:
I'm not defending their...uh, the violence here, Dick. What they did is -
Dick:
(interjects) Sounds like you were a little bit when it comes to CVS.
Maddox:
No, what I'm doin' is I'm making the case that sometimes violence can be a
solution in that it does...it does bring the national spotlight on something
that people were ignoring. You know Dick, I've been working on a video about
police deaths, and I just found this out today. There's this website, I think
it's called Policedeaths.net.
Dick:
Mhm.
Maddox:
It's a really good website. They are...so the police departments around the
nation are not keeping track of the number of people they kill. Did you know
this?
Dick:
They're not keeping track at all?
Maddox:
No, they're not keeping track AT ALL.
Dick:
What do you mean? They gotta file...don't they have to file a report every time
they shoot a bullet?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
In The Other Guys, they made Will Ferrell fill out a report when he fired a
bullet at his desk.
Maddox:
Well, sure. However, that's uh, that's not...that's not public knowledge. They
don't rep-...they don't release that information.
Dick:
Oh! Oh, ehh...yeah.
Maddox:
They supposedly have this internally, but some departments say, "We don't
even keep track of that."
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
So this website took initiative to start logging since I think 2013 every time
a headline...a police officer kills a civilian, and just since this January
alone, you know how many people have died?
Dick:
No, tell me.
Maddox:
Over 320! Over 320. Some of that...and I was lookin' at this thing and I'm
thinkin' -
Dick:
(interjects) That cops have killed? 320 people in America since January?
Maddox:
Yeah, 320. 320 since January, and I was thinking, "Well - "
Dick:
(interjects) Seems like a lot!
Maddox:
Yeah. "I'm gonna start checking some of these headlines he's linking to.
Surely these are...a lot of 'em are, you know, 'thugs.'" Other N-words, by
the way. Go vote up Other N-Words, 'cause everyone's saying "thug" is
the new N-word. Anyway, I was thinkin' that a lot of these people were just,
you know, robbing liquor stores and robbing convenience stores and something
happened and the police shot them.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
But that's not at all what I found. I found that people were getting killed
left and right, like... (stammers) I saw a 17-year-old girl get killed...
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
...there was, uh, there was somethin' like a 12...there was that 12-year-old
child who got killed for having a -
Dick:
(interjects) I've had a cop pull a gun on me.
Maddox:
Yeah?
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
How did you...oh, that's right, you told that story a couple episodes ago.
Dick:
Did I? Where I had a toy gun in my car, like the full-on red cap and everything?
Maddox:
Oh no, I didn't hear this story. Go on.
Dick:
Oh yeah! No, somebody saw it, they called it in. I was dickin' around minding
my own business, I was dropping off some helium tanks for, uh, for high school.
I was in high school.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
I was dropping off some helium tanks from a function that we'd just done.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
And it was in, like, the industrial area of town so I don't know, maybe there
is more...gun crimes there than there would otherwise be.
Maddox:
Probably.
Dick:
Maybe the cops are probably keyed up when they're in that area. Right?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Somebody saw this gun in my car, called it in. I'm leaving the helium tank
place, I look left and right, I turn right to see...you know, for traffic.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
I turn right; there's a fuckin' cop with a pistol pointed at my face from 10
feet away, and I'm like, "Alright! Well, um..." What do you do?
You're not prepared to react to that. I'm just kind of sitting there and I just
put my hands up, 'cause that's what you see in the movies.
Maddox:
Sure. (chuckling)
Dick:
I'm like, "Welp, uh, here you go! I've gotta put the car in park so I can
get out. Like, I understand that you're pissed off and that you would like to
kill me."
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
"I understand that some part of you as a human being hopes I'm a bad guy
so that you can kill me now and be a hero."
Maddox:
They wanna be a hero!
Dick:
"I get that that's in you somewhere. I'm not saying that that's your
primary motivation but I understand the possibility of getting executed right
now is very real, so I really need to put this car in park. Like, I'm trying to
communicate that to you through a sheet of glass."
Maddox:
Were you saying this to him?
Dick:
I just mouthed "park" over and over until I got a nod, because he's
thinkin', "I have a gun."
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Right? And this is now a suicide by cop. By the way, uh, I don't know why that
was necessary! So now I'm seeing other cars. Now it's the swarm moment, right?
Maddox:
Wow.
Dick:
Other cars pull in, dudes pop out with shotguns. They, um, they pull me out of
the car and they're like, "Where is it?" and I'm like, "You know
man, you're gonna have to be more specific. Like, I'm sorry. I get the whole
cop talk thing, but you're gonna have to give me complete sentences."
She's like, "Where's the gun? Where's the gun, where's the gun?" and
I'm like, "I have a fake prop gun in the back seat. That might be what
you're talking about. No real guns! I don't have any real guns."
Maddox:
And even if you did though, why...what's the issue? You're allowed to carry
guns.
Dick:
I don't know, dude. To this day I don't know.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
That's what I tell them. They go find the gun immediately, the fake gun.
Immediately. I spend the next 2 hours in handcuffs on the side of the road as
they tear apart the rest of my car and mock my English textbooks. We were
reading...required reading in like 11th grade was "Sons and Lovers."
(Maddox laughs) Uh, yeah! It's a James Joyce book or something like that.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
It's like classic American literature, right? This fuckin' meathead cop pulls
this out, he's like, "Huh, 'Sons and Lovers.' What's this all about?"
(stupid voice) and I'm like, "Oh, it's like a..." You know, and they're
laughing at each other like dumb...like retarded jocks.
Maddox:
Yeah, jocks.
Dick:
And I'm like, "First of all dude, it's...you pulled that out of my school
backpack."
Maddox:
Yeah!
Dick:
"Do you think that I'm...like, I bought that for FUN? Did you remember
high school?! Did you enjoy reading everything? None of that's fun for me!
That's not a fun book for me!" But I'm like, "Uh, I don't know, dude.
It's like an exploration of the Oedipal complex around - "
Maddox:
(interjects) Oedipus.
Dick:
Yeah, the...Oedipal. "Oedipal."
Maddox:
Oedipus. Oh, "Oedipal," okay.
Dick:
No, it's Oedipal complex.
Maddox:
I see what you're saying, yeah yeah yeah.
Dick:
Yeah. "...around...in like the 1800s, in the late 1800s. I don't know what
you want. Like, what do you want that to be? Do you want me to say, 'Oh yeah,
you got me. You know why I have that book? 'Cause I'm gay.'" (Maddox
laughs) "Like, make fun of me."
Maddox:
Yeah!! That's a...
Dick:
"Make fun of me, you fuckin' assholes."
Maddox:
That's the subtext here!
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
They were makin' a gay joke, essentially.
Dick:
They were making a gay joke at a KID.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
And at the time I was like, "Well, I'm glad I got out of that." But
now, not that specifically, but now I hate the cops for the rest of my life!
Maddox:
Hm.
Dick:
You know what I'm saying? That's what that experience showed me.
Maddox:
So let's recap, Dick. You got pulled over as a white male who got -
Dick:
(interjects) Half. Half white.
Maddox:
Well yeah, but you look pretty white. So you got pulled over, the cops didn't
shoot you...
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
...and this experience where the cops DIDN'T shoot you and they kinda made a
gay joke made you hate them for the rest of your life. Just imagine -
Dick:
(interjects) I'm not a fan of cops!
Maddox:
I know. But just imagine the amount of hatred you might have, you MIGHT have
if, say, every few days you read a headline where another man was shot unarmed,
a black man, and you were black. Can you understand the frustration that these
people are feeling?
Dick:
Of course!!
Maddox:
Because based on a gay joke, you hated cops. Can you imagine the frustration -
Dick:
(interjects) No, it's much more than that.
Maddox:
Well, sure.
Dick:
It's not a gay joke, it's much more than that. It's just the whole...their
whole system, their whole deal.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
But here's the problem. Here's why riots are not a solution. First of all, it's
just violence against other citizens who also are in the same situation as
you.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
First of all. You're destroying your own fuckin' neighborhood. Great job! It's
fun, it's cool! I like breakin' shit, but you're just hurting other people who
are just like you. #2: if that woman wants things to be fixed, she's gonna have
to start hearing possible solutions, and that's where it breaks down because if
I give you a solution on how to fix this, you're gonna IMMEDIATELY disagree
with it.
Maddox:
Dick -
Dick:
(interjects) Immediately.
Maddox:
Uh, I don't think what these people need are lectures. They don't need people
sitting there coming down with solutions from up high, from people who don't
understand what they're going through day to day. We can't -
Dick:
(interjects) I'm talking about fixing the system that's racist against them!
I'm not talking about lecturing them; I'm saying, "Okay, I have an idea of
how to fix this. Let's do it." Immediately you're gonna get 99 people out
of 100 saying "no." That's not the problem.
Maddox:
Well, what's the sol-...well, I wanna hear your solution but before I do, Dick,
I just wanna point out one other thing. You said that, you know, this is a
horrible thing that's happening. The riots are hurting innocent people, right?
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
It's true!
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
But where is the, uh, the righteous indignation when the Aggieville Riots
happened? That was in Kansas. 6,000 to 8,000 people rioted after a game between
Kansas State University and University of Kansas. People threw bottles and
rocks at police, there was a riot -- and nobody was killed, by the way. People
threw bottles and rocks at police; no righteous indignation, no fucking
blowhards.
Dick:
What, from me?
Maddox:
No, not from you. I'm saying right now the people who are impugning the
Baltimore rioters, they're saying, "Well, they're thugs and they're
animals" and so on and so forth.
Dick:
Oh.
Maddox:
But there was no righteous indignation for a fucking riot after a football
game. There was a riot just a few years ago in downtown LA...
Dick:
There always is!
Maddox:
...when the Lakers WON!
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
And then that same weekend of the Kansas riot there was a Detroit riot, when
the Detroit Tigers won the World Series in 1986, I believe. They WON and people
rioted, and almost every single window, EVERY single window in Aggieville was
smashed and cars were set on fire. That's what happened after a football game,
so let's back off the righteous indignation for a minute because at least these
people have a cause. (Dick scoffs) At least these people are pushed and
frustrated to the point. Now I wanna hear, Dick, what is your solution?
Dick:
What you just said frustrates me even more than... (stammers) It's not
justifiable to me. It's not justifiable to, if something bad happened to you,
to just go ahead and pay it forward.
Maddox:
Yeah, I'm not -
Dick:
(interjects) And that's what a riot is to me.
Maddox:
I'm not sure it is justifiable, Dick. Again, I'm not saying that it's justified
and I'm not saying that violence is good. However, it is...it is one way that
they are getting attention to this. They're trying to, um...wait no, I said it
more eloquently before. I'm not gonna repeat it.
Dick:
You want me to -
Maddox:
(interjects) What's a solution, Dick? I wanna hear a solution.
Dick:
You wanna hear something interesting first?
Maddox:
What?
Dick:
The first riot, first recorded riot? Happened because of sports.
Maddox:
(laughs) Is it really?
Dick:
It happened, I think...yeah, it happened in Rome or something. One of the
emperors pushed back a chariot race?
Maddox:
Yeah?
Dick:
People rioted. (Sean chuckles in the background)
Maddox:
Yeah! (Dick laughs) Yeah, people riot for sporting events WAY more often than
people riot for racial events where there is some severe social problem going
on with police, yet everybody gets high and mighty when this happens.
Dick:
Well... (sighs) You know. Okay, here's...here's a solution.
Maddox:
What's a solution?
Dick:
Stop having laws that are not illegal.
Maddox:
Okay. (muttering)
Dick:
Stop...don't make laws that engender ill will between the people and the
police.
Maddox:
Dick, I'll tell you why that's not...I mean, I agree with that, but that is
such a simplistic view of what's going on in Baltimore.
Dick:
Make drugs legal!
Maddox:
It's not just about drugs. It's such a simplistic view. Someone posted a
picture on Twitter recently of some boarded-up housing in Baltimore, in west
Baltimore, and they said, "This is why they're rioting." And I
thought, "Well, that's cherry-picked. I should probably go look on Google
Earth," and I found some nice neighborhoods over there, but I was blown
away. I encourage everybody to do this: go to Google Maps right now, type in
"west Baltimore," then go to Google Street View and just start
looking at the neighborhoods. Look at what these people are living in. There is
house after house after house of just boarded-up windows. If you're a homeless
person or if you're somebody living in poverty and you walk around and you see
all these boarded-up homes that some rich land owner is just sitting on because
the property value hasn't increased enough for him to make a profit, and you
think, "Well, why the fuck am I living on the street every day when
there's this perfectly good home that's been sitting there boarded up for years
and I can't get a fucking job? Meanwhile, the police are targeting us."
And I'll tell you why that "useless law" solution isn't really a
solution, Dick: because still,
blacks are still pulled over 5 to 10 times more often than whites in these
neighborhoods.
Dick:
It's because of drug laws.
Maddox:
It's not just drug laws!
Dick:
I honestly think that...okay, first of all, what did I say? I'm gonna propose a
solution; immediately shot down. Didn't I say that? That's why it's not as
simple as "just fix it," 'cause anybody who has an idea on how to fix
it gets shot down!
Maddox:
Yeah. You know what -
Dick:
(interjects) There's just...like, legalize drugs because that's what you get
busted for in the ghetto! You have your life thrown away 'cause you've got some
drugs on you. You're an affluent white person, you're never gonna get busted
for drugs!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
And everybody's doing drugs!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
That's a huge problem to me that's obvious and easy to fix. That's not even
getting into, like, education and shit that will proactively help them.
Maddox:
Mhm.
Dick:
This is just a solution that seems fuckin' obvious! Immediately shot down.
Maddox:
Why are you thinkin' about this, Dick?
Dick:
What do you mean?
Maddox:
Why are you thinking about this solution right now?
Dick:
Why am I thinking about the solution you just...my solution for drugs?
Maddox:
Yeah. Yeah! Why are you thinkin' about the solution to this problem?
Dick:
Because you are talking about the riots, and you said "propose - "
Maddox:
(interjects) Why am I talking about the riots?
Dick:
'Cause you think it's a solution and they're happening.
Maddox:
Because they're...
Dick:
Just say what you want me to say! What?
Maddox:
Because they're happening. You know what's ironic, Dick? We wouldn't be havin'
this conversation if they demonstrated peacefully and continued to. Because
it's obvious that I care about this a lot, right? And even me, somebody who
cares about this -- I really do care about these social issues -- I didn't know
about the demonstrations that were happening peacefully, but as soon as
somebody threw a rock through a window, as soon as a cop car got pelted, as
soon as there was some smoke in the air, everybody's cameras were fixed on
Baltimore. And yes, it's a small minority. A small, small percentage of the
people down there are violent, but it's causing us to talk about it and you
wouldn't be thinking of that solution. You wouldn't be dreaming up that
solution.
Dick:
First of all, that's...don't tell me what I would not be thinking.
Maddox:
Well...
Dick:
I'll talk about legalizing drugs all day. The amount of times I get called a
libertarian in the fuckin' comments, you should at least give me that. (Maddox
laughs)
Maddox:
Well that's fine, Dick, but I think that's a simplistic view because you're not
addressing the poverty, you're not addressing the crime, you're not addressing
the, uh, the fact that blacks are pulled over way more often than whites.
Dick:
It's a simplistic view that I have because I offer ONE thing that I think can
possibly help this massive fucking catastrophe. I'm not saying it will...you
realize I'm not saying it will fix everything?
Maddox:
Right.
Dick:
There's like hundreds of things we could be doing.
Maddox:
Sure.
Dick:
But not...but I can't do them!
Maddox:
Yeah, I know. I agree, Dick, and you know what? I'm not disagreeing with that.
I think it's an important step in the right direction to le-...you know, maybe
not make so many drug violations because over 92 percent -- I think I read this
statistic -- in Baltimore, 92 percent of the black people who were arrested
were arrested for marijuana offenses.
Dick:
Yeah! It's a totally racist law.
Maddox:
Yeah, that's...I mean, that's pretty huge. Well, it's not necessarily that the
law is racist but police are pulling over black people more often than whites,
sometimes for doing nothing, for being DWB. You know what...uh, "driving
while black."
Dick:
"Driving while ballin'." (Maddox and Sean laugh) Yeah, I know THAT
one. (smiling)
Maddox:
"Driving while ballin'." Anyway Dick, we are talking about this now
because they rioted. Had they not, we wouldn't be talkin' about it. And
everybody who has so much righteous indignation, why don't you just step the
fuck back for a minute and start bitching this strong and loudly next time
there's a riot for a sporting event? Which should be, oh, I don't know, any
fucking minute now, because every time a sporting team wins or loses people
have a reason to riot. You know, they were talkin' about this Kansas City riot
-- and I'll just end on this point. They were sayin' that there was one time
where it was a really hot game, it was the same two teams, and it ended in a
17-17 tie...
Dick:
Uh-huh.
Maddox:
...and everybody was just like, "Eh, let's just go home." Nobody gave
a shit!
Dick:
Nobody rioted. (amused)
Maddox:
Nobody rioted! Because they weren't...they didn't have a reason to celebrate
either w-...celebrate or they weren't angry either way.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
It's fuckin' stupid.
Dick:
Hey, if nobody's payin' attention to you, just knock down a couple of their
buildings. Then everybody will be talking about you all the time. Right?
Maddox:
Dick, until I hear a better non-violent solution...and I think I have one. I
think I know of one possible non-violent solution to this and it's potentially
similar to how Gandhi demonstrated, which is huge hunger strikes. If that was
happening on a large enough scale, maybe people would notice. But it's kinda
hard when people are that frustrated and that up in arms, and I do believe the
media may be...may be race baiting a little bit, because I was lookin' at the
people who were killed by cops. It's not all blacks, but the majority of the
ones who were killed for not being armed were definitely black.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
And it's really shitty. This is a problem that needs to stop. I mean, uh, this
is -
Dick:
(interjects) Problem?
Maddox:
This is a problem that needs to be stopped and I think that rioting isn't
necessarily always bad. We've seen some good things come from rioting. The
Haynes Report -
Dick:
(interjects) I think it's terrorism.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
It's completely terrorism, it's bad; if you do it you're a scumbag.
Maddox:
Yeah, but some -
Dick:
(interjects) The reasons don't matter.
Maddox:
Right, but the Arabs view our bombings...our predator drones as terrorism and
so they respond in kind, so this is I think the response in kind to the police
supposedly terrorizing the civilians by throwing them in the back of a van and
breaking your spine. That's a fucking awful way to go. I think...I can't think
of many things I would rather not have done to me than having a broken spine.
That sounds pretty awful.
Dick:
I mean, it's... (sighs) Yeah, if you...if you wanna whip people up into a
frenzy to commit violence, focusing on one heinous act is a great way to do it.
And you know why -
Maddox:
(interjects) It's not one heinous act, Dick.
Dick:
You know why...yeah, but that's what...you're talking about it again and again
to make it seem...what they're doing justifiable, to make it seem
justifiable.
Maddox:
It's not j-...I'm not saying that the violence is justified! That's not the
goal here!
Dick:
It sounds like...
Maddox:
I'm saying that some good can come of rioting! I'm not saying that the violence
is justified.
Dick:
That's the definition of "justifying."
Maddox:
No, just because something good comes from it doesn't mean the initial act was
justified. Like for example, if a criminal was robbing a bank and on his way,
you know, knocked someone over who, uh...who was about to commit a bigger
crime? Yeah, he did some good but that doesn't justify his initial crime. I'm
saying that some good can come of rioting. That's why I'm saying that -
Dick:
(interjects) It justifies Robin Hood's crimes.
Maddox:
What?
Dick:
Robin Hood, the guy who stole from the rich and gave to the poor?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
That's justified because he gave it to the poor.
Maddox:
Right.
Dick:
That's the story. Still committing crimes!
Maddox:
Um...yeah, but uh, but the scale of that crime is pretty low. The scale of the
crimes they're doing in riots are pretty high. There's a lot of monetary damage
done. Like you said earlier, there's a billion dollars worth of damage?
Dick:
A billion bucks, yeah.
Maddox: Yeah.
Dick:
In LA.
Maddox:
That's huge. Anyway Dick, that's my solution.
Dick:
We know our riots in LA. What's up, Sean?
Sean:
No, I was just gonna say, didn't Martin Luther King usher in, like, huge social
change through non-violent means?
Dick:
Yeah!
Sean:
That's a more recent example than Gandhi.
Dick:
No shit! But you know what? It's not as fun. (cynical)
Sean:
He had the sit-ins and stuff. I mean...
Dick:
It's not as fun for people to do a sit-in as it is to throw a brick through a
window.
Sean:
People were definitely made aware of, you know, problems through that. It's
still talked about to this day all the time!
Dick:
Yeah. Uh, I wanna lighten the mood a little bit...
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
...by playing a bit. This is a...this is a deep cut from an Asterios Kokkinos
bit. One of our favorites.
Maddox:
Oh! Yeah, let's hear it. [plays first
Biggest Problem in History bit]
(fanfare
music)
Asterios:
(old-timey voice) Welcome to The Biggest Problem in History! Taking the pisstory
out of history. Examining the biggest problems in history to occur this week.
(Maddox chuckles)
Dick:
So these are...these are old.
Maddox:
Yeah.
(telegraph
machine beeping)
Asterios:
April 14th, 1865: President Abraham Lincoln is shot in Ford's Theatre by
attention-seeking actor John Wilkes Booth. (Dick
and Maddox laugh) Booth, a total
diva who couldn't relinquish the spotlight for a single second, assassinated
Lincoln and successfully cemented actors over presidents as our national heroes. (Dick
and Maddox laugh more) Never again
would we think of the president as cooler than some really handsome idiot who's
good at pretending to punch people or cry. Great job, John Wilkes Booth!
Actors: 1, Presidents: 0.
[bit
ends]
Dick:
(laughs) Here, I got one more.
Maddox:
Great! [Dick plays next Biggest Problem
in History bit]
(fanfare
music; telegraph machine beeping)
Asterios:
(old-timey voice) April 20th, 2010: The Deepwater Horizon oil rig explodes in
the Gulf of Mexico...
Dick:
Oh, yeah.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Asterios:
...killing 11 workers, but more importantly spilling our precious, precious
oil! That stuff ain't cheap! (Dick and Maddox
laughing) Don't act like you don't
need it every day. It takes millions of years to create the magic black elixir
that drives our economy, whereas new people can be banged out in a weekend if
you're not too drunk and you swear to God you put on a condom.
Dick:
Good point!
Asterios:
All in all 4.9 million barrels of oil were tragically lost at sea, as well as
the environment or whatever. (everyone laughs)
[bit
ends]
Dick:
Alright. (amused) Um...you wanna get to my solution?
Maddox:
Yeah, let's hear it.
Dick:
I think there's gonna be a theme this episode where each other thinks that each
other's solution is actually a huge fuckin' problem.
Maddox:
Okay. (smiling)
Dick:
The Apple Watch.
Maddox:
Ohh, Apple Watch!!
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Well, well, well, the ripoff of ripoffs! (Dick and Sean laugh) Let's hear about
this fuckin' bullshit-ass tech!
Dick:
The ripoff of ripoffs?!
Maddox:
Yeah!
Dick:
Okay, I...when I saw the Apple Watch announced, that's the same thing that I
thought.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
I was like, "What a fuckin' joke."
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
"This is stupid. It's just...who is gonna wear this dumb thing? Why do I
need to wear this thing?"
Maddox:
Mhm.
Dick:
"Why do I need to rely on another gadget? You're gonna look like Inspector
Gadget walking around with this. Like, it's gonna be stupid."
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Right?
Maddox:
Why weren't you thinking that, oh, I don't know, fuckin' 6 months...a year ago
when the Pebble came out before the Apple Watch?
Dick:
I was!
Maddox:
Okay.
Dick:
Yeah, I thought the same thing of the Pebble!
Maddox:
Sure.
Dick:
"What a stupid thing on Kickstarter. Everyone is just buying it for the
idea, like a lot of things on Kickstarter. I think it's a joke."
Right?
Maddox:
Okay.
Dick:
Okay. BUT, my dad said somethin' very smart to me when I was gearing up for...I
was home for dinner and I said, "The Apple Watch, what a stupid piece of
crap." Dad's a very smart guy, very savvy guy. He says, "Yeah, but
think about all the time you're gonna save when you don't have to pull your
phone out to look to see if you got messages or emails."
Maddox:
Ohhh. (groaning)
Dick:
And I...what do you mean, "oh"? Are you oh-ing like, "Oh, what a
smart thing to say?"
Maddox:
NO.
Dick:
Oh. Uh-oh. (Maddox laughs) Maddox, the average person checks their phone 150
times a day!
Maddox:
Great.
Dick:
That's every 6 minutes!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
I mean, can you imagine that movement? And you check your phone all the fuckin'
time.
Maddox:
Yeah, but only because I block Facebook and Twitter on my phone and I just
check it...I just check it when I take shits now. That's all I do.
Dick:
I don't believe you.
Maddox:
Yeah!
Dick:
'Cause you check it when you're out as well. Like, you check it in bars and
restaurants.
Maddox:
Oh no, I've gotten way better at that. I have a...I have imposed -
Dick:
(interjects) Yeah, I believe that.
Maddox:
Yeah! I have imposed a "no cell phone" rule on myself on dates and
when I'm out with friends. I don't touch it. I receive phone calls, I let it go
to voicemail, unless I know I'm gettin'...I'm expecting something important,
because it's rude.
Dick:
And you're an exceptional, um...
Maddox:
Guy.
Dick:
A guy.
Maddox:
An exceptional guy. (laughs)
Dick:
Yeah, you're an...and you're an exceptional guy, so surely you would say the
average person does not do that!
Maddox:
No.
Dick:
In fact, they spend 144 minutes a day on their phone. You remember you said you
had Facebook blocked, right?
Maddox:
Yeah, yeah.
Dick:
I think part of that is people check their phone to see if they have a message,
and they get sucked...and they see the phone, they're like, "Oh, I could
do other shit while I'm here too."
Maddox:
Yeah!
Dick:
So if it's on a watch, not only do you not have to pull it outta your pocket
150 times a day, but you also aren't gonna sucked into all the other bullshit.
Maddox:
Mmm.
Dick:
You see what I'm saying?
Maddox:
Mhm.
Dick:
So I did some research...
Maddox:
Great. (dryly)
Dick:
...on the reviews for this product?
Maddox:
Uh-huh.
Dick:
That's what these engineers are saying! That they don't look at their phones
anymore. They don't take them out of their pocket.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
And another thought occurred to me that I thought is weird, because Apple
usually does a great job marketing. Surely you'll admit that.
Maddox:
Yeah, mar-...Apple...
Dick:
Very successful marketing.
Maddox:
Apple is...I will definitely say that Apple is unimpeachable when it comes to
marketing. They're one of the best.
Dick:
Right! So when they started doin' this Apple Watch thing, I thought, "Why
do I think this is a stupid thing?" Right?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Like, I should not have that impression lookin' at it, and I think a lot of
people do. Like, I don't think this ad campaign has been successful.
Maddox:
No, it's stupid.
Dick:
BUT, along with my theory that the watch is a huge solution...
Maddox:
Mhm. (sarcastic)
Dick:
...is because the ad that they should be showing is the watch kills the phone!
The ad should be, "The phone is rude, the phone is crass, the phone is
bulky and outdated. The watch is the future." You're not gonna...all this
walking around like a...like an iPhone zombie, staring at your phone while
you're walking around, sitting on the bus staring at your phone, being out on a
date staring at your phone? I think the watch is gonna kill all that.
Maddox:
Yeah, great, Dick! Now instead of people lookin' at their phone, they're gonna
be lookin' at their wrist! Awesome. Huge solution.
Dick:
But they're just gonna glance at it!
Maddox:
Glance at it, get outta here.
Dick:
Glance at it!
Maddox:
They're gonna sit there fuckin' fiddling around with it, installing
bullshit-ass apps, and you can't type on those watches. Those watches are
worthless. Have you seen the keyboards on those things?
Dick:
No.
Maddox:
They're awful.
Dick:
No.
Maddox:
The keyboards...it's just an exercise in frustration. I think they're going
back. They're reverting our technology back to the...what was the, um, the dial
pad lettering system? Something 9? Uh...QWERTY9 or something?
Dick:
Oh, yeah. Yeah yeah yeah, I...
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
I know what you're saying. It's like 909, I think. Texting?
Maddox:
No, it's somethin' like 409 or somethin'. Anyway, it's...it's T9! T9
prediction, that's what it is.
Dick:
T9.
Maddox:
T9 prediction.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
So they're reverting us back to T9 prediction. However, now we're one step
below that because we don't even have fucking BUTTONS. So now we have no choice
but to stare at the screen, whereas with T9 prediction you knew if you pressed
the '6' button like 4 times, you'd get the letter 'O'.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Now you have to fuckin' stare at your screen like another fuckin' monkey! Go
vote up monkeys, guys!! (yelling)
Dick:
As a solution.
Maddox:
No!! (both laugh) You motherfucker, as a problem! Piece of SHIT. Okay, so why
specifically the Apple Watch, Dick? Over, say, the innovators of Pebble?
Dick:
Because the Pebble looks like a toy.
Maddox:
YOU look like a toy. (laughs)
Dick:
That's why...that's why I hated it in the first place.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
I said, "I don't care what this thing does because it looks like a fucking
joke."
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
"I'm not gonna wear this around."
Maddox:
Dick, every Apple iPhone user I know is an idiot, (Dick and Sean laugh) and
they have nothing...NOTHING but time on their hands!
Dick:
(interjects) I knew it. I knew this -
Maddox:
(interjects) (yells) They have nothing but time on their...I do not want to
free up their time to check, to be more productive! Are you fucking kidding
me?! (Dick laughs more) What are these people gonna do with all that free
time?
Dick:
It's like -
Maddox:
(interjects) They're gonna fuck off!
Dick:
It's like 60 percent of the world, or of the US, is an iPhone user.
Maddox:
(buzzer sound effect) Wrong.
Dick:
This is like CEOs...what is it?
Maddox:
No, wrong. Android users blow Apple users out of the water! There's way more
Android users!
Dick:
(sighs) Ugh.
Maddox:
Like, by...it's like two-thirds of the market is Android! What are you talkin'
about, iPhone users -
Dick:
(interjects) So 30 percent? I mean, you're saying that they all...all their
time is worthless, but this is like CEOs of major...this is...very important
people use iPhones.
Maddox:
Yeah. You know what -
Dick:
(interjects) It's not little girls.
Maddox:
These are a buncha hipsters standing around in coffee shops, twirling their
mustache. (Dick scoffs and laughs)
Dick:
Oh, stop!
Maddox:
You're gonna free up their other hand to twirl their mustache while they check
their stupid Twitter feed and more Instagram! Photos, photos, photos, photos!
We're fuckin' tired of your photos! Anyway, that's what you're gonna free up
their time to do, to post more photos on Instagram. FUCK.
Dick:
That's not what most iPhone users are.
Maddox:
That's all they do!! That's all they do!
Dick:
You're describing a cartoon. A guy twirling a mustache like an evil villain in
a fancy coffee shop? That's LA.
Maddox:
Yeah. Yeah!
Dick:
Specifically LA. That's not the rest of the world.
Maddox:
That's every... (Dick guffaws) ...every major or medium-sized city! Go to
Portland, go to any coffee shop. There's another fuckin' handlebar mustache
dipshit in his jorts! (Dick laughs) His pulled-up jorts and his loafers with no
fuckin' socks on! That dipshit -
Sean:
(interjects) Well, Portland is this -
Dick:
(interjects) I know. (laughs more)
Sean:
Portland is a bigger hipster city than...LA!
Maddox:
What about...go to Denver!
Sean:
I mean, it's Silverlake over a huge area!
Dick:
Denver is also another fuckin' hipster city!!
Maddox:
That's my point! Go to Salt Lake City!
Dick:
Not a hipster city.
Maddox:
Go to fuckin' Austin! No, go to Salt Lake City!
Dick:
Austin is a major hipster city. Go to Dallas. Go to Indiana.
Maddox:
Yeah, go to Indiana!
Dick:
Go to Indianapolis. You're not gonna see this.
Maddox:
I've been to Indianapolis. Fuckin' hipsters everywhere. (Sean laughs in the
background)
Dick:
Maddox... (laughs) So in your imagination, when the iPhone sells in China, does
a little Chinese kid buy it and instantly transform into a white hipster with a
shitty beard? Like a lumbersexual? (Sean laughs)
Maddox:
Yeah, that Chinese kid -
Dick:
(interjects) Like a magic...? (laughs)
Maddox:
Yeah, that Chinese kid suddenly sees the world a little bit grayer, he goes
home and buys flannel, he's smugger, he sits there parked at stop signs instead
of turning right on red or turning right when he's supposed to because he's a
fuckin' hipster. That's what you're gonna free up more time for these
douchebags. That's what you are. You're enabling dou-...you're a douchebag
enabler!
Dick:
I'm enabling...I'm enabling people to return to life with the Apple Watch.
Maddox:
Return to life? (disdainful)
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
By making it easier for them to glance at their phone? That takes you more out
of the moment! Do you realize, Dick, if you're glancing at your phone every few
seconds, you're making it more easy for people to do that and not pay attention
to their conversations. In fact, even during this very intro to your solution,
I noticed...I caught myself looking at my computer because I was tryin' to look
up a Martin Luther King quote that shit all over what Sean just said, but I
thought, "You know what? It's disrespectful to my good buddy Dick."
(Dick scoffs) "I'm gonna pay attention." Yeah!
Dick:
Yeah. (amused)
Sean:
He didn't preach non-violence?
Dick:
Of course he did. Yeah. (laughs)
Maddox:
No no, um...he did, Sean, but there's a quote and I wanna quote it directly -
Dick:
(interjects) There's a quote that says "Fuck it. Throw a bottle through a
window. Who cares? Fuck 'em." (Maddox laughs)
Maddox:
Essentially! No, he says that whatever they can't accomplish through
non-violence sometimes has to be accomplished through violence. There is a
Martin Luther King quote like that.
Sean:
Yeah, but he got it done through non-violence.
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
Yeah, well, good on him! And so did Gandhi, but uh... (Dick laughs) Until we
have another great leader...who is that leader, Reverend Al Sharpton? Anyway
man, we're talkin' about your solution. (Dick laughs more)
Sean:
NO.
Maddox:
Yeah, exactly. It's not that guy. Jesse Jackson? Fuck...fuck that! We don't
have a Martin Luther King. If we did, I would say, "Yeah, let's get that
guy to do a non-...a non-violent demonstration to solve that solution."
Sean:
I have it.
Dick:
Do you think we could have a Martin Luther King with Twitter the way...what?
Sean:
It's the "rent is too damn high" guy.
Dick:
You're absolutely right.
Maddox:
What's that?
Dick:
That guy that wore the white gloves and had the big white beard and hair for
the last...was it the last presidential election or was it the New York
governor run?
Sean:
Uh, I don't know. He was -
Dick:
(interjects) I think it was the presidential election. He said "the rent
is too damn high." That's all he said.
Maddox:
Oh, I didn't see that. (chuckling)
Dick:
He got...it was like a viral video, and they said like, "Oh fuck, he's
famous. Let's let him run for president," or whatever it was. Whatever
primary that he was in.
Maddox:
Are you talkin' about Joe the Plumber?
Sean:
You're thinking of Herman Cain, though.
Maddox:
Herman Cain! (laughs)
Sean:
Head of Godfather's Pizza.
Dick:
Yeah, it was...it was definitely in New York.
Sean:
Yeah.
Dick:
I think it was the...it was either the mayor or the governor.
Sean:
It was around the same time.
Dick:
Yeah.
Sean:
This guy has, like, a white...he's a black dude with a white beard. Really cool
lookin'.
Dick:
He's like the black Orville Redenbacher.
Sean:
Uh...yeah.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
You know what, Dick? I -
Dick:
(interjects) Colonel Sanders.
Maddox:
I'm about to -
Sean:
(interjects) Yes!
Maddox:
I'm about to shit all over your solution.
Dick:
Go ahead.
Maddox:
Because just imagine if those rioters had Apple iPhone watches, right? If they
had those iWatches? (Dick chuckles) Just imagine the free time...the amount
more damage they coulda done with all that free time they coulda spent not
checkin' their iPhones! Throwin' more bricks through windows -
Dick:
(interjects) 2 extra hours a day?
Maddox:
Yeah, it woulda made... (cracks up) It woulda made those riots way more
violent! If they... (laughs)
Dick:
So you don't think anything that I'm saying might be a cause of it? Like that
it...the immediacy, the need to fulfill if anyone's trying to contact you?
That's satisfied by the watch, and yet it doesn't have the same...it doesn't
pull you into other shit, the watch, because it's also hard to use for anything
else.
Maddox:
It's awful.
Dick:
That's what I'm saying is a...is a feature! That's a GOOD thing! You can't get
sucked into Facebook if you're just glancing to see if anybody emailed you.
Maddox:
But the...why do you need to know? Like, who...did the entire world just become
a super fuckin' important doctor and everyone needs to be contacted all the
time? In movie theaters? You know, they're startin' to sell cell phone jamming
devices, Dick, and they're startin' to try to pass laws to make 'em illegal?
Dick:
Illegal, yeah.
Maddox:
Yeah! Well, I'm gonna fuckin' buy one, man. I'm gonna jam the shit out of
everything all the time! I'm gonna jam my own fuckin' cell phone!
Dick:
You shoulda brought that in as a solution.
Maddox:
Yeah, well, sometime. Sometime, Dick. Sometime, buddy.
Dick:
Alright, um...oh, and I also...the other thing that tipped me off that the
Apple Watch specifically is good is because of that 17,000-dollar price tag.
(Maddox laughs loudly)
Maddox:
It's 17,000 dollars?! Fuck off! Buncha rich yahoos sittin' there checkin' their
Facebook feed on their wrist? 17,000 dollars?? And meanwhile these poor people
are rioting in Balt-...? Get outta here.
Dick:
That's...the point!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Apple understands that it's jewelry.
Maddox:
Oh.
Dick:
It's not...it's not something that a 13...they're not selling something that a
13-year-old boy puts on his Christmas list and then uses for 2 weeks! They're
selling jewelry, which is what a watch is!
Maddox:
Mhm.
Dick:
I'm not gonna trade my Omega for a 400-dollar piece of crap that I'm gonna have
to replace in 2 years. You understand? But they get...they get it!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
They get it! And that's what...all the other smart watches, the Pebble and, uh,
Samsung's? They all look like a fuckin' toy! They all look like a joke, and
they're being treated like a joke because of that.
Maddox:
So you brought in a status symbol as your solution, Dick? Good job. Real, uh,
real dichotomy of solutions this episode, Dick. A status symbol and people who
are suffering because of police brutality. Real... (cracks up) Real, uh, real
important solution there. And by the way, Dick, people are stealing people who
wear...people are robbing people who wear Beats, Beats by Dre, because they're
300-dollar headphones.
Dick:
Uh-huh, yeah.
Maddox:
You don't think crime's gonna get an uptick when 17,000-dollar iPhone watches
are walkin' around on people's wrists?
Dick:
No, 'cause they're...that's already the case. There's already
17,000-dollar...100,000-dollar watches.
Maddox:
Yeah, but they're not common. Apple...they're not being marketed. I've never
seen a commercial for a...for some -
Dick:
(interjects) Wait, wait, wait.
Maddox:
Yeah?
Dick:
You understand that not ALL of the Apple Watches are 17,000? There's just one
that's also made out of gold like a watch.
Maddox:
Ohh. Oh no, I didn't understand that.
Dick:
Yeah, most...nonono. Mostly they're 200 dollars, 400 dollars,
somewhere...they're mostly normal, like, smartphone prices.
Maddox:
Okay! Point-counterpoint. You... (both laugh)
Dick:
Did you think that they were selling a 17,000-dollar-only watch?
Maddox:
I read somewhere that there was a 10,000-dollar...like, the main version is
like 4,000-10,000 dollars.
Dick:
No.
Maddox:
I read somewhere about that, yeah.
Dick:
The main...you read it in a dream.
Maddox:
Yeah. (laughs)
Dick:
That's not the case.
Maddox:
Ohoho! (Dick laughs) Oh, some dream, buddy! I woke up licking my lips, like,
"I can't wait for this horseshit!"
Dick:
Alright, we got...do you wanna go through the next one?
Maddox:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dick:
That's my solution.
Maddox:
Okay. Good, uh, good...good problem, Dick. Good horse-...and you know that
shit's not gonna work either, just like every fuckin' Apple product.
Dick:
What do you mean?
Maddox:
Like, just the...like the fuckin' 45 minutes to an hour it took to start this
episode because your horseshit laptop still freezes -
Dick:
(interjects) Ah, that was user error.
Maddox:
Oh, user error, huh? (chuckling)
Dick:
I started an upgrade and I tried to stop it in the middle.
Maddox:
Ohh. It's not Apple's fault, huh?
Dick:
It's definitely my fault.
Maddox:
Yeah. Oh, so you... (giggles)
Dick:
I take full responsibility for that.
Maddox:
See?! This is...you're in such a cult that you're...this sounds like a classic
abusive relationship. (Dick and Sean laugh) Where you get...you get hurt...
(laughs)
Dick:
Yeah, it does. Not the one you're talking about.
Sean:
I thought he was gonna blame me!
Maddox:
Yeah. (grinning)
Dick:
Oh, you thought I was gonna blame you?
Sean:
Yeah, I thought so.
Dick:
No.
Maddox:
Oh, Sativa Sean.
Sean:
"Look what you made me do!" (angrily)
Maddox:
Shifty Sean over here.
Dick:
No Sean, I'm about personal responsibility.
Maddox:
Oh, yeah. (chuckling)
Sean:
Very good.
Dick:
Mhm!
Sean:
Mhm.
Maddox:
Yeah, great. Great.
Dick:
What's your solution? (about to laugh)
Maddox:
You haven't heard the end of this Apple problem. (Dick and Sean laugh)
Dick:
I can't wait to get a nice new Apple Watch and bring it in here. (smiling)
Maddox:
Great. Shove it up your ass. Um... (Dick and Sean laugh) Okay, Dick. Speaking
of Apple Watches, my next solution, real big solution, is Dumb People. (snorts
and laughs)
Dick:
Again, wrong episode. Wrong show. (Maddox giggling)
Maddox:
Yeeeah. (clapping sound effect)
Wooo! ('ding!' sound effect) Yeah,
what a good solution. Good job, Maddox. Dumb people. (Dick laughs) Um, so I
need to define them. Everybody is dumb compared to me, so...
Dick:
Huh.
Maddox:
I'm not talkin' about me compared to other people, 'cause everyone's dumb next
to the...the tower of intellect that is me. (smiles)
Dick:
Oh, okay.
Maddox:
Right? But I'm talkin' about, like, the average dumb person. The average dummy.
The dum-dum.
Dick:
(stammers) I still don't know who you're talking about.
Maddox:
Well -
Dick:
(interjects) I mean, who's the average dumb person?
Maddox:
I'll tell you!
Dick:
Okay. Go ahead.
Maddox:
You know, they're the, uh, they're the...they're the masses. Right? Dumb people
will... (Sean laughs in the background) Here's -
Dick:
(interjects) So condescending.
Maddox:
I know. (laughing)
Sean:
Talk about a 180!
Dick:
Yeah! (Maddox laughs more) Yeah.
Sean:
"Let's stick up for the little guy, the one that's shit on by the system.
And oh, by the way, you're fuckin' idiots." (Dick laughs)
Maddox:
Oh yeah, they're idiots, Sean, and I'll tell you why: 'cause dumb
people...here's why I like them. Dumb people will do the jobs that smart people
won't, and that's a really important thing! I really sincerely am saying this.
That's not to say that all people who do shitty jobs are dumb, but sometimes
there are boring jobs out there that dumb people are good at and will happily
do as a cog in the machine that smart people won't. Right? Dumb -
Dick:
(interjects) This is more elitist than...you're talking about,
it's...people are assholes for having a 17,000-dollar watch? At least they
respect manual laborers.
Maddox:
Oh, I do too, Dick! And -
Dick:
(interjects) They're just dumb.
Maddox:
Wait 'til you get... (both laugh)
Sean:
But as Judge Smails says, "The world needs ditch diggers too."
Dick:
Yeah, it does.
Maddox:
Yeah! Exactly, Sean! I totally agree. Dumb people are easy to exploit by smart
people and corporations, and without them the economy would come to a grinding
halt. And if you think that it's below someone with a PhD to serve fries,
you're right! That's why, generally speaking, people with PhDs do other things.
Now, I respect greatly the jobs that people will do that I won't. It's dumb
people who are the most content! They go to work, they come home, they eat
dinner, they watch TV, they watch some stupid shit on TV, and they spend all
their disposable income on disposable goods and crap. They're buyin'...they're
the ones goin' to see Guardians of the Galaxy like 10 times in theaters. Dumb people...
(cracks up) (Sean laughs in the background) Dumb people stimulate the economy,
and smart people save and invest! This sounds condescending towards dumb
people, I know! I know it does, but I really appreciate their existence. I
sincerely do. That's my...that's my speech about dumb people. (clapping sound effect)
Dick:
You think they're a solution?
Maddox:
Yeah, that's my -
Dick:
(interjects) Even though they caused Guardians of the Galaxy, which you hate.
Maddox:
Yeah, I'm...you know what, Dick? Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.
Just like the, uh, the PS4 argument from a few episodes back. (Dick sighs
exasperatedly) People could not wrap their heads around why I would choose the
lesser of two evils. Nothing...everything is a choice, Dick. (Dick sighs again)
Everything's a choice.
Dick:
Maddox, first of all, I don't wanna get into it on this bonus episode.
Maddox:
Great!
Dick:
We can get into it on the regular episode.
Maddox:
Yeah, regular episode. It's on.
Dick:
Because everyone's gotta hear this.
Maddox:
Great. Anyway Dick, yeah, dumb people. I have a few quotes. I just wanna say a
few quotes about dumb people.
Dick:
Uh-huh.
Maddox:
Um, this is...there's this really famous quote by Bukowski. He says, "The
problem with the world is that intelligent people are full of doubts while the
stupid ones are full of confidence." But did you know like two other
people said that before him?
Dick:
Yeah, sure.
Maddox:
Charles Darwin was the first. He said, "Ignorance more frequently begets
confidence than does knowledge," and -
Dick:
(interjects) You know what annoys me?
Maddox:
Hm?
Dick:
About quotes?
Maddox:
What's that?
Dick:
When they say shit like that that probably everyone in their life has said, and
it's like, "Well, you know, Bukowski said it. What a smart thing to
say." It's like, that's not that smart. Everyone says that.
Maddox:
Nah.
Dick:
Everyone since the beginning of fuckin' time has said that.
Maddox:
No, I disagree, Dick. And that's your -
Dick:
(interjects) But you think he, like, came up with that on his own?
Maddox:
Someone did, dickhead! Someone uttered it for the first time!
Sean:
Yeah, but it's...it's how eloquently it's stated.
Maddox:
Yeah, exactly, Sean.
Dick:
Oh, stop!
Maddox:
Thank you. What's more eloquent to say?
Sean:
No, that's what people remember.
Maddox:
Yeah!
Sean:
They say, "He said that because it was stated really eloquently."
Dick:
Yeah, the content's the same though.
Sean:
Right.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
It's like, "Oh, fuck off..."
Sean:
It is.
Dick:
"...with your quote. Everyone thinks that."
Maddox:
Yeah, everybody thinks it's important to have efficiency and, uh...efficiency
with your words, right? But it's way more eloquent to say that "brevity is
the soul of wit" than it is to say, "Everyone should have, uh,
efficiency with their words!" (dumb voice) With those two stutters in
there. Like... (Dick and Sean laugh)
Dick:
It just annoys me! That's all.
Maddox:
Yeah, I know. And then Bertrand Russell also said this. He said, "One of
the painful things about our times is that those who feel certainty are stupid
and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and
indecision." So Bertrand Russell and Charles Darwin came up with that
quote before Bukowski, and everyone's suckin' Bukowski's dead dick. Um,
Courtney Love...I like this quote from Courtney Love. She says, "Only dumb
people are happy," which I...I agree, man!
Dick:
I don't. That's just...
Maddox:
It's condescending, but, uh...
Dick:
Yeah.
Sean:
Well, Hemingway said, "Intelligence with happiness is the rarest thing I
know."
Maddox:
"Intelligence with..." That's a good quote, yeah.
Sean:
"Intelligence AND happiness is the rarest thing I know."
Dick:
Oh, fuck... (annoyed)
Maddox:
Maybe that's why I'm so miserable, 'cause I'm so smart! (laughs)
Dick:
You know what? It's beca-...that's why. It's because people who want credit for
being smart just get so mopey and emo and angsty, like, "You know why I'm
so f-...you know why I'm such a pain in the ass to be around? 'Cause I'm sooo
fuckin' smart. That's why." (Maddox laughs) "And even Hemingway said
that smart people are never happy. Look at this cross that I have to bear all
the time 'cause I'm SO smart."
Sean:
Well, he was talking about himself, of course.
Dick:
Of course, and everybody loves it 'cause they're fuckin' narcissists, and smart
people are the worst ones.
Maddox:
Yeah. Standing in line at a coffee shop with their iPhones, their iPhone
watches. (Sean laughs in the background) Um, I have one last quote. This one's
from Andy Rooney. Dick, you would appreciate this because he's actually making
a case for too much swearing. (Dick laughs) Fuckin' crotchety old Andy Rooney.
He says, "Obscenities...I think a lot of dumb people do it because they can't
think of what they want to say..."
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
"...and they're frustrated. A lot of smart people do it to pretend they
aren't very smart -- want to be just one of the boys."
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
That's what... (cracks up) He thinks people swear because...see, he thinks
smart people swear to fit in with dumb people.
Dick:
I think that's...that's kind of true.
Maddox:
I think that's fuckin' bullshit.
Sean:
I think it's fun.
Dick:
Yeah, it's fun.
Maddox:
Oh, swearing is fun!
Dick:
Yeah!
Sean:
Yeah, it is fun!
Dick:
It is fun.
Maddox:
Sometimes I just come home and I just say "fuck."
Sean:
I love to say "fuck" at work.
Dick:
(chuckles) Whoa.
Sean:
I'm gonna say it 300 times a day!
Maddox:
Sean, you are at work and you better watch it, buddy. (laughs)
Sean:
Fuck you.
Dick:
He's a porno director. Sean.
Maddox:
Whoooa!
Dick:
That's what his day job is.
Maddox:
Sativa Sean. What's another nickname we can come up with for him?
Sean:
Oh, come on. (Dick laughs)
Maddox:
Leave it in the comments.
Dick:
Uh, alright. Is that your solution? Dumb People?
Maddox:
That's my solution, Dumb People. Sincerely, Dick, without dumb people who are
content so easily with their boring lives, we would not have the economy. They
stimulate the economy by seeing Guardians of the Galaxy a billion times. And
you know, I hate Guardians of the Galaxy, but if I have to swallow that bitter
pill of Guardians of the Galaxy bein' a successful movie in order for the
economy to flourish, okay! You know what? I'll swallow that pill.
Dick:
Oh, you just don't care?
Maddox:
No, it's not that I don't care! It just that, you know, it's a bitter pill you
have to swallow sometimes to get something better.
Dick:
I can't tell if this is satire or not. (Maddox laughs) But don't vote it up,
'cause it's a huge...dumb people are a huge problem.
Maddox:
Well, dumb people are a huge problem too, Dick, but in certain contexts,
sometimes dumb people are...I intend to bring in dumb people as a problem too
at some point, and I'm curious to see whether or not people -
Dick:
(interjects) You have. Anti-vaxxers.
Maddox:
Well, that... (chuckles) That's one brand of dumb people, but dumb people in
general. Um, I'm curious to see if people think that the benefit of dumb people
outweighs the dumbness of dumb people.
Dick:
(scoffs) Alright.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Celebrity Worship? Dumb also.
Maddox:
Dumb, yeah. Yeah.
Dick:
Female Genital Mutilation? Dumb.
Maddox:
Dumb...eh, I don't know that that's dumb.
Sean:
Or is it ignorant?
Maddox:
It is ign-...well, that is ignorant...that is ignorant, and it's also culture.
Sean:
They're different things, aren't they?
Maddox:
Yeah, but it's also culture. I don't think that everybody who commits female
genital mutilation necessarily is dumb. They are also...it's part tradition.
Like, sometimes you do things out of tradition, not because you're a dumbass
but because it's how you've been brought up and it's the culture you live in.
Dick:
Alright. (dismissively)
Maddox:
Oh! (scoffing) Sorry I blew your fuckin' minds. (Dick giggles) I'm sorry I'm so
smart. Everyone's dumb compared to me. How's that?
Dick:
You want my last solution?
Maddox:
Yeah, what's your last solution?
Dick:
Lemme find it. Um...
Maddox:
(crickets sound effect)
Sean:
Oh, man. (from background) (Maddox chuckles)
Dick:
Oh, here it is. Here it is, here it is.
Sean:
Organization, biggest solution!
Dick:
Yeah. (Maddox laughs) My last solution: polio.
Maddox:
Your solution is polio?!
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Fuck you, Dick! (buzzer sound effect)
(clapping sound effect - cuts off
halfway through)
Dick:
Polio...America was declared "polio free" in 1994. The disease only
exists in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. We beat polio. Right?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
You know what they're usin' polio for now?
Maddox:
What?
Dick:
Curing brain cancer.
Maddox:
Oh, that's cool!
Dick:
Yeah! So they combined polio with, like, a...they shot it in a couple...a
couple bits of DNA from the common cold?
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
They weakened it so it can't multiply and kill you and cripple you.
Maddox:
Right, right. Right.
Dick:
They inject it into cancerous tumors in your brain...uh, glioblastomas, which
is like a death sentence cancer, and it takes people out in the prime of their
lives. So it's a -
Maddox:
(interjects) Yeah, I think...I think I read about this.
Dick:
Yeah! They inject polio into the tumor, and not only does it blow up the cell
-- it kills the cancer cells -- it makes...it calls your body's immune
system in to fight the cancer!
Maddox:
That's cool.
Dick:
'Cause cancer will turn off the immune response of the body. Like, your immune
system won't fight it. It fights anything...any other disease.
Maddox:
Right, right. This is somethin' they've done for a long time. They've been
trying to do cancer research that gets your body's immune system to attack
it.
Dick:
This does that!
Maddox:
Yeah. Well, what kind...specifically just brain cancer though, huh?
Dick:
Well, glioblastomas.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Which...yeah, brain cancer.
Maddox:
Well, that's good! Is that a particularly...
Dick:
14,000 cases of glioblastoma every year.
Maddox:
Well, that answers my question.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Yeah, that's pretty...that's pretty significant!
Dick:
It's pretty good, right?
Maddox:
It's a drop in the bucket in the number of cancers that it cures, Dick.
However, I'm not going to...
Sean:
So fuck it. (laughs)
Dick:
Yeah, so fuck it.
Maddox:
No, no, no. (Dick laughs) No, I'm gonna...let me finish this sentence,
asshole!
Dick:
You so are! This is such a contest! You're such...you're so... (laughs)
Maddox:
It is not a contest!
Dick:
Go ahead.
Maddox:
Let me just f-...I was about to say, it's not -
Sean:
(interjects) Nobody wins!
Dick:
Yeah. (grinning)
Maddox:
It's not... (Dick laughs) Fuckin' Sean!! Shifty..I don't need shit from Shifty
Sean over here!
Dick:
Yeah. (Sean laughs in the background)
Maddox:
You know what, Dick? It is not the biggest cancer, but it is a solution to *a*
cancer, so it should...it deserves to be on the list! Bravo, Dick, you
actually...you, uh, you pulled the rug out from underneath me. I was about to
shit all over your polio horseshit shenanigans, but you snookered me into an
actual good solution. I'm on board with this.
Dick:
It's interesting. I saw a 60 Minutes...thing, whatever.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Television show about it. Really fascinating.
(brief silence)
Maddox:
Yeah, so what did they...what did they say on 60 Minutes? (cracks up) (Sean
laughs in the background)
Dick:
Well, I pretty much summed it all up.
Maddox:
Oh.
Dick:
That's it. Um, two-thirds...what did I say, 14,000 cases a year? Uh, they've
been workin' on this thing for 25 years, and um...it's...they didn't call it a
miracle cure, but that's what it seems like. The median survival for
glioblastoma is 14 months. 2 years survival is 30 percent, that's it.
Maddox:
Ooh, 30 percent.
Dick:
Kills everybody!
Maddox:
Wow, that's pretty rough.
Dick:
It's a cure for cancer!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
That's, um...30 percent survival rate. I...so 30 percent of 14,000...uh, so
you're saving, what, like 4,000 or 5,000 people? That's pretty significant.
Dick:
A year.
Maddox:
I mean, you know what? It's a step in the right direction. Also, because it
could inspire doctors to try looking at other diseases that we've had in the
past...because I think they're...the reason they started looking at viruses
specifically, like polio...or is polio a bacteria? No, it's viral, right?
Dick:
It's a virus.
Maddox:
So the reason they looked at those is because viruses are really good at
propagating in your body.
Dick:
Mhm.
Maddox:
So if they can get a...they basically put a virus in the virus, so they tricked
the virus into carrying this thing that attacks the cancer cells.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Uh, and I forget the gene specifically...the SR1 gene or somethin' like that?
They found that the cancer cells...a lot of cancer cells in your body have this
gene, and they're starting to breed, uh, viruses! They're trying to make
viruses that attack this...uh, cells that have this gene, thereby eliminating
cancer in your body. Not only big tumors, but benign tumors that you might not
even be able to detect.
Dick:
Uh, did you...so did you say that you think scientists could be inspired by
this?
Maddox:
I'm not saying it's slacktivism, Dick. (chuckling) I'm saying...I'm saying if
it -
Dick:
(interjects) Don't put words...! It is a...yes, you said that, right? So you
don't need a riot to inspire people. (Maddox laughs)
Maddox:
No.
Dick:
Like, Norman...Norman Borlaug might just have been a nice guy.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Like, the riot...the milk riot, the milk wars, might not have been what
inspired him to save a billion people.
Maddox:
Dick, it's...that's a nice theory. (Dick giggles) However, what happened as a
fact is that Norman Borlaug -
Dick:
(interjects) It's a fact!! He was inspired factually?!
Maddox:
As a fact, he...he was, as a fact, inspired by those milk riots. He's -
Dick:
(interjects) Explain that. How is that a fact?
Maddox:
Because it's documented history. Why didn't you just look it...like, he -
Dick:
(interjects) Did he say that?
Maddox:
Yes!
Dick:
He said, "Those riots, and only those riots, inspired me
specifically..."?
Maddox:
No!
Dick:
That's a fact?
Maddox:
He didn't say "only those riots." However, that's what got him...that
was one of the big stepping stones that...that was one of the big triggers in
his life, when he saw these riots. He wrote a letter to his wife, Dick, and
said that "It's so depressing to see these hungry people everywhere. I
need to find a solution for this. There has to be a better way. There has to be
some solution to this global hunger epidemic."
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
So he went to Mexico and started...you know, I'm not gonna get into Norman
Borlaug.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
I'm gonna bring that in as a solution some other time.
Dick:
Oh. (exasperated)
Maddox:
However, Dick, however, he was inspired by those riots. Those riots...because
he saw so many people suffering, he thought, "There has to be a solution
to this," and you know what, Dick? We're doing that -
Dick:
(interjects) So there should be more suffering.
Maddox:
Well, sometimes suffering brings about grand solutions that, uh, that are way
better. It's like the H-bomb! Right?
Dick:
You know...you know who says that?
Maddox:
What?
Dick:
Bad guys!
Maddox:
Yeah! (chuckling)
Dick:
Villains. Supervillains specifically...say that. They justify the bad stuff
they do because of some amorphous, nebulous positive outcome somewhere off in
the future.
Maddox:
Okay!
Dick:
That's what villains say!
Maddox:
Alright! Well, uh, you have...we have it on record here! Dick thinks the H-bomb
was a bad thing. It end-...it killed lots of people -
Dick:
(interjects) I absolutely do!
Maddox:
Oh, r-...? Okay, great! So, we should've continued this long, drawn-out World
War II for years and years.
Dick:
Maddox, the atomic bomb did not stop World War II. That is a myth!
Maddox:
It sure as shit seemed to.
Dick:
That's...no, that is a propaganda myth told by the government to justify the
military-industrial complex, which supported...which was built around the
atomic bomb. The war was already over.
Maddox:
So Japan didn't surrender shortly after the bomb was dropped?
Dick:
They did! It doesn't mean that was the cause! They were already losing, and
they were going to surrender.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
Then we dropped bombs on them for fun.
Maddox:
Oho, we did that for fun!
Dick:
Yeah, 'cause we -
Maddox:
(interjects) And we didn't have to lie to them and tell them that we had 11
more bombs, right?
Dick:
What do you mean?
Maddox:
That was just a...that was also just part of the joke. It was a big joke, it
was a big hoax! We were like, "Hey Japan..." Because that was...that
was one of the big sticks that we had. We dropped the bombs and we said,
"Hey, we got 11 more! You got 11 more cities; you like what you see? No?
Then cool the fuck down," and Japan surrendered.
Dick:
No, that's a...that's a propaganda myth.
Maddox:
Yeah. (sarcastic)
Dick:
And you bought it hook, line and sinker.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
It wasn't the bomb that won the war. First of all, Germany was already out.
Maddox:
You know what that sounds like? You know what that sounds like, Dick? That
sounds like one of those Cracked.com articles where it's like, 'Everything You
Thought You Knew About World War II Is Wrong!" (dumb voice) (laughs)
Dick:
Do you think Japan could have fought World War II on their own?? After Hit-
Maddox:
(interjects) No! Japan had allies!
Dick:
Hitler... (stammers) Germany was already done!!
Maddox:
Yeah.
Dick:
When we dropped the bomb. It was just them, and we did it 'cause we spent the
money on it!
Maddox:
Sure. So we were just -
Dick:
(interjects) We wanted to show off!
Maddox:
Yeah, but you don't...you know what, Dick? Those bombs were so powerful, the
symbol of those bombs is so powerful, no country since has used them in war
because they know the repercussions. They...it was such an awful thing that
since then, no one has had to use them, and I'm glad that it was used back when
it was because before -
Dick:
(interjects) 'Cause you're not Japanese.
Maddox:
No... (cracks up)
Dick:
That's why.
Maddox:
Well, that's true.
Dick:
Yeah!
Maddox:
But also...but also -
Dick:
(interjects) 'Cause it wasn't done to you.
Maddox:
Yeah, but al-...well, no shit, Dick. Although I do think I could probably
survive an atomic bomb. Um...the thing is, that bomb happened at a time when
those bombs were way less destructive than we have now. Had we had the capability
to create the type of bombs that we have today, who knows what would've
happened to the world?
Dick:
Eh.
Maddox:
Especially if it came at a point where everybody was armed to the teeth with
nuclear weapons. It was such a horrible weapon that it ended the use of that
weapon. GREAT.
Dick:
But it still had to be used twice, you're saying. Never...shouldn't be used
again; definitely used twice. That was a good idea. Using it again? No, bad.
Killing all those people? Bad. Using it once? Yeah, great.
Maddox:
Dick, absolutely. (Dick laughs)
Dick:
Sure.
Maddox:
Because the bomb was the stove that America put its hand in. The world put its
hand in that stove, and we said, "Uh-oh, let's not do that
again."
Dick:
I find it very convenient when morality justifies things we already did. It's
like, "Well, uh, we did it one time. That was okay. We don't have...no
problems with that, but every other time is different."
Maddox:
No, it's not that every other time -
Dick:
(interjects) I find that very convenient.
Maddox:
Dick, I...I think that you're a smart guy, smarter than you let on
sometimes.
Dick:
Uh-huh.
Maddox:
'Cause...and this is not one of those moments. You might be part of my solution
today, as a dumb person, but uh... (laughs)
Dick:
Oh, yeah. (cynical)
Maddox:
But I think that...I think that you probably agree with me...
Dick:
I don't.
Maddox:
...and you're hamming it up for this show.
Dick:
I absolutely don't.
Maddox:
You don't think that any good...you don't think that Robin Hood is morally
righteous?
Dick:
I think he is morally righteous. That's the nature of justification.
Maddox:
Then you...okay!
Dick:
That's why it's a...that's why it's called a justification! That's what I was
trying to say. You're trying to justify bad actions, and that's called a
justification.
Sean:
You mean he's self-righteous?
Dick:
Who?
Sean:
Robin Hood.
Dick:
No, I think he's morally righteous!
Sean:
Oh, you do?
Dick:
Well, by...by the definition of "morality," yes! He was doing acts of
good...he was perpetrating acts of, like, not necessarily evil but...still
malicious?
Sean:
Yeah.
Dick:
But not as bad as the good he was doing. Morally, that's defensible.
Sean:
Yeah, it's a net gain.
Dick:
Yeah! I don't like it, but I'm saying it's morally justifiable.
Maddox:
You know Dick, again, you are having such a tough time...and I really empathize
with you, but you have a real tough time... (laughs) You have a real tough time
wrapping your head around the difference between a justified action and an
action that has a good outcome but wasn't justified. Like for example, when we
went over after Osama bin Laden...by the way, everyone, happy Osama bin Laden
Death Day! That was this weekend. I hope you baked some cookies. Um, when Obama
went after Osama bin Laden, he had the information, he had good intelligence,
and he said...the intelligence said, "We have an 80 percent shot of
getting him."
Dick:
Uh-huh.
Maddox:
Based on that, he was justified in going after him. However...um, and something
good came of it.
Dick:
Morally.
Maddox:
Right! Morally justified.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Well, no no. Uh, I'm not saying MORALLY justified.
Dick:
Legally?
Maddox:
Logically. He was logically justified.
Dick:
Well, that's...but that doesn't make any sense.
Maddox:
Well, he had the legal authority. No one's doubting that. But say for
example...you know what a better example is, is when George Bush invaded Iraq.
He...he was hoping that they would find those weapons, right? Had he found
those weapons, people would argue, "Well, then that was justified."
However, because we didn't have enough evidence to go in, regardless of whether
or not he found those weapons, regardless of whether or not something good came
of it, he wasn't justified in going in to begin with *logically.* You
understand the difference?
Dick:
Um, the...when you say "logic," all you mean is you're satisfied with
it internally. But logically, there is...there needs to be...you need to define
an outcome for there to be logic. Is it morally justifiably? Is it legally
justifiable? Logically, it doesn't make any sense. Logically, it was...it was
logical...logically, Saddam Hussein lied about having weapons of mass
destruction. For him, that was logical 'cause it was self-preservation.
Maddox:
Right.
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
I don't understand how you're, um...how you're rebutting my point here.
Dick:
I'm saying it...the way you're setting that up, the way you're saying it just
doesn't make any sense.
Maddox:
But you agree -
Dick:
(interjects) "Logically justifiable," that doesn't make any sense.
Maddox:
Well, if you're...look, if it's a 50-50 toss-up, then it's logically ambiguous
whether or not you should. If your goal...if your goal is to have a certain
outcome and you have good reason to believe that that outcome will happen, that
reason is justification. However, if that reason is bad, if you don't have that
justification, then you can still do the action that has a positive outcome
that wasn't justified. That's the difference.
Dick:
Alright. These are just nebulous words that you're using that aren't real.
(Maddox laughs) Like, yeah, sure.
Maddox:
They're real!
Dick:
Sure. Yeah, if something is "good," doesn't mean anything. If
something is "logically justifiable," there's no...if there's no
context for them, they don't make any sense. But sure. I don't care.
Maddox:
Dick, again, um...there might be some good that came out of the riots in
Baltimore, but I don't think that the violence is justified. And I don't think
that that's a contradictory statement, I really don't!
Dick:
Then they're a huge problem.
Maddox:
They're not a huge problem. (Dick laughs) They COULD be a huge problem! We
don't know yet, Dick!
Dick:
Alright. (smiling)
Maddox:
If nothing good comes of this riot, then I will come back a year from now and I
will cede the point and I'll say, "Hey Dick Masterson, you were right.
Those, uh, those riots were awful." However, I suspect...I hope and I
suspect that something good will come of this.
Dick:
I'm sure you'll find it. You're lookin' for it.
Maddox:
Well, uh...I mean, it's possible. It's possible that I'm susceptible to
confirmation bias. I'm smart enough to know that!
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Vote up Dumb People, guys. Uh, my problems this week, Dick, were Riots and Dumb
People. (closing riff starts)
Dick:
Mine were the Apple Watch and Polio.
Maddox:
Great. Vote up Monkeys as a problem, guys. Don't forget to vote up Monkeys. Um,
happy Osama bin Laden Death Day! Thanks for listening to the bonus episode!
Dick:
See you next month.
(heavy
metal theme riff)
Maddox:
Not quite as catchy as "see you next Tuesday."
Dick:
No, it's not. (Maddox laughs) I got, uh...I got some voicemails. [plays first voicemail message]
Voicemail
(male caller): Dear Dick Masterson...
Dick:
Yep? (Maddox laughs)
Voicemail:
...I guess that you don't think that monkeys are the biggest problem in the
universe. I guess that you like looking at them at the zoo. That's fine. I
respect those theories you have. (Maddox laughs) You and I are free to like what we like.
But bringing them in as one of the biggest solutions in the universe? That's
where I draw the line.
Dick:
Oh.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Voicemail:
I probably have some special relationship, (Maddox
chuckles) but hearing you tout monkeys
as a solution to our problems made me reconsider. You know what would be a real
solution, Dick? You not jerking off to monkeys at the zoo anymore and going
back to being the man I fell in love with. (Maddox laughs
loudly) Come back to me, Dick.
Maybe I'll treat you to a couple of 70-dollar steaks at the Pacific Dining Car.
Maddox:
Whoa!
Dick:
They do have a good 70-dollar steak.
Voicemail:
Signed, your girlfriend, Dick Masterson.
Dick:
That's weird.
Voicemail:
P.S. - You know what else I miss? The old "Maddox Lost" song. (Maddox
laughs) These 30-second clips of
Titanic just aren't the same.
[message
ends]
Dick:
Yeah.
Maddox:
Yeeeah. Well, well, well, Dick. Oh, I'm sorry...I'm sorry to disappoint you
dickhead, but um, I'm actually...the solutions I bring in make more sense, they're
bigger solutions than the solutions that Dick brings in. (smiles)
Dick:
You're gonna get your ass kicked this month. Those solutions are horrible.
They're both enormous problems.
Maddox:
Yeah, well... (scoffing) Says YOU. (Dick laughs) [Dick plays next voicemail message]
Voicemail
(male caller): Hello friends, this is Sex Bad. (Maddox
and Dick laugh) I'm calling in
regard to Biggest Solution #...Episode 6.
Maddox:
Yeah.
Voicemail:
Maddox, I'm going to delve into a bit of armchair psychology for a bit.
Dick:
He sounds like the Twilight Zone guy.
Maddox:
Yeah, he does.
Voicemail:
You say that your shitty neighbor can't hide behind a shield of insanity or
anything like that, but I think that you've let your hatred of the elderly
overshadow your hatred of children.
Maddox:
What??
Voicemail:
It seems very likely, and very obviously to me, that she's regressed back to
the mental age of 5 or never progressed beyond that in the first place. She is
doing exactly what many children do to their -
Dick:
No, this is too long. [cuts off message]
I can't listen to that one.
Maddox:
Yeah man, that sounded like an episode of Twilight Zone (Dick laughs) where it
was the voicemail that never fuckin' ended.
Dick:
Alright, I'll try one more. [plays last
voicemail message]
Maddox:
I do hate kids, though.
Voicemail
(automated female voice): This is what Maddox's future wife will sound like in
his Oculus Rift world.
Maddox:
Great. (Dick laughs)
Voicemail:
Have fun fucking a robot, Maddox, 'cause it'll be the only pussy you will ever
get. (Dick giggling)
Maddox:
Fine with me!!
Voicemail:
Dick, go fuck yourself.
[message
ends]
Maddox:
('sproing' [boner]
sound effect) Go fuck...go fuck yourse-...I'll fuck myself all day in the
Oculus Rift!
Dick:
Have fun fucking a robot. (still laughing)
Maddox:
Yeah, you'll see. I'm gonna fuck myself day and night! It's gonna...it's gonna
be incredible. I can't WAIT. I'm gonna...you know what my wife in the Oculus
Rift is gonna look like? Um -
Dick:
(interjects) You. (everyone laughs)
Maddox:
Bingo.