Solution: Ronald Reagan [00:19:52]

Solution: Satellites [00:29:59]

Solution: The Superhero Pose [00:44:27]

Solution: Temperance [00:56:29]

 

The Biggest Solution in the Universe - Episode 9

 

Transcription courtesy of: Megan Pennock

 

(heavy metal theme riff)

 

Maddox: Welcome to The Biggest Solution in the Universe, the show where we discuss every solution in the universe from abortion to soap. (Dick laughs loudly) With over 3.5 million downloads. This is the only show where you decide what should or shouldn't be on the big list of solutions. I am Maddox, with me is Dick Masterson and Sean our audio engineer.

 

Dick: Heyyy! What's up?

 

Maddox: Welcome back, yeah.

 

Dick: Closer!

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: Abortion to soap! (grins)

 

Maddox: Abortion to soap.

 

Dick: We'll get a 'z' outta there someday. 

 

Maddox: Yeah, well, I was gonna -

 

Dick: (interjects) Xenophobia. That's gonna be our next solution. (Maddox laughs)

 

Maddox: That starts with an 'x', but that's so close. So close.

 

Dick: Closer, closer.

 

Maddox: Phonetically!

 

Dick: Zoophilia!

 

Maddox: Yeah. It doesn't have to be alphabetical! It could be in scope. "Scope" rhymes with "soap." Anyway guys, welcome back to Bonus Episode #...this is 9, right?

 

Dick: 9!

 

Maddox: Bonus Episode #9!

 

Dick: 9.

 

Maddox: Wow, 9 of these! Almost -

 

Dick: (interjects) Thanks for hangin' in there. Thanks for buying 'em.

 

Maddox: Almost...no, I'm gonna say "you're welcome." (Dick scoffs) You're welcome for the quality, the caliber of show that we do. Dick and I and Sean, we work our asses off.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: So I'm gonna...I'm going to say you're welcome, and I will take the thanks.

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Thank you! Thank you, Maddox, for making this possible. (Maddox laughs)

 

Maddox: You're welcome, Dick. Alright, let's get -

 

Dick: (interjects) We don't need to talk about last month, do we?

 

Maddox: We do!

 

Dick: Who cares? (Sean laughs)

 

Maddox: Let's talk about the solutions from last month, Dick.

 

Dick: Not a contest. (smiles)

 

Maddox: Yeah, it's not...no, it's not a contest. That's true. Critical Thinking...okay, that was the solution that we brought...that *I* brought in.

 

Dick: That you brought in, yeah.

 

Maddox: Critical Thinking. The, uh, the...essentially I boiled it down to asking questions. Always asking questions, right?

 

Dick: Challenging assumptions.

 

Maddox: Yes.

 

Dick: Challenging any stat or fact that's given or any thought that's presented as obvious, challenging it. Breaking it down and being a total obnoxious prick all the time, basically.

 

Maddox: NO. No, you fucking anti-intellectual. You're already pushing it. (Dick laughs) Okay, and then Boxes. Boxes was my other solution. Boxes! People thought that was a solution!

 

Dick: Can I read you a comment about that?

 

Maddox: Well, hold on. Let's get through this list, Dick. Then Cuteness -

 

Dick: (interjects) It's a funny comment about boxes, though.

 

Maddox: Okay, what?

 

Dick: Joe Farrar: "Dick and Maddox arguing about the definition of a box is akin to that post from Bodybuilding.com where the gym rats argue about how many days are in a week."

 

Maddox: Yeah. Great. I got a follow-up to that, but I'll get through this list first. Cuteness! Cuteness was the other solution you brought in, Dick. That came in third as a solution.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: In the positive territory!

 

Dick: Ugh.

 

Maddox: So people thought that cuteness was a solution. Stupidly.

 

Dick: God dammit, here it comes.

 

Maddox: And then The Corporation...was a problem.

 

Dick: The greatest invention humans have ever conceived of...

 

Maddox: Yeah. (skeptical)

 

Dick: ...got in the...was it in the negatives?

 

Maddox: It was in the negatives, yeah.

 

Dick: Jeeesus Christ.

 

Maddox: So people thought it was a problem.

 

Dick: Cuteness beat out The Corporation?! 

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: CUTENESS? 

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: You guys...that says something about you guys voting. Okay?

 

Maddox: Mm, yeah.

 

Dick: You think cute shit is more important, is a bigger solution than the legal entity of the corporation??

 

Maddox: Well, I got a comment from Adam James Osborne. He says, "Dick, bringing in Corporations as a solution could have been an outstanding choice..."

 

Dick: Oh, fuck. (under his breath)

 

Maddox: "...if you did some fucking research and brought in a cogent argument. You keep giving me intellectual blue balls by doing shit like this. It's like two tugs and out the door." 

 

Dick: Look, look, look, look. Here's the thing about bringing in something like the corporation, as this...as exhibited by this show: 50% of people think that corporations are bad. I'm not pitching this to people who already know they're good. I'm tryin' to change minds here.

 

Maddox: Yeah. (dryly)

 

Dick: I'm trying to help you...anyone who voted down The Corporation? You gotta change your thinking, man.

 

Maddox: Mhm.

 

Dick: That kind of thinking is not gonna get you ahead in life.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: You've gotta understand what a corporation IS.

 

Maddox: Yeah, and you are the best person to do that.

 

Dick: Clearly not. 

 

Maddox: Clearly... (cracks up) Clearly not. Someone else made a comment...there were some really cogent defenses of corporations in the comments, and I thought, "Wow, these are actually really good points!" and I actually agreed with them.

 

Dick: Great.

 

Maddox: And I said, "Well, too bad Dick didn't bring any of that shit in." (Dick laughs)

 

Dick: Whatever.

 

Maddox: 'Cause I would've been more on your side, Dick!

 

Dick: What were they?

 

Maddox: Uh, I don't...I don't remember.

 

Dick: What were they about? Like, what was the nature of them?

 

Maddox: I think someone essentially said that corporations allow for the type of investment you get into new technology that you wouldn't get otherwise.

 

Dick: Oh, I said that!

 

Maddox: Mhm. (skeptical)

 

Dick: Basically.

 

Maddox: No.

 

Dick: I basically said that.

 

Maddox: You basically didn't. And then, uh... (chuckles) I got a comment here, Dick. This is from...this one's on Twitter from @Kelu777. He says, "Gun control? No problem. Boxes? Controversy time!!" (both laugh)

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Because we argued so much about boxes. And Dick, I made these comics. I don't know if you remember these...these comics.

 

Dick: Take our boxes over our dead...out of our dead hands.

 

Maddox: Oh, yeah. I kept talkin' about boxes all weekend. Everyone was annoyed. But I really...I think boxes are awesome. Everything...there's so many boxes. There's metaphorical boxes, there's boxes we live in, there's boxes we shop in...

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: So I made these comics and I posted it. It's called "The Adventures of Dick in a Box," and... (both laugh) Sean, in the first panel...they're all 3-panel comics. The first panel shows a judge and he says, "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, please take your seat in the jury box."

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: The second panel shows Dick sittin' back sayin', "Actually your honor, it's not a box unless it has 6 sides." (smug voice) (laughs) And then the judge looks at you like an idiot.

 

Dick: (snorts) Oh wow, that's a great joke. (sarcastic) (laughs)

 

Maddox: Yeah, it's a great joke!

 

Dick: Watch out, Garfield! (Sean laughs loudly in the background)

 

Maddox: People loved it! (Dick giggles) Yeah. This is coming from a guy who defines a box -

 

Dick: (interjects) Watch out, Jim Davis! (laughs more)

 

Maddox: "All boxes must have 6 sides," right dickhead?

 

Dick: Here comes Maddox! (grinning)

 

Maddox: Yeah. The second "Adventures of Dick in a Box" shows a kid protesting with his parents...

 

Dick: Uh-huh. 

 

Maddox: ...at some rally. It says "NO BIG BOX STORES." Then it shows Dick: "Uhh, there's no such thing as a big box store. Stores aren't boxes!" (smug voice) (laughs) And then the kid just staring off into the distance.

 

Dick: So your punchline on all these comics, are they people looking at me with a dumb look on their faces?

 

Maddox: Yeah, essentially. (Dick guffaws)

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: That's the punchline for all of these. 'Cause you were calling a box without a lid...

 

Dick: (interjects) That's very zen.

 

Maddox: ...a tube! You said it's a square tube.

 

Dick: What Sean h-...Sean stores all of his audio equipment in a squ-...in a plastic metal tube.

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: In a server rack.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: It's not a box.

 

Maddox: Server racks have lids. They have lids, dickhead. Just because the lids aren't on it right now doesn't mean it's not a box.

 

Dick: Well...

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: I don't know, ask the expert! Ask the audio engineer. He...I assume you went to some kind of schooling for audio equipment. Would you consider that a sound box?

 

Sean: It's just called a rack.

 

Dick: There you go.

 

Maddox: Yeah, it's just called a rack?

 

Dick: There you go.

 

Maddox: (yells) You know what, dickhead? After that episode, I went and I Googled it. I checked Google Images. I typed in "server rack," and of course this exact server rack came up, this box.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: But then I typed in "server box" and the exact same thing came up too! The same exact box! It's called a box or a rack. You guys are bein' pedantic as FUCK. (Dick and Sean laugh)

 

Dick: Alright. (Maddox laughs)

 

Sean: Yeah, WE'RE the pedantic ones. (Dick cackles)

 

Maddox: Yep. ('ding!' sound effect) That's right, Sean! You said that sarcastically, but I took it literally. Fuck you. (Sean laughs) Yeah. Hero. Oh Dick, before we go on -

 

Dick: (interjects) I got a comment fr-...oh, you wanna do the...?

 

Maddox: Yeah, before we go on.

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: We need to mention, we got this back in March. A fan of ours sent us a really good gift.

 

Dick: Anthony. Anthony aka @CallDaCopsIDGAF, which means "I don't give a fuck."

 

Maddox: Yep, @CallDa-

 

Dick: (interjects) On Twitter.

 

Maddox: @CallDaCopsIDGAF. He sent us a board game! A board game based on The Biggest Problem in the Universe, and Dick, I gotta say by far this is the most impressive, comprehensive, involved gift I think the show has ever received.

 

Dick: Well, it is, because...it's not the craftsmanship of the board per se, because it looks like it was made by a 5th grader.

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: Would you agree? It's the -

 

Maddox: (interjects) An advanced 5th grader.

 

Dick: Sure. 

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Like one of the kids in, like, an advanced studies, where they get to take an hour off every week and pretend that they're getting enriched in another class. One of those kids.

 

Maddox: Yeah. This kid is definitely a candidate for a satellite school. He didn't get in, but he's definitely a candidate.

 

Dick: Maybe he's at a Montessori school. (Maddox laughs) I'm not throwing that out. However, what impresses me incre-...the most about this game is the cards. 

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: It's a...it's a curling track. The board game has spaces that curl around a...you know, the board, but it's driven by this stack of cards, and every one of these cards is a different reference to the show.

 

Maddox: Oh, it's insane! There's probably a stack of 200 of these cards, and we're gonna be playing this throughout the show. He even went to as much trouble as to make the chips. There's 4 playable chips.

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: One with my face on it, one with Dick's, one with Sean's, and one with Boisterous Coconuts, our own Asterios Kokkinos. 

 

Dick: Lemme read you one of the cards that he's got here.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Just for a taste. 

 

Maddox: And we have 4 players in the studio today. We're joined by a guest today who's just, uh, who's just listening in, and we're gonna be playing this!

 

Dick: We do. Here's one of the cards: "You listen to the erotic lactation story and it brightens your day. Move forward 3 spaces." "You deliver a knockout punch to a pedo-priest. Move up 4 spaces." "You successfully talk your girlfriend into getting an abortion..." (laughs) "...saving you approximately $245,000." I hope that's true. It sounds true. (Maddox laughs)

 

Maddox: Alright, alright. Let's, uh, let's not spoil all these cards. These are some really good cards, good references to the game. So we're gonna be playing that. So the rules of the game essentially...I know you guys aren't playing along at home because there's only one of these in existence, unless he made an extra one for himself. But essentially we draw a card, it tells us the number of spaces to move, and then there's a drinking game involved, so we have...in the studio, we all have beers. Well, most of us have beers. 

 

Dick: There's the three of us, and this episode we're joined by my brother-in-law.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Colin.

 

Maddox: Colin, welcome to the show!

 

Dick: Who's a big fan of the show. 

 

Maddox: (clapping sound effect)

 

Dick: I don't know if he could prove it.

 

Maddox: ('ding!' sound effect)

 

Dick: I would like you to prove that, 'cause you would say you're a big fan of the show, correct?

 

Maddox: You know what? Let's...

 

Dick: Here's a...lemme have a trivia question for you: what's the stupidest thing Maddox has ever said on this show? (cracking up)

 

Maddox: Okay. (Dick and Sean laugh) That's bullshit. You know what? I'm so fuckin'... (buzzer sound effect) ...tired of this shit already! Already! Cancel this bonus episode. You know what? Cancel the season!!

 

Dick: Alright, who wants to be who? What piece do you wanna be?

 

Maddox: Alright, I'm going to be Maddox. 

 

Dick: That means you get +4 strength and +4 stamina.

 

Maddox: Ha, just +4?

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Is that 4 out of a total possible 2?

 

Dick: I don't know. Who wants to be me? The only qualification is that it cannot be played by a female.

 

Maddox: Mm... (laughs) Okay. 

 

Dick: Sean, who do you wanna be?

 

Maddox: Well, that means you can't play it.

 

Dick: You wanna be you? You wanna be me? You wanna be Asterios?

 

Sean: Well, what kind of powers do I get?

 

Dick: There's...there's none.

 

Sean: Okay.

 

Maddox: You get no powers, Sean.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Sean: Fine.

 

Maddox: Okay. (laughs) Do you wanna be Sean, or...?

 

Sean: I'll be me.

 

Maddox: You'll be you.

 

Dick: You'll be you, okay.

 

Maddox: Okay!

 

Dick: Colin, who do you wanna be?

 

Colin: Boisterous. (in background)

 

Maddox: Boisterous.

 

Dick: Okay, I guess I'll be me.

 

Maddox: Colin is Boisterous. Alright! So, uh, go -

 

Dick: (interjects) So the rules are...as stated by the rules, is Maddox goes first.

 

Maddox: Yep.

 

Dick: Then me...

 

Maddox: Cool.

 

Dick: ...then Sean, then Asterios. "Why? Because fuck you, that's why." That's what @CallDaCopsIDGAF says.

 

Maddox: Alright, I drew the first card. It says, "You deliver a knockout punch to a pedo-priest."

 

Dick: I just read that one.

 

Maddox: "Move up 4 spaces." Well, why didn't you put it at the bottom, dickhead?!

 

Dick: I did! (laughs)

 

Maddox: You put this at the bottom? 

 

Dick: Yeah!

 

Maddox: Then why was it right on the fuckin' top?

 

Dick: Here, shuff-...shuffle them.

 

Maddox: Why was it right on the top of the s-...the... (cracks up) ...the deck here?

 

Dick: Wait a minute, wait a minute. What did I tell you before we started the game? That I think there's two decks of cards here.

 

Maddox: I...you said that.

 

Dick: Do you remember that?

 

Maddox: Yes.

 

Dick: And what did you say?

 

Maddox: I said...

 

Dick: No.

 

Maddox: ..."No, probably not."

 

Dick: And I said, "I think there are, because there's a community chest and a chance...uh, square where it looks like two distinctly different decks are supposed to go."

 

Maddox: Okay.

 

Dick: And what did I just cut to? 

 

Maddox: You cut to a different deck.

 

Dick: A card that looks exactly like what I was talking about.

 

Maddox: Alright dickhead, go ahead!

 

Dick: We gotta...there's a bunch of them though!

 

Maddox: Then put those in the other pile.

 

Dick: Alright.

 

Sean: Everybody hang on for 15 minutes while we sort this out. (Dick and Colin laugh) 

 

Dick: I'm cutting this deck.

 

Maddox: Sure.

 

Dick: I see you over there shadily shuffling cards. 

 

Maddox: That wasn't shady, the way I was shuffling the cards! I shuffle cards like a PRO.

 

Dick: Go ahead.

 

Maddox: Alright, I'm drawing a card now. It says, "You and 3 friends remake Ghostbusters." (Dick laughs) "Each male player moves up 1 space." That's...

 

Dick: Alright, everybody.

 

Maddox: That's everybody. We're all on the same space.

 

Dick: I don't see mine. Oh, right there. (quietly)

 

Maddox: And we're all...here, I'm gonna put myself on top of all the other chips.

 

Dick: Here's mine: "You attend Burning Man and dodge getting an STD by using a condom." Oh, you fucked up. 

 

Maddox: Aha, yeah.

 

Dick: Uh, "There is no net gain because condoms are terrible. Don't move." Welp, um, not a lot happening in this game so far. (Colin laughing in the background) Sean, here's yours. (Maddox belches)

 

Sean: "You just did a shot of Fireball Whiskey!" Oh, boy.

 

Maddox: Yeheheah, winner!

 

Sean: With an exclamation point. (Dick laughs)

 

Maddox: Cool.

 

Sean: "If you're Maddox, stay right where you are. Otherwise move up 3 spaces."

 

Dick: Ohh! (grins)

 

Maddox: Oh, whatever Sean. This game's bullshit. (grumpy)

 

Dick: Sean, that means you're on a drinking space.

 

Maddox: You're on a drinking space, Sean! You have to pull a drinking card. Here's what it says: "Social! Everyone have a sip of beer. 'You won, but your dad is also the coach of the baseball team.' - Maddox." That was a quote from me!! I like that! Okay, we all take a sip of beer. 

 

Dick: That's a quote from you saying what? You were talking about your dad being a coach of the baseball team?

 

Maddox: I remember it was during en episode where I talked about how...I forgot exactly, but it was some benefit, some advantage that a kid might have...

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: ...for winning something, but it didn't count because it's essentially like having your dad be the coach of the baseball team.

 

Dick: Oh, you sip that beer. I'm gonna tell you how awful it is to have your dad be a coach of your baseball team.

 

Maddox: Hah, go on.

 

Dick: My dad...he was the coach of my baseball team, and he would run my ass harder than anybody else on the team.

 

Maddox: Really?

 

Dick: Like, he was tryin' to pro-...oh, yeah. Like, he was tryin' to prove a point.

 

Maddox: Well...

 

Dick: It was brutal.

 

Maddox: That didn't work. (laughs)

 

Dick: So dads, if you're listening, don't...'cause I don't think my dad listens to the bonus episodes. Don't ever be a coach of your kid's baseball team, please.

 

Maddox: Alright. Well, let's, uh, let's move on with the show. I got -

 

Dick: (interjects) Colin didn't get to go. (Maddox snickers) 

 

Maddox: Oh yeah. (laughs more) Okay, Colin.

 

Dick: Here, I'll read it for ya. Uh, "Dick's Burning Man friend..." -- my man -- "...gets you involved in a drive-by shooting by a drug kingpin. You are dead."

 

Colin: Augh! (in background) (Maddox laughs loudly)

 

Dick: That's it. (laughs)

 

Sean: Wow. Talk about scratching on the eight ball right out of the gate.

 

Maddox: Colin's out of the game already!

 

Dick: Colin... (laughing)

 

Maddox: Ya blew it!

 

Dick: Well Colin, thanks for... (cracks up)

 

Maddox: You made it one space into the game, Colin, before dying. (everyone laughs more)

 

Dick: That's the game, man!

 

Maddox: Oh man, what a good game. (grinning)

 

Dick: Anything can happen!

 

Colin: Life or death.

 

Dick: I do have a man update. I'll save it for next time.

 

Maddox: Alright, cool.

 

Dick: It's a pretty spicy one.

 

Maddox: I got a comment from Phony Magee. Sounds like a real name. (Dick laughs) He says, "That you, Maddox, for a quick rant on Common..." Er, he says...oh, he says "that you, Maddox" instead of "thank you." That's why it's so confusing. He says, "That you, Maddox, for a quick rant on Common Core hating idiots. Dick, please bring in Common Core as a problem so I can hear you suck ass your way through it."

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: Good! Bring it.

 

Dick: I will.

 

Maddox: I got another comment from Benjamin Sisko. He says, "Chauhn's..." He spelled your name C-H-A-U-H-N. (laughs) "Chauhn's burn at 1:10:37 is the funniest thing he's ever said. Now I want to hear it in cool-voice Shaan."

 

Sean: Wait, what was it?

 

Dick: You said...I'll bring it in next time. You told a guy who called in and told you to go fuck yourself...you said, "Here's what you gotta do."

 

Sean: Ohh.

 

Dick: "You gotta try to jerk o-...go back down to your basement, try to rub one out before your mom gets home to make you dinner at 6:30..."

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Sean: Right.

 

Dick: "...and you can tell her you've been lookin' for a job all day." It was pretty great.

 

Sean: I forgot it was on the bonus episode.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: I'll get Cool Sean to read it next time.

 

Sean: Okay.

 

Maddox: That was angry Chauhn! Angry Chauhn chiming in in that, uh, in that episode. That was so g-...that was great!

 

Dick: I got another one for Sean from Justin Zerjav. "Sean's porn name: The Butterfingerer." (Maddox and Colin laugh)

 

Maddox: Gross. (giggling)

 

Sean: That's great. I love it.

 

Dick: Ed Stone says, "I listened to this earlier today and I had this really burning comment on my mind about why Dick is a moron, but I forgot why by now so fuck you, Dick."

 

Maddox: Hah! Yeah, that's a real "fuck you" to Dick, when you forgot.

 

Dick: Hey, here's a solution, uh, Ed.

 

Maddox: Yeah?

 

Dick: A pencil.

 

Maddox: Writing it down?

 

Dick: Go vote it up. (Maddox chuckles) 

 

Maddox: Dick, you...that doesn't count! You don't get to bring in a third sneaky weasel solution in this episode.

 

Dick: Justin Main says, "Maddox questions everything, and Dick questions Maddox. Guess that means Dick is the biggest critical thinker in the universe." 

 

Maddox: Oho, yeah.

 

Dick: That's true.

 

Maddox: Yeah. (laughing) That's what I would call Dick. A big critical thinker. I got a comment from Robert Wankya. Another real-sounding name. 

 

Dick: Hm.

 

Maddox: "I just had to look up Harlequin-type ichthyosis after being told not to. Holy shit!" Yeah, I t-...I'm not warn-...I mean, I told you guys!

 

Dick: I didn't look it up.

 

Maddox: I told you guys not to look it up specifically, and I described it specifically so you wouldn't have to look it up. 

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: It's awful. It's awful!

 

Dick: You fucked up.

 

Maddox: Alright.

 

Dick: You want some voicemails?

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: I didn't bring in that many. The solutions episode is always a real crapshoot for voicemails 'cause I collect them as the month goes on, so now that I'm lookin' at them I have no way to tell what they are.

 

Maddox: Alright.

 

Dick: Except for what I've named them, and this one is named "Fart Box." (Maddox chuckles)

 

Maddox: 'Kay.

 

Dick: Could be anything.

 

Voicemail (male caller): (totally normal guy voice) Hey Maddox, this is Ann Coulter. (Maddox laughs) Just wanna let you know you forgot the most important kind of box: the fart box. 

 

Maddox: (fart sound effect)

 

Voicemail: (fart noise) 

 

[message ends]

 

(Maddox laughing loudly)

 

Dick: There you go. (amused)

 

Maddox: Oh man, there IS a fart box!

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Yeah, that's what you do! Fart box. You tongue punch a fart box. (cracks up) 

 

Dick: Oho. (grossed out) Maybe YOU do.

 

Maddox: Not me, man! [Dick plays next voicemail message]

 

Voicemail (male caller): (Hank Hill voice) Hi there! This is Hank from Texas callin'. I'm a longtime fan. 

 

Maddox: Oh!

 

Dick: Pretty good!

 

Maddox: Hank Hill.

 

Voicemail: So Maddox, I know it was a while ago but I have to express my appreciation for you bringin' in Kicking Ass as a solution. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a problem that couldn't be solved with a good old ass kickin'. For example, I'm gonna kick your ass if I hear you talk about that god dang Oculus Rift one more time! (Maddox laughs) What kinda grown man fantasizes about sittin' on his computer playin' a video game? And Dick...

 

Dick: Oh. (grinning)

 

Voicemail: ...what's up with your problems lately? 

 

Dick: Huh.

 

Voicemail: Netflix?? Why don't you try bringin' in a real problem like charcoal? Or that god dang bastard gas butane. (Maddox and Sean laugh) And for cryin' out loud, go fuck yourself already!

 

[message ends]

 

Dick: That doesn't...Hank Hill wouldn't say that.

 

Maddox: (clapping sound effect) I like it. I'm gonna give him a pass, except for his hatred of the Oculus Rift.

 

Dick: Alright, you wanna do some solutions or you wanna take another spin on this board game?

 

Maddox: We'll take another spin on the board game, then we'll get to the solutions.

 

Dick: Go ahead. It's your turn.

 

Maddox: My card says, "You successfully make a shame shamer look like a fucking tool on Reddit. Move up 3 spaces." Yeeeah! Here we go. And that's a drinking card. 

 

Dick: That's a drinking card.

 

Maddox: Here we go, I pulled a drinking card. The drinking card spaces, by the way, have my face on them. 

 

Dick: I don't think there should be games that are not also drinking games. 

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: By the way.

 

Maddox: Well...

 

Dick: Like Cards Against Humanity. I'll bring that in as a problem at some point, but I would be more excited about that game if it was part drinking.

 

Maddox: What about Russian roulette?

 

Dick: I thought that was ONLY a drinking game. (Maddox laughs)

 

Maddox: Okay, it says, "Waterfall! You start. Go counter-clockwise. 'Puffy clouds of meat, just bulgy. It's too much.' - Maddox." That was a quote from me again.

 

Dick: Oh, waterfall? 

 

Maddox: Waterfall. So we'll just...I don't know.

 

Dick: I don't wanna get shitfaced this game.

 

Maddox: We're just takin' a drink, yeah. (takes sip) Okay, there we go. Gettin' real, uh, real shitfaced on this show, guys. 

 

Dick: "You avoid getting type 2 diabetes by not eating so many fucking fries. Move up 3 spaces." Another...

 

Maddox: Another drinking.

 

Dick: God damn, there is a lot of drinking in this game.

 

Maddox: There you go!

 

Dick: "Social! Everyone have a sip of beer." 

 

Maddox: Another one of these, huh? Alright.

 

Dick: "'They're like red Kryptonite. It's a different kind of Kryptonite. It makes Superman go horny as fuck." Apparently I said that.

 

Maddox: That was a you quote. I remember that, yeah. 

 

Dick: Colin, you remember that?

 

Colin: That was one of my favorite quotes. (in background) (Dick laughs)

 

Maddox: Yeah. 

 

Dick: Alright Sean, your turn. 

 

Sean: You can read it.

 

Dick: "You save 15% on your car insurance by lying to your claims adjuster. If you're Dick, move up 5 spaces. If you're anyone else, move up 2 spaces." There you go.

 

Maddox: Sean, were you...are you Dick's chip? No, you're -

 

Dick: (interjects) No, he's Sean. 

 

Sean: No, I'm me.

 

Maddox: You're Sean.

 

Dick: I moved up. You shoulda picked me.

 

Maddox: Yeah. Alright, let's get to the solutions. 

 

Dick: Yeah, alright. Damn, lying to your insurance adjuster should be a solution on this show.

 

Maddox: Hmm.

 

Dick: Have you ever done that?

 

Maddox: Mmmm, no.

 

Dick: Many a year ago, I was applying for health insurance and I put on the form a surgery that I had had like 10 years before that.

 

Maddox: Mhm.

 

Dick: And the amount that I got quoted back was in the thousands. It was like r-...it was ridiculous. It was, like, COBRA ridiculous.

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: Where no one...a human couldn't afford it.

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: So I resubmitted it without that; boom, instant health insurance. 

 

Maddox: Hm!

 

Dick: I resubmitted without the...listing, like, prior -

 

Maddox: (interjects) Without...so you just lied. Yeah.

 

Dick: Yeah! 

 

Maddox: Huh!

 

Dick: So do it.

 

Maddox: Yeah. Well, you don't have to anymore because of Obamacare

 

Dick: Ohohoho. (quietly)

 

Maddox: You can't be denied pre-existing conditions. 

 

Dick: I wasn't denied, but it...the price tag on it was exorbitant. 

 

Maddox: Ahh.

 

Dick: That's...I love that about Obamacare.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: It was...the problem wasn't getting denied; it was that they put a couple extra zeros on it.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: They could still do that!

 

Maddox: Okay! 

 

Dick: Alright.

 

Maddox: That's true. Alright!

 

Dick: Here's my first solution.

 

Maddox: So lie to your...yeah. What's your first solution?

 

Dick: GPS. 

 

Maddox: GPS?

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Alright, that's a good solution. What's, uh, what's up with that?

 

Dick: Originally designed for military and intelligence applications at the height of the Cold War in the '60s, with inspiration coming from the launch of the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik in 1957, the Global Positioning System is a network of satellites that orbit the earth at fixed points above the planet and beam down signals to anyone on Earth with a GPS receiver. You know how we got GPS?

 

Maddox: I do.

 

Dick: Do you really?

 

Maddox: Yeah!

 

Dick: Do you know who we have to thank for GPS?

 

Maddox: Russia.

 

Dick: Ronald Reagan. (Maddox shouts out laughing)

 

Maddox: Ohoho, you fucker! No we don't!

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: It was Russia, dickhead!

 

Dick: No.

 

Maddox: Yes!!

 

Dick: It was Ronald Reagan. 

 

Maddox: Wrong!

 

Dick: Why was it Russia?

 

Maddox: Because the first satellite that went up in space was Russian, right?

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: The Sputnik!

 

Dick: Sputnik, yeah.

 

Maddox: Right?

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: So there were a bunch of students, I think they were at MIT or Berkeley or something, and they were sitting there tracking the, uh...the satellite, up in the sky.

 

Dick: Right.

 

Maddox: As it was goin' around. 

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: And I think This American Life or Radiolab, one of these podcasts -

 

Dick: (interjects) Something on NPR.

 

Maddox: Something on NPR recently did.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: That's why I know this! So they were listening to this thing, this beacon, and they figured that, well, they can hear the pings from the satellite, they know the approximate distance that it's at, and they can...they figured they can calculate the speed at which it's going around the, um...around the earth.

 

Dick: Right.

 

Maddox: Or maybe they had the speed and they calculated the distance somehow. If you have two of those variables, you can calculate the third. Well, they...the military was interested in this application. They said, "Well, you're able to calculate this. You're able to know...pinpoint exactly where the satellite is. Can you do it in reverse? Like, if you had a beacon on Earth that was pinging a satellite, could you tell where that position was?" And they said, "Well, theoretically we can," and so the first instance of it was on a submarine, because they had these really expensive submarines and they didn't know exactly where they were in the ocean.

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: So that's why they invented GPS, was to track submarines. Not fuckin' Ronald Reagan, dickhead. (laughs)

 

Dick: Okay, let's take it...this is like...that's like the guy who discovered that round rocks roll down hills.

 

Maddox: Ah, h'okay. (chuckling)

 

Dick: The man who turned that into the wheel...

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: ...Ronald Reagan. (Maddox laughs more) Alright? So when it started, yes, they could calculate their position every hour. 

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: And it works opposite. They get time codes from GPS and calculate their position based on that.

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: Like, the satellites just sit up there broadcasting their time all day. BUT, after the USSR -- your buddies, Communist Russia -- shot down a Korean passenger jet, Flight 007. Oo, interesting. In 1983, the Reagan administration opened up GPS for civilian use so that wouldn't happen again.

 

Maddox: Wow. Thank God for Reagan. (sarcastic)

 

Dick: How 'bout that? Ronald Reagan.

 

Maddox: Wow. He -

 

Dick: (interjects) Maybe I should've just brought him in as the solution.

 

Maddox: Maybe!

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Yeah, he's as responsible for GPS as Al Gore is for the Internet.

 

Dick: No, no, no, no.

 

Maddox: I'll give you that. Yep!

 

Dick: You know what else Reagan did? Gay marriage.

 

Maddox: He got gay married?

 

Dick: Who appointed the swing vote on the Supreme Court?

 

Maddox: Yeah. (smiles)

 

Dick: That goes either way?

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: He's channeling Reagan from beyond the grave! Kennedy!

 

Maddox: Wasn't it...wasn't the vote 6 to 3, Dick? So it wasn't a swing. It wasn't a split.

 

Dick: No, it was 5-4! It was 5-4.

 

Maddox: Was it 5-4?

 

Dick: Yes, and Kennedy is the one that swung it...

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: ...to pass!

 

Maddox: Okay.

 

Dick: Yeah!

 

Maddox: Yeah, not -

 

Dick: (interjects) Ronald Reagan!

 

Maddox: Not Reagan. Reagan didn't do that.

 

Dick: Who did?

 

Maddox: The... (stammers) The Supreme Court ruled based on, I think, the Constitution, so.

 

Dick: Well, 'kay.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: You say "potatoes," I say "Ronald Reagan."

 

Maddox: Yeah, you say Ronald Reagan.

 

Dick: Yeah. Alright, that's my solution. GPS. (Maddox laughs) Where would we be without it?

 

Maddox: We don't...we actually don't know where we would be without it. 

 

Dick: Yeah! There you... (both laugh) It is the most...it's the most useful thing there is. We literally don't need maps anymore. 

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Like, hundreds of years of human evolution and exploring the planet were based on maps.

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: We don't need them anymore.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Can you imagine a bigger leap? A bigger technological leap than we don't...we no longer need cartography?

 

Maddox: I can think of countless bigger technological leaps.

 

Dick: What is one bigger solution than GPS?

 

Maddox: Computers. Internet. Cell phones. Radio waves.

 

Dick: Cell phones...

 

Maddox: Electricity.

 

Dick: But GPS is only good! There's no downsides to GPS.

 

Maddox: Yes, there are!

 

Dick: It's a pure...what's a downside to GPS?

 

Maddox: You can be tracked and stalked! You can be harassed! You can be spied on! How's that, dickhead?

 

Dick: You can't be spied on just 'cause of GPS.

 

Maddox: Well, someone can put a tracker on your car! The FBI can, the CIA can. They can find out where you are at all times at all locations anywhere on Earth!

 

Dick: Hmm. Alright, that's a good point. 

 

Maddox: H'okay. Anything else? What else you got for GPS?

 

Dick: I brought in mostly things about Reagan. 

 

Maddox: Okay. (laughs with Sean)

 

Dick: To be honest. Tax reform? 

 

Maddox: You're such a Reaganite.

 

Dick: Did you know that Reagan wanted reform taxes such that a return could be done on a postcard?

 

Maddox: Great.

 

Dick: Did you know that?

 

Maddox: I mean, I'm...I'm for that. That sounds...that sounds arbitrary. That sounds arbitrary, but I like the concept of trivializing tax returns.

 

Dick: Yeah. Um, he also...he ended the Cold War. Did you know that? It wasn't Rocky.

 

Maddox: It...okay. (chuckling)

 

Dick: As Rocky IV would have you believe. 

 

Maddox: Alright.

 

Dick: It was Ronald Reagan. 

 

Maddox: I didn't believe it was Rocky for a minute, Dick. (Dick laughs) But, uh...no, it -

 

Dick: (interjects) Star Wars? 

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: You ever heard of that?

 

Maddox: It wasn't entirely Reagan either. It was actually because it was mutually beneficial to end the Cold War.

 

Dick: Earthquake research, climate studies, outdoor treasure hunting games known as "geocaching"?

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: These are all things that you can do with GPS. (cracking up)

 

Maddox: Yeah! Yeah, well, good...good solution. Yeah, you can play games, and...play grab-ass. And Ronald Reagan, I like that you ascribe this wonderful technology to a politician! 

 

Dick: To Ronald Reagan!

 

Maddox: To a politician.

 

Dick: Well...

 

Maddox: An actor.

 

Dick: He was also an actor.

 

Maddox: An actor turned politician. Sorry.

 

Dick: Yeah. Two...the two best things you can be.

 

Maddox: Yeah. (sarcastic) (Colin laughs in the background)

 

Dick: Politician and an actor. The two most useful things you can be in our society. (smiling)

 

Maddox: Hey, why didn't Ronald Reagan use GPS in that Star Wars program? Remember the Star Wars missile defense system that we had? Whatever happened to that?

 

Dick: 'Cause they're in...they're in space!

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: What do you mean?

 

Maddox: Yeah. (chuckling)

 

Dick: That's why.

 

Maddox: Oh. Oh, really?

 

Dick: The satellites, yeah.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: They would be in space.

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: You can't use GPS in space.

 

Maddox: Yeah. Do you think he used GPS to calculate the trajectory for the laser beams that he was shooting to shoot down missiles?

 

Dick: No.

 

Maddox: No. Probably not, huh?

 

Dick: I don't think that's possible. (laughing)

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: What...why? Why do you ask?

 

Maddox: Oh, just curious whatever happened to that Star Wars missile defense program. Was that -

 

Dick: (interjects) It worked!

 

Maddox: Oho, did...oh yeah?

 

Dick: It ended the Cold War!

 

Maddox: Oh, that's what ended the Cold War, huh?

 

Dick: It, um...it scared Russia into surrendering the Cold War.

 

Maddox: Ahhh, simple Dick and his simple mind...

 

Dick: It's true!!

 

Maddox: ...simple world.

 

Dick: That's absolutely true.

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: What else do I got here? Oh, do you know how...do you know how time works? I'm gonna explain this to everybody listening, 'cause I know you're gonna say yes. (Maddox laughs) No matter what I ask about relativity and satellites and time. So this is what makes GPS awesome, right? The atomic clocks on the satellites work on a different time than the clocks on the earth. 

 

Maddox: Okay, how specifically?

 

Dick: Do you know that, first of all?

 

Maddox: Well, I don't know what you're saying, "different time." I mean, nobody keeps track of time on Earth using an atomic clock. 

 

Dick: They do.

 

Maddox: We use our own...well, we use our own 24-hour clock, or the 12-hour clock.

 

Dick: Nonono, our...the most accurate clocks on Earth are atomic powered. They're not crystal.

 

Maddox: Uh, that's no longer true. It's no longer atomic. They found something more accurate than the atomic clock. 

 

Dick: What, you? (Maddox laughs) They just call you up every couple hours and ask you what time it is?

 

Maddox: No, there's a...there's something that's...I forgot. I just read about it, but there's something that's even more accurate than the atomic clock because they found that the atomic clock, once...er, there was...they calculated somethin' like a leap century or somethin' like that, or a leap, like, 400 years.

 

Dick: Leap second.

 

Colin: Second. (in background)

 

Dick: Leap second.

 

Maddox: No, it's more than a leap second, like every 400 years.

 

Dick: A leap 2 seconds. (Colin laughing in the background)

 

Maddox: No, atomic clocks are pretty accurate.

 

Dick: A leap 3 sec-... (cracks up) 

 

Maddox: Ah, I'm gonna leap across this table in just a second, Dick. (sighing)

 

Dick: Okay, what's the clock that they found? 

 

Maddox: But anyway, yeah. For all intents and purposes, an atomic clock is very accurate. So go on.

 

Dick: So time, time goes faster the farther away you get from gravity. Did you know that?

 

Maddox: What...

 

Dick: Time. If you're in space and you got a big old binoculars out...

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: ...and you're looking at a naked chick, right?

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: Big cans!

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: And she happens to be wearing a watch.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: And you look at that watch, 'cause maybe you're gay, I don't know. 

 

Maddox: Okay. (chuckling) (Colin laughing in the background)

 

Dick: You don't wanna see the naked chick.

 

Maddox: Sure.

 

Dick: That watch she's wearing will be ticking slower than the watch that you have on your wrist, 'cause it's closer to a gravity well.

 

Maddox: Uh...okay.

 

Dick: Yeah! So that means the cl-...if you're on a GPS satellite out in space, you're so far away from gravity that the clock on the GPS satellite is set to go slower...

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: ...to compensate for the distance away from the earth it is.

 

Maddox: I think it's speed. I think speed has somethin' to do with it, Dick.

 

Dick: That's ANOTHER thing! So another aspect of these satellites...'cause they're going so fast 'cause they're in geosynchronous orbit.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: They're going so fast compared to us that time for them goes faster, so when you subtract both...so when you compensate for both of those, um...they go faster than clocks on Earth's surface by 38 microseconds every day.

 

Maddox: Okay.

 

Dick: If it wasn't for that 38 microseconds, the whole system would be fucked.

 

Maddox: What do you mean, "fucked"?

 

Dick: Well, because a GPS satellite sends its time code out at all times.

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: Like, they're sending out what time it is to them at all times, and your little GPS device grabs the time from 3 of those satellites, and based on the differences in the time it calculates where you are.

 

Maddox: Oh, right. Yeah.

 

Dick: Yeah. So if the time on those satellites was not sped up to compensate for relativistic effects?

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: It wouldn't work.

 

Maddox: Huh!

 

Dick: The whole system would be broken. Like, if they'd just taken a clock and sent it up into space, it'd be like, "Well, we have no fuckin' idea where we are." 

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: "'Cause these clocks say they're like 2 weeks in the future." 

 

Maddox: And R-

 

Dick: (interjects) Or two weeks in the past.

 

Maddox: And -

 

Dick: (interjects) And Ronald Reagan...

 

Maddox: And Ronald Reagan...

 

Dick: ...figured that out.

 

Maddox: And Ronald Reagan and not some scientist figured that out. Right?

 

Dick: Who paid the scientist? Ronald Reagan.

 

Maddox: A politician did, sure! Yeah, Ronald Reagan himself, and he wrote a check! He wrote a check. He emptied his pocketbooks. He says, "Guys, I feel very strongly about science." Ronald Reagan!

 

Dick: Yeah. They're a huge accomplishment.

 

Maddox: Yeah. Great.

 

Dick: GPS.

 

Maddox: Great.

 

Dick: Relativistic effects!

 

Maddox: Mhm.

 

Dick: One of the...I don't know what else we've invented that has to obey relativistic effects. 

 

Maddox: Well, lots of things. Rocket ships.

 

Dick: No they don't!

 

Maddox: Sure they do. You have to...the clocks on rocket ships are also...also account for relativistic effects.

 

Dick: Yeah, but this is a...this is something we use every day. We're not using rocket ships every day.

 

Maddox: Well, without the rocket ships you wouldn't be able to use GPS, would you Dick?

 

Dick: Oh, alright.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: That's my solution. Go ahead. What's yours?

 

Maddox: Good solution, Dick. (exhales) But, uh, I think I have a solution that's bigger. I think I have an actual solution...

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: ...that is literally bigger than yours.

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: And makes yours impossible without it. Satellites! Yehehehehahahaaah. (laughing) (clapping sound effect)

 

Dick: The noun satellites?

 

Maddox: ('ding!' sound effect) Satellites! Yeah, satellites make GPS possible.

 

Dick: Well...

 

Maddox: Bigger solution. (smiling)

 

Dick: You mean satellites, like a thing that rotates around a celestial body?

 

Maddox: Yeah!

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: Yeah, satellites. Like the ones that...make GPS possible.

 

Dick: Yeah. Do you mean man-made satellites?

 

Maddox: Well, I'm talking specifically about man-made satellites, but, uh...

 

Dick: Oh.

 

Maddox: Or natu-...nature...natural satellites like moons could be a solution too. Actually they are, because without it our tidal forces would be out of whack.

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: Right? It's a very delicate balance!

 

Dick: Hah, what a bullshit problem. Or solution.

 

Maddox: YOU'RE a bullshit problem! Oh, really?!

 

Dick: Yeah. Go ahead.

 

Maddox: Yeah, well without satellites, dickhead, we wouldn't have GPS! Satellites are a significantly bigger solution than GPS because they are the inspiration for and the technology behind GPS.

 

Dick: Yeah. 

 

Maddox: But satellites are more useful than just GPS, dickhead, because we use them for communication. Every stupid text message you send or phone call you make with your cell phone uses satellites. Which, by the way, is the reason we should no longer have a distinction between long-distance and local calls, because it's all satellite communication anyway. It doesn't cost any extra to send a signal to...uh, say, France or Ohio. It doesn't fucking matter! It's all the same, like watching TV or li-...like, do you like to watch TV or listen to the radio?

 

Dick: No.

 

Maddox: Huh. Well, doesn't matter, 'cause... (Dick snickers) Regardless, the people who do use satellites, dickhead, and you're just bein' a DICK! (angrily) Many people get dish service, and guess what they use? Satellites!

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: Even cable companies use satellites. Ever drive by a cable company and see that giant array of satellites out front?

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: Yeah! That's how you get your signal. That's how you get your TV stations. Oceanography! That's another thing that, uh, benefits from satellites.

 

Dick: 'Cause of GPS?

 

Maddox: No, not specif-...not just 'cause of GPS.

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: Yeah. A G-

 

Dick: (interjects) Phones and stuff? Satellite phones?

 

Maddox: No Dick, it's a way of exploring the ocean. The earth is covered roughly 71% by oceans; over 361 million kilometers of area to explore. Before satellites we used ships, buoys and tide gauges to explore the ocean. 

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: That's a real shitty way to explore anything. Buoys?? Barf. (Sean laughs in the background) Since satellites we've found lost treasure, meteor impact sites, new species of animals, current direction, optimized navigation routes, et cetera. You said, Dick...in the first solutions episode, you said that the biggest pollution...the biggest source of pollution in the world are those cargo ships, right?

 

Dick: Yeah, they are.

 

Maddox: The 15 biggest ships create more pollution than all the cars in the world.

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: And guess what helps cut down on that pollution? Optimized shipping routes due to oceanographers using satellites to figure that out.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Yeah! In addition to figuring out things like, oh, I don't know, rising sea levels? The path of tropical storms and hurricanes?

 

Dick: It's pretty useful.

 

Maddox: Very useful! Oh, and speaking of tropical storms and hurricanes: meteorology. Another thing that benefits from satellites. Satellites aid meteorologists in making weather forecasts. They're often wrong, right?

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: But... (chuckles) But at least we have an early warning system in place for tornado activity, which is usually pretty accurate. 

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: I remember a couple years back in Salt Lake City...Salt Lake is known for being a really safe place from tornadoes because the entire city is surrounded by mountains, so when you land in Salt Lake City you're...there's just, like, mountains everywhere, and that protects you from tornadoes. It's REALLY rare if a tornado ever touches down, and I remember a couple years back we got a weather service warning saying that there was going to be a tornado in Salt Lake City. Nobody believed it, myself included. That's when I was, uh, downtown Salt Lake.

 

Dick: Were you wearing a jacket at that time?

 

Maddox: No.

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: No jacket!

 

Dick: No jacket.

 

Maddox: So sure enough, a tornado touched down and hit our basketball stadium, the Delta Center. 

 

Dick: Oh!

 

Maddox: It was called the Delta Center at the time. And my parents were freaking out. They were calling over and over again, and I didn't answer my phone 'cause I was watchin' the news, you know? Finally I answered the phone like this: "HELP MEEE!! HELP ME! OH MY GOD! AHH, HELP!" (both laugh) And then just hung up, and my mom freaked out. She called me back a few minutes later. Uh, she asked me why I did that. Anyway. 

 

Dick: Satellites. (smiling)

 

Maddox: Satellites.

 

Dick: Man-made satellites.

 

Maddox: Yeah!

 

Dick: Or any sat-...like the ones that killed the dinosaurs? Does that count too? Any satellites?

 

Maddox: That wasn't...a satellite didn't kill the dinosaurs, Dick. 

 

Dick: I mean, it's a rotating object!

 

Maddox: That's not a satellite.

 

Dick: It's not man-made, but it's a satellite.

 

Maddox: No, that's not a satellite.

 

Dick: If it has an orbit, it's a satellite.

 

Maddox: It's not a satellite. It needs to...it needs to be in orbit.

 

Dick: If it has an orbit, it's a satellite!

 

Maddox: It has to have an orbit AROUND something. What was that meteor's orbit?

 

Dick: Let me ask you somethin'.

 

Maddox: You don't know.

 

Dick: So when I said GPS...

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: ...and you said you're doing satellites and I said, "I'll change my solution then, so we can talk about something different"?

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: And you said no, you had something special planned.

 

Maddox: Uh-huh. (smiles)

 

Dick: The something special was just making sure I don't win. Right?

 

Maddox: Dick, nobody wins on this show.

 

Dick: It was just...but it was CLEARLY just so you would bring in a solution that was superset of mine. You know what? Fuck you! (Maddox giggles) I'm changing it to Ronald Reagan! (Maddox laughs harder) Ronald Reagan is now my solution! Did you know that Reagan inherited a misery index -- the sum of the inflation and unemployment rates -- of 19.9%?

 

Maddox: Oh, my GOSH. Yeah.

 

Dick: And when he left office it was at 9.7%?

 

Maddox: Wow.

 

Dick: Ronald Reagan lowered the misery index of the US by 10%.

 

Maddox: Something that...that is -

 

Dick: (interjects) Take note, Obama.

 

Maddox: (cracks up) Something that is closely tracked, right? The misery index.

 

Dick: 16 million new jobs were created under Ronald Reagan.

 

Maddox: Huh! Pretty good! 

 

Dick: Where is he when we need him? (Maddox snickers) Where is he now?

 

Maddox: Alzheimer's and in a grave. Essentially.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Ronald Reagan.

 

Dick: Reaganomics! Have you heard of that?

 

Maddox: Yeah!

 

Dick: Fucked poor people!

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Dick: It made life way better for rich people.

 

Maddox: Yeah! Yeah. You can see a sharp increase in CEO salaries right around the time Reagan was in office and a sharp decline of the average person's income. And it's still never rebounded, by the way.

 

Dick: It never will!

 

Maddox: No. Thanks, Reagan. 

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Good solution.

 

Dick: You are SO petty. (Maddox and Sean laugh) "Oh, satellites..."

 

Maddox: (yells) Oh, says the person who brings in...says the person who brings in monkeys!! (monkeys whooping sound effect) Just for a fuckin' vote grab, to confuse our listeners! When I say "go vote up monkeys," they get confused and they vote up the solution, monkeys as a solution! Monkeys are a PROBLEM, buddy, and you brought that in just to fuck with me. So here we go, satellites! A superset of the prob-...look Dick, I think GPS is a solution just like oceanography is a solution...

 

Dick: Well, yeah, you clearly do!

 

Maddox: ...meteorology is a solution. All these things are solutions, right? But GPS is a lesser solution than satellites. (Dick guffaws)

 

Dick: Yeah, which I said!! Which is why I said I'll bring in something different so we can talk about something different!

 

Maddox: We are!

 

Dick: You were like, "Oh, no, no, no, no. Bring it in! Bring it in. It'll be - "

 

Maddox: (interjects) Did you talk about oceanography? 

 

Dick: No. (giggling)

 

Maddox: No!

 

Dick: Oh, you fuckin'...

 

Maddox: You didn't even talk about how -

 

Dick: (interjects) You shady fuck. (Maddox giggles) 

 

Maddox: You didn't even talk about how GPS was invented! You just said Ronald Reagan.

 

Dick: Ronald Reagan!

 

Maddox: No!! (laughs more) You fuckin' idiot! It wasn't Ronald Reagan. (grinning)

 

Dick: He decided to invent it after that plane crash. He opened it up for everybody.

 

Maddox: The 007 plane crash?

 

Dick: Yeah!

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: That's a real thing!

 

Maddox: Uh-huh? Oh! Thank you, Ronald Reagan. (sarcastic) Well, did Ronald Reagan discover astronomy? No!

 

Dick: I don't know.

 

Maddox: And he doesn't bene-...he didn't... (cracks up) 

 

Dick: I didn't read the whole Wikipedia page. (both laugh)

 

Maddox: He doesn't...he didn't benefit astronomy as much as satellites did! (Dick giggling) Satellites have allowed us to discover distant galaxies, solar systems, and even planets, Dick.

 

Dick: You know what? Who cares?! What do we...what do...who cares how many other stars and planets are...?

 

Maddox: You fffffucking...

 

Dick: They're just full of more petty assholes like you who fuck their friends over before podcasts. (Maddox laughs) That's what the Hubble Tele-...make the Hubble Telescope see all the way to the edge of the universe! You know what you're gonna see? A buncha assholes who drive like shit and think they drive awesome, and a bunch of assholes who fuck their friends over. (yelling)

 

Maddox: Yeah. (sneering)

 

Dick: That's what the universe is full of! We need to spend billions of dollars to figure that out? "Hey, look, we found another Earth planet! Guess what's on it? A bunch of people jerking off and wasting money looking right back at us!" Who fuckin' cares??

 

Maddox: There is two reasons Dick is upset here. (everyone else laughs) The first is he still, STILL, doesn't understand the podcast. He still doesn't understand that this podcast is not a competition. (Dick laughs loudly) There is no such thing as winning between two disparate topics, Dick. You don't...what wins between the flavor of apples and the flavor of oranges?

 

Dick: What wins between GPS satellites and satellites? (grinning)

 

Maddox: Neither one!

 

Dick: Satellites wins.

 

Maddox: No, neither one. Satellites is a bigger solution! We can say that!

 

Dick: Oh, you're such a fuck. (giggling)

 

Maddox: Bigger... (cracks up) Satellites is a bigger solution because GPS is a subset of satellites. Right? It's a -

 

Dick: (interjects) I know!!

 

Maddox: I brought in Lesser Minds and Anti-Intellectualism, right?

 

Dick: Uh-huh. (exasperated)

 

Maddox: Which are related, but one is a subset of the other, isn't it?

 

Dick: Yeah. Well, they're both the same note in your symphony. 

 

Maddox: Okay. (dismissively)

 

Dick: In your one-note symphony. (smiles) Go ahead, Sean.

 

Sean: I hope these both end up in the negative. (Dick cackles) 

 

Maddox: Fuck you, Sean! I'm gonna bring in Sean as a solution, and I want you guys to vote it down. (Sean laughs) Take that, Sean. Dick, we're on the verge of having satellites with enough precision to determine the atmospheric content of planets in other galaxies. Dick, do you know where helium was first discovered?

 

Dick: Up your ass.

 

Maddox: Hah. (Colin laughing in the background) NO. Incorrect. (buzzer sound effect) Not up my ass, Dick. On the sun!

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: They discovered heli-... (laughs) ...helium in the sun, not up my ass. 

 

Dick: How?

 

Maddox: Why don't you tongue punch my fart box? (slyly)

 

Dick: With a stupid satellite?

 

Maddox: Actually, that was done with, um...just looking at the solar spectrum. They were looking at the light spectrum coming from the sun and they found that there were certain bands, because there's an absorption spectrum for different elements. Right? 

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: Different elements absorb different wavelengths of light, and if you look at that light coming from the sun you'll see a band, like a little narrow band, where helium is being absorbed.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: So they know the absorption spectrum of hydrogen, because we have hydrogen on Earth, and...this is before we discovered helium, right?

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: We know the absorption spectrum of oxygen and all these other different elements. So then when we saw this absorption spectrum of helium, we didn't know what it was, and we looked at the atomic elements and we saw...we thought that, "Okay, hydrogen is over here, oxygen is over here, so something in between the two..."

 

Dick: There was just a blank?

 

Maddox: Well, we didn't...we hadn't discovered all the elements at that time. 

 

Dick: I would...when was this?

 

Maddox: 1800s!

 

Dick: But they didn't have satellites in the 1800s, so how did satellites figure this out?

 

Maddox: No, but by using satellites, we can tell the atmospheric content of distant planets. Like, we are working on satellites right now with precision to be able to determine the atmospheric contents of distant planets...

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: ...using this same technology, looking at the absorption spectrum.

 

Dick: And if they have too much smoke in their atmosphere, we'll dispatch a committee to go make it illegal over there. (Maddox laughs loudly) You know what Ronald Reagan discovered?

 

Maddox: You're so salty. You're so salty! (laughs more)

 

Dick: That it's morning in America. That's what Ronald Reagan discovered.

 

Maddox: Oh. Oohoohoo. (both crack up) You fuckin' politician. Shill. Dick, we've measured cosmic background radiation and the average temperature of the UNIVERSE using satellites, and learned a lot about our own planet and solar system. We found visual proof of black holes in 2012! Did you know that? 

 

Dick: Who cares?

 

Maddox: How's that for discovery? Did Ronald Reagan discover that? No!

 

Dick: But he discovered something more important. He discovered a reason for America to get to work (Maddox giggles) and pull itself up by its bootstraps.

 

Maddox: Idiot. (laughs more) Ahhh. You know what else we use satellites for, Dick? Navigation. As you mentioned, GPS.

 

Dick: Can we spot the edges of your ego with a satellite? (Maddox keeps giggling) Do we have satellites that powerful? (Sean laughing loudly in the background)

 

Maddox: Ahhh. Maybe Dick, but if you get lost in my ego, you know what you'll need? Search and rescue satellite operations. We have satellites that can help rescue teams and find stranded boats, planes, and hikers.

 

Dick: You know what I have? I have the ghost of Ronald Reagan that I can pray to if I get lost. (Maddox laughs) I don't need satellites. Don't look for me. 

 

Maddox: Good, I won't! I won't. Oh man, what a refreshing thought. You being lost. Then... (cracks up) There are personal locator beacons, Dick, and satellite messengers. These things are so powerful, if you get lost at sea you can press this button on this thing and a plane will show up and rescue you!

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Fuckin' amazing, satellites! And then finally, Dick, you said that Ronald Reagan is responsible for ending the Cold War, dickhead? (yelling)

 

Dick: Yeah, he is.

 

Maddox: WRONG. Reconnaissance and surveillance satellites helped end that war.

 

Dick: Mm...

 

Maddox: Because they let us peer into dangerous countries and see where there's militarized activity, say, like when Cubans are stockpiling missiles from Russia. (still yelling)

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Yeah! That's how we knew about that.

 

Dick: Yeah, but who is authorizing...who controls the satellites? These satellites are mere toys in the hands of Ronald Reagan, a powerful man who works them like a puppet master. (Maddox laughs and sighs) Seeing into the evil Soviet Empire. (grins)

 

Maddox: Yeah. (sarcastic)

 

Dick: Protecting us!

 

Maddox: Yeah. Protecting us. (sneering)

 

Dick: Yes, protecting us.

 

Maddox: "Oh, please!" (scared voice) The libertarian is lionizing Ronald Reagan for protecting us. "Oh please, government, protect me!" 

 

Dick: He was a great man and a beautiful man, (Maddox giggles) and he deserves to be voted up above Maleelal Yousafzai or whatever her name was.

 

Maddox: Malala You-...Ma-...uhh...Malala Yousafzai, yeah.

 

Dick: Yeah. 

 

Maddox: Yeah. No, no he doesn't, Dick. The Cold War ended, by the way, because we also had missiles in Italy and Turkey that was pissin' off Russia. (Dick scoffs) And that's the whole reason Russia came to Cuba and said, "Well, let's put a...let's put a porcupine down America's pants."

 

Dick: (chuckling) I think the Cold War ended because, uh, Russia was poor as shit.

 

Maddox: Well, that has somethin' to do with it.

 

Dick: And they couldn't eat.

 

Maddox: Anyway Dick, satellites!

 

Dick: Ugh, you're such a fuck. Go.

 

Maddox: That's my solution.

 

Dick: It's your turn to move in the game. 

 

Maddox: Oh, okay! Let's, uh...

 

Dick: You've moved on the game of life by stabbing me in the back. 

 

Maddox: You're such a pussy! (laughing) You still don't understand the show. Okay. (Dick laughs) Spick...uh, Dick, speaking of being stabbed in the back: "Black income disparity decreases as urban areas recover from recession. Move up 3 spaces." Cool!

 

Dick: Cool.

 

Sean: I heard "spic."

 

Maddox: What? (laughs uneasily)

 

Colin: Oh, so did I. (in background)

 

Dick: What? 

 

Colin: Yeah. (laughing)

 

Dick: What? In that card?

 

Sean: He said "Spick...Dick."

 

Dick: Oh, oh oh oh oh.

 

Maddox: (chuckles) That was an accident.

 

Dick: I'm reading from a card now. "Your rich aunt has the travel bug and offers to take you to Europe with her." Uh, no mention of how big her cans are, though. 

 

Maddox: Dick, it's your AUNT.

 

Dick: That's okay! 

 

Maddox: Gross. 

 

Dick: You can have an aunt with big...it's not your mom! It's your aunt!

 

Maddox: Alright.

 

Sean: What if it's not -

 

Dick: (interjects) You can have a hot aunt.

 

Sean: It could be through marriage. 

 

Dick: Yeah, Maddox! It could be your mom's brother's wife!

 

Maddox: Alright Dick, go bang your aunt.

 

Dick: I don't mind if I do, after I move up 4 spaces. (everyone else laughs)

 

Maddox: Alright.

 

Dick: Here Sean, you read one.

 

Sean: Alright

 

Dick: Does it say anything about Maddox screwing you over on your card? (Sean chuckles)

 

Sean: Oh shit, I'm goin' back 1 space. "An MPAA-style rating system comes to YouTube and your channel gets hit with an MA rating."

 

Dick: Mm.

 

Maddox: Hah!

 

Sean: I would never have a YouTube channel. 

 

Dick: That's true.

 

Sean: But I'm still movin' back 1 space.

 

Dick: It counts, though.

 

Maddox: Yeah. You're back. Alright!

 

Dick: Colin, unfortunately you don't get to go.

 

Maddox: No.

 

Dick: 'Cause you got killed. 

 

Maddox: Colin got killed the first... (laughs) ...on the first space in the game.

 

Dick: Alright, is it my turn now?

 

Maddox: Yeah, what's your solution, Dick?

 

Dick: My next solution is a superhero stance. (grins)

 

Maddox: Oh yeah?

 

Dick: Yeah! How 'bout this? (cracking up) So...

 

Maddox: I think I know this, yeah.

 

Dick: ...if you stand like an idiot, like if you stand with your hands on your hips posing like a superhero...

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: ...they've determined that this, like, this increases your...not only your self-confidence, but also your testosterone levels.

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: So if you're gonna do something that you need courage to do, go to the bathroom and stand like Superman.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: For like 5 seconds.

 

Maddox: 2 minutes.

 

Dick: 2 minutes?

 

Maddox: 2 minutes is the...they found the effect is the strongest when you do it for 2 minutes.

 

Dick: I alr-...I'm already almost full on testosterone though. I only need a couple seconds. 

 

Maddox: Well...I don't know about that, Dick.

 

Dick: I brought in the whole...ugh. I brought in the whole, uh, the whole study. It's pretty funny. Uh, let's see. "The superhero stance projects power. It's an example of what psychologists refer to as an open posture, in which limbs are spread out in a way to take up more space, such as legs being apart." So it's basically saying that manspreading makes you a more powerful person. 

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: It increases your testosterone and builds your confidence. There was a TED Talk about this, Dick. Well, I'll let you go on. Go on, yeah.

 

Dick: Oh, kill me. There was already a TED Talk about this?

 

Maddox: Oh yeah, of course. Yeah, it's not a new phenomenon. But yeah, did you bring in the TED Talk to talk about it?

 

Dick: No, I hate TED Talks.

 

Maddox: Okay. Well, there was a girl on there -

 

Dick: (interjects) I'd rather eat a buncha glass than listen to a TED Talk.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: That's true.

 

Maddox: I'd like to see that!

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: I'd pay...Sean, if you had a YouTube channel, you could put stuff like that on there!

 

Dick: Like, my opinion of people drops...whatever it was at first, it drops down into like the single percentage points if I hear they've done a TED Talk.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Sean: You could Titanic him right back by showing him TED Talks.

 

Maddox: Ohhhohohohohohoooh! (loudly)

 

Dick: Oh, fuck you, Sean!

 

Maddox: ('ding!' sound effect)

 

Dick: Fuck you!!

 

Maddox: Yeeeeah! ('ding!' sound effect) Woooo! (clapping sound effect) Yeah, there we go! That's smart! That's what's comin' in, Dick.

 

Dick: Alright, let's...

 

Maddox: You're gettin' TED Talks!

 

Dick: Let's change the subject really fast here. (background laughter)

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Uh, high power poses. High power poses were sitting in a chair, arms behind your head, elbows out, and feet up on a desk, like a boss relaxing. And standing in front of the table with your feet apart...blah blah blah blah blah. So they gave these people...they made these people stand in stupid positions. On one hand...on one side of the experiment you had power poses...

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: ...where people had their feet kicked up, their arms crossed behind their backs. They're probably thinking about their yacht or something.

 

Maddox: Mhm.

 

Dick: Acting like a big shot.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: And then the other people they had take up as little space as possible. Like, looking very demure...

 

Maddox: Yeah, yeah.

 

Dick: ...putting their arms against their bodies, stuff like that.

 

Maddox: Right, right.

 

Dick: And then they gave them a, uh, a gambling task where they said the odds were 50/50. Alright?

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: And they were each given 2 bucks, and they had the option to keep the money or to risk it and double...risk it on a die roll and double their money.

 

Maddox: 'Kay.

 

Dick: Where they would double it or lose it altogether.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Right? So what did they find? That the people who they made pose in that open posture superhero pose...

 

Maddox: Mhm.

 

Dick: ...were more likely to risk the money.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Yeah!

 

Maddox: Hmm.

 

Dick: That's pretty cool.

 

Maddox: Where it makes 'em a little bit more confident. Little bit more aggressive, huh?

 

Dick: They tested their saliva, and they found that the hormone associated with stress...

 

Maddox: Cortisol, right? Isn't that...?

 

Dick: Yeah, cortisol.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Sean: It's cortisol

 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

 

Sean: That's why you need sleep too.

 

Maddox: Yeah, well...

 

Dick: Uh, the testosterone levels would drop when...hold on.

 

Maddox: Good notes. (sneering)

 

Dick: I just printed out the article.

 

Maddox: I know. I know! (Dick laughs) I know how you bring in your notes. He brings in 8 pages, 9 pages of notes.

 

Dick: Yeah, well, while we're here setting up, you're typing up your shit.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: So...

 

Maddox: (yells) Oh, let's -

 

Dick: ...this is the best I could do.

 

Maddox: Yeah! It's way better to wait live during the show than before the show and get all your ducks in a row so the show goes smoothly! (irritated)

 

Dick: Alright, look. (Maddox laughs loudly) They had less stress.

 

Maddox: No no, what...?

 

Dick: They had less  -

 

Maddox: (interjects) What...what did you find? Yeah.

 

Dick: Well, I could read the whole thing, but it's boring.

 

Maddox: Nah, I'm curious. I think it's interesting. What does it say?

 

Dick: Oh yeah, people who are powerful tend to have lower baseline levels of cortisol, and when they're stressed their cortisol levels didn't rise as much as people who were in the prone positions.

 

Maddox: Yeah, that's correct.

 

Dick: So if you're feelin' stressed out, get yourself in a power pose.

 

Maddox: Yeah. Dick, why are you shitting on your own solution?

 

Dick: What do you mean?

 

Maddox: It's like you don't even believe this! You don't even believe the words you're saying. You're saying, "Oh, look at this goofy pose. Look at this stupid pose. Look at these idiots. I hate TED Talks." (dumb voice)

 

Dick: Well, it is stupid!

 

Maddox: What's stupid about it?

 

Dick: Looking like a superhero?? That's embarrassing! 

 

Maddox: It's not!

 

Dick: Posing like you're Superman? (cracking up)

 

Maddox: Dick, no joke, I stand like that a lot. I put my hands on hips often.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: And even when I work, my legs are kicked up at my desk! You've seen my de-...I don't even have a desk, actually. It's just a chair, and I have a footrest.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: And my legs are always kicked out, and I'm always leaning back, and I'm always putting my hands on my hips. It works! This is some-...I don't know if I...I don't know which came first, the chicken or the egg here; whether or not I was just, uh, really...full of testosterone and confident and powerful before.

 

Dick: That's a good question.

 

Maddox: Yeah. But no, it does work, Dick! So they talked about that in that TED Talk.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: A woman said that she was really not confident and demure and wanted to do some public speaking and she was always nervous about it, so she experimented with this and it gave her so much more confidence after the fact. I believe there's something to it. You know, Dick, there's another study. I saw...it's...this wasn't a study so much as a documentary, I think, on National Geographic. They were observing apes, male apes. The silverbacks. Silverback gorillas, rather. Yeah.

 

Dick: The big ones.

 

Maddox: Yeah. They were observing gorillas, and they were trying to determine which ones were the alpha gorillas, because in every gorilla pack there's always at least one alpha gorilla...

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: ...who is defined by the most aggressive gorilla, the gorilla who gets laid the most, the gorilla who passes on his genes, and so on and so forth. Right?

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: That's the alpha gorilla. And they watched the posture of the gorillas and they tried to determine which one was the alpha gorilla just based on a photograph, and they could ALWAYS tell. Every single time, and it's because the alpha gorilla stood a different way. So then they thought, "Well, let's see if we can use this same test on humans," so they did an experiment where they brought a bunch of guys into...I think a mechanic shop or a waiting room or something.

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: Like 9 different guys, and then they brought in a woman, and then they looked at every...each guy's posture and his pose and tried to determine which one would be most aggressive with trying to flirt with the woman or pick her up. (Dick chuckles) They nailed it every single time. The guys who were the most ape-like...

 

Dick: Yeah!

 

Maddox: ...the most gorilla-like, the ones who puffed up their chest and put their arms to the sides and they had that male...that really strong alpha pose, those were the guys who went up right to the woman and started to talkin' to them. But the other guys who were kinda shrunken in and trying to take up less space, feelin' like they didn't belong showed a lack of confidence, and they're the ones who didn't say anything. They were very...they got a little bit shy around the other guys.

 

Dick: Yeah, that's interesting, because this is...on the surface, this gambling test kinda seems pointless. Like, it's...a 50/50 gambling odds is, um...dumb! Like, saying that the power pose increased their odds of gambling on a coin toss is not really a complement. Right? Would you say?

 

Maddox: It's not necessarily. 

 

Dick: It's not necessarily. However, it kinda makes it a wash, but when you're talking about approaching a woman, which is most of the questi-...almost all of the questions I get. Nobody wants to know my opinion on anything else but how to talk to women.

 

Maddox: Hah. (chuckles) YOU'RE the right guy to go to.

 

Dick: Yeah, I am!

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: And part of that is approaching...talking to a woman like a 50/50 gamble.

 

Maddox: No. Well Dick, if you -

 

Dick: (interjects) Did you say "no" or "yeah"?

 

Maddox: Well...no. I disagree with...I mean, that's your philosophy and you're allowed to have that, and I think it's broken. BUT, I... (cracks up)

 

Dick: She's either gonna like you or she's not!

 

Maddox: (chuckles) Okay, Dick!

 

Dick: That's it!

 

Maddox: I guess!

 

Dick: You can't make her like you.

 

Maddox: You can come across as more affable and charismatic! You can be more appealing to people based on what you do! Say for example, I don't know, you're a politician like...oh, I don't know, Ronald Reagan!

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Ronald fucking Reagan was charismatic as fuck. Everybody liked him! He was a very popular president! *I* even liked his personality! Like, he was a likable president.

 

Dick: You're right.

 

Maddox: Because he had this warmth and charisma about him.

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: Right? And he was a great orator.

 

Dick: Sure.

 

Maddox: BUT, that doesn't nece-...you ca-...so that goes to say that you can improve your likability with people. That's why I think it's a broken philosophy, yours. Real shitty advice. BUT Dick, what I want to specifically mention -

 

Dick: (interjects) How are you gonna improve whether a chick wants to fuck you or not?

 

Maddox: I'm not saying I -

 

Dick: (interjects) They either do or don't!

 

Maddox: I'm... (chuckles) Okay. Well Dick, sometimes chicks don't wanna fuck you and then they change their minds later. What happens between A and B?

 

Dick: Ohhh, that's a slippery slope. 

 

Maddox: No, it's not!!

 

Dick: Eh, it's too much work! 

 

Maddox: Okay.

 

Dick: You gotta convince them to like you?

 

Maddox: Go ahead, guys, ask Dick for advice. Listen to this though, Dick. You brought in as a solution the stupidly phrased "Ask For A Raise," right?

 

Dick: Yeah, that's a good idea.

 

Maddox: Okay. Asking for a raise!

 

Dick: It's a good solution.

 

Maddox: You know what, Dick? That study that you just mentioned, the gambling one...

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: ...where you have a 50% chance of winning, and you said that people who have more testosterone and people who feel more confident are more likely to take that risk, right?

 

Dick: Right.

 

Maddox: To bet, right? That's exactly what you want when it comes to asking for a raise. Asking for a raise, that could be viewed as also a 50% probability, even though there may be other factors that play into it. But from your perspective, either you're gonna get it or you're not. Right?

 

Dick: Same with chicks!

 

Maddox: Oh, okay. (dismissively)

 

Dick: That's exactly the same! What do you, spend time, like, sweet-talking them into a used car?

 

Maddox: Dick, there are things that factor into picking up women, like for example, your hygiene and how you look and how you act! Like, if you show up to a party and you act like a big boisterous dumbass, and you -

 

Dick: (interjects) Some chicks are gonna love that!!

 

Maddox: Well, some chicks maybe, but in general, no! 

 

Dick: Oh, that's total horseshit!

 

Maddox: Yeah. (sarcastic)

 

Dick: Chicks LOVE loud guys!

 

Maddox: Okay. And your...and -

 

Dick: (interjects) Loud jackasses. Don't change who you are.

 

Maddox: And your nail... (laughs) Yeah.

 

Dick: Be yourself, and then just say, "Hey, what's up? Do you wanna bone or what?"

 

Maddox: Great. 

 

Dick: They either do or they don't.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: That's how they work!

 

Maddox: Dick, you have -

 

Dick: (interjects) Same as guys!!

 

Maddox: You have been slapped by more women than any other guy I know in life.

 

Dick: Yeah, and each one was a learning experience.

 

Maddox: For them or you? 

 

Dick: For them, not me.

 

Maddox: Okay! (everyone laughing) Yeah, they learned what your face felt like. (laughs more) When they slapped it. Anyway Dick, um...

 

Dick: That's a reaction! I'll take that reaction.

 

Maddox: Dick, your solution Asking For A Raise could not be a solution without the confidence it takes. If more people had confidence -- say, for example, if more people took that power pose...

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: ...and had more testosterone and had more confidence and asked for a raise, that would be a solution to...that's the solution that you're suggesting, asking for a raise!

 

Dick: You could do both! 

 

Maddox: Great.

 

Dick: You could do one without the other!

 

Maddox: Alright, Dick. (sighs) Big jumbled mess of contradictions and confusing -

 

Dick: (interjects) How is any of that contradictory?!

 

Maddox: You think that the...you...why am I defending your fuckin' solution?? I don't care! Go ahead, shit on your own solution!

 

Dick: I think it's a great solution!

 

Maddox: Do you?

 

Dick: But it's a stupid, embarrassing pose -

 

Maddox: It's not!

 

Dick: - that you should do anyway!

 

Maddox: No, I do it all the time. Have you ever noticed me doing it?

 

Dick: Uh...looking like Superman?

 

Maddox: I...like, putting my arms out to the side.

 

Dick: Oh yeah, I've noticed that.

 

Maddox: Yeah! I do that a lot.

 

Dick: Old-fa-...it looks a little old-fashioned.

 

Maddox: Yeah. 

 

Dick: Yeah. It's cool!

 

Maddox: Yeah. Old-fashioned like a 1920s boxer. Cool.

 

Dick: Yeah!

 

Maddox: Yeah. I like it. Anyway Dick, um...that's all I got. Or that's...that's all you... (cracks up)

 

Dick: You wanna move your piece?

 

Maddox: Yeah! 

 

Dick: We're getting a little behind on the game board.

 

Maddox: Next card I got says, "On a road trip, your hot Asian passenger feeds you as you drive. Move up 3 spaces." Cool!

 

Dick: That's a good one. (Maddox belches) That's the Shitty Passengers episode. I remember that.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Uh, here's mine: "You see Jennifer Lawrence's tits. Awesome, she's hot! Move up 4 spaces." I think it's a sex crime, though. One, two, three, four. (moving chip) Sean? You want me to read yours?

 

Sean: Yeah, go for it.

 

Dick: Alright. "Your life coach gives you some great advice about investing. Move up 2 spaces." One, two.

 

Maddox: There you go.

 

Dick: My life coach recently got a "urinating in public" ticket. (Maddox laughs) Did I tell you about that?

 

Maddox: Yeah, you did.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: You should bring that in for the next episode.

 

Dick: Eh, I don't wanna air his personal business on the...

 

Maddox: Okay. That's fair. Dick, we should get to the final solution here. We're runnin' outta time. 

 

Dick: Alright. (laughing) (Sean laughs in the background)

 

Maddox: What, you wanna talk about it or no?

 

Dick: The final solution? I know... (giggles)

 

Maddox: No...oh, not...okay. I see.

 

Sean: He just said "spic" and "final solution." (Dick and Maddox laugh) 

 

Maddox: Sean! (giggles more)

 

Sean: In the same episode. 

 

Maddox: Shut your pie hole. That's not what I s-...that's not what I said!! That was an accident. I MISSPOKE.

 

Dick: Yeah. (amused)

 

Colin: Hmmm. (in background)

 

Maddox: I always say it with more venom when I say it. (laughs with Sean) Guys, let's get to the real biggest solution in the world. In the universe, rather. Temperance! ('ding!' sound effect)

 

Dick: Oh, fuck OFF.

 

Maddox: (clapping sound effect)

 

Dick: Temperance? 

 

Maddox: Temperance! Yeah! 

 

Dick: Of liquor?

 

Maddox: Of everything, Dick. 

 

Dick: In everything?

 

Maddox: Do you even know what temperance is? Do you know what temperance is? Have you ever heard of that word??

 

Dick: Go ahead.

 

Maddox: You're just saying "go ahead" 'cause you don't! You don't know what that is!

 

Dick: I don't know what temperance is?

 

Maddox: Well, you...no.

 

Dick: That's when you chop your dick off, right?

 

Maddox: Uh-huh. (smiling) Okay. There it is. There is the exact opposite of temperance. Temperance is the quality of avoiding excesses. That's it! In essence it's moderation, and moderation is a virtue. (grins)

 

Dick: You know what? Fuck your moderation. (Maddox giggles) Fuck you right up your ass. 

 

Maddox: Ohh. (worn out from laughing)

 

Dick: Biggest..."Best Page in the Universe" telling us about moderation. Fuck you.

 

Maddox: Hey Dick, as we have already established, I am an exception to many rules on this show.

 

Dick: Go ahead. (amused)

 

Maddox: Too much alcohol! Too much alcohol and you're an alcoholic. Right?

 

Dick: No.

 

Maddox: Yeah. What do you mean, "no"?! 

 

Dick: No! It's not about having too much alcohol that makes you an alcoholic. It's about needing it.

 

Maddox: Okay, it's about losing control. (stupid voice) Oh, it's about needing... (chuckling)

 

Dick: It's about needing it every day of your life. (cracking up)

 

Maddox: Yeah. Well, that's you for sure. 

 

Dick: Because life is miserable.

 

Maddox: Yeah. Too many drugs and you're an addict, right? You do too many drugs, you're an addict. (Dick laughs quietly) Dick, any...there are so many excesses that you can do too much of that ruin your life, right? Even sex...sexual desire. It leads to cheating and infidelity if you can't get your dick under control.

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: Yeah! Vanity! Too much vanity leads to narcissism, self-absorption, and selfie sticks! Go vote up Selfie Sticks, people!! Right? Anger -

 

Dick: (interjects) Sometimes it ends in a bestseller, though.

 

Maddox: What, vanity?

 

Dick: A bestselling book, yeah!

 

Maddox: Well...I wouldn't say that that's what spawned my first book. It wasn't vanity.

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: That was my...that was philanthropy. (Dick and Sean laugh loudly) Anger. Too much anger leads to violence and death, right? Too much eating leads to obesity; too much NOT eating, so not eating enough, leads to anorexia. Even too much exercise can lead to anorexia. Did you know that? That's a type of anorexia. When you exercise too much, it's called...uh, exercise anorexia.

 

Dick: Hm.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: That needs to catch on. (everyone else laughs) Too bad that's not contagious.

 

Maddox: Ohhh, boy. Too much sitting leads to numerous health problems.

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: Lack of exercise, so doing no exercise, leads to health problems. Too much talking gives you an immodest air, and gives others headaches. 

 

Dick: Yeah. I'm gettin' one right now. 

 

Maddox: (chuckles) Yeah, I was waitin' for it.

 

Dick: With this sanctimonious solution. (grinning)

 

Maddox: That was such a low-hanging fruit, I knew you'd take it. I knew you'd bite that apple. Too much listening to loud music leads to hearing loss; looking at ph-...looking at lights that are too bright leads to vision loss. Right? Too much reading and education...now you would think that too much reading and education, there's no such thing, right? But it can lead to having too high an opinion of one's self...

 

Dick: Uh-huh. (amused)

 

Maddox: ...pedantry, and the Dunning-Kruger effect. (Dick laughing quietly) What are you nodding at, Sean? Sean's looking at me and nodding.

 

Dick: 'Cause you are the smuggest fuck in the universe...

 

Maddox: Yeah, okay. (sarcastic)

 

Sean: Nonono

 

Dick: ...and you're lecturing us about temperance? You dare to lecture ANYONE about temperance? (Maddox laughs)

 

Sean: I was agreeing!

 

Maddox: Oh, Sean's agreeing.

 

Dick: You know fucking nothing about temperance!

 

Maddox: I INVENTED temperance, my friend! (laughs)

 

Dick: (yells) Do you do a moderate amount of drugs? No! You do none! That's the opposite amount of moderation.

 

Maddox: Because drugs are risky, Dick! You know what part of temperance is? It's self-regulation, modesty and humility. Right?

 

Dick: Oh, you're such a fuckin' asshole. (giggling)

 

Maddox: And prudence! Prudence is an element of temperance. So pru-...it's not prudent to try drugs, is it? Because you know the risks, and the risks far outweigh the rewards. 

 

Dick: No.

 

Maddox: So there is no moderation! (switches to stupid voice) "Oh, uh, Maddox, you call yourself a moderate? How come you don't cut one of your fingers off? You got 10 of 'em! Why don't you at least cut one off?" Dumbass argument. That's 'cause it's imprudent, Dick!

 

Dick: The risks of drugs do not outweigh the rewards.

 

Maddox: The risks are addiction and a life of defeat and destruction and destroyed family members.

 

Dick: Yeah, if you're a pussy! 

 

Maddox: Okay. (laughs)

 

Dick: If you can handle your drugs, it's awesome! Just do them and get high!

 

Maddox: Cool. 

 

Dick: And look cool!

 

Maddox: Yeah. Life advice from Dick Masterson. Take -

 

Dick: (interjects) Yeah, instead of Emily Post over here. 

 

Maddox: Uh-huh. (giggles) (Colin laughs in the background) Ahh. Dick, this concept of temperance transcends every major religion and philosophy in life.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: In Hinduism, the concept is called "dama." It's roughly equivalent to temperance. In Greek culture, it translates to moderation in action, thought, or feeling, or in one word, just "restraint." It's one of Plato's four core virtues. Aristotle called it a mean with regards to pleasure. So it's averaging all your pleasures, right? And I'll tell you why doing drugs and all this other bullshit is imprudent in just a minute, Dick. I'm gettin' to that. But Christianity considers temperance a virtue as well, and -

 

Dick: (interjects) Yeah, 'cause it's how they control people. That's how all religions control people.

 

Maddox: Oho, sure.

 

Dick: By making them give up vices.

 

Maddox: Yeah. 

 

Dick: And giving 'em an inflated sense of self-worth because they're able to withhold things.

 

Maddox: Well, what about Native American spiritualism? 

 

Dick: Same thing!

 

Maddox: No, they do drugs!

 

Dick: Just another religion.

 

Maddox: Drugs are a part of their religion, Dick!

 

Dick: Oh, their opium shit?

 

Maddox: Yeah! Opium!

 

Dick: Getting high?

 

Maddox: Uh-huh!

 

Dick: Cool! What do you want me to...?

 

Maddox: (chuckles) Okay!

 

Dick: What about it?

 

Maddox: Well, you said that that's how religions...you said that temperance is the way religions control people, but some religions specifically have an element of drugs!

 

Dick: Nyeah, I'm talkin' about the big...the big bad three, though.

 

Maddox: The bi-... (cracks up) 

 

Dick: You know.

 

Maddox: What are tho-...what are the big bad three?

 

Dick: Christianity, Islam, and Mormonism. (Maddox and Sean burst out laughing) Those are the big bad three.

 

Maddox: The common...the commonly known three. In more contemporary times -

 

Dick: (interjects) Those are the ones that are expanding. That's what you gotta watch out for in a religion, is the way it expands.

 

Maddox: Uh-huh. 

 

Dick: Native Americans aren't expanding their, uh, teepee smokeouts.

 

Maddox: Yeah. (muttering) Dick, I'm done takin' advice. (Dick laughs) Um, Ben Franklin and the Boy Scouts of America consider temperance a virtue. The Boy Scouts! Would you say that's an evil organization, Dick?

 

Dick: Yeah! The Boy Scouts?

 

Maddox: I think Ronald Reagan was a Boy Scout! He was on...he was in favor of Boy Scouts.

 

Dick: Really? Was he in favor of their ban on gays too?

 

Maddox: Probably! He's conservative!

 

Dick: Ohh, fuck you.

 

Maddox: Yeah! 

 

Dick: Conser-...all conservatives are against gay rights?

 

Maddox: No!! No, they are not! But you are more likely to be against gay rights if you're conservative, just looking at statistics. Statistically speaking, you are more likely to be against gay rights if you're a conservative, you're more likely to drive a Prius if you're liberal, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. 

 

Dick: Hm!

 

Maddox: It's not...it's just a general rule of thumb if you look at statistics.

 

Dick: Is that what we're doin' now?

 

Maddox: Well...

 

Dick: Who's more likely to commit female genital mutilation? What group?? Statistically. 

 

Maddox: Statistically no one, because it's less than 99% of the population.

 

Dick: Oh, okay!

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: So there's no statistics for that number?

 

Maddox: Statistically, it's ZERO. 

 

Dick: Okay!

 

Maddox: Statistically.

 

Dick: Okay.

 

Maddox: Yeah. From a psychological standpoint, Dick, temperance can be reduced to the following four traits. The first one is forgiveness or mercy, right? The second one is modesty and humility, the third one is prudence -- that's what you've never heard of -- and then the fourth one is self-regulation. That's the other thing you've never heard of. You've never heard of any of this shit, Dick.

 

Dick: Should we be doing signs of the cross while you're giving this fuckin' sermon? (Maddox laughs loudly) What the f-...where do you get off telling people about temperance? Fuck you, life is hard! Smoke 'em if you got 'em! Do drugs, they're awesome

 

Maddox: Yeah. Any other -

 

Dick: (interjects) Temperance. (disdainful)

 

Maddox: Any other bumper stickers you wanna recite, Dick?

 

Dick: What the fuck is this temp-...so what, you're gonna die with, uh...what, a moderately regulated corpse? What is the point of temperance? You get nothing out of it.

 

Maddox: You... (laughs)

 

Dick: What do you get for this? What do I get in exchange for this?

 

Maddox: You get a longer and happier life. Lemme read this, Dick. So, forgiveness is the c-...this is from this website. I think this is, uh...oh, here. Oh, this is... (chuckling) This is from Berkeley.edu. 'Kay? It says forgiveness is the conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment or vengeance towards a person or group who has harmed you, regardless of whether or not you think they deserve your forgiveness. Right? So there's a study from Science Direct that says...the name of the study is called "Failure to forgive self and others: a replication and extension of the relationship between forgiveness, personality, social desirability and general health." So they found a direct correlation between your health and likability and your personality and forgiveness. Failure...so -

 

Dick: (interjects) At Berkeley. What a surprise.

 

Maddox: They what?

 

Dick: At Berkeley, what a surprise.

 

Maddox: Berkeley. Yeah. (raises voice) Yeah, wha-...oh -

 

Dick: (interjects) Were healing crystals a part of this experiment at the scientists at Berkeley?

 

Maddox: Why? What's wrong with Berkeley, Dick? Are they too liberal? Would you say that that's a liberal school?

 

Dick: I don't even know...I don't even think they can SEE liberal anymore.

 

Maddox: Yeah. Oh, so you're sayin' that their...their -

 

Dick: (interjects) They went so far beyond it -

 

Maddox: (interjects) So you're saying their intemperance is a problem then? (yelling)

 

Dick: Their intemperance?

 

Maddox: Their lack...you're saying that they're so liberal that they're extreme, so by definition if they had temperance in their liberal views they wouldn't be so liberal, would they? And they wouldn't be a problem?

 

Dick: I guess, yeah. (chuckling)

 

Maddox: Well, well, well. 324 students, undergraduate students, were tested. They completed measures of forgiveness of one's self, forgiveness of others, and they found that failure to forgive one's self is accompanied by personality and general health scores that reflect individual psychopathology, with men and women scoring higher in neuroticism, depression, and anxiety for failing to forgive. A failure to forgive others is accompanied by personality and general health scores that reflect social introversion among men, and among women it shows that social pathology...uh, social dysfunction and psychoticism!

 

Dick: Mhm.

 

Maddox: So women who are less likely to forgive makes them a little bit more psychotic, and men who are less likely to forgive are...makes them more introverted. Further, a failure to forgive others is accompanied by higher depression scores among men and women. The findings suggest that the concept of forgiveness can be related to an individual and social psychopathology. How 'bout that?

 

Dick: Well, there's the Jesus...uh, comparison.

 

Maddox: Great. Great. (irritated

 

Dick: Temperance and forgiveness. Thank you Internet Jesus, for telling us -

 

Maddox: (interjects) Dick, I'm not saying I'm a temperate person! I'm just saying that temperance is a solution!

 

Dick: Yeah. 

 

Maddox: You understand that I can talk about things I am not?

 

Dick: I've...I'm bringing in Ronald Reagan! 

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: I am not Ronald Reagan.

 

Maddox: Well... (amused)

 

Dick: I wish I was.

 

Maddox: Yeah! (chuckling) Well, yeah. Your desktop wallpaper is Ronald Reagan right now.

 

Dick: It is. It's always been.

 

Maddox: Humility, Dick! The accurate -

 

Dick: (interjects) Oho, my GOD.

 

Maddox: The accurate and not underestimated sense of one's own abilities and achievements. That's important, Dick, that second phrase I said: "not -

 

Dick: (interjects) Yeah, 'cause it gets you off the hook.

 

Maddox: "Not underestimated." Yeah, it gets me off the hook, because I...

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: ...I'm not underestimating my ability. The ability to acknowledge one's mistakes and gaps in knowledge is part of temperance. Openness to new ideas...

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: Empirical findings on humility are pretty sparse, so people look at the opposite. They look at people who are narcissistic, right? And people who are narcissistic tend to be more competitive, more dominant, more hostile, more angry, more aggressive, and feel more entitled and have low self-esteem and fail to express gratitude, and give or seek forgiveness less frequently!

 

Dick: Good.

 

Maddox: Oho, great. 

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: Great.

 

Dick: 'Cause all you temperate nerds (Maddox laughs) are getting your milkshakes drunk. That's why you don't like it. Fuck temperance, fuck you

 

Maddox: Yeah. (sneering)

 

Dick: You don't subscribe to any of that! I know you don't!

 

Maddox: Of course I do!

 

Dick: Ass-kicking and child-beating are part of your mo-...er, your credo!!

 

Maddox: (yells) That sculpts a child who's great! If you...if a child gets no ass beatings, he's gonna grow up to be a fuckup! He's gonna be a molester when he grows up. Guaranteed! Look it up! (background laughter) That's a FACT. Prudence! Prudence is another element of temperance. Being careful about one's choices, not taking undue risks, and not saying or doing things that you might later regret.

 

Dick: Be a pussy. All these can be summed up by "be a pussy." (Maddox sighs)

 

Maddox: Ahhh, what a fuckin' asshole. NO! Self-re-

 

Dick: (interjects) Don't take any risks. 

 

Maddox: No, it's...they didn't say don't take ANY risks.

 

Dick: Don't take unnecessary risks. Only buy stocks that go up.

 

Maddox: It says don't take FOOLISH risks, Dick. (Dick guffaws)

 

Dick: Who's...?!

 

Maddox: A 50/50 bet on a gamble, like in your solution that you brought in, your, uh...your power pose solution? A 50% percent bet is not imprudent. Right? 

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: The odds are just as likely in your favor as they are against.

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: An imprudent bet would be to take a bet where the odds are vastly against you.

 

Dick: They're always against you!

 

Maddox: No they're not!

 

Dick: Yes, they are!! 

 

Maddox: (yells) That study literally makes...that you cited...isn't against you!

 

Dick: No, but that's not a real-life s-...that's not a real-life situation. In re-...in life, in real life, the odds are always against you.

 

Maddox: That's not true.

 

Dick: (raises voice) Writing a book -- it's absolutely true. Writing a book; odds are against you. You're probably gonna fuck up. Starting a business; 80% of businesses fail. 90% of businesses fail. Every fuckin' single thing in life, the odds are against you. Marriage; it's over 50% end in divorce. So what do you do if you're temperate?? Don't take an-...be risk-averse? You're gonna end up in a van down by a river. You're gonna end up living with your parents your entire life 'cause you didn't take any fuckin' risks. (Maddox laughing) Take risks! Don't be temperate! Everything in society is encouraging you to do NOTHING! To not rock the boat and to not follow rules, and you should do the opposite at all times!! 

 

Maddox: Wow, what a big old crybaby bitch. "Don't be temperate!" Dick, there is plenty of times in life where the risk that you take is proportional to the reward, or the reward is greater than the risk that you potentially take.

 

Dick: Acid is not as bad as they make it seem. (cracking up)

 

Maddox: Okay. (chuckling) Great.

 

Dick: That's all I'm saying.

 

Maddox: Well, that leads me to the last point here in temperance, Dick. Self-regulation is the capacity to override your natural desires, tendencies, or behaviors to pursue long-term goals at the expense of short-term happiness. Does that make sense, Dick? Determining the amount of food or alcohol you should consume. Right? Self-regulation. Determining not to flirt with a neighbor's wife or friend's girlfriend or giving in to carnal temptations, even though you may want to in the moment, because you know down the line that's gonna hurt you and it's gonna hurt THEM.

 

Dick: Yeah. (skeptical)

 

Maddox: People who have self-regulation have higher GPAs, report fewer pathological symptoms, they're less obsessive-compulsive, they're less depressed, they have less anxiety, less anger, less phobic anxiety, less paranoid ideation, and less psychoticism, as well as higher self-acceptance and higher self-esteem. The more cooperative and financially responsible you are, the more likely you are to self-regulate and less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol. Fuck you! There you go. Fuck...

 

Dick: No, no! Do it. (cynical)

 

Maddox: ...you.

 

Dick: It's a great solution.

 

Maddox: It is!

 

Dick: Because doing all those things will make you that much easier to be...to get taken advantage of by people who aren't doing that.

 

Maddox: Because the people who are taking advantage are so smart, right?

 

Dick: No, they're not smart, they're just vicious!

 

Maddox: That doesn't -

 

Dick: (interjects) They just take other people's things!

 

Maddox: You can be vicious but temperate too. You don't have to be...intemperance isn't necessarily being vicious, but you're more likely to be.

 

Dick: Well...alright! That's your solution?

 

Maddox: Yeah!

 

Dick: I disagree with it.

 

Maddox: Temperance.

 

Dick: I think people get told that lesson way too much. I think people sit around trying to maximize their return on things so much that they end up doing nothing.

 

Maddox: Yeah. Dick, I'm not saying...here's the thing: you can't even think in any capacity in a temperate way, even when it comes to risk aversion! Your solution...your problem with this is that someone might take the extreme view of never taking a fucking risk, which is by definition intemperate, you fuck!! Listen to what I'm saying! (yelling) If people are temperate, then they will not be completely risk-averse, will they? They will look at the risk and calculate it, and then look at the benefit and say, "Okay, well, let's have a simple cost-versus-benefit analysis. Does the benefit outweigh the risks? Then we should take this risk, shouldn't we?" The way you think is entirely intemperate, Dick.

 

Dick: Too late, I already did it! (Maddox laughs) You missed your chance to do it, 'cause someone like me did it.

 

Maddox: Ahhh.

 

Dick: Way to go back to your lab and cook up a "how to live" formula. (sneering)

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: You wanna go?

 

Maddox: When...wh-... (cracks up) (both laugh) Yeah, lemme draw a card. When's the last time someone taught you a lesson in temperance, Dick?

 

Dick: What the hell does that mean?

 

Maddox: You said that this...because you said -

 

Dick: (interjects) What's that supposed to mean?! 

 

Maddox: You s-... (cracks up)

 

Dick: You wanna fight ab-... (giggles)

 

Maddox: You said this is a message that's constantly being crammed down your throat. Where? Where...who's sending this message?

 

Dick: Um...gosh, I think all of society is sending this message. I think academia is sending this me-...like, the idea that you have to go to a 4-year university before you can even TRY to have a career, to me is...IS temperance. Like, it's the...it's an extreme version of what you're talking about.

 

Maddox: You think it's temperate to have to go to a 4-year degr-...? I would say the opposite. I would say that that's more extreme in terms of education. You get the basic education you need up through high school, and then specialized education in college.

 

Dick: Which is zero. Yeah.

 

Maddox: No, it's NOT zero.

 

Dick: Coming outta high school? I think you know absolutely dick coming outta high school.

 

Maddox: M'kay. Well, that's wrong.

 

Dick: I don't think reading...no, I don't think reading "The Stranger" and "Where the Red Fern Grows" teaches you anything about life.

 

Maddox: Well, that's cherry-picking, and also -

 

Dick: (interjects) What else in high school do they teach??

 

Maddox: They teach you math, they teach you trigonometry...

 

Dick: Math? (cynical)

 

Maddox: ...they teach you chemistry, they teach you biology!

 

Dick: Do you think a kid who graduates from...a normal kid who graduates from high school knows shit about math that they couldn't have, like...that they couldn't do on a calculator?

 

Maddox: No, because too many of these anti-intellectual fuckheads are sitting around...in fact, I just saw this tweet the other day, pissed me off. 

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: The tweet said, "Yup, another day went by and I still haven't used algebra." This fuckin' asshole!

 

Dick: Well...

 

Maddox: Really, how many times in your day do you use haikus? How many times in your day do you use specific grammar rules that are so obscure that you had to learn on some test?

 

Dick: Yeah!

 

Maddox: How many times per day do you use biology or earthquakes or chemistry or social sciences? All these things that you learn in school make you a more well-rounded person and create neural pathways in your mind that help your mind think critically down the line! Yeah, we can't precisely say what it is, what combination of things you learn in school that help you do that.

 

Dick: But...

 

Maddox: But school, collectively, has that aggregate function.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: It has that aggregate effect on you and makes you a better, more well-rounded person. That's why we have creationists, because they're homeschooled -

 

Dick: (interjects) They went to school too!

 

Maddox: Yeah, HOME! They got homeschooled. Their parents pull 'em outta school! They don't wanna teach 'em evolution! 

 

Dick: (chuckles) Well, I think they had after-hours education.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: About...creationism.

 

Maddox: You don't...you think the majority of creationists just, uh...they're exposed to all the ideas, and they just choose creationism because it makes more sense to them?

 

Dick: No, 'cause it's what their parents told them to do.

 

Maddox: Hm. Do you think school is...people who get a traditional education are more likely or less likely to be creationists?

 

Dick: Who get a traditional...? Well, um...so that includes, what, people who were schooled in, like, a religious school?

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: I would say they are much more likely to be creationists.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Someone who went to, like, a religious...

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: ...little...uh, elementary school. Yeah.

 

Maddox: Because when you're getting a religious education, that's intemperate. You are getting all your education from one source that has a theological motive...

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: ...in their curriculum, whereas public education does not.

 

Dick: I don't really care about creationists though. There's not that many of them.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: And they're stupid.

 

Maddox: Yeah, they are stupid, but there's enough of 'em to change the curriculum in Kansas.

 

Dick: Well, but that's...see, that's a...I think that's a separate issue. I think we've got a problem in this country of paying attention to extreme minority groups. Like, we can't just say "go fuck yourself."

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: When they bring in...first of all, part of it is that they're hijacking school boards. Like, a group of 4 or 5 individuals should not be able to determine the, uh, the textbooks for the entire country. And because so many people pay attention to those textbooks in the South, the book people have to write them for them. They're not writing, like, a different textbook for every state. You know what I mean?

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: 'Cause everybody buys 'em from the same place. They're like, "Welp, this is gonna be everybody's textbook 'cause we have to change it for them."

 

Maddox: Well, it's not 4 or 5 people on a committee somewhere in Kansas.

 

Dick: On a school board?! Yeah it is!

 

Maddox: No, but those people...those people represent their cons-...uh, constituents.

 

Dick: They represent some of their constituents, but it's still them making the decision.

 

Maddox: Right.

 

Dick: It's like the Supreme Court! They didn't get...they're just there; they're making the call however they see it.

 

Maddox: But Dick, the problem is once Kansas falls and then West Virginia falls, and then maybe Virginia's a whole fa-...these states, if they start falling in line with this broken, corrupt ideology of creationism -- be it creationism or anti-vaccinations, right?

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: It's a contagious idea. People start listening to other people and they start reading their materials and they're wrong. That's why it's a...I think it's so important. Well, we're gettin' off topic here.

 

Dick: Nonono, but you're wrong on one thing. It doesn't take a domi-...it doesn't take the dominoes to fall; it only takes ONE to fall. Because if one falls, all the textbooks have to get rewritten, 'cause everybody buys from the same place. Do you see the difference?

 

Maddox: Yeah, well...yeah, but the fact that the textbooks aren't...the textbooks, thankfully, are federally mandated. They're federally regulated.

 

Dick: See, you say "thankfully"; I say that's part of this problem.

 

Maddox: No, it's not a problem, because the federal curriculum is standard, and they're not going...it's much harder to change the federal curriculum than it is a state curriculum. A state curriculum can teach you ANY goofy nonsense and horseshit that you want. 

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: Which is...again, this is a veiled attack on libertarianism, by the way. Which I know you pick up on. (smiling)

 

Dick: What you're doing?

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: I know you're picking up on it. Anyway Dick, my card says, "You accidentally deleted a podcast but you're able to recover it, saving the day! Don't do it again, Sean." (Sean smirks in the background) "Move up 2 spaces."

 

Dick: Alright. Uh, "You twist your ankle on the way home from a bar, but a nurse fixes it with a cold laser." (Maddox and Colin laugh) "Move up 2 spaces and draw again." Oh, yeeeah.

 

Maddox: Man, he put so much work into these. 

 

Dick: "A deadly outbreak of measles strikes, but since you're not an anti-vaxxer dipshit you're safe. Move up 2 spaces." Alright, Sean...here you go.

 

Maddox: No, you...that was...wasn't that Se-...?

 

Sean: Yeah, that was -

 

Maddox: (interjects) Didn't you just read...?

 

Sean: He read 2 cards.

 

Maddox: That was Sean's, yeah. You just -

 

Dick: (interjects) No, I'm me. You're you, I'm me, and Sean is Sean. 

 

Maddox: What about the cold laser thing? 

 

Sean: Wait, did you read for him?

 

Dick: No!

 

Maddox: No, I read for me.

 

Dick: I read for...mine said "Draw Again" and then I drew again.

 

Sean: Oh! Oh, okay.

 

Maddox: Ohh, okay. That wasn't...

 

Dick: Have you guys ever played a board game before?

 

Maddox: No. (background laughter)

 

Dick: With all your critical thinking fuckin'... (Maddox laughs) ...temperance shit?

 

Sean: I didn't hear the -

 

Maddox: (interjects) Sorry Dick, too busy reading. (laughs more)

 

Dick: Yeah, you're too busy reading the works of Plato and Aristotle. (snooty pronunciation)

 

Maddox: Yeah. It bugs you so much! You hate it.

 

Sean: Okay. Maddox'll LOVE this: "The iPhone 6 outsells every other phone on the market. If you own an iPhone, move up 3 spaces." (Dick laughs loudly)

 

Maddox: Yeah. (sneering) Well, why don't you do some fact-sear-...you know what? Throw this fuckin' board game away. Burn it. Why don't you do some research? That's not true. The iPhone 6...

 

Dick: Alright. (muttering)

 

Maddox: The iPhone 6 model itself -- if you're just lookin' at phone models -- but Androids far outweigh every other phone on the market.

 

Sean: I think that was something Dick said.

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Maddox: What?

 

Sean: That fact. Or that -

 

Maddox: (interjects) Oh, that was a quote from Dick?

 

Dick: Yeah.

 

Sean: I don't know...yeah, I think it was a quote.

 

Maddox: Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh yeah, that's right. That is what you said, yeah. That's funny. Anyway, Dick. (closing riff starts) 

 

Dick: What are your solutions? (smiling)

 

Maddox: My solutions are Satellites and Temperance.

 

Dick: My solutions are Ronald Reagan and The Superhero Stance. (Maddox laughs)

 

Maddox: What's the difference? (giggles

 

Dick: Use 'em together.

 

Maddox: See you next month. (Dick laughs)

 

(heavy metal theme riff)

 

--------------------

 

Dick: Who won this game? Me! I'm ahead!

 

Maddox: The game's on pause, man. (Dick cackles) No. I'm gonna win this game.

 

Dick: Do you wanna go one more round?

 

Maddox: One more round.

 

Dick: 'Cause see, I might go back.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: Alright.

 

Maddox: Great. (sarcastic)

 

Dick: "Angelo's mom calls you gay and - "

 

Maddox: (interjects) Hey hey hey, it's my turn!

 

Dick: Oh, it's...okay. Here, that's yours then.

 

Maddox: Well, no, you already picked that. I'm gonna pick this one. Here we go: "Someone from the audience yells to you 'Zipper!' You look down and realize your fly is down. Move back 1 space." FUCK!

 

Dick: You got a drinking card.

 

Maddox: I got a drinking card, great. That's, uh, that was a reference to me in an improv show one time when I was doing a monologue onstage and someone from the audience yelled out the suggestion "zipper," and I didn't realize what they were talkin' about until a week afterwards.

 

Dick: Oh, god. 

 

Maddox: Because the pants that I wore at the time were buttoned, and the buttons were really hard to put together so I never buttoned it. (reads from card) "Social! Everyone have a sip of beer." 

 

Dick: I'm way ahead of you.

 

Maddox: And here's a quote from you, Dick. It says, "Maybe I think I'm a lot smarter than I really am." (cracks up)

 

Dick: I was impers-...I was doing an impression of a guy when I said that. You -

 

Maddox: (interjects) (Dick sound clip: "Maybe I think I'm a lot smarter than I am.") (laughs)

 

Dick: "You put off Christmas shopping until it's too late. Move back a space because you had to go to the mall like a fuckin' idiot."

 

Maddox: Was that you or me?

 

Dick: Uhh, that was not a quote.

 

Maddox: Oh.

 

Dick: But we did have Christmas presents.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Dick: As a problem on the show.

 

Sean: Yeah, read mine.

 

Dick: Alright. "More girls become engineers to prove the neo-feminists wrong about sexism. Move up 2 spaces." Oh god, you know what THAT means, Maddox.

 

Maddox: Hate mail.

 

Dick: You are in dead last.

 

Maddox: No, on -

 

Dick: (interjects) In this game.

 

Maddox: Well...

 

Dick: You lose the game of The Biggest Problem.

 

Maddox: Well, here's the thing -

 

Dick: (interjects) Which is accurate, 'cause you are the lowest-ranking problem on the show. (Maddox sighs)

 

Maddox: Dick, here's the thing: we start...the "start" square on this board game is the bar, right?

 

Dick: Uh-huh.

 

Maddox: And the end is the studio. So I'm closest to the bar...I think I win!

 

Dick: Well...

 

Maddox: Yeeeah(clapping sound effect) ('ding!' sound effect) Cool. (laughs to himself)

 

Dick: Congratulations. (grins)

 

Sean: Wait, are we playing this game backwards?

 

Maddox: No, no. It says here, the start...uh, the bar is the start.

 

Sean: Oh.

 

Dick: We started at the start, I don't know!

 

Maddox: Yeah, it says here "start at the bar."

 

Sean: Alright.

 

Maddox: That's where we start, and we end at the studio. That's a huge fuckup, guys. We start at the studio and end at the bar.

 

Dick: That's true.

 

Maddox: Yeah. You need to reverse that on the next, uh, next version of this game.

 

Dick: Thanks, @CallTheCopsIDGAF[plays next voicemail message]

 

Voicemail (male caller): This message is actually for Sean. Sean, you've ne-...you really don't like your, uh, your problem, and I hate to bring this up like a couple episodes later and I'm sure other people won't shut the fuck up about it, but really man, I have been li-...okay, this kinda goes to everybody. I've been listening to the podcast since, like, the first episode. It's been great, and honestly I have been heavily considering buying the bonus episodes.

 

Dick: Well... (shrugs)

 

Voicemail: And I think that you guys should add, like, an extra segment to bonus episodes and if you did, I would actually consider buying the bonus episodes, and I think Sean either bringing in a problem or a solution, even if it's like a...even if it is a shitty problem or a shitty solution, I would legit just go ahead and just buy one just because he...again, seems to be the voice of reason on the show. (Maddox groans) Uh, added with your guys' energy and...and potential autism, then I'd totally consider buying that. (Dick and Maddox laugh loudly)

 

[message ends]

 

Maddox: (buzzer sound effect) What an asshole. ('boo' sound effect) 

 

Dick: Sean, THAT'S how to poorly make a point. That's what a poorly-made point sounds like. Yours sounded great.

 

Maddox: Yeah.

 

Sean: I hide my psychosis well.

 

Dick: Ohh.

 

Maddox: Well, not that well.

 

Dick: Well, well... (cracks up)

 

Maddox: (audience laugh sound effect) (laughs with Dick)