Biggest Problem in the Universe – Episode 101

Transcription courtesy of: Laurie Foster and Megan Pennock

Today’s show is brought to you by Harry’s. Please visit http://www.harrys.com and use the promo code BIGGESTPROBLEM to save $5 off your first purchase.

(Biggest Problem theme riff starts)

Maddox:  Welcome to the Biggest Problem in the Universe, the show where we discuss every problem in the universe, from Smallpox to Hard Knocks!  (Dick giggles) With over 6 million downloads, this is the only show where you decide what should or shouldn’t be on the big list of problems. I’m Maddox.  With me is Dick!

Dick:  What’s up, buddy? (grins)

Maddox:  And Sean, our audio engineer.

Sean:  Hello!

Maddox:  We did it, guys.  We did what no one thought we couldn’t do.

Dick:  I’m glad I didn’t bet on us making it to 100 episodes. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick:  I would have lost that bet.  (giggles)

Maddox: Yeah?  You lose quite a few bets, but, uh…

Dick:  That’s your only fun, if they’re long shots. That’s why.

Maddox:  Well…well…

Dick:  (interjects)  I only look for the longest, dumbest bet you can make.  That’s the bet I make, ‘cause that’s the fun one! 

Maddox:  Well, speaking of, Dick.  For the bonus episode last month, we did make a bet.  One of our fans became an unwitting participant in a bet.

Dick:  Oh, yeah!

Maddox: And we have the conclusion.  I think we have the conclusive proof of what…who won that bet.

Dick:  I have a voice mail from him if you wanna hear it.

Sean: Ohhh, I think there’s definitely gonna be a fight over this conclusion.

Maddox: Okay.

Dick:  Well, yeah, ‘cause if Maddox brought it up, he thinks he’s right. And he’s definitely wrong.

Maddox:  Alright.  Let’s hear it.

Dick:  Here is the voice mail that…what was his name?  Commander…

Maddox:  Comrade Krads. 

Dick:  Comrade Krads.  Okay, here’s the voice mail from him. 

(Voice mail:  Comrade Krads:  Holy shit, Maddox, you fucking dunce.  (they giggle)  You actually believe that the Voyager, a craft that’s been hurtling through space at, like, 36, 000 miles per hour for the last, like, 39 years, is really only 114 million miles away?  It’s like 12 and a half billion, you fucking simpleton!!” (laughs)”)

Dick:  Okay.

Sean: I’m sorry, I have to go skydiving. (referring to the wind noise in the message)

Maddox:  Yeah.

Dick:  Here was the bet.   He called in and said you were an idiot.

Maddox:  Yeah.

Dick:  Because you said the Voyager spacecraft was solar powered, and I said Voyager was nuclear powered.

Maddox: Ahhh.

Dick: With plutonium.

Maddox: Yeah.  Something like that.

Dick:  I…well, I said specifically it was plutonium.

Maddox: We don’t know.  We don’t have a record of it.  We don’t know…(laughs)

Dick: And you said it’s solar powered, don’t be an idiot.  And I said well, I don’t know.  Someone else will check on that. 

Maddox: Look…

Dick:  (interjects) This guys calls in and says, “Maddox.  Obviously it’s nuclear powered, ‘cause there’s not enough photons out there to power a solar panel.”  Right?

Maddox:  Well, that’s not true. There are. 

Dick: Okay. (giggles)

Maddox: It’s possible.

Dick: It’s possible for what?

Maddox: But that’s not the reason! Look.  He might be right, but that’s not the reason he’s right, shithead!! (Dick and Sean crack up)

Dick:  Say that ag…say that slower, I need to…

Maddox:  (interjects)  You can…YOU can have a correct…

Sean:  (interjects)  You arrived at that the wrong way.

Dick:  The wrong way!

Maddox: Yes. Right!  Yeah.  (they all talk over each other)

Sean: Therefore, I’m right.

Dick: That’s why you like Common Core so much, right?  (Sean laughs)

Maddox:  What?

Dick: ‘Cause you can get the right answer and still get zero credit.

Maddox: Yes, but that’s not the POINT of it.  The point is to think correctly and to arrive at the conclusion in the proper way!  Otherwise you just guessed! (Dick sighs, laughs) You know what?  If you wanna test…If you want a multiple choice test, you just guess the answer and you get it correct, like, “Well, I guess I knew the answer.” 

Dick:  So…

Maddox: It’s like, no, you didn’t, shithead!  You guessed! You didn’t KNOW the answer!!!

Dick: Speaking of guessing.  During his voice mail, he said that Voyager is 20 billion miles from Earth.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick:  Then you said, “That’s preposterous.”

Maddox:  It is.

Dick:  So I said, “Maddox, hazard a guess.”

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick:  “How far away do YOU think Voyager is?”

Maddox: Well, look.  (Dick giggles)  A lot of numbers were thrown out that episode, okay?  (Sean laughs)  A lot of numbers.  A lot of t…we’ll talk about the conclusion of that bet on the bonus episode!  We don’t have to talk about it today.

Dick:  Well, what did you say?

Maddox:  I said…you know what?  My mind’s a little foggy right now. (Sean laughs)

Dick: You said 100 million miles.

Maddox: No!  I don’t…you know what?  Let’s not quote.  Let’s not quote.

Dick: Well, everyone can go buy the bonus episode and hear for themselves what you said…(Maddox laughing) after THINKING about it for a little bit.

Maddox: There’s a hook. Uh…(giggles)…but…

Dick:  (interjects) And then what was the bet?  The bet was…

Maddox:  For 12 dollars.

Dick:  Whoever was CLOSEST to the actual amount.

Maddox: Yes.

Dick: Wins the 12 dollars.

Maddox:  Right.

Dick:  And if you were right, I would pay you on behalf of Commander Crumbs or whatever…

Maddox:  (interjects)  Comrade Krads, yes.

Dick:  …his name is.  Comrade Krads.

Maddox:  Yeah.

Dick:  And if he’s right, you gotta pay him 12 dollars!

Maddox:  Allegedly.  That’s what…(stammers)

Dick:  (interjects) That was the bet you made!

Maddox: What…I’ll go back and I’ll listen to that episode.  As I often do.  I relisten to old episodes.  And I’ll see exactly what the bet was.  But you know, I don’t wanna get into the details…(Dick giggles)  Especially like who won and who lost that bet.

Dick: Why?!  (cackles)

Maddox: It’s not important. It’s not important right now. 

Sean: I don’t even know if you guys came up with what constitutes “close”.

Maddox:  No, whoever’s closest.

Dick: Whoever’s closes.

Maddox: Without…yeah.  Yeah.  Whoever’s closest.

Dick:  Just because someone might be off by a couple orders of magnitude.

Sean:  That’s what I’m s…

Dick:  (interjects) That’s okay!!  Whoever’s close!

Maddox:  Or both people.  Or both people, okay?  Moving on.  Moving on. (Sean cracks up)

Dick: No!  Not off by orders of magnitude!!

Maddox: You know what?  Speaking of…

Dick:  (interjects) Go look up orders of magnitude.

Maddox: Yeah, I got orders of magnitude for you, Dick.

(Sound effect: Drumroll)

(Dick cackles) 

Maddox:  The biggest problem in the universe from last week…our big episode 100.

Dick:  Yeah.

Maddox:  Was Addiction!! Hey!!

(Sound effect: ‘Ding!’)

Maddox:  Sean, your problem…

(Sound effect: Clapping)

Dick: Sean.

Maddox:  People thought was…the biggest problem we brought in last week.

Sean:  What a vote grab.

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: Yeah. (giggles) You fuck.

Dick:  Seriously.

Maddox:  And then followed by Asteroids.  And then followed by Women, dead last, but it was still in the positive territory.

Dick:  Cucks!!  All you cucks out there not voting up women! (grinning)

Maddox: Yeah, that’s what they are.  Good job, Sean!! So Addiction…even though…like, I don’t think it’s a vote grab.

Dick:  Mmm.

Maddox: Because there’s no point. Eventually, we’re going to cover all the problems.  And sometimes we discuss the problems ahead of time.  What problems we’re going to bring it.  And sometimes you’ll want to bring in a problem that you feel very passionately about.  And I yield to you, and vice versa.

Dick: What are you talking about?

Maddox: The problems that we bring into the show.

Dick:  I know.  What is this in reference to?

Maddox: That whatever problem that we have…like, if Sean hadn’t brought in Addiction, eventually, you or I would have.  One of us would have brought it in.  We have to.  It’s a problem. 

Dick: Uh, yeah.

Maddox: Yeah.  All the problems in the universe!  That’s the name of the show!  Alright, anyway.  Um…and Sean, in deference to you, a lot of people in the comments said that I talked over you last time…

Dick:  Wait, can I let them speak for themselves?  I got some voice mails on that.

Maddox:  Oh, great.

Sean:  Oh, boy.

Maddox: Here we go.

Dick:  ‘Cause it sounded like it was kind of your problem anyway.

(Voice mail: male voice:  “Maddox, what the hell is wrong with you?  We finally get to hear a problem from Sean and you spend half the episode interrupting and talking over him.  Shut the fuck up and let the man speak.  Nevertheless, Dick, go fuck yourself.”)

Dick:  Comments like that?

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: Yeah, there were some comments like that.  So in deference to you, Sean, if there was anything else you wanted to add to the problem…’cause it’s a huge problem and we didn’t even have enough time to cover…I feel like we could’ve spent the entire scope of the episode…

Sean:  (interjects)  Oh, we could’ve.  And conversations go how they go, and that’s…you can’t…especially on this show, you can’t plan out a conversation.

Maddox:  Right.

Sean:  Because it’s gonna take a million lefts, you know, when you think it’s gonna go right.  So everybody talked the right amount.  People got the idea of it, so it’s…I got some amazing emails, actually.

Maddox: But also…and the shows are edited, too, guys.  Sometimes we have content that we cut from the show, uh…because of length, because of pacing, because it’s not on point. 

Dick:  Eeeeeech.

Maddox:  In context.

Dick: Yeah.  That’s so bad.

Sean:  Although…really not that often, though.

Dick:  Yeah.

Maddox: Not that often, no.

Sean:  Like, people ask me that all the time.  Very little is edited out of these shows.  The show is pretty much the show.

Maddox: Correct.  On average…

Dick:  (interjects) Yeah, it should be…it should be that.

Maddox: No, it shouldn’t.  On average…’cause Dick, not everyone has to hear every single brain fart you make. When I was sitting with a podcast.  I did a podcast for a friend of mine one time.  And I sat down in front of the camera, and I noticed that on camera, I was off frame.  And I decided, “You know what?  I’m not gonna tell him.”  Cause he’s looking at the same screen I’m looking at.  I’m gonna see if he fixes it.  He didn’t.  And then throughout the entire episode, I kept hinting.  I said, “Look, you gotta edit. Editing is key.  Not everything…you have to put out your best version of yourself.”

Sean:  Of course.

Maddox: To your listeners.  I hate listening to a podcast and feeling like I’m the first person who’s ever heard it.  I HATE that feeling. I hate feeling like no one’s ever heard it.  No one’s ever checked it for quality.  No one’s ever checked it for audio levels, for sound effects, for mixing, all that shit.  It’s a professional product we’re putting out, and I’m proud of.  And on average, I cut about 2 minutes out of a 90-minute episode.  So you’re not missing much.  And if you wanna hear what I cut, I can make a supercut of that and post it online.

Dick:  Or you could just throw up an episode without cutting it.  See what people say.  Take a real risk!

Maddox: I have posted a few episodes…I mean, here’s the thing. You’re not gonna notice a huge difference in most of these episodes.

Sean:  No, it’s a bunch of “Uhs”, and like, weird pauses.

Maddox: Yeah.

Sean: And, like, fucking up reading, or something like that.

Maddox: Exactly.  (Dick guffaws)  It’s a bunch of ums and uhs.  Stutters.  Things like that.  And then sometimes, if a voice mail goes on too long, I’ll edit that. You know.  Just little things here and there.

Dick:  Awww.

Maddox:  It’s not…it’s not huge.

Dick: Here’s one that’s gonna go on too long.

(Voice mail: male voice:  “Hey guys, this is Maddox, and this is how I talk.”

(they giggle)

Maddox: Okay.

“You see, I wanted to sum up what I said in the previous episode 100, about addiction.”

Maddox:  This is fraud. This is fraud.

“Because, you know, I’m a writer.  And…(they laugh) when I wanna know something, I go to YouTube, and I find that 5-minute YouTube clip, and…when that sums it up for me…”

Maddox:  Ugh, God.  These fucking idiots!!

“…I’ll tell the whole world.”

Maddox:  Yeah.

“You know what, Sean? I know you’ve dealt with addiction a lot and that’s great, but…I’m a writer.  (Dick cackles maniacally)  And I watched a YouTube video once.  And I’m gonna interrupt you with my own oversimplification…”

Maddox:  He doesn’t sound like a…he doesn’t sound like a writer.

Dick: You’re right.

(Sean cracks up)

“….(inaudible)  You’re welcome.”)

Maddox: This guy sounds like…(stammers)

Sean:  I wouldn’t have it any other way.  (Dick laughs)

Maddox: Yeah.   That guy sounds like a paper pusher.

Dick:  This guy actually is serious.  This is not you. 

(Voice mail: male voice:  “Hi guys, this is Daniel from Seattle.  In response to the latest episode that Sean brought in the problem of Addiction…did anybody else notice that the one cocksucker in the room that admitted that he did not have a problem…(Dick guffaws) talked over the guy who did have a problem?”

Maddox:  I mean, we get the point!

“That just has to be the biggest fuckstick asshole in the universe.  You make me wish that an asteroid would hit this planet…”

Dick:  He’s not even halfway through.

Maddox: I know, these fucking emails..  these emails and voice mails.  I got it!!!

“…and knock out 70% of our populations so assholes like you wouldn’t be around to interrupt people who actually know what the fuck they’re talking about!”

Maddox:  You know, I’m gonna talk over you, shithead!

“In all seriousness though, guys, I have an appointment at the (inaudible) hospital this Friday to undergo alcohol treatment, and I was gonna cancel it until I heard Sean’s problem, and it did inspire me to do it.”

Maddox:  Hey!!

“So I do appreciate bringing in that problem.  And it means a lot.  Maddox, go to hell.  (they laugh) Dick, go to Rehab.” 

Maddox:  You fucking asshole!

“Thanks, guys.”)

Dick:  Well.

Sean:  Thanks, man!!   Good for you.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: No, that’s not true.  They all make that shit up so they can get on the show.

Sean: Ehhhh, well, he fooled me. 

Dick:  Alright.

Maddox: You know what? That’s a challenge to you, shithead!  I don’t think you’re gonna get sober! That’s a challenge!

Sean: Ugh, Jesus Christ!

Maddox: Is that a bad…is that a bad thing to say to an addict?

Sean:  No.  (Maddox laughs)

Maddox: You know what?  Maybe that’ll get the fire under his ass!  I wanna see that guy sober!  ‘Cause then maybe he’ll realize what a brilliant mind he was shitting on! Maybe he’ll realize and he’ll apologize!  He’ll write me a handwritten note someday and he’ll say, “Maddox, I was wrong!  I was a fucking idiot!”

Dick:  As one of the steps?

Maddox:  As one of his steps, yeah!  He needs to APOLOGIZE to someone he’s wronged!   That’s me!! (Dick cackles) (Maddox laughs) That’s me.  Yeah!!  Winner. 

Dick:  I got one more…

Sean:  Then you expect a letter from, like, everyone in the universe, don’t you.

Dick:  Pretty much.

Maddox:  Pretty much, yeah.

Dick:  Alright, I got…oh boy.  I got two more.  If you’re…if you can stomach them.  (giggles)

Maddox: Is it more shitting on me?!

(Voice mail: male voice: “Wait, so lemme get this straight.  Meteors and terrorism…”

Maddox:  Asteroids.

“You took a problem that is generally fear-mongered, that doesn’t kill a lot of people, and you took another problem…(Dick giggles) that has killed almost NO people, and you fear-mongered it even more.”

Dick:  That’s true.  (giggles) 

Maddox: Okay.  No.  It’s not…

“What is wrong with you?”

Maddox: It’s not true.

Dick:  It’s kinda true.  (grins)  You did spend the whole episode saying that…oh, we should pool all of our money to protect against asteroids.

Maddox:  AB-solutely.

Dick:  And they haven’t killed anybody. 

Maddox:  Absolutely.  (stammers) Dick, you don’t…(stammers) the scope of…the scope of damage…

Dick:  But Ebola has killed people. 

Maddox:  The scope of damage that an asteroid can cause, right?

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: Is 100%, so you HAVE to react to it, because when it happens…you don’t react afterwards and be, like, “Well, yeah, I guess it wiped out 10 million people.  We should probably have a defense system.”  That’s too late.  You need to be prepared for it, so it DOESN’T get to that point. And by the way…

Dick:   Isn’t that fear-mongering?

Maddox:  No.  Not with asteroids, ‘cause we know it’s an inevitability. 

Dick:  Oh.

Maddox: It’s 92 people per year, on average, because based on these huge, cataclysmic events, like if the Tunguska event happened over New York…they amortized that over the course of a century and they said that’s on average about 92 people per year getting killed by asteroids.

Dick:  Yeah.

Maddox:  Now, we know that’s not the case, thankfully.

Dick:  Yeah.

Maddox:  But that’s what you’re looking at if an asteroid actually hit.

Dick: Okay.

Maddox:  And by the way, that’s only a city-sized asteroid.

Dick:  9/11 did happen…no Tunguska events happened on New York.

Maddox: Yeah, what percentage of the population did 9/11 wipe out?   Zero.

Dick:  More than asteroids!!

Maddox:  Zero percent.

Dick:  Alright.

Maddox: Zero percent.

Sean:  Well, what I found amazing was that Tunguska…that event…how big was that? It was like, 9 or 10 feet wide?

Maddox: Yeah, it was not that big.

Sean:  It’s tiny.  It’s amazing it could do that.

Maddox: Yeah.  It was a couple of parked cars next to each other, maybe one.  It’s…it doesn’t take much for one of these asteroids…and by the way, they’re black bodies.

Dick:  Size doesn’t matter!  (Sean laughs)

Maddox:  What’s that?

Dick:  Size doesn’t matter!

Maddox: Oh.  I got a comment here from Melvis Preston.  (giggles)  Sounds like a real name.  He says, “Fuck asteroids.  Build a wall and have the Martians pay for it.” 

Dick:  Well…

Maddox: Good solution. And then I got a comment from Silius…

Dick:  (interjects)  Always bringing up Trump.

Maddox:  Well, this guy in the comment did, I don’t know!

Dick: Yeaaaaaah.  Oh!!! (laughing)

Maddox: This guy Silius…(Dick cracks up) 

Dick:  This guy in the comment did! I’m just passing on this information!! (Sean laughs)  That happened to be on the website!!!  Out of 600 comments!!!!  (laughing)

Sean:  That I selected from…right?!

Maddox:  I mean, I didn’t mention Trump on the show, shithead!! (Dick laughs)  I never mentioned Trump to begin with!

Dick: You just did!!

Maddox:  No, no.  To begin with.

Dick: You just did!

Maddox:  On this show.  I mean the show.  The Biggest Problem in the Universe.  Not this episode.

Dick:  Mmyeah? 

Maddox:  The show.  I didn’t mention Trump.

Dick:  What do you mean, you didn’t…you brought in Fuckface Donald Trump as a problem!

Maddox: After…after you kept saying Make America Great Again, I went to a Trump rally, uh, Trump, Trump, Trump!

Dick: That was hilarious! 

Maddox:  Okay.

Sean:  He had no choice.

Dick: I had no choice! (Sean cracks up)    Yeah, sorry for putting you in that position. (Sean and Randy crack up) 

Maddox: I mean, you don’t wanna talk…

Dick:  (interjects) That’s the position that Mexico’s put us in. 

Maddox: Yeah.  (annoyed)

Dick: Go ahead. 

Maddox: Yeah.  (Dick and Sean crack up)  I mean, you don’t wanna talk about Trump, don’t mention Trump.  I won’t mention Trump.

Dick:  You just did!

Maddox:  No, no, but I’m saying…(Dick laughs)  if you…going forward…

Sean:  (interjects)  Can we make a…

Maddox:  (interjects)  I can have a…this can be a Trump-free zone. 

Sean:  We need a 12-dollar bet.  (Dick guffaws)

Maddox:  I got a comment from…(Dick sighs loudly)  Silius Sorus.  (they giggle)  He says…

Dick:  Go ahead.  Silus Sorus.  What did he say? 

Maddox:  Silus Sorus says, “I like Sean’s problem.  Addiction is like an asteroid hitting you before the real asteroid.” 

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: Mmmhmm.    Combining two problems?  I don’t think so.

Sean:  Mmmm.

Maddox:  Um, and then…

Dick:  Hey, no asteroid has ever got in a fight with me at a bar, right?  No asteroid has ever thrown me out of an Uber ‘cause I may…I said the wrong thing.  About some asteroid’s sister.

Maddox: Well, statistically…(giggles)  Statistically speaking, Dick, it’s bound to happen. (Sean laughs) It’s bound to happen.  I got a voice mail.  I got a voice mail…um, actually, Sean, I dunno when you had time to do this, but…

Sean:  Oh, God. 

Maddox:  I got a voice mail from Sean.

Sean:  Yeah, this’ll be rich.

(Voice mail:  male voice:  “Hey guys…(deep inhale, switch to higher-pitched voice)  This is Sean, your audio engineer.  (they giggle) 

Sean:  Oh, God!!

“(coughs loudly)  This is how I talk.  I was gonna record a message…a voice mail for you guys, congratulating you on 100 episodes.  (long, loud snort)  But I got high and deleted it.  (coughs) (Maddox laughs) Sorry about that.”

Maddox:  Big bong rips?

“Congratulations on 100 episodes, guys.  Yep…yep.  So I’ll see you at the show this week.  (big inhale)  Later.”)

Maddox: Sean…nice of you to call in…

Sean:  Yeah, sorry.

Maddox:  …in between bong rips.

Sean:  That was after, like, Episode 50, I think.  I forgot what number we were on.

Maddox: Yeah.  Alright, Dick.  Got anything else?

Dick:  No.

Maddox:  Should we get to a problem?

Dick:  Sure.

Maddox:  Alright.

Dick:  Uh, my problem is…well, you know, it’s 4/20 tomorrow.  (long pause) Did you know that?

Maddox: Yeah.  Yeah

Dick: You don’t have to take your time.  You can just trust my math on this one.  (grins)

Maddox: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dick:  I figured it out.

Maddox: Yeah, it’s 4/20.  Mhmm.

Dick: I looked ahead.  I know when 4/20 is.

Maddox: Yeah.

Sean: You’re not gonna wish happy birthday to a certain person, are you? (Dick giggles)

Maddox: It’s Hitler’s birthday!!!

Sean:  It is, yeah.

Dick:  Well, to some people, it’s Hitler’s birthday.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick:  To some people, it’s a day…to call in sick and get high all day. 

Sean:  Why are you LOOKING at ME?!  (Dick cracks up)

Maddox: Mhmm.  Sean, everyone’s looking at you.

Dick:  But…(Maddox giggles)  but…Sean, I know you don’t have a work to call into…

Sean:  (interjects) There’s two things that will NEVER DIE on this podcast. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Sean:  It’s the deletion.

Dick: Yeah.

Sean:  And the Sativa Sean.

Maddox: Oh, there’s a lot. 

Dick:  Yeah.

Maddox: It’s more than that!  But yeah.

Dick:  Guys, you’re derailing my problem.  By interrupting.  But to…Libertarians, 4/20 is a great day to talk about government waste.  (grins)

Maddox: Oh, my GOOOOOOSH.

Dick:  And overreach, and the militarization of the police.

Maddox: There we go.

Dick: My problem is the War on Drugs.

Maddox: Okay. 

Dick:  Big problem.

Maddox:  So where did this come from?

Sean:  He doesn’t get applause? 

Dick:  No, I never get applause. 

Maddox:  Oh, you do get applause sometimes!!  I give you appl…

Dick:  (interjects)  What do you mean, where did it come from?

Maddox: I gave you applause a couple episodes ago!

Sean: That’s true.

Maddox: Yeah, no. The war on drugs.  Where did the war on drugs come from?  Where did that phrase come from?

Dick:  Oh, god.

Maddox:  Where did the concept come from?

Dick: Oh, I don’t know. Uhh…

Sean:  (interjects)  Nancy Reagan?  Under the Reagan administration?

Dick:  Yeah, was it Nancy R…(they talk over each other)

Maddox:  Reagan administration.

Dick:  I mean, Nixon kinda started it, but…did you know?  Or are you asking ‘cause you know, or are you asking a question?

Maddox: Well, yeah.  I’m asking so the listener knows, so we have some background, and also…uh…

Dick:  (interjects)  I think everybody knows what the war on drugs is. It’s the criminalization of drugs….it’s gone way back, though.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Like, we’ve been slowly criminalizing drugs since there have been drugs in America. 

Sean:  Well…yeah.  But you’re right, Nixon also, like, he wanted to keep an eye on the counter-culture.  So he was having…

Dick:  Well, it’s always been racist in nature.  Criminalizing any drugs of any kind.  I mean I’ll…I’ll get to that.  But what it is now…is…is…a system of crazy laws, to me, and outrageous spending wastes that have turned…that have created entire departments of paramilitary groups to crack down on something that EVERYONE does.  And it hurts pretty much nobody.

Maddox:  Hmm.

Dick:  We spend…we’ve spent a trillion dollars on the war on drugs.  Since Nixon, we’ve spent 1 trillion dollars.  That’s like 50 billion dollars a year.  You know what NASA’s budget is? 

Maddox: What’s that?  Like 900…I dunno.  I dunno. 

Dick: It’s like 20 billion dollars a year.

Maddox:  NASA’s budget?

Dick:  18 billion dollars a year.  Yeah.

Maddox:  That’s a lot of NASAs.

Dick:  We’re spending two and a half times that EVERY YEAR to stop people from getting high!

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick:  Doesn’t that seem a little…you should hate that.

Maddox:  Oh, I do!

Dick:  ‘Cause I know you love space!

Maddox: If we spent that money on building more NASAs, we’d get people real high.  (Dick giggles)

Dick: There you go. 

Maddox:  High…(laughing)

Dick: Yeah.  Yeah!  Space elevator…projected cost…I dunno where they get this.  Space elevator, projected cost.  6 billion dollars.  6 to 20 billion dollars.  Two space elevators!

Maddox: Yeah.  Yeah.

Dick:  Cancel the war on drugs…(giggles) Gimme two space elevators.

Maddox:  Sure!

Dick:  A year!!

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick:  Every year!!  You could get…you could get 1.6 billion Oculus Rifts.  MSRP 600 bucks? 

Maddox: That’s one for…1/7^th of the world’s population.  (chuckles)

Dick:  But, but, but.  Three or four years…four or five years…you could put the whole world in VR.

Maddox:  I can’t wait.

Dick:  With no war on drugs.  That’s what I’m saying.

Maddox: No war on drugs.  So…but, again…this…the war on drugs, uh…this concept.  This phrase came from the 80s, specifically.  Right?

Dick:  Yeah.

Maddox: During the Reagan administration. That’s when I…’cause you and I…we grew up, you, I and Sean…

Dick:  Uh-huh.

Maddox: Grew up in a specific generation.  ‘Cause all I remember growing up when I was a kid is…um…

Dick:  DARE.

Maddox:  DARE.  Yeah. 

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox:  DARE to say no to drugs.

Sean:  And the ribbons.

Dick:  Yeah.

Maddox:  And the ribbons…there were ribbons.  Nancy Reagan had a huge campaign.  And I thought, when I was a kid, I thought it was a good campaign.

Dick: You thought the DARE campaign was a good campaign?

Maddox:  Sure.  I mean, I grew up in Utah. There were no drugs around me, uh, for the most part.

Dick: (giggles) There were no drugs, but we gotta stop being on these drugs, right?!

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick:  I mean, that’s what, like…I remember DARE when it came to my…little school in Arizona, and they’re like, “Well you guys, you gotta stay off drugs.”  Like, man…this is the first time I’ve ever heard of drugs, is when you guys came in here with these fucking DARE shirts!  What’s all this drugs about!?  What are you talking about?!

Sean: They brought in…at my school, they brought in, like, a….like a display case.

Dick:  A sampler set!

Sean: Yeah!

Dick: Yeah!

Sean:  With, like, all kinds.  It’s like, “This is this.  This is this.  This is this.”  And…I guess they educated you, but yeah, I’d never seen any of that shit before.”

Dick:  No!!

Maddox:  Well…sorry, go ahead.

Dick:  Well, the DARE. They rolled out this program nation-wide…without…and you should like this.  Without any evidence that it works AT ALL.  Right?

Maddox: Right.

Dick: You would think…you brought in the homeless problem.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: And according to you, it works.  Like, let’s see if this works…and then roll it…

Maddox:  (interjects)  Well, according to the evidence, yes.

Dick:  Well…(giggles)

Maddox:  According to the studies and the evidence.

Dick: We can get to that…

Sean:  Well, it works in Utah.  We know it works in Utah.

Dick: Ehhhh, we don’t, though.  Because they changed..

Maddox:  (interjects)  And it works in Canada!  No, it works in…

Dick: (interjects) They changed the way they counted homeless people.

Maddox:  No, Dick, that’s the fucking…

Sean:  (interjects)  Alright, alright, alright. 

Maddox:  No, no, no, no, no, no.

Sean:  Sorry I brought it up!

Dick: Yeah.  Yeah.

Maddox: No, no, no, no.  Uh-uh.  That’s…that’s a fucking bullshit-ass AEI institute.  This right-wing think tank came out with this…

Dick:  (interjects) Oh, ad hominem!  Ad hominem attack!!

Maddox:  (interjects)  No, hold on, I’m not done!!  (Dick laughs) 

Dick:  Ad hominem attack.  (laughing)

Maddox:  I’m not done. Let’s…you know, let’s not interrupt.

Dick: Uh-huh.

Maddox:  Uh, the AEI thing, right-wing think tank institute, right?  The same people who miraculously came out with a study that said fast food is health for you right when McDonald’s needed a PR bump when Supersize Me came  out. 

Dick: Uh-huh.

Maddox: THESE are the people who came out with a study saying, “Oh, it’s an accounting thing! You know, really, if you look at the numbers, and you compound them this way, this specific way, there’s actually no…it’s a net neutral!”  But they didn’t use the same accounting system in other cities where the same project has worked.  Same project, same exact method, and it’s worked in multiple cities!  But the AEI institute is coming out to poo-poo on this and say it doesn’t work.  Yeah, tell that to the guy who moved back to Chicago and is living with his family and is now a contributing taxpayer!  Tell that to that guy who’s no longer living on the streets!  Tell him it doesn’t work!  Go ahead!

Dick:  We get it, you like the homeless.

Maddox: Okay.

Dick:  We get it.  You wanna fix homelessness.  Speaking of taxes…if illegal drugs were taxed we’d get 50 billion in taxes.  AND we’d save another 50…that’s 50 billion fighting it every year!!  That’s 100 billion dollars!!

Sean:  Well, it co—

Dick:  (interjects)  Holy shit, that’s a lot of money!

Sean:  The war on drugs costs an incredible amount and also gets people killed.

Maddox:  Right.

Dick:  Dude, even WORSE!  It gets 2 million people put in prison every year.

Sean:  Yeah.

Dick:  Like, if you just look at it from an ideological perspective, like, don’t do drugs because they’ll ruin your life, right?

Sean:  Well, I’m talking—

Dick:  (interjects) Which I’m not arguing.  Like, yeah, don’t do drugs, ‘cause they will fuck up your life a little bit.

Sean:  Well, and that’s where the responsibility part comes in.

Dick:  Going to PRISON will fuck up your life WAY worse!

Sean:  Well…

Dick:  That’s on your record FOREVER.  There are programs that exist to get ex-cons jobs, because it’s so hard for them to get hired, right?

Sean:  Absolutely, yeah, no.  I mean, talk about a stigma.  Going to prison.  You always…even if you went for something minor.

Dick:  You can hide the drug use.  You can’t hide “I was in prison”. 

Sean:  Yeah.  Yeah, I mean, it’s on your record. That’s rough.  But I’m talking about the people who get killed who have to enforce some of these laws, you know what I mean, so..it’s…

Dick:  (interjects)  The DEA agents? 

Sean: Yeah.

Maddox:  Well, not just in America, but in South America as well.

Sean:  Oh, absolutely.

Maddox:  It’s a huge problem, because we are…we are causing a lot of crime to happen in South America.

Dick:  We’ve ruined Mexico.

Maddox:  Well, it’s definitely hurt Mexico, yeah.

Dick: Oh, my God! It’s changed the entire country!  It’s run by cartels.

Maddox:  Well, no.  Those are very few cities.  It’s not the entire country.  The entire country is not run by cartels.  But there are certain cities that are VERY cartel-heavy.  They’re very dangerous.  I agree, totally.  Um…and the other thing is the cost to policing.  Sean, you kinda mentioned this.  The cost of policing this, Dick, is that figured in to your figures?  The 100 billion you said you would save per year?

Dick:  The 50 billion, yeah.  That’s the cost of policing.

Maddox: That’s the cost of policing.

Dick:  The other 50 is the missing tax revenue that we would get on drugs.

Maddox: Yeah.

Sean:  Colorado’s doing really well with the…

Dick:  Oh, yeah.

Maddox:  Yeah.  Colorado’s…(stammers) it’s a big boom to the economy. And also, I think…I don’t know if over time it would stay that high, because I think people would—

Dick:  (interjects)  What would stay what high?

Maddox:  The income they’re getting from the tax revenue on marijuana in Colorado.

Dick: You don’t think it would stay as high as 50 billion?

Maddox:  Well, I think that we’re seeing a bump because people were so deprived for so long and a lot of people are curious, and a lot of people would try it for the novelty, but I think over time you would see it normalize.  It’s just like in Denmark. In Denmark, it’s pretty much legal.  Uh, a lot of people….you can pretty much smoke anytime you want.  And what they find is that it’s kind of just become a staple of the economy, just like any other commodity.  So it’s not a big deal. It’s not this, like, novelty.  So we may be seeing a boom right now and it may trickle off over time, but yeah.  You’re going to get tax revenue from drugs.

Dick:  Yeah.  I don’t think whether it’s legal or whether it’s not legal has anything but a very miniscule effect on actual drug use.

Sean:  That’s what I was going to ask.

Dick:  Yeah.

Sean:  Are there stats, like, in…

Dick:  (interjects)  Well, here.  If the illegal drug trade was a country, it would be one of the top 20 economies in the world.

Sean:  Sure.

Dick:  320 billion dollars is spent in the illegal drug trade.  That’s not…and that’s as illegal as it gets.  It’s already in the top 20 economies in the world.  So if we’re talking, like, little ebbs and flows, I don’t think anything’s gonna take a big bite out of that number.

Sean:  But I’m talking about people, because the argument is, “Well, if you legalize drugs, then you’re gonna have more drug addicts.”  That’s the simplistic argument against it, right? It’s like, “Oh, it’s gonna encourage people.”  It’s the whole stupid thing about, you know, “Hey, if you give out condoms in school, it’s gonna encourage kids to have sex.” 

Dick:  Well, that’s the thing.  It’s like…drugs are treated unlike any other thing that we have a problem with.  Like teenage pregnancy.  You don’t say, “Well, that’s illegal then.  For kids to have sex.”  We don’t…we don’t collectively think that’s a good idea, nor do we do it, right?  We educate them.

Maddox:  To illegalize teen sex.

Dick:  Yeah.

Maddox:  Yeah, yeah.

Dick:  ‘Cause that would be…

Maddox:  Well…(giggles)

Dick: ‘Cause that would be insane.  And that…banging a teenage…two teenagers banging is WAAAAY more difficult than a teenager getting high by himself.  And we at least treat the banging situation like it should be educated to.  Like, hey…we would LOVE to make this teenage sex thing illegal, ‘cause it would just fix it, but instead, we’ve gotta break our backs educating you stupid kids on how to use condoms or how to get an IUD.  We’ll even pay you for it.  We’ll make it free, ‘cause that’s, like, a sensible way to go about it.  But when it comes to drugs, like a teenager getting high, you’re going straight to fucking jail.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: No way.  We’re not educating you at all.  JAIL.

Maddox: Yeah.  (laughs)  It’s pretty ridiculous.  And it disproportionately affects lower income neighborhoods.

Dick: Blacks, especially.

Maddox: Yeah.  Yeah.

Dick:  10 times more likely.  You’re 10 times more likely to go to prison if you’re black for a drug offense than you are if you’re white, and you’re LESS likely to use it!

Maddox: Right?

Dick:  You’re less likely to use drugs if you’re black than white.  I dunno why that is.

Maddox:  That’s a fascinating study.  I just recently read about this.

Dick:  Slightly less likely, but still less likely.

Maddox: Well, yeah, but that’s…(stammers)

Sean:  (interjects)  Yeah, well, it’s not WAY more likely.

Dick:  No, no.

Sean:  So, yeah. It doesn’t correspond with the rate of incarceration at all.

Maddox: Yeah.  That’s the stereotype is that black people do more drugs, especially in lower income…but…(stammers) that study came out, Dick.  That you mentioned.  They found that black people are less likely to do drugs, but more likely to get arrested for doing drugs.

Sean:  For sure.

Dick: Yeah, here.  It’s…if you’re likely to be an abuser, it’s like…here it is.  It’s 15% native American, 9% for whites, 5% for African-Americans, and 3.5% for Asians, Randy. You guys are the big winners on the addiction front.  That’s how likely you are to be addicted to drugs.  But you’re way more likely to be arrested.

Sean:  Randy’s addicted to math homework.  (they all laugh) 

Maddox:  Sean with the zinger!  Where’s Cool Sean Zinger!

(Cool Sean:  Sean with the zinger!!!  Oooooooh, yeah.)

Maddox:  Nailed it.  Alright, so, let’s…

Dick:  (interjects)  Here.  This is telling.

Sean:  I love that guy.

Dick:  In the 80s, like, before the war on drugs really kicked it into fourth gear, uh, 40,000 people were in US jails and prisons for drug crimes.  Now it’s more than 500,000. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick:  So it’s like…that’s a lot…that’s a lot of new meat to feed into the for-profit prison system.

Maddox:  Right.

Dick:  Right?

Sean:  Yeah.

Maddox:  This is a huge problem, Dick.  This is a…this is a problem with many different heads, and it leads into other problems.  The prison system you mentioned specifically.  It leads to higher unemployment, because once you get incarcerated, you come out and that’s always gonna be on your record.

Dick: Oh, you can’t escape it.

Maddox: And…and then we’re coming full circle, because you talked about the problem of blacks being arrested disproportionately compared to how much they do the crime, or drugs, right?  Now you have all these black people who come out of prison, who have this prison record on their…on their employment record!  Their history, essentially.

Dick: Mhmm.

Maddox:  Then they apply for a job, and you know when you’re applying for a job, you see on your application, “Have you ever been convicted as a felon?”

Dick: Mhmm.

Maddox: You have to check that box.  MAN.  Put yourself in the position of a hiring manager and you see that on your resume.

Dick:  Trash.

Maddox: Right.

Dick: Instantly.

Maddox: You’re not supposed to, but…

Dick:  (interjects) You should.

Maddox:  Most people probably do, because they don’t wanna even get into it.  They don’t wanna take the risk.  They don’t wanna know about it. You’ve been to prison, why should I hire you over these 10 other applicants who are qualified and haven’t been to prison?

Dick: Mhmm. 

Maddox:  It’s going to be a stigma on the rest of your life.  The record of the rest of your life.  And then…it leads to higher crime rates because of unemployment.

Sean:  Yup.

Maddox:  And it just becomes a vicious cycle! 

Dick: And…and.  There’s no quality control.

Maddox: For what?

Dick:  For drugs.

Maddox:  Oh, dru…that’s true!  That’s a good point.

Dick:  I mean, I’ve never…I’ve never eaten a pizza and turned to my friend, and said, “Does this pizza taste like there’s a little bit of heroin in it?”  Do you think this pizza has any meth in it?  I feel really weird.  No!  ‘Cause there’s a gigantic agency making sure that that doesn’t happen!  Otherwise you’re like, “WELL, I GOTTA EAT THIS PIZZA!  ‘Cause it took me, like, three hours to get, for some reason!  And I had to schmooze up a guy I haven’t spoken to in two years!”

Sean:  A bad part of town.  Speaking of pizza and drugs…

Maddox:  And regulation.

Sean:  Yeah.

Dick: Yeah?  (they giggle)  We’re getting to the delicious regulation.  (laughing)

Sean:  Right before Colorado legalized pot…

Maddox: Yeah.

Sean:  Like a month before.  Peyton Manning bought something like 15 Papa John’s franchises…(Dick cracks up)  And I’m going, “What a fucking genius!”

Dick:  What a genius, yeah.

Sean:  What a fucking genius!!!

Maddox: Oh, that’s a good…yeah. That’s a good call.

Dick: You’re right. You’re right.

Maddox:  That’s a good call.  For the munchies effect. 

Sean:  Oh, my God.

Maddox:  Which I guess is true, right?  I don’t smoke, but…uh…do you get munchies when you smoke?

Dick:  Oh, yeah…no, I can’t…I go out of my way not to smoke weed, because all I wanna do is lay on the couch and eat, and I’m…thank GOD it makes me too lazy to eat, or I’d weight, like, 600 pounds. (Sean laughs loudly)  Like, I can’t even move my finger to order properly.  To order 24 properly.

Maddox:  So but that’s…that speaks to the therapeutic effect of marijuana sometimes, which for the longest time I didn’t believe any of this stuff.  I felt like most people who want to smoke just should say they want to smoke and that’s the reason they wanna do it.  But…

Sean:  (Interjects)  I think that’s true, but there is medical evidence, more and more of it.

Maddox:  Yeah, there is.  Especially for hospital patients who have lost their appetite due to chemotherapy and things like that.

Dick: Ohh.

Maddox:  It can help. It can help activate your appetite again.

Dick: Yeah. Oh, yeah. (grins)  Um…let’s see.  How about respect for the law?  This is a weird…this is kind of an obtuse point about it, but…I do think…I’m not a big fan of the police. 

Maddox: No.

Dick: You could say.  Uh… a large part of that is because they’re always cracking down on something that I don’t think is wrong. 

Maddox:  Hmmm.

Dick: How can you respect that?  How can any…if everyone in America is doing this, is getting high…and they’re telling you all the time, for no reason…for reasons that you don’t understand.  That make no sense.  That you’re not allowed to do it. And they’re throwing you in prison for it, or fining you for it, how can you have any respect for that institution?  It’s driven a gigantic wedge between what used to be, like, the Andy Griffith Show.

Maddox:  Right.

Dick:  The friendly town sheriff who IS THERE to protect you!!  And I assume wants to protect you!!! (yells)  Now he’s policing what you put in YOUR body!  There’s a big difference to that, and I think it’s evolved into this atmosphere of hating police!! 

Sean:  Well, the problem is the laws on the books.  That they have to enforce.

Dick:  Well, but yeah.  Yeah.

Sean:  Well, you know, you and I…like, I’ve got a long-time friend who had a long career at the Sheriff’s Department.  Uh…and Dick knows him well, too.

Dick: Yeah. 

Sean:  And he used to go on the….he used to lead the raids as a sergeant.

Maddox:  Right.

Sean:  Get out in the high desert out here.

Dick:  Mhmm.

Sean:  North of LA.  A lot of meth and stuff out there.  And I’ve never heard him say anything different than our drug laws are archaic, and we shouldn’t be doing this.

Maddox:  Right.  Well, Dick, so of all the things you said, I agree with most of it, but something I take issue with was something you said at the top of this problem, which is that it hurts no one.  Now, we know for a fact that drugs definitely do hurt people.  Not only do they hurt people who get addicted, but they hurt people sometimes even…uh, recreationally.  If you use it recreationally.  Like, certain drugs, like…

Dick:  Okay.

Maddox:  …like acid.  Uh, certain drugs like…

Dick:  (interjects)  Wait, why do you think acid hurts people?

Maddox:  It causes…it can cause permanent changes in your brain psychology. In your brain chemistry.  You can have acid flashbacks for the rest of your life just by even trying it once.

Dick:  Oh, it’s not that bad!! 

Maddox:  Well, for most people, right, but for some people, if they even try it once, you can have that acid flashback, and it can…

Dick:  (interjects)  You know what’s way fucking worse?  Sugar.  Fast food.

Maddox:  Well, hold on. 

Dick:  Mcdonald’s.

Maddox:  Okay.  Okay.  Hold on.  Hold on.

Dick:  600,000 deaths from heart attacks and from obesity in the US alone.  Worldwide…

Maddox:  Right.

Dick:  …drugs cause 200,000 deaths.  That’s it.

Maddox:  Okay.  Okay.  But it’s not just deaths.  We’re not talking about just deaths.  What I was going to say is that it can cause holes inside your brain. It actually destroys brain matter.

Dick:  Hmmm.

Maddox:  Some of these drugs you take?  And if you get to a certain point, you stop being self-sufficient, you have cognitive disorders.  You’re not a functional member of society.  And then what? 

Dick:  Great.

Maddox:  (stammers) You’re a drain on the healthcare system.

Dick:  Don’t do drugs.  You’re already…(giggles)  we’ve got millions of people in jail.  (stammers) Lemme put it to you this way, then.  I’m gonna skip past the point where I say you have no right to moralize what I do with my brain.  Or my body.  You have no right to do that.  And…number two.  Totally inconsistent with ALL of our other values in society.  Drugs, horrible, ‘cause they chew up your brain.  Public is wildly misinformed about that. You even said yourself, acid can cause holes in your brain that last for the rest of your life?

Maddox: Right.

Dick:  That’s…that’s just a crazy as an asteroid killing you.  Like, the odds of that are phenomenally low.  However, I will say this.  If we’re looking at…supporting these, whatever, ruined drug addicts you’re talking about?

Maddox: Right.

Dick: Would you rather put them up and pay for their prison stay for 20 years, for getting caught selling…or would you rather deal with maybe every once in a while, someone’s drugged themselves out into a Seven-style, laying in bed, no more tongue, like totally destitute and have to put them in some kinda hostel.  If you’re really weighing the economics of it, which one do you think saves money? The prison, or the hospital?

Maddox:  I don’t know which one…

Dick:  (interjects) ‘Cause you have to do…you have to do the hospital ANYWAY.

Maddox: Okay.

Dick: So why are we paying for the prison part?

Maddox:  I don’t know which one would eventually save the most money.  I don’t know, I’d have to look into that.  I think that’s a larger discussion that requires some studying.  I know which one I would prefer just from an ethical standpoint, which is the hospital, because at least it doesn’t leave this stigma on your record for the rest of your life.

Sean:  Yeah, that’s tough.

Dick: And you can’t prevent the hospital one anyway.  Prison sure as hell isn’t doing it.

Maddox:  Umm, yeah.  But…but it does…I mean, let’s not pretend like drugs are totally harmless and they are totally innocent and they’re just recreational.

Dick:  They’re WAY less harmless than every single thing everybody does every day.  They’re less harmless than the shit we put in our bodies to eat.  Drugs are less harmful than what people eat every day.

Sean:  Well, here’s the thing, though.  Like, in my family there’s been Social Services called multiple times because they’re neglecting their kids.  The kids don’t have a choice in the matter.

Maddox:  Right.

Sean:  So if you just wanna make a blanket statement that drugs aren’t harmful…

Maddox:  Right.

Sean: I mean, they are.  And I don’t think you’re saying that, but it’s…they don’t have a choice, like, if the parents do drugs.  But, on the flip side…

Dick: (interjects)  That’s why we have Social Services.  Great!  Take the kids.

Sean:  But on the flip…well, yeah, but you don’t know what happens to kids in Social Services.  It’s…

Dick:  (interjects) Hey.

Maddox:  Right.

Sean:  It’s worse than…

Dick:  (interjects)  If you’re talking about, like, SERIOUS neglect. 

Sean:  Yeah.

Dick:  Like, the kids are starving.   Then, you know…that’s the best we can do.  There’s no good fix for that.

Sean:  No, there’s not.  There’s not.  But at the same time, whether they’re legal or not, if you have kids, you need to decide that those kids are more important, or you need to not do drugs.

Maddox:  But we have…we have case studies where people have made that decision over, and over, and over again.  And they choose the drugs, because…and here’s where I disagree with you, Dick.

Sean:  (interjects)  They do, but…

Dick:  (interjects)  But the laws don’t help.

Sean:  That’s…right.

Maddox:  Well.

Dick:  Yeah, the laws aren’t making it harder to get…any drugs.

Maddox:  (interjects) Hold on.

Sean:  Well, I don’t…(stammers) it doesn’t seem like they do.

Maddox:  Hold on.  Lemme make…lemme play Devil’s advocate here for a second.

Sean:  Yeah, sure.

Maddox:  Because…let’s say that drugs were more readily available and easier for people to get.  Uh…that’s a huge potential risk.  Like, this is polit…

Dick:  (interjects)  Lemme stop you right there.

Maddox:  Hold on.  No, lemme finish this point. It’s political suicide. It’s a minefield to walk through, to try to propose some legislation that MAY make more addicts.

Dick:  Mhmm.

Maddox: If ANY politician came through and said, “Okay, the war on drugs isn’t working.  Let’s make them legal.” And then suddenly you see a big bump in heroin addicts, or people who are addicted to meth, and that’s…political suicide, not just for that person, but for the potential party or people who voted that legislation in.  So it’s not as simple as simply saying “Okay, well let’s just get rid of the war on drugs.”  How do you effectively do that, and is it actually worse than the food that people are eating?  Because no one can agree on whether or not eggs are good for you, or butter is good for you, or milk is good for you.  Like, every fucking week there’s a study.

Dick:  Yeah, and no one can agree on if acid chews holes in your brain, either.

Maddox: No, it does.

Dick: Like, the amount of misinformation about drugs is so out of control.  I think if it was about something YOU cared about, like if it was about video games, or meat, or something that you enjoyed every once in a while, your tune would be totally different.  Like, if it was just X, if we replaced the word “drugs with something else, not only your opinion, but everybody’s opinion would be wildly different about it.

Sean:  Well, I had an uncle who had a brain scan, like, a CT scan, I guess?  The doctor came in and he said, “Uh, Mr. So-and-so, you don’t have to answer this, but have you abused cocaine?”  You know, you could see it right on his brain.

Maddox: Yeah.  You can see it.

Sean:  It was like it…

Maddox:  (interjects)  It’s not…it’s not like you’re saying, Dick.  It’s not like the research is…(stammers)  the jury’s out, still.  We’re trying to decide whether or not it does.  There are x-rays…you can Google this right now.  There are x-rays of holes in people’s brains that they’ve seen on MRI scans because they did too much drugs.

Dick:  But you said once.  That’s the issue.  You said “once.”

Sean:  Oh.

Maddox:  Well, even…

Dick:  (interjects)  That’s fear…that’s crazy fear-mongering.

Maddox:   (interjects)  No, I said recreationally.

Dick: That’s like saying Ecstasy KILLS tons of pe…it doesn’t. 

Maddox:  No, no, no.  I said recreationally…recreational use, if you do occasional recreational use, even that can have that kind of effect.  But one time, for one…

Dick:  (interjects)  You said once.

Maddox:  No, I specifically was talking about acid.

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox:  If you use acid one time, you can still have flashbacks for the rest of your life.

Dick: Yeah. (skeptical)

Maddox:  Now, I know it may be unlikely. I know it may be rare.  But it is a possibility and it’s something that you have to really consider.  (stammers)  If you’re at a party and someone slips you a pill, which, by the way, you don’t know what it’s cut with, you don’t know…that goes back to the regulation of drugs.

Dick: Yeah.  The idea that we’re discussing these crazy statistical anomalies as a function of, like, massive government bureaucracies, is kind of retarded to me.

Sean:  Now here’s what I wanna know.  Are there countries where…because Maddox, you were talking about, you know, potentially more addicts, and that’s always been the argument against ending the war on drugs.

Dick: Yeah.

Sean:  Um…do we have any stats or anything like that, uh…that shows maybe a country where drugs WERE illegal and are now legal and the numbers that correspond to that?

Dick:  I don’t have those stats, but I would be wary…

Sean:  I’m curious.

Dick: …of any stats that came out of the US on that, because people aren’t self-reporting.  Like, how can you have a…

Sean:  (interjects)  Oh, true.

Dick:  …an  accurate stat on something that’s wildly illegal.

Sean:  No, but you get it from their government.

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: Well, and also, there are ethical concerns with studying something like this.  Like, scientists and doctors and researchers have to do no harm to their patients.  So if you have someone coming into your office, you can’t give them meth.  You can’t have a control group that has meth, and one has placebos, and one has so on and so forth.  There’s ethical concerns with stuff like this.  So the…amount of research that we have out there…I’ll agree, you know, it may be spotty, but we know that drugs can be a problem.  I think that before we start to talk about legalizing all drugs as a blanket statement, um…we need to find out the root causes of addiction.

Dick: Uh-huh.

Maddox:  And make sure that that doesn’t happen, and try to solve that problem.

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox:  And I think that part of the reason that this big war on drugs has been conflated into such a HUGE issue and SO many people have been put into the prison pipeline, is specifically because marijuana has been illegal, which is…if you’re lumping it into with the other hard drugs, that’s kind of like, uh, I don’t know, lumping in cigarettes with firearms, which they do in our government.

Dick: Yeah.  Well, here’s why your…um…here’s why all of that’s extremely disingenuous.  Because you’re putting the onus on the wrong side of the equation, here.  You’re saying, “Make something illegal until you’ve proven to me that it should be legal.”  And it should be legal already.  The only…the ONLY reason it’s illegal is because of racism!  Every single drug has been outlawed…uh, let’s see here.  1870s…it was Chinese immigrants with opium.  Then the first anti-cocaine laws in the South came in the early 1900s, uh, against black people.  Then anti-marijuana in the mid-West and the Southwest in the 1910s and 20s, but at every single stage, even during Nixon, it was about race.  So to take ANY kind of ethical or moral high ground against addiction, or whatever, is an argument you’re making AFTER THE FACT on a law that was enacted because of racism!  Like, now it’s like, “Oh, well, it was racist when we did it, but MAYBE…maybe it’s causing some good, so let’s really look at it before we roll it back.”  It should be instantly rolled back!  ‘Cause there’s…you have no right to do it!  It’s…it’s totally unjust law. 

Maddox: Well, I think that the majority of the reason may be racism.  I don’t think it’s all…I don’t think it’s entirely.  I do think that people look at the data.  They look at the junkies.  They look at the addicts.  They look at people who have trouble with addiction. And because drugs are specifically so addictive, that’s why they’re a problem.  And Dick, you said earlier…like, if this was…

Dick:  (interjects)  They’re not as addictive as fast food!

Maddox: Okay, that’s not true.  Um, you said earlier that if this was anything that I liked…

Dick: Mhmm.

Maddox:  That we were talking about Addiction.  I brought in internet addiction as a problem, and I love the Internet.

Dick:  Mhmm.

Maddox: I…I have dealt with that personally.  I found myself spending hours in front of some shit, to the point where I have to, uh, sabotage my own ability to surf the Internet.

Dick: Right.

Maddox: I…I hide Facebook, and Twitter, and that sort of thing, and make it difficult for myself to get to it, because of Internet addiction.  Now, I know it’s a problem, but I don’t think it’s a problem to the scope of drug addiction.  The scale.

Dick: Here's why, in your brain, you don't understand what the issue is here. Imagine if the government said you using your computer to get on the Internet for more than 2 hours a day was illegal. That's EXACTLY what they're doing with drugs. 

Maddox: Well, yeah, but me getting on the Internet for, say, 6-7 hours a day, unless I'm neglecting a child who's not being fed, unless I'm...you know, I'm gaming addicted -

Dick: (interjects) Did you hear the scenario I just said?

Maddox: Yes, I...I heard.

Dick: If they came to you and said...

Maddox: Right.

Dick: ...if you're on there for more than 2 hours, you're goin' to jail.

Maddox: I'm...I know, Dick. I'm addressing what you just said. If I'm sitting there and I'm using my Internet for more than that, and then I'm neglecting a child, I get it, 'cause that's usually the case with drugs. It's...drugs are illegal -

Dick: (interjects) That's not the law, though. 

Maddox: Well...okay, but that's the reason. That's the impe-...well, I...okay. Racism aside...

Dick: Hmmm?

Maddox: Racism aside, you can make the case that that's the reason. With Internet addiction, it's not going to cause me permanent harm. 

Dick: Yeah, so imagine if you were trying to make this argument, except the Internet was illegal. 'Cause that's what we're doin'. Our stuff is a-...your stuff, all legal. Meat, bicycles, all the stuff that you like? All legal. 

Maddox: Right. (background laughter)

Dick: Drugs? Illegal, for no reason! You're like, "Well, what's wrong with using the Internet for a couple hours a day?" "Well, it's illegal." Well, now...I gotta argue against that?! How the fuck can I argue against that when you never PROVED it??

Maddox: Yeah, I don't know, man.

Dick: (yells) When you nev-...not only did you never prove making it illegal helps at all, you never proved it was a big problem in the first place!!

Maddox: Right. Well, I'm with you, man, but where do you start to even solve this problem? Because you have this entrenched in society. Again, it's political suicide. 

Dick: It's states' rights!

Maddox: Ooookay. Here we go. (muttering)

Dick: That's what...I mean...what do you mean, "how do you..."? Raise your hand, what...that's Colorado and Washington, are leading the way. 

Sean: Well, it's true, but that's still federally illegal. 

Dick: Yeah, but...you know.

Sean: And that's the thing. And the Civil War, you know, it was...it ended up being a war about slavery.

Dick: States' rights!

Sean: More than it was at the beginning, but it was about states' rights.

Dick: Mhm.

Sean: And the states lost.

Maddox: Yeah. 

Dick: We'll have...we'll have another one. 

Maddox: Well, there...you know, the raci-...the race issue is a big component of this. I'll give you that. 

Dick: Of course.

Maddox: However, there's...there are certain drugs...I don't think that most things...I don't think that most regulation comes from people sitting around being bored and trying to fuck with your life. That's not how regulation happens. Regulation is reactive, not proactive. So you sit around -

Dick: (interjects) Well, it's to get votes, though.

Maddox: Hold on. You're s-...you...they're not sitting around trying to come up with ways to fuck with you. For example, ayahuasca. Ayahuasca, I think, is still legal in, uh, in America, or may be. There's a lot of different types of opiates that Native Americans use in their rituals and part of their beliefs, and so on and so forth. They're not illegal until, I think, that they find a reason to make it illegal. OR, maybe...you know, Dick, to be totally cynical, maybe to make it illegal to get additional revenue by fining people and putting people in jail.

Dick: No, I...I mean, I don't think you're being nearly cynical enough. They make drugs illegal when they find that kids are using them, and they do it to gin up alarmism. They do it to gin up, uh...a sort of religious fervor that it's anti-drug-related. Like, the reason so many politicians can be as anti-drug as they are is because you don't...the only argument FOR it is, I don't know, personal freedom and it feels good? Like... (stammers) 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: That's a really hard...unless you believe in personal freedom, that's a really hard argument to make, 'cause they just throw stats at you until you kind of walk away and just say, "Eh, I'll just do it illegally then. Fuck you. And I bet all of you do drugs too! So fuck you, too." Like, it's all political grandstanding. 

Maddox: Yeah. Well, it's a big problem, Dick. The war on drugs is a big problem. I'm not even sure there's a clear-cut solution. I'm not...

Dick: End it!!

Maddox: I don't even know how to get out of it. Yeah, but again, it's political suicide. No one's gonna do it.

Dick: What do you mean, "it's pol-..."?? You're not running for office! What do you mean, "it's political suicide"? Colorado's done it. Washington's done it. 

Maddox: No, with marijuana, that has been...there's copious amounts of material and fucking stoners who won't shut the fuck up about it, who will just badger your ear off about how marijuana's safe and good for you and it cures cancer and all this other bullshit, for years and years and then people do it and they see the effects, and no one...no one becomes a marijuana junkie. No one becomes a marijuana addict. No one really...marijuana's not a huge problem, so that's why -

Dick: (interjects) Whoooa!

Maddox: With marijuana specifically, the states have been...a few states have been passing legislation saying, "Look, let's chill out on marijuana." But with other hard drugs, Dick, I don't think that that's gonna be the case. It's political suicide. 

Dick: You think marijuana is less dangerous than cocai-...you think LIQUOR'S less dangerous than cocaine?? Maaan!

Maddox: No, but we - 

Dick: (interjects) I think you're w-...I think your drug education is very minimal. 

Maddox: No, I didn't say that.

Dick: Yeah. 

Maddox: That's a straw man argument. I didn't say that. I said specifically marijuana. Now, if you're going to legalize meth and heroin...

Dick: Sure.

Maddox: ...and these other shit, and then all of a sudden you see a big spike in junkies the next year, guess what? That's fuckin' political suicide! That's why it's a politically untenable situation for politicians to come in and say, "You know what? Our state's gonna be the first to bl-...uh, blanket sweep..."

Dick: Yeah. (hesitant)

Maddox: "...all drugs legal." I don't think it's gonna happen.

Dick: I mean, they said that about gay marr-...you'd be on the side of...if I...like, if 20 years ago I would've brought in gay marriage rights, you would've said the exact same thing then. "Political suicide! It's political suicide." 

Maddox: Yeah!

Dick: 'Cause it was back then.

Maddox: Right.

Dick: Well...you know. Hopefully there's men who are more brave in America than that. Who can say, "This is wrong. This is bad. There's no proof for it. It was obviously racially motivated, as said by the head of the DEA under Nixon." 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: "So let's just end it. It's up to you to prove that it needs to go on the books again."

Maddox: If there was a way to do that without attaching any politician or political party to it, I think that that would, uh...

Dick: If there was a way to pass a law without...

Maddox: Yeah. 'Cause no -

Dick: ...involving politicians?

Maddox: Yeah, because the politicians we have today in Washington, D.C. are so cowardly that they will create super...like, these weird groups of bipartisan, uh...they're bipartisan groups that pass legislation so neither party can really get the blame for it if something goes wrong. It's just so cowardly right now, our -

Dick: (interjects) Well, if the states do it, they have to do it. They don't have a choice. Most of the funding for the DEA comes from states anyway, I...I believe.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: I don't have the stats offhand. 

Maddox: Alright!

Dick: Alright, that's my problem. You know who DOES support states' rights, is Harry's. (Maddox and Sean snicker) Today's show is brought to you by Harry's. Please visit http://harrys.com and use the promo code "BIGGESTPROBLEM" to save $5 off your first purchase. Harry's makes...it's a German-engineered, 5-blade cartridge that gives you a close and comfortable shave with no cuts or burns. Maddox and I have both been using them for a year. We're great, and we're highly satisfied. It makes me wanna shave more. I wish my beard grew faster so that I could shave it more times a day, the experience is so pleasurable. 

Maddox: Buddy, you need hot sauce. (cracks up)

Dick: That will make my beard grow faster?

Maddox: Yes! (giggling) 

Dick: Well, if Harry's made some, I would buy it, because it's so easy to buy off Harry's. I don't have to go to the store. I haven't been to the store in forever.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: And I hate going to the store.

Maddox: Forget stores. 

Dick: I like wallowing in depression in my apartment. (Maddox snorts and laughs) So Harry's makes it easy to do that. Why -

Sean: (interjects) You don't have to meet some weird guy in an alley.

Dick: Yeah. 

Sean: You know, to buy...

Dick: Yeah!

Sean: ...hook up Harry's. 

Dick: Exactly!! I don't ha-... (chuckles) 

Maddox: Uh-huh.

Dick: It's...uh, I...why pay $32 for an 8-pack of blades when you can get them for half the price at http://harrys.com? You get...what do you get? You get the gel...

Maddox: Mhm!

Dick: ...you get the blade pack...

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: ...and you get -

Maddox: (interjects) The butter...the shaving butter.

Dick: The shaving butter or the cream. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Which one do you like again?

Maddox: I like the gel. I like the shaving gel. 

Dick: Is that the one that...is that the one that's, like, really slippery?

Maddox: It's the one that comes out li-...it looks like gel, and then you put it on your face and it turns into foam. 

Dick: Oh yeah, okay.

Maddox: AND, I will say this. 

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: When the product first came out... (laughs) That stuff shot out like a rocket, and then Harry's fixed it. I think they listened to this podcast!

Dick: Oh, they did? (chuckling)

Sean: It did!!

Maddox: They did, yeah! (Dick guffaws)

Sean: It did! It shot out, almost blew my hand off the first time I used it. 

Maddox: I kn-... (giggles) Yeah, it was like a shotgun. But they fixed it, to their credit!

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: And now it comes out silky smooth.

Dick: That's great. Harry's listens to their customers, unlike the federal government. (Maddox and Sean laugh) Go to http://harrys.com, promo code "BIGGESTPROBLEM" to save $5 off your first purchase. 

Maddox: And thanks for listening, guys. And most importantly, Dick, I think with Harry's, is our fans love it. Thanks for supporting us, guys. Alright. I got a real big problem, Dick.

Dick: Great.

Maddox: This may be related to your problem.

Dick: Oh!

Maddox: I think it is in a lot of ways. It's the Gole-...

Sean: (interjects) Is it a superset? (Dick chuckles)

Dick: Good question.

Maddox: Uh, I don't know. I don't know, Sean. I don't know. I'll have to think about that. But it is the Golem effect. Right? Have you ever heard of this? ('ding!' sound effect) (applause sound effect)

Dick: The guy in Lord of the Rings?

Maddox: You know, that's what I...that's the first thing I thought of, but a golem predates Lord of the Rings. A golem is originally...it's a big stone or clay creature that comes to life. Uh, magically. 

Dick: Oh. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Are there too many of those roaming around?

Maddox: Huge problem.

Dick: Killing people? (laughing)

Maddox: Yeah. (grins) 

Dick: Like asteroids? 

Maddox: It actually comes from old Jewish, uh...an old Jewish fable, where -

Dick: (interjects) I thought so, but I wasn't gonna say that.

Maddox: Yeah. No, it is. (background laughter) The Golem effect -

Dick: (interjects) 'Cause I didn't know if it was anti-Semitic somehow. Like, I was like, "Why do I know that? Is that...?"

Maddox: In this climate, Dick, anything you can say can be perceived as racist or sexist or...homophobic, or transphobic. Everything you say is fucking wrong these days. 

Dick: Yeah, but I also don't know how much of my information I got off of, like, a thread on 4chan.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: So I'm like, "I gotta try to remember if I read that in a book, or if I read that in a thread that..."

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Yeah. (smiles) 

Maddox: The Golem effect is basically a type of self-fulfilling prophecy, except instead of turning into a giant clay creature brought to life by magic, you turn into a failure. 

Sean: Oh, Jesus. (laughing in the background) 

Maddox: Yeah. You start out as a promising young Geodude, and then BAM! (Dick scoffs) Next thing you know, you're a Golem. (giggles) 

Dick: God. (exasperated)

Maddox: Who easily succumbs to water, ice and even grass!! Can you believe that? Even grass!

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: (laughs) Who...what kinda dipshit Pokemon fal-...succumbs to grass-type? Grass is the weak. The weakest. 

Dick: No, 'cause grass gets in the cracks!

Maddox: Gr-... (cracks up) Grass ge-...

Dick: That's why.

Maddox: That rhymes! (giggles)

Dick: If you're... (chuckles) So it's gotta be true! If you're a rock monster...

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Like, if you're a...Onyx, or whatever?

Maddox: Oh, I see what you're sayin'. I see. 

Dick: Your weak...your cracks are the weakest part.

Maddox: Huh! That's a good point. And -

Dick: (interjects) So those vines wriggle in there.

Maddox: I know. I was also thinking about how much thought they put into the Pokemon evolution of these characters, and why they're weak to certain types. 

Dick: Uh-huh.

Maddox: And I was looking at the Geodude and the, uh, the Golem that he evolves to, and...water and ice also corrode rocks. 

Dick: Right.

Maddox: Over time, water and ice corrodes rocks. 

Dick: Right.

Maddox: And ice specifically, because it...water gets in the cracks, and then when it freezes, it expands and then breaks apart rocks. 

Dick: Hmm.

Maddox: They put a lot of thought into that, I think. And also fighting. Fighting also... (cracks up) ...destroys rock.

Dick: Sure. (background laughter)

Maddox: Yeah, wears it down.

Dick: Obvious, though. 

Maddox: Have you ever seen a kung fu movie?? Come on, idiots. Look it up. 

Sean: Where they fight the rock clan? No, I've never seen that movie. (Maddox and Randy laugh)

Maddox: Where they br-...where they break through the concrete!

Sean: Ahh, okay.

Maddox: Yeeeah. Mhm! 

Dick: That'd be a good movie, though.

Maddox: Big problem. Yeah. (smiles) Buncha g-...bunch of Shaolin monks fighting, uh, Golems.

Dick: Rock monsters.

Maddox: Yeah, rock monsters. That'd be cool as shit!

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: Alright, guys. The Golem effect...this is from Wikipedia. "The Golem effect is a psychological phenomenon in which lower expectations placed upon an individual either by supervisors or the individual themselves lead to poorer performance by the individual. The effect is mostly seen and studied in educational and organizational environments. It is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy." Now, the opposite of the Golem effect is something called the Pygmalion effect, which is exactly what it sounds like. Uh, when I said "the opposite." (both laugh) It's when you have -

Dick: (interjects) So this is low expectations? 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: That's your problem, pretty much?

Maddox: Well, low expectations that then become a self-fulfilling prophecy. There's a bunch of steps to how it works. 

Dick: Oh.

Maddox: First, you form or learn the expectation. Right?

Dick: M'kay. 

Maddox: 'Cause it can be a learned expectation. 

Dick: Give me an example. 

Maddox: Well...

Dick: I don't learn well without an example.

Maddox: For example, you hear this statistic that, uh, black people do the most drugs.

Dick: Ohhh, c-...could we make it a fun example, though? 

Maddox: You want a f-...?

Dick: Not about black people doing drugs? (laughing) (background laughter)

Maddox: Yeah, I was just tryin' to relate it back to your problem. If you want -

Dick: (interjects) No, I don't wanna relate it to my problem. 

Maddox: Okay. You want, uh, you want a fun e-...you want...? Okay. 

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: I can't think of fun examples, 'cause all I can think of are depressing ones. Um... (laughs)

Dick: Eh, not a surprise. Let's say you're...let's say you're expecting that if you talk to a girl, it won't go well.

Maddox: There you go! Okay.

Dick: Okay. 

Maddox: That's still not fun, but it's better than the other depressing shit I had.

Dick: (guffaws) That's...eh, you know. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: It's a reason to live. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Sean: No, that's a good example. 

Dick: Yeah! (laughing)

Maddox: That...well, then it goes back to self-defeating thoughts, too. When you think that you don't have a chance of succeeding with talking to a girl or talking to a guy, or a job application, or whatever...

Dick: Talking to a guy??

Maddox: Yeah, for girls.

Dick: I could do that, no problem.

Maddox: Or guys, yeah.

Dick: Oh, okay. 

Maddox: Yeah. If you're interested in someone, uh...you know what? I gotta give some, uh, some kudos to girls who hit on guys, 'cause there's a lot of stigma a lot of times.

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: And girls who do it? Got some balls.

Dick: Nyeah. (skeptical) 

Maddox: Literal testicles. (laughs)

Dick: Little...little forward. 

Maddox: Anyway, um...you form or learn an expectation, right? That's the first step. The second is you communicate that expectation, and the third is the behavior is adapted to meet that expectation in the obser-...the person you're observing, and then the fourth is the expectation occurs. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Dick: Okay.

Maddox: The expectation that you have of someone eventually becomes that. 

Dick: And it has to be bad for it to be called the Golem effect?

Maddox: Yes. The positive of that is if you have high expectations for someone, they fulfill that expectation.

Dick: Okay. So, like, everyone thought Frodo would get the ring to Mordor. (Maddox chuckles)

Maddox: This is s-... (both giggle) 

Dick: But he wouldn't have been able to do it without Gollum! Even though Gollum was an asshole. (Maddox sighs loudly) Right?? Is that the Golem effect? 

Maddox: No. (irritated) (Dick laughs)

Sean: He was MOTIVATED by the Golem effect.

Dick: By G-...yeah, he was!!

Maddox: No. That is not the Golem effect. Um... (Sean and Dick snickering) Thanks...thanks.

Dick: I saw that movie, Maddox.

Maddox: Yeah. 

Dick: I know what Gollum did, alright?

Maddox: Okay.

Dick: Calm down. (grins)

Maddox: That's not the G-... (both crack up again) That's not the Golem effect. Um, in 1968 there was a couple of researchers, Rosenthal and Jacobson. They asked students in an elementary school to take an intelligence pretest, and they randomly selected 20% of the students and told the teachers that these students that they randomly selected were going to have potential for intellectual growth, and that they'd be sure to bloom academically within one year. 8 months later, sure enough, the students who were picked scored significantly higher on their tests. 

Dick: Oh. 

Maddox: Yeah!

Dick: Is that the Pygmalion effect? 

Maddox: That's the Pygmalion effect, yeah.

Dick: Okay. 

Maddox: And then they did the same...a similar study with, uh, with students where they picked, uh...some students. They said, "Well, these ones we expect to do well. These ones we expect to do poorly," and they found -

Dick: (interjects) And they're ugly. (cracks up) Right?

Maddox: Uh, coul-...you know...

Dick: I mean, why not? Like, if you're gonna shit on kids, why not just go all the way?

Maddox: Well, here's the thing. The likelihood of the teachers' susceptibility to biases plays into this. 

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: So they found that it affects students when the teacher is more susceptible to being biased.

Dick: Hmm.

Maddox: And a lot of people are. A lot of people...it's a cognitive bias. I mean, it's a bias, essentially.

Dick: No, I wrote...I wrote my buddy's, um...his son was in junior high, and I wrote his paper for him one day. He was havin' some kind of barbecue, and the kid couldn't come out and screw around 'cause he was upstairs writing a paper, and I was like, "Ah, let me take a crack at that." So I just wrote his paper, like, no big deal. Took like 20 minutes. Uh, he got a fuckin' C! (Maddox laughs loudly) *I* got a C, and I was like, "What?!?" I was like, "Wait a minute! Wait a minute, wait a minute." I know for a fact that that paper was not read, and that it was graded based on what this kid traditionally gets, which is, like, in the C range. Like, it pissed me off so immediately and so...like, I'm still mad about it!

Maddox: (buzzer sound effect)

Dick: It was like 10 years ago!

Maddox: Yeah. (smiling) ('boo' sound effect) You got a C, buddy. You b-...you failed!! (giggles) A kid's...a kid's test.

Dick: Augh, yeah!! He was like, "Oh yeah, that's what I usually get." I'm like, "What do you mean, that's...?!" (Maddox cackles) "You didn't write the paper, you motherfucker! I wrote it!!"

Sean: How old is he?

Maddox: Oh, man. (grinning)

Dick: Uh, he was in junior high. I don't...how old is that?

Maddox: Maybe -

Sean: (interjects) 12, 13?

Dick: 12? Yeah.

Maddox: Maybe he -

Dick: (interjects) It was a great paper! 

Maddox: Oho, sure!

Dick: I was like, "What does this fuckin' bitch...does she not understand what I'm...?" (Maddox giggles) "She probably doesn't understand what I'M saying, here!" 

Maddox: Well...

Dick: I wanna go to that school... (background laughter)

Maddox: To be fair, Dick, some of your prose can be very confusing, as we heard in the last episode.

Dick: Uh, I got a voicemail on that.

Maddox: Oh, GOOD. 

Dick: If you wanna hear it at the end of the show. (laughing)

Maddox: We'll hear it at the end of the show. Yeah, some of it is...it can be very confusing, Dick.

Dick: I didn't wanna bring in Trump again, though, so I didn't play it. (grins)

Maddox: Ohhh. Well, you mentioned it! (Dick giggles) There you go! You lost the bet. Hey, but...but maybe he... (chuckles) Maybe you got the C, Dick, because your nephew or whoever had low expectations of you. Maybe that was the Golem effect!

Dick: What do you mean, my ne-...? That my friend's kid...

Maddox: Your friend's kid, yeah.

Dick: ...had low expectations of ME?

Maddox: Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's the Golem effect.

Dick: No, he didn't care. He just didn't wanna write the paper. 

Maddox: Yeah. Well, uh...so anyway, guys, this...now, here's where I want to tie it into something that's, uh, that's more...I guess prescient. This could be related to the reason why more women aren't comedians. (Dick smirks) And, you know, people -

Dick: Oho. (background laughter) 

Maddox: People...no! It's true!

Dick: There's plenty. We got plenty of female comedians out there.

Maddox: Of course. People believe women aren't funny, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, I didn't really...

Dick: (interjects) You think women are hilarious, right?

Maddox: I d-...well, of cour-... (Dick cackles) Okay. I don't know...I d-...that's such a fuckin' load-...I hate the way you asked that.

Dick: Why?!?

Sean: So loaded. (smiles)

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Why is it so loaded?! Why? What's wrong with that question? (grins)

Maddox: Great. (both laugh)

Dick: Okay, good. I just wanted that on the record. 

Maddox: I gotta be honest -

Dick: (interjects) Go ahead.

Maddox: I gotta be honest, though. When I was doing research for this problem, I wasn't thinking about this, sp-...uh, this specific application of the Golem effect. 

Dick: Uh-huh.

Maddox: Until this literal sentence that I wrote down, about women being...you know, w-...people thinking women aren't funny, and, um...

Dick: Who thinks that?

Maddox: A lot of people!

Dick: Oh, oh. 

Maddox: A lot of people think women aren't funny.

Sean: Jerry Lewis. 

Maddox: You...yeah! 

Dick: Hm. 

Maddox: Yeah, that's why...yeah! We, uh...there are a lot of -

Sean: (interjects) I mean, he's also 100 years old and probably pisses himself when he gets up in the morning, but...

Dick: That's pretty funny. 

Sean: He's a comedian! 

Dick: Yeah. (laughing)

Sean: He was always a physical comic, too. 

Dick: Go ahead.

Maddox: Yeah! No, if you search Google right now for the phrase "women aren't funny," you'll find thousands, hundreds of thousands of results, and b-...it's because people have that perception, and then maybe that perception becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is what it says, um...this is fr-...according to Wikipedia. "When arbitrarily informed that a particular student is 'bright' or 'dull,' not only will a supervisor's behavior change to favor the 'bright' students (as indicated by more praise or attention), the students themselves will exhibit behaviors in line with their labels (such as the 'bright' students leaning more forward in their chairs relative to the 'dull' students)." So if...this may be kind of like learned behavior that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, 'cause you keep tellin' women "they're not funny, they're not funny, they're not funny," but then I look at the number of stand-up comics I see at an open mic, and I take the percentage of funny male comedians and the percentage of funny female comedians, and they're pretty -

Dick: (interjects) It's both about zero. (Maddox and Sean laugh)

Maddox: Yeah, both are... (giggling)

Dick: Yeah! It's pretty -

Maddox: (interjects) They're both hovering right around zero.

Dick: Pretty successfully not funny. 

Maddox: Yeah. I went to an open mic a long time ago, and there were -

Dick: (interjects) Did you perform? 

Maddox: No. Hell no. Uh, there were 50 comedians.

Dick: Uh-huh.

Maddox: 50 comedians came up all night long, and...you know, onl-...I think only about 10 of 'em were women. And of those, I think two of 'em were funny, but then of the guys, only about 10 were funny. It's about the same percentage. 

Dick: Mhm. 

Maddox: And I thought, "Well, there you go!" It's not that there aren't funny women, it's that there are fewer female comedians, and that's why we have the perception that women aren't funny. I...'cause most of the...I know SO many funny women.

Dick: Well, just numbers...numbers-wise, isn't what...isn't that true, then? You got 10 funny guys there and 2 funny women. There you go.

Maddox: Out of like 10...yeah, exactly. 10 out of, uh...yeah, exactly. 

Dick: I mean, it's not always percentages, though. 

Maddox: No.

Dick: You're saying numbers-wise, well, there's more funny guys! 10 and 2. 

Maddox: Well, exactly. But there were more guys auditioning. You don't think of the guys who audition and fail. You don't think of those guys. You only thi-...you only see the funny ones, and then you think, "Oh, guys are funny," and then there aren't that many funny female comedians because there aren't that many female comedians. 

Dick: Well...

Maddox: I think...I know LOTS of funny female comedians. I know so many...some of the funniest people I know in my life are women. 

Dick: Yeah. Um...

Maddox: We've had them on the...on this show! I think Robin Higgins is hilarious. 

Dick: Yeah!

Maddox: You should check out her "Wheel of Fortune" exposé.

Dick: She's great!

Maddox: Yeah! Fantastic.

Dick: She's great. I don't think that...do you think that women are constantly being told that they're...? Like, it seems to me all I ever hear is, "Women are hilarious. They can do science and math. They could be whatever size and shape they want." Like, I have never heard...maybe some off-the-wall, uh, Jerry...who did you...Jerry Lewis clip?

Maddox: Jerry Lewis, yeah. 

Dick: From way long ago, that he doesn't think...but all I hear is, "Women could do anything and they're funny, and..." All the time. Do you really think they get the message that they're not...that they shouldn't be funny? 

Maddox: Yes.

Dick: Oh. Where?

Maddox: Even Adam Carolla not too long ago. And this quote was taken out of context, to be fair to Adam, but even Adam Carolla a while ago said that, uh...if there's a woman in a comedy room, she's there because she's a woman, not necessarily because she's funny. And he's ma-...he was making a statement not about women, but a statement about how there's kind of, like, this affirmative action going on in our culture.

Dick: There's...which is certainly true!

Maddox: Sure. 

Dick: Yeah!

Maddox: Absolutely. That's what he was making a statement about. But he -

Dick: (interjects) I mean, how many times have you seen, like, releases go out saying, "We're only looking for female comedians to staff this writing job"?

Maddox: Oh, of course. Yeah. 

Dick: Yeah, it's disgusting!

Maddox: It's sexist.

Dick: To me. 

Maddox: And it's trying to right some perceived wrong in our society or our culture. 

Sean: No, and sometimes we all lose. Like in the case of writing, it's like, "You want the best writers, right?"

Maddox: Right.

Dick: Yeah, like in the new Ghostbusters. We're all gonna lose that one. (Sean laughs) Right, guys?

Maddox: Oh, boy.

Dick: No, but se-...okay, but this is what I was...back to my point, you're saying 2 funny females and 10...2 funny women, 2 funny...er, 10 funny guys. Right?

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: That's more. Saying that the percentages, I don't think is...people aren't really...like, the percentages takes a whole 'nother element. If you're just like, "Well, this is who came out to be funny. I don't know why they did it. I don't know why it was so less...so many less women."

Maddox: Yeah, I know. I...

Dick: Like, I'm not gonna guess! It's just...that's what we ended up with.

Maddox: I'm with you, Dick, but here's where my perception of that kind of changed. I dated a bunch of girls, and I was surprised that they all had the simila-...a similar background. They all said that they were really interested in computer science and mathematics in college and high school. I said, "Well, so what happened?" And this one girl specifically told me that in college, she joined her class and she felt the professor really, really didn't like her. She felt right from the get-go the professor looked at her differently. He was this, uh, this older Indian dude who thought that women shouldn-...don't belong in that profession, and he made it clear.

Dick: But did...do we know that?

Maddox: Yes.

Dick: Okay.

Maddox: We know that. He made it clear to her. He said that, uh...he questioned why she was taking the class in the first place, and if it was an accident. (Dick laughs) He constantly quizzed her...he constantly quizzed her on her knowledge and made her work harder to prove herself. And then she finally had evidence of bias from this professor when she did a group project and she wrote all the code, and it was the exact same code that, like, the entire group had turned in. Everyone in her group got an A, except she got a B for that exact same project, and that's when she knew. She went to the professor...she went to the dean.

Dick: Mhm.

Maddox: And they eventually reversed her grade, but the guy still worked there. Another example: I dated ANOTHER girl...

Dick: Mm, you know.

Maddox: ...who, in computer science...

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: She was in a computer science class. She had a great interest in mathematics and programming. The professor kept hitting on her and kept hitting on her and kept hitting on her, and eventually it got so out of control that...that the professor asked her to stay after class, and to...you know, for some extra credit or something, and it was really creepy shit you see, like, in movies and things like that. And she said that she was too skeeved out, because that was the only teacher in high school who was teaching computer science, so she dropped out of the major. 

Dick: Mhm.

Maddox: She lost interest. So I changed my opinion on this, uh, this...

Dick: Institutionalized sexism? 

Maddox: Yeah, it does happen. 

Dick: Should bring in men! As a problem. 

Maddox: Well... (Dick laughs) I don't think men are... (cracks up) I don't think men are a problem.

Dick: Somebody should. (background laughter)

Maddox: I think, uh, I think sexism is a problem, but it goes both ways. And...but that...you know, there is something to that. There is something to that. Some women do get that message, that they are not welcome in comedy, they are not welcome in science and mathematics. And I'm not saying that that's the majority of the cause, because if you're too weak to overcome people who aren't welcoming to you in a community?

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: Try fucking gaming. Okay? Everyone fucking hates you all the time, always.

Dick: Or try doing physical labor. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Like, it's not welcoming 'cause it's physical.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: And labor. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Or...you know, go get a microphone and stand on stage and speak your mind. There's gotta be gender equality there! Holy shit.  

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: But lifting...but, you know, running a leaf blower? Ehh, d-d-d. We don't care. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Keep doin' that one. 

Maddox: Well, it's m-...even more of a problem...the Golem effect is even more of a problem because it's understudied due to ethical concerns. Back to the drug thing. You know, a lot of studies...a lot of things we can't study in society because we have ethical concerns, specifically...and, uh, I...this...here we go. This is...I think this is from Wikipedia again. "Specifically, the concern arises in trying to operationalize negative expectations in individuals, which will theoretically result in the lower performance of the individuals. The worry then is the possibly harmful, lingering effects on research participants beyond the study due to this manipulation." So essentially, if you're trying to test someone to see if the Golem effect actually works, that test itself may have long-lasting impacts and, uh...psychological results that you don't intend, far-reaching beyond the study, so it's kind of hard to study even from the get-go. I mean, they...these researchers did these studies in spite of those ethical concerns, and maybe they weren't aware of them at the time.

Dick: Good for them. Trailblazers. Gettin' results. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: That's what it takes. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: In science. 

Maddox: And...I mean, your hope is that you don't permanently damage people when you're st-...when you're testing them. 

Dick: Mhm.

Maddox: But anyway, it's a big problem because it's even difficult to study. 

Dick: The Golem...?

Maddox: The Golem effect. 

Dick: Lowered expectations?

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Eh, seems like a big problem.

Maddox: Lowered expectations that turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Dick: Okay, but isn't that the...isn't that the danger of lower expectations? 

Maddox: That what?

Dick: Like, there's no...that's the only thing that's wrong with them, right? Lowered expectations that turns into...that are a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right?

Maddox: Uh, yeah. Lowered expectations that become a self-fulfilling prophecy, absolutely. 

Dick: Okay.

Maddox: I mean, this has affected you personally too, right?

Dick: What do...what do you mean?

Maddox: Uh, don't you -

Sean: (interjects) I mean, what are you doin' on this podcast?

Dick: (guffaws) Yeah! What the hell are you talkin' about? (Maddox laughs) You did that last week, too. "Don't you wanna talk about addiction?" 

Maddox: Oh, yeah.

Dick: "Uh, what do you wanna know?"

Maddox: By the way, I shouldn't have put that out there without asking you first before the show. Sorry about that.

Dick: I still don't know what you wanna know. 

Maddox: Oh, I was just curious if you...if you had any stories to share. That's all I wanted to know.

Dick: About addiction??

Maddox: Yeah, if you wanted to.

Dick: I don't even know...I mean, I don't even know where to start with that, Maddox. I...

Maddox: I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I'm sorry about that. 

Dick: I don't know what you...I don't...okay, I don't know how to respond to the, um, "do I have any experience with lowered expectations?" either.

Maddox: No, but if someone has lower expectations of you, don't you then fulfill them?

Dick: (sighs) Shit, I have no fuckin' idea off the top of my head! Uhh...

Maddox: I was...I'm basically just goa-...'cause the answer is "yes." I'm basically just goading you into playing...so I can play this clip. Here's the clip. 

Sean: Oh, no.

Dick: Oh, another "Dick Versus Dick"?

Maddox: It's not. 'Cause you didn't contradict yourself.

Dick: Yeah. 

Maddox: But here's just something you've said in the past. 

Dick sound clip: "I'm 100% sure, if I'm gonna get treated like a criminal, I will behave like a criminal."

Dick: Ohh, sure. 

Maddox: Yeah!

Dick: Yeah. 

Maddox: There it is! That's exactly the Golem effect. When you expect -

Dick: (interjects) You brought in that clip of me? To play TO ME??

Maddox: Well, as an example of how it can affect all of us. 

Dick: Oh, man.

Sean: Well, I think that effect has been studied in that capacity.

Maddox: Yeah. 

Dick: Yeah.

Sean: Where a lot of people in, you know, inner-cities...you know, are treated and looked at like criminals and they behave that way, and they think there's, you know, a solid connection between that.

Dick: Sure.

Maddox: Right! Right, absolutely. You expect people...and this goes back to the war on drugs. You...again, the black thing. You expect people to do drugs or be caught for it because they're incarcerated at a much higher rate, then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, maybe. You get people who do -

Dick: (interjects) It doesn't according to the stats, though, 'cause they do even less! Right?

Maddox: Yeah, but they get arrested for it more.

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: And then maybe that leads them down a life of crime. Who knows?

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: Who knows? But the Golem effect is a really...it can be devastating to people. It's something that you have to be aware of. But it's really difficult, because these...the way that we think about people when -

Dick: (interjects) 'Cause a lot of times we're right.

Maddox: No. (chuckles) (background laughter)

Dick: A lot of times, prejudice is right. 

Maddox: Noo.

Dick: Yeah it is!

Maddox: Well, okay.

Dick: Of course it is.

Maddox: Stereotypes, for sure.

Dick: A lot of the times, your gut's right! 

Maddox: Yeah. (shrugs)

Dick: Like, "Yeah, these kids aren't gonna do well." You know, they probably won't.

Maddox: No, that's... (cracks up) That's literally the Golem effect that I'm describing. You can't ha-...like, it's...it's really dangerous to have those expectations of people, because...

Dick: Yeah. (shrugging)

Maddox: ...they become self-fulfilling. 

Dick: Well...maybe. Maybe they're just fulfilling. And everyone's aware of it. 

Maddox: Well, that's also a possibility. 

Dick: Sure.

Maddox: But we know, we know...I mean, based on that study...well, look, it's much easier to study the Pygmalion effect. They're very similar. And the Pygmalion effect doesn't have long-lasting damaging effects on the participants. You can have higher expectations of students and then see that they fulfill those expectations. Now, that's not a perfect study, because some of those students may happen to be of higher aptitude, just by chance, that you included in your study.

Dick: Mhm.

Maddox: So you may have accidentally selected a few that were gonna do well anyway. However, it's unlikely that the 20% that you randomly selected, ALL of them do better. 

Sean: Now, what if you have a really bright kid, but they still can't achieve their parents' expectations?

Maddox: Well, I got a problem for you comin' up, buddy. 

Dick: Mmm.

Sean: Oh yeah?

Maddox: Yeah! But anyway, that's my problem, guys. The Golem effect. 

Dick: It's a problem, too, 'cause it's about students. Who are really, like...like, what are their accomplishments? They did okay on a test? Like, oh, who fuckin' cares? 

Maddox: Well...

Sean: (interjects) Well, that's...but that's all you can do at that age.

Maddox: Yeah.

Sean: I mean, you can only do what...what are you gonna do? You're...you know.

Maddox: And that's also -

Sean: (interjects) You're not gonna win the Nobel Prize at that age, so.

Maddox: And that's also the, uh, the way they're able to study kids, is in elementary school. But they have found this to be the case in organizational structures as well, like at work.

Dick: Oh yeah?

Maddox: Yeah, absolutely.

Dick: That'd be interesting.

Maddox: Absolutely, at work. They've found these same things. When bosses randomly select certain employees with certain expectations, they challenge them, they step up to that challenge. That's actually what one of my bosses did a long time ago. Well, I've only had two jobs, so you know which one.

Dick: Oooo. Ooo!

Maddox: (shouts) Yeah, I know, I know! Ffff-...

Dick: Oooo, ooo, ooo, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Keep...keep goin'. I'll find it. (Sean chuckles)

Maddox: Yeah, so anyway... (cracks up) I'm not gonna say the story!! Just so you can shit on me with a sound clip.

Dick: Why? It sounded so interesting and important.

Maddox: NO! Fuck you. I'm not gonna tell...I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm DONE talkin' about it. 

Dick: Eh, okay. I guess I -

Maddox: (interjects) I was gonna relate it to a real personal story that could've really drove the point home. Now you're gonna play some shitty sound drop. (angry)

Dick: I don't know why I would play a sound drop. You're not talking about...anything. Specifically.

Maddox: 'Kay. (sneering)

Dick: There's nothing to play a sound drop about.

Maddox: Alright.

Dick: Was that your problem? 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Okay! My last problem is...ducking autocorrect.

Sean: Mmmmm.

Maddox: What??

Sean: It changes "fucking" to "ducking."

Maddox: Ohhh, I get it. Okay. Ducking autocorrect. That's funny.

Dick: Who's ever needed to say "ducking"? Who in their life has ever needed to say "ducking"?

Maddox: Well, we're...what are you, uh, what are you hunting? What are you doin' this afternoon? Are you hunting any...?

Dick: I'm going DUCKING. (Maddox giggles) That's what I'm doing. (grins)

Maddox: What are you...what are you doing when a ball's comin' at your head?

Dick: I duck.

Maddox: Yeah. (Dick laughs) But what's the act of...ducking?

Dick: Yeah, right. (Maddox laughs) I mean, when would you...how...when...who has ever said that??

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: How fucked is autocorrect that it ever u-...er, it ever replaces anything with "ducking"?

Maddox: I hate it.

Dick: No one's EVER said it. No one. In the history of the world. 

Maddox: yeah.

Dick: Any...you could throw any word in there! Probably used it more than "ducking."

Maddox: Mhm. My phone...my fuckin' phone...I never type "shifting"! I'm never shifting!!

Dick: "Ducking." My ducking phone...

Maddox: Yeah! I'm never havin' a shifty day, asshole!! 

Dick: Yeah. (laughing)

Maddox: Guess what kinda day I'm havin'?! It's not fuckin' shifty! (background laughter)

Dick: "Shotty." I'm gonna go take a shot. (Maddox giggles) Well, actually, that's...50-50, probably.

Maddox: "What are you doin'?" "I'm takin' a shot right now."

Dick: Takin' a shot right now. (grins)

Maddox: Yeah. Yeah, for you, Dick. (cracks up again) Your phone is so confused with that one. (background laughter) 'Cause sometimes you're doin' both.

Sean: Yeah, he types them equally. 

Maddox: Yeah. (smiling)

Sean: Doesn't know which one to choose.

Maddox: Yeah. (Dick scoffs) 

Dick: Well...yeah, if I've been...yeah. If I've been taking shots, I don't care. That's the other thing with autocorrect! Every time it fucks it up, *I* know what I meant. I know the person on the other end knows what I meant. But I feel compelled to correct it so I don't look like an idiot!

Sean: Right.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Or, somehow I'm not...so I'm not disrespecting them. Right??

Maddox: Right.

Dick: Like, "Uhh..." Like I'm a mafia per-...Don all of the sudden. Like, "Uh, no disprespect..."

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: "...Don Maddox. I meant to say 'fucking.' I'm gonna correct that. I would never let a computer talk to you in lieu of me."

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Like, right??

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: That's...it's this weird thought process!!

Maddox: I've turned off, uh...thankfully, you're able to do this in the Google dictionary, but you can turn off filters for safe words. So thankfully, my phone mostly gets "fucking" correctly. Especially...even during voice-to-text, it gets "fucking" done correctly.

Dick: Oh, really?

Maddox: Yeah. I'll do it right now! I'll talk...I'm gonna talk and record, and we'll see how much of this it gets correctly. But go on, Dick. What's your other problem with, uh, with voice-to-text? Er, I'm sorry, autocorrect.

Dick: No, it's autocorrect. 

Maddox: Ducking autocorrect. 

Dick: Yeah. That there's...well, that there's no cursing in it. And that the w-...okay, here's the other bad part about autocorrect.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: I don't know if I...there's no way for me to know if life would be better without it. Like, I use it, and I hate it, but I'm afraid to turn it off because what if the alternative is s-...like, what if I'm so bad at typing, it just turns into, like, "bleghleghlegh" like a bunch of Qbert speak? (background laughter) 

Maddox: M'kay.

Dick: When I'm trying to talk, right?

Maddox: Well, that's... (cracks up) That's - 

Dick: (interjects) It's...I don't know!

Maddox: I...

Dick: I don't know!! What do I, have to conduct my own experiments on the UI of my phone to see which one's worse?! I don't wanna do that!

Maddox: Well, there it is.

Dick: I just deal with it. It's right...it's right on...this is what...you remember that Louis CK thing, when he said -

Sean: (interjects) "Watch me jerk off"?

Dick: Yeah. (cracks up) To those girls that he allegedly imprisoned in his hotel room. (Maddox laughs) Yeah, do you remember that? It was...um, okay. He was...his...part of his routine was, like, how everyone's spoiled, and this thing is beaming in from space, right? You should have more respect for the technology in front of you. That was his thing. 

Maddox: Right.

Dick: Fuck that. No. (Sean laughs) This tech-...this shotty, shitty technolog, this ducking autocorrect, it's...it rides that thin line between totally making me insane and being useful. Like, I don't know what side of the fence I'm on. Online tracking? Pizza tracking? Useful. 100% useful. So useful I can't even see it down on the usefulness graph, right? Autocorrect? Right on the line.

Maddox: Hmm.

Dick: Right on the line of zero.

Sean: I agree. 

Dick: I don't know which side it's on. Is this fuckin' with me, or is this helping me?

Sean: I'm on the slightly positive side of it.

Dick: Well, we all are! That's why we have it on!

Sean: That's right.

Dick: But I'm too afrai-...what if we're not??

Maddox: Well, let's experiment right now. I'm going to record, going forward, the rest of this episode in autocorrect and see how much of it translates. 

Sean: In voice-to-text?

Maddox: Yeah. Right now I'm doing voice-to-text, and I'm gonna see how much of this translates correctly for autocorrect. And we're gonna post this on the website, but the rest of this conversation, we're gonna see how much of it translates. 

Dick: It also takes all the personality out of your texting.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: If I wanna text, like, "WHOOOOOA!" Right?

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: It just turns into "whoa." 

Maddox: Yeah. (smiles)

Dick: I'm like, "Well, I already fuckin' sent it! Now I'm n-...what am I gonna say to this person, 'WHOOO-OOO-OOOA' again? Now I look desperate." Right?

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: So I guess we're all stuck with these muted reactions!

Maddox: And it never gets the right number of 'ha's in there. 'Cause I never want to...like, if I send...

Dick: Yeah. You're right.

Maddox: ..."H-A-H-A-H," that's usually...like, something I actually chuckled at.

Dick: Mhm.

Maddox: But it sa-...it d-...it adds extra 'H-A-H-A-H-A's. Like, it's...it makes me look like an idiot! I think -

Dick: (interjects) What am I, flirting with this guy now?!

Maddox: Yeah!! Yeah!

Dick: I've said so many 'ha's? What the hell??

Maddox: Do you think that's...and that's not the funniest fuckin' thing I've ever read, idiot!

Dick: No!!

Maddox: My fuckin' phone! Dipshit! This guy's gonna think less of me now because of the number of 'H's you added.

Dick: He's gonna feed me all of his shit now. 

Maddox: Yeah. Ohh, my gosh!

Dick: He's gonna say, "Oh, here's...you liked...you really liked that joke?"

Maddox: Ohh, yeah. (giggles)

Dick: "Here's all my one-and-two material. You're gonna love this, you fuckin' pig."

Maddox: Yeah! (laughs more)

Dick: "Eat this slop." I got...oh, I gotta block...I gotta get outta here. I...

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Now I'm never...you're never getting another 'ha.' You know what else it does with the 'ha's?? Separates them! "Ha," space...

Maddox: Yeeeees.

Dick: "Ha..." Like, what the fuck am I, a computer?!?

Maddox: Yeah, like a...

Dick: Am I a comic book? Like, what?!

Maddox: Like a robot pretending to be human. Like, trying to act like a human? We know you, robot! No human adds spaces in their 'ha's. They're not distinct...I know they sound like distinct syllables to your shitty fuckin' computer brain, but they're not, ASSHOLE. 

Dick: And somebody programmed that!

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: They were like, "Well, how do I go 'hahaha'? 'Ha,' space, 'ha,' space, 'ha'..."

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Like, that programmer sat there and did that. 

Maddox: Right.

Sean: This is by far the most Seinfeld-y episode... (Maddox giggles) ...we've ever done. Can you imagine those...how many episodes there would be if texting existed in their world?

Dick: There's a modern Seinfeld Twitter account.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: That does that. It's pretty funny.

Sean: Oh, that's right! I've heard of that. 

Dick: Um, how 'bout autocorrecting things into sex? How does it miss "fucking" and "shit," but it will throw a "sex" in there when I didn't want it to be? Look, when I type "s-..." If I want "sex" to be in a text, I typed it. I don't want you throwing it in there!

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Like, "Oh, you sure you didn't mean...sure you didn't mean 'come here for some sex at the office'?" 

Maddox: Mhm

Dick: (shouting) "No, I didn't...well, now I gotta...now I gotta explain something that we both know! We both know why it happened, but I gotta compulsively explain it." Like I have this...like I'm the only one on Earth in the office with a magical device that fucks up my texts! Everybody has it!

Maddox: Yeah. "Sorry Mom, I'll call you in a SEX. When I..." (cracks up) (Dick grimaces)

Dick: Ughhhhh.

Maddox: Oh, man. I -

Dick: (interjects) My mom sent me a text one time for an In-N-Out hamburgers order.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: What's the best...what's the style you get at In-N-Out? With...there's...you know, they got a -

Maddox: (interjects) Ducking style. (laughs)

Dick: No, they got a bunch of different st-...

Sean: (interjects) Animal style.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Animal style. What did I get from Mom? "Mom, text me your order. I don't wanna remember it, write it down. I don't want you thinkin'...just text it to me." "Yeah. Uh, Dick, I'd like a cheeseburger, anal style." Like... (Maddox laughs) That's it! I'm just driving home! I'm driving home. I'm not even getting the hamburgers. I'm never eating at In-N-Out again. Thanks a lot, autocorrect! I'm pretty sure if somebody wanted something replaced with "anal," they would've written "anal" in the text!!

Maddox: Right.

Dick: That's not a replaceable word!

Maddox: You know, Dick, so we're havin' a lot of fun with this, we're doing, uh...but a lot of this is voice-to-text, too. So vote up voice-to-text! But autocorrect specifically. 

Dick: No, all mine's...all mine's autocorrect! 

Maddox: What, you typed "anal" instead of "animal"?

Dick: No, SHE did. 

Maddox: Oh, you c-...oh, SHE did.

Dick: It correct-...she must've gotten close to "animal."

Maddox: Ohhh.

Dick: But like your bet with the Voyager, which one's closer, the thing said, "Well, uh, gee! I'm pretty close to 'animal,' but I'm also pretty close to 'anal.' I'll just go with 'anal.' Fuck it. Wha-...you know! Equally likely that someone would've used this word."

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: "Pretty close to 'fucking.' Also pretty close to 'ducking'; probably meant 'ducking.'" 

Maddox: Probably "ducking."

Dick: Probably...lot of... (stammers) We're...this phone is perfectly suited for a nuclear holocaust, when everybody's ducking and covering all the time. "What are you doin'?" "Duckin' and coverin' and shooting the shit."

Maddox: You know what the problem is, Dick? It's lawyers. 'Cause they don't want Google...

Dick: What?!? (squeaking) (giggles)

Maddox: Yeah! The lawyers are the problem, because they don't want...Google doesn't want to accidentally put in the word "fucking" when someone actually meant "ducking" or anything else. They're playing on the side...you know, they'd be like -

Dick: (interjects) Oh, really?

Maddox: "Our program's not good enough, you know, to figure out 'fucking.' Oh, sorry, it was an accident."

Dick: Oh, but it's lawyers?

Maddox: Yeah, I think they're covering their ass, so that someone doesn't accidentally send a text to someone...to their boss and get fired for it, just in the off-chance that they meant "ducking."

Dick: You're probably right.

Maddox: Yeah. Smart.

Dick: Ducking lawyers, man.

Maddox: Mhm. You gotta duck lawyers. (laughs)

Dick: Ducking lawyers. That's my problem.

Maddox: Ahhh. Anyway, good problem, Dick.

Dick: I read a b-...I read a bunch of articles. I tried to research this; of course, bunch of apologists. Saying that I'm...I'M wrong. "Oh, the reason that you hate this is because there's something wrong with you." Like... (stammers excitedly) "I doubt it." (Maddox chuckles) When anyone gives me that answer, I doubt it instantly. Like, "What are you, getting paid by autocorrect?" (Maddox laughs) "Are you p-...does it, like...does it call you every night? Did it leave your pet's head in your bed? Why the duck are you defending autocorrect?"

Maddox: Big Autocorrect is paying him off.

Dick: Yeah! Like, what is your...what is wrong with you?!

Maddox: Yeah. What's your angle, shithead?

Dick: That you would defend this thing?

Maddox: You know what it is?? It's fuckin' iPhone users! It's always touchscreens with these assholes, because without touchscreens, before that shit? If you guys can remember, back in the day when we had fuckin' keyboards that you could feel and you could type quickly...

Dick: Mmm.

Maddox: ...and it was correct all the time. You didn't need this fuckin' shitty autocorrect. All the time, for every fuckin' word! And that's why your batteries are dead, shitheads! Yeah, do I have an iPhone 5 charger? No! Fuck you!! Turn off autocorrect. Get a fucking keyboard. 

Sean: Yeah, whoever invented autocorrect should be shit. (Maddox and Dick laugh)

Dick: How long were you savin' that?

Sean: Just now!

Dick: Yeah, right.

Maddox: Yeah.

Sean: I swear to God!

Dick: It wasn't even had to...anything to do with what he just said.

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: You just thought of that right now?

Maddox: Yeah. Mhm. (smiles) 

Sean: Yeah! I was just thinkin', we..."shit" and "ducking." I'm not defending my joke to you!! Fuck you. (Maddox and Randy laugh) 

Maddox: Oh, man. This, uh, this transcript's gonna be hilarious, I think. Or terr-...

Dick: (interjects) (Cool Sean sound clip: "You're blowin' it, Sean.") (everyone laughs) 

Maddox: Oh, fantastic. Alright, Dick.

Dick: I read some shit about autocorrect making people stupider.

Maddox: Yeah! 

Dick: Well, yeah, but... (scoffs) I don't really...I don't buy that. It was, like, a third of people can't spell...a third of...two thirds...wait, wait, wait. A third of people couldn't spell "definitely" and "separate." 

Maddox: What did they spell, "defiantly"?

Dick: Well, I...I don't know! But I bet they knew when I meant "fucking." And when I meant "ducking."

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Right?

Maddox: You know what? I think it's just a really bad Markov chain. They have these Markov chain models that, uh, that try to predict what you're saying in context, and they're able to...it's basically how, if you guys have ever used the app SwiftKey? SwiftKey does it by creating these models that look at your texts and then try to predict, based on context and other things you've written in the past, what you meant to say. 

Dick: Mhm.

Maddox: And mine is actually surprisingly good. This isn't autocorrect, but it is autophrasing. So it suggests the next phrase that I'm... (chuckles) There came a point a long time ago when I was on Tinder -

Dick: (interjects) Does it suggest "I'm a writer"? Like if you put "I'm," does it say "...a writer"?

Maddox: Oh! You wanna see what it suggests?? (Sean laughs)

Dick: Yeah.

Maddox: This is hilar-...here, I'll show you!

Dick: I would love to see that. 

Maddox: I'll show you. I'll show you. You'll love this.

Dick: "I'm..." 

Maddox: You'll love this. Hold on. 

Dick: Yeah, if th-...if you type in "I'm" and the next word isn't "the," I'll be very upset. 

Maddox: Okay! Dick...

Sean: Yes.

Maddox: I typed in -

Dick: (interjects) Yeah.

Maddox: I typed in "I'm an..." and then I want you to read what the three suggestions are.

Dick: Great. Probably. Let me see it. 

Sean: "...underappreciated genius." 

Maddox: Hold on.

Dick: Oh, uh, "author"...

Maddox: Uh-huh!

Dick: ..."asshole"...

Maddox: Uh-huh.

Dick: ...and "idiot."

Maddox: Yep! (cracks up)

Sean: Excellent. 

Dick: "I'm an author..." He says "I'm an author" as much as he says "I'm an idiot."

Sean: Phenomenal. (Dick laughs)

Maddox: Or "asshole." It says, "I'm an asshole, author, idiot." Those are the three suggestions when I type in "I'm an...".

Dick: What if you just type in "I'm"? "Late"? Probably "late."

Maddox: No...no, DICKHEAD.

Dick: Or "running late." 

Maddox: Oh. (sneering)

Dick: That's not an exaggeration. 

Maddox: The suggestions are "I'm" and then "not" and then "at" and then "sorry." Let's see what it says right after "not." "I'm not - "

Sean: (interjects) "I'm sorry." (laughing)

Maddox: It says, "I'm not - "

Sean: (interjects) You know he never says THAT. 

Maddox: Fuck you, Sean!! (Dick and Sean laugh) I say that all the fuckin' time! I'm a great apologizer, shithead!! I brought in people who are bad at apologies because I'm GOOD at them. I figured it out! I know how to apologize.

Dick: You figured out how to manipulate your apologies so they're perfect?

Maddox: No. No, I'm a good apologizer. Um, it says, though, "I'm not sure if you're waiting for this file from me or if you're getting me the 3D renders so I can composite them in the video." Huh!

Dick: That's your most-used sentence, huh?

Maddox: I g-... (cracks up) Guess that's my most used sentence! (Randy laughs in the background)

Dick: Hmm. Alright.

Maddox: "I'm not sure if you're waiting for this file from me or if you're getting me the 3D renders so I can composite them in this video." 

Dick: That's my problem. 

Maddox: Yeah. Good problem, Dick. I'll post that transcript. It's ridiculous. On the, uh, website. But anyway, guys, we ran outta time. I'm not gonna get to my problem this week. I'll bring it in next week. It's a good one, though. So...

Dick: Happy 4/20 to all the libertarians out there. (grins) (Sean chuckles) Happy states' rights day. 

Maddox: Ohh, my GOSH. (Dick laughs) Look...yeah, the takea-...the important takeaway is, legalize drugs so that we can regulate them, make sure they're clean, you're getting the product that you're supposed to have. My problem this week is... (cracks up) (Sean chuckles) (closing riff starts) ...the Golem Effect.

Dick: Wait, why are you laughing? (Maddox giggles) 

Sean: Because it's not a libertarian...very funny. 

Dick: Mine problems are the War on Drugs and Auto-...Ducking Autocorrect. 

Sean: I got it. 

Maddox: Thanks for listening. (Dick giggles)

(closing riff)

Dick: Wait, why...why is that funny? Explain it to me. 

Sean: He's talkin' about regulation and libertarianism. 

Maddox: Yeah. 

Sean: How they're conflicting ideas.

Maddox: Uh-huh. 

Dick: Oh, that's what that...? Yeah, everyone just thinks libertarians just hate all regulation? Yeah.

Maddox: Well, no libertarian will go on the record saying which regulations they're in favor of.

Sean: Well, drugs is a big thing to regulate. 

Maddox: Yeah.

Dick: Yeah.