Moral Failings of Our Time
In this episode of Positively Pedestrian, we discuss the Moral Failings of Our Time and try to consider what aspects of our culture are ethically wrong, even if normal. We investigate the past and can easily judge the actions and beliefs of our ancestors as being highly immoral. But what things do we do and believe in contemporary society that we believe to be moral, but are in fact, highly immoral, but just don't see because they are socially normal?
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Full Transcript
Right? So like adding there's been a lot of time for software updates. So maybe yeah, that's true. But like, you know, adding adding in fog is like completely unnecessary. It wouldn't really make any major many significant difference. Like it doesn't in fact make it convincing. Right. In fact, the opposite right. It makes it makes it less convincing. There's no at least there's no apparent reason for an ecosystem to, you know, foster it or have it exactly.
So if some, some abstract or retarded shit comes out of my brain this morning, it's because of no sleep. Oh, well, if some abstract shit comes out of my brain this morning because I got me last night, I still feel like a I'm a little bit high. What do you mean? It's not foggy, right? Throw it even. It's like, you have cataracts.
In your ears. So, the topic today is, I thought would be interesting. One to go over is like, what are the actual moral failings of the modern era, like 2022? Like, so what does humanity like kind of in general really got fucked up. But it's like myopic because, you know, we're standing in that kind of arrogant space of, you know, we're contemporarily brilliant, you know, and I'm we have moral clarity.
So, like, what is it that we think we are getting right? But we're horrifically getting wrong, and, you know, there's a whole bunch, but I'll go first. Go for it. So kind of an easy one to cherry pick right now is, what we're doing with our youth as far as making them contemplate their sexuality at a really young age, like at a premature age.
Yeah. Kind of a social alignment to where, right. Young, young children are, legitimately, like spending long hours thinking about their sexuality and feeling compelled to make proclamations about their sexuality to their peers. I, I am I go by these these and, you know, I'm, I'm 12 years old and so therefore I have knowledge of my sexuality at this point.
I don't even have I haven't even really gone through, really any of my, what are you going to call a hormonal transition for puberty? Right. But I'm going to have to make my peers are demanding that. Yeah. You know, society is somehow got to that place. So the start off with that, lead off with that one. I mean, my personal opinion there it's it might be nothing more to play devil's advocate here and then really just our children have had to make different decisions and have had different things foisted upon them depending on what's going on in society.
You know, like, I'm sure we've got like songs from the 40s and 50s saying things like, you're 16, you're beautiful in your mind. Yeah. You know, yeah, you got people getting married off and 14, 15, 16 just a few years ago, just a generation or two ago. Right. Yeah. And how do we do that? How do we look at that today?
I in Leo, you know, representing and imposing our values on that. We think it's gross. We think it's weird. We think it's but pedophilia but it's pedophilia. It it really but it goes to the same sort of idea that people were making those sexual decisions. Then. Now there was some societal pressure then to. Yeah. Fair enough. So I don't know.
Yeah. And so I think it's, it's kind of safe to say that that had some pretty significant lifelong consequences to a lot of especially females. Oh yeah. You know, them being a made it inbred an extremely young age right before they had really had a chance to become people or experience any kind of life. Yeah. Babies raising babies is never really the right answer.
There's some there's some, I think physiological health benefits to a young gestation. But, you know, body recovers a lot better than when you try it in your late 30s. Right? Right. But thanks to medical science. Yeah. Yeah. Well, technology shifts, the shifts, the moral, you know, shifts the ethics through for sure. You know, which is like 90% of what we talk about.
Yeah. But, you know, so through the lens, we can applying the same standards, if you will. Right. Say, hey, look, we look at just like you said a generation ago, we looked back at 15, maybe in 13, you know, kind of age. Kids getting married or breeding or, you know, getting into an adult relationship. Right? With consequences like children and family and social pressures and all that.
What we look back or you said just a generation ago and we kind of highbrow that and we say, you know, was I was kind of wrong. Yeah. So with that same standard applied to to what we're doing today, to the kids, you know, having them have to do all this contemplation about their sexuality at a young age is a similar in a similar fashion.
You know, on the same ethics, you know, thread. Right, is still messed up. You know, it's messy. I mean, I think I think it is from maybe maybe we are outmoded. Maybe society's values have changed. Not necessarily in a way we agree with, but, you know, maybe we're the old guys shaking our canes in the sky. I don't know.
Yeah, of course. But it's but it's during a thunderstorm. And it's not just a wooden cane. It's a metal rod for some reason. Yeah. For, like, a golf club, because some jackass cut me off in traffic. And, the gods from atop mount Olympus will strike the. You know, you'll be smote. I mean, you have to. If we were made in their image, then, you know, they have to have some kind of a sense of humor.
What better time this might be? I mean, really, though. Yeah. Were you be the crazy old guy in the community, you know, so, like, everybody else. Calm down a little bit. Make them easier to manage. That's so funny. Because, like, my my level of aggravation and responses to problems in traffic, you know, like people cutting me off, someone not paying attention, someone on their cell phone, etc..
Yeah. My it seems like my my response to those things is directly proportional to like, how should you? My life is at the moment. Right. Yeah, right. It's like if the like, the more you shove down that pressure release valve. Yeah, there's this there was this point in my life where I realized that's a great measurement. Like, you know, maybe there's some things going on that I'm not trying my finger on.
You know, not quite sensing, but like, someone cut me off in traffic and I literally blow up. Then I'm like, wait a minute, something's going on. It's like, it's time for some introspection. Yes. Maybe some self-care. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, just just to bring that into focus yesterday. Yeah. This lady, cut me off in traffic, like, you know, really bad, like, crazy way.
Like, I was, like, one of those. You can't be that stupid moments. Yeah. And I found my hands flailing and, you know. Yeah, getting really animated in the car. And then I was like, yeah, I've been under a lot of stress. There's, you know, there's no accident. You know, I did have to react. And it was a thing where it was a close call.
You know, that's right. But, Yeah. Nobody died. Yeah. Nobody was injured. I think I think I might have scared her a little bit with my medicine hand weight and the wild gesticulations for a minute or. And, you know, I've probably had, that day, probably had, like, quite a testosterone surge from the traffic moment. Probably. It was like that.
It's like that negative reinforced dopamine hit, you know, like. Yeah. Or you felt freaking amazing, but you did the wrong thing to get there. Yeah. Like we joked before. Like it again on The Young. Oh, yeah. You know, he's right. He's right. You know the the Jedi are arrogant and the Jedi were had did have problems right. Like so he's right, you know.
Right. But there's little kids. Yeah. They might not have been really done anything wrong. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and that's that's it. Maybe we also have to give, the take that same approach and say.
They're little to the little kids. You're feeling. It is incumbent upon them to make these decisions are probably going to make that decision again later. Exactly. So maybe it doesn't matter. It's just we're it's so high profile and in our face that they are forced to make this decision. We forget that they can change their minds. Sure. Yeah.
So definitely moral failing at the time, I think is, the number one that I put on there. Put it on the list was like, still major problems with sexuality and yeah, society's ability to talk soberly and properly, but not sex and sexuality. Yes, we I guess in my opinion, we've always sort of had that number one. Just being the first item was not necessarily the biggest thing.
Okay. There's a thickest telephone pole I've ever seen. Yeah. What the hell? Yeah. Wow. That is a beast. What is the. What in the world wanted to do that? I don't know. That's like an old growth story. That's like a 200 year old fucking tree. That was the find. That was the extinction of a species that relied on the canopy as something.
Sure. That thing had to be like the mack daddy of the forest. Motherfucker. So. So, for for for for our of our listeners. We just saw a telephone pole without exaggerating. Was probably in diameter or something along the magnitude of 18in. And I mean, okay, size matters. We'll put it in perspective, though. If it was a dildo, it would have probably left you empty like a manager.
It's got enough power going into it, you know. So it probably. Yeah. So it has the thing has three speeds slow, medium. And who needs a man?
Yeah. So which bring us here? Which brings us to our second moral failing. You know, because I think probably both of us were, probably had in the tip of our brain some type of brown joke. Oh, yeah. With the thickness of that pole. Oh, yeah. But neither of us went there because, you know, we're sophisticated gentlemen.
Oh, yes. Yes. And I definitely would have been talking about BBQs or anything. Yeah. So why would we? So. So we are, you know, sophisticated in the sense that we know that it's to finally crush racism, even these, like, things that are actually funny. And you probably get about a 15 minute, you know, laugh about, and, and so just to, just to be clear with that one, I was on the basketball team and I was like, the only there's me and one other way do that.
You know, I don't really like talking about race that much now, but I'll tell you what that stereotype was a bunch of bullshit because we had those open showers. Yeah. Yeah. I'm old enough to wear like, the the open shower where every dude was in there together after the game was. Oh, yeah. Like, just completely normal. Oh, yeah.
So. And, from that, from that small, small from this sample size. Small sample size, that that shit wasn't true at all. And I'll say in the Army. Yeah, I had the same thing there too. Right. And now, of course, there were some outsized people, but they tended to be of any race. They just happened to have a big dick.
Exactly. And they won the genetic lottery. Since Big. The biggest one that I, encountered in my life. In just a observational aside, peripheral vision, unfortunately, I think exists at that time, was from this short, stubby, white dude that was like, would have been a great, like, one of those dwarf characters and one of the Hobbit or Daddy or whatever ring type situation.
Right? So that was random. But yeah. So he would have been an ax wielding barbarian or something. Yeah. Which which brings me to a great joke. There's a guy, a guy in an airplane. He's sitting across from sitting next to this really, really, really gorgeous lady. And, he's, like, really desperate to. So talk to her, get to know her because, she just looks wonderful to him.
And. All right, so he keeps, like, trying to find a way to strike up a conversation. And, he notices. I applaud him for not being an insta creeper and trying to get her on social media. Yeah, right. Right, right. He didn't, like, pieced together from the boarding pass that was like, somewhat hanging out of her purse. You know, enough information until all of a sudden a friend request.
Yeah, yeah. And he happened to notice that she was connected to the airplane's Wi-Fi. And they wouldn't even have to wait. Oh, Jesus. So, like. Yeah, of the eight hour flight, 7.5 hours. Him fantasizing about joining the mile high club. Yeah. And until he creeping. Yeah, yeah. So he. It wasn't that guy. He didn't do that. He wasn't.
Thank God. Yeah. So he, You know, science finally is just going to go. He's going to go for the sake of conversation. She's in there reading a Cosmo magazine right? And she. And he goes, what are you reading? And she just one word answers Cosmo. And she's like, oh, great. That didn't work. Yeah. All right. She's a little cold.
Yep. He's like, fuck it. You know, you only live once. What's the article about? And she actually starts to blush and she goes, well, I'm actually a little embarrassed to say. He's like, oh, no, no, no, come on. I'm really, really, you know, I'm I'm cool. Right? Like. Yeah. Don't be embarrassed. What is it? Now, you got me curious.
She goes, what's an article about? Different men from different ethnic backgrounds and the sizes of their penises. Oh, right. He's like, well, this is going to be a very small. What does it say? She goes, well, it's very interesting. Says that since you're that Native Americans, tend to have the longest, penis is measured through all, you know, ethnic groups in the world.
It's, like, really, really interesting. What else would you say? And, she goes, strangely, this is odd, but, men that are have Jewish heritage tend to have the thickest. Right? It's like, no kidding. Really? Free from you? Yeah. Message overall. And, he goes. That is so. That is so weird. I never would've guessed that.
What's your name? She's like, oh, I'm Cindy. She goes, what's yours? He looks at me and goes, I'm Joe Goldberg. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Oh, man. Yes! Yeah. That's too good. No mixed message there. No, no, he just directs into the points. So it's the second moral failing of our time. Is, this inability for for human being kind to, like, get over the fabrication of race.
And it is crazy that fabrication is a societal construct. It is a it's a way to divide and conquer people. No, I don't that I know that has had any kind of world experience with human beings. Is actually a racist person. The only people I've ever met are insulated, jackass, which I would say is a problem with America in general, because we travel some of the least of any industrialized countries.
Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah, there's reasons for it. But at the same time, I have nobody, you know, I mean, I associate with lots and lots of people, right? And nobody that I associate and get to know at a deep level, like has any time in their day for that bullshit is it is absolute bullshit. It's it's a way to control and subjugate people.
It's a way to, you know, it works handily when colonists were on a new island and they needed to control people. Oh. Well, how, how white are you? Yeah, closer to white you are more fully empowered. Will give you. That's right. Sorry. And we don't raise any of our kids in any kind of way, you know, whatsoever shaming any any minority or race or different amount of melanin or whatever, freaking the way you want to carve people up, right?
You know, black, white, male, female, you name it. We don't even ever even in our personal conversations, like, you know, when it's just you and I and and and the walls, you know. Yeah. There's like never, ever any derogatory towards, you know, and particular race or anything like that just is it limits the ideas that you can take in it limits the, the people you're willing to listen to and the really hurt you.
Just everyone is totally, totally. And, you know, it's just it's just gone from from my perspective, it's gone from any, any rational or emotional. It's got no foundation in either. And it's certain sure as hell is not unconscious bias bullshit. You know? Yeah. It's, it's seriously deleted from the common vernacular and, the emotional, you know, side of it as well.
Yeah. But society, everything is still framed in terms of. And this is where I think the moral failing is everything's still framed. And in terms of like, you know, during Covid, you know, men have really suffered much greater than, than females as far as, you know, work or whatever the how they break it up. And black men have really, really suffered, you know, it's oh, here we go.
But there again everything has to be in the language passed into those groups. I mean, yes, normalize it. So whether or not it's normalizing it or maybe it is actually declaring some facts because like you've said, a lot of people. Our government even included, we divide things down along racial lines almost because we have to, because that's the way it's been done for so long.
And there you can. And quite often, your socioeconomic status in in the city you live in with what's your ethnic background is. Yeah, I think that I think that that shift is going to I hope it's still point because, you know, you can have someone of extreme privilege, you have a lot of color and there's a lot of melanin in your skin.
Absolutely. And be a person of extreme privilege, you know, then getting an additional advantage in society that is completely when you take that individual, right, compared to this individual over here. And it's just really inappropriate. But yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Biden says, I don't want to, give people, you know, scrub people student loans because, the Ivy League students who would get a benefit to this, what is the I feel like the members that have the Ivy League students that would get the benefit are also the numbers of whenever we look at privilege in the South and we just feel thrown race.
Yeah. The number of people that would suffer for privilege would be the same for the number of Ivy League school graduates, you know, not very many. Yeah. Self-reported race, that is true. And race that doesn't have any kind of basis and any kind of true genetic. It's like when, you know, Hitler trying to figure out what makes someone a Jew, right?
You know how many I mean, really, the census questions are based on how brown are you or what kind of brown are you? And many people don't even don't even have even, you know, real strong understanding of their family lineage. Right? You know, that gets into that whole even with 23, I mean, we don't have much more of one.
Exactly. Yeah. Because people are, like, swabbing their cat's cheeks and it's coming back. Oh, you're from Ukraine. Okay. Thanks. Like the first podcast and, you know, for his, like, YouTube channel. And then next week, we're going to do the lizard. Yeah. Oh, because he's got that YouTube money and all of that. Exactly. But all of that gets put into the pool of things that I'll be related to if I do.
23 million. Yeah. Let's say, you know, you're 23% reptilian and they've just proven, David, I, you know, correct. You guys. Oh, oh, indirectly. Because some jackass with the YouTube channel like. Yeah. So my mother believed that she was, you know, strongly had a strong belief that she had, quite a bit of Native American, you know, genetics. Right.
Dark skin round, you know, roundish face, but in the right areas. Round. Right. You know, I'm like, have the long hair that look very Native American, long, straight, dark brown hair, almost black hair, I'm guessing. Not a lot of body hair. Yeah, very little body. Nobody here actually, right, to shave her legs or anything like that. I and then,
Yeah, her grandfather was named Amos Woods and came from a tribe that was, you know, for all the records that we've been able to obtain came from a local tribe down in Florida. Gotcha. So it looked like, you know, and my grandmother, if I showed you pictures, you know, like, oh, my gosh, it's got crazy. Yeah, there's got to be something there, right, right.
And then the, genetic test that we did that came back is like, if any. Just a trace. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But nothing to look the part. Yeah, definitely look the part. If you're going off of, like, appearances. Yeah. And that leads me to exactly what I'm talking about. It's just ridiculous. Constructed. So based on appearances and, you know, superficial to the extent.
Right. So, you know, it's another one of those major moral trappings over time that people just can't get out of the identity aspect of race. Yeah. Right. So it's kind of both things we've talked about so far, identity based, but it's still but still. Right. Yeah. So here's here's one. And I'm I don't know how you're gonna feel about this, but, the amount of narcotics that people take is like that.
It's gotten to a, credible enterprise. And I think it's terrible. I think that the machinery that supports it and, doles it out to us. Our society is just anesthetized people on a massive scale and getting them addicted to a machinery that, has way too much money and power. So I had this thing over the years.
I call it the trifecta of ignorance. It comes from three major sources consumerism and all of its derivatives. Right. This one kind of angle. Yeah, right. So people's brains being focused on materialism versus, you know, living. Yeah. Right. And humanity, things like that versus creating all kinds of ignorance on society. So consumerism, religions, religion, especially in the extreme right.
Of course, all of these things are, you know, in, in quantity. Right. So any kind of religious extreme is just mind closing and numbing. Third leg of that stool, the tripod is, you know, drugs, drugs, psychoactive drugs. All right. I'm not talking about you. Thyroid medication. Yeah, yeah, you're talking about something that changes the operation of your mind.
Your perception is affected by it. So you look at consumerism even, like the, the, periphery. Things like the, diabetes associated with overconsumption. Right? That's that would be part of the consumerism, you know, model. Right. Like all the suffering and, you know, disease and disability that comes from that is just staggering, right? Oh, so drugs, I think is, third on our list.
I keep, want to make an the list here for some reason, but, so, like, you know, psychoactive drugs and all the, all the things that come with that, you know, and, the culture that we have even built in now around it is very profound. There's a certain kind of element of people that that, are in it are in the, in the scene, if you will, then start to think of themselves in a certain way as like just so you associate it from society, not only from the effects of the drugs, but from their actions.
Yeah. Which are they know are wholly criminal. Yeah. Especially if they're, dealing in some heavy shit. Yeah, yeah. So yeah. So there's like that just association that people have related to that, that, carries over and that's on, on, indirect consequence of like being a dealer, if you will. Right. Well, if you're a dealer, you see, you start to see yourself like not necessarily a cool Breaking Bad kind of way.
You know, you start to see yourself in a antisocial like when you, you have to be to maintain that to you know, it's, it's a job. It's something you have, one foot in society and one foot outside of it. That's what exactly. Great. That was perfect. That's exactly what I'm talking about. That was a perfect description.
That's how I should have said it. And the emotion that that comes with that. Right, right. Because you've got isolation on one hand and you've got, you know, needing to connect with and understand a cross-section of society on another and you're also alienated by the fact you're doing something. It's widely decried as immoral and illegal. Yep, yep.
And all the all the complex interactions psychologically in your, sociologically. Yeah. You know, that come with that. Definitely. And then not to mention the, you know, poor choices that people make when they get addicted to, some strong there we go, some highly addictive things. And, you know, that's an addiction is definitely a nuanced thing as well.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's people that are addicted to, you know, things that aren't typically known as being highly addictive, right? Because for them, it became just that thing. Right? It's weird how generalized you can be towards society and get a lot of result, like make, make broad sweeping generalizations and have them be true. Like it's really at least at least to a large enough degree that you can talk about it.
Right? And then at the same time, how there's such incredible individualization in certain things. Right. So, you know, the outliers, right? There's the bell curve, but then there's the outlier. Yeah. With any of it, it's more of a spectrum than then the bell curve really. I mean, it's there's all sorts of places you can hit along the line.
It's, it's a gradient. Yeah. So if you and enough metrics are starting to fall into that outlier category, you're then automatically getting all the social pressures and, you know, normalization cues that come from. Yeah, you know, so so there you go. There's your actual minority. Someone that on the top 20 metrics score as an outlier in many of them.
Right okay. Like there's your true modern day minority if you will. Right. Like so you know someone that has lighter skin, like let's say to the extreme like an albino, right? Yeah. Is that the albino is so white, they're not even like there's this pinkish mouse, you know, color, you know, type. Sorry, daddy. I mean, minus words again, mine and, so different in skin tone that they stand as a major outlier.
Right? They're not just like a light skinned dark person or a dark skin. You know, whatever. Right? They're like, out of all those groups. And so they're really an outlier on that curve. And then let's say they came from a incredibly, you know, poor socio economic, let's say generational economic. Right. And let's pile on. You're from an island.
There you go. Then. You have environmental dangers there. Yeah. So now we're talking about someone that would really need supplement in society. Yes. Like and that would be equitable. They need the boost to catch up. Yeah. Yeah. It's like this person can't be out in the sun like the other people. This person is definitely melanin challenged. And there comes a lot of things attendant with that you know.
Yeah susceptibility to skin cancer. And it ta dah dah. Exactly. And so to make just these broad sweeping generalizations like oh this person self-identifies as being quote unquote black. Yeah. Right. Yep. And they're whiter than me I mean looking at them. Right. Right, right. Yeah. And that's that's our level of verification. We really are. Well, you look black.
Yeah. Right there, you know. And therein lies the complete fallacy of the whole thing. Yeah. And and therefore a few more failing of our time. Well, I mean, ultimately, does it come down to the fact that we are, we are. But the seal creatures, we, come I think we gather the simplest of data and we say, well, that's what it's got to be.
Perhaps, but that's inappropriate in a highly technical, scientific, you know, society. I agree it's wildly inappropriate. Quick decisions based on appearance, based on superficiality, whatever. No matter what the criteria, then we really issue all the scientific advances that we've created and put in place. We need to use them. We need to make them daily tools. We need to make them accessible to not just the citizen scientist, but the pleb, the everyman.
Yeah, exactly. And in and in the lifting way, you know, like a like an a, maybe, maybe, maybe passive uplifting, you know, so like, by default, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a boost. Okay. You know, so like it can work in the background. You know, it doesn't have to be active. So not so not really like people are carrying around their tricorder, but rather the ambient information that's available at any time.
Exactly, exactly. And then recommendation engine based on that that you can get as detailed as you want to know why that recommendation is being made, but you can also be as passive as you want and just say, okay, I'll take that recommender so it knows. It knows. With our current society, if we had waited providing ambient information, then people would also try and provide ambient ads.
Yeah, yeah. Like it falls in the back in the consumerism domain, right? There's like the idea of of buying and selling something perpetually, you know, regardless of what it is. You know, we even call it a side hustle and have all these terms for, you know, everyone trying to leverage in. Yeah. Chisel into an angle, you know. Right.
Get get that fixed. Put the fix in on some kind of situation and you know it's like a friend or something. Well it's I think it goes kind of back to that fired article we were talking about that the internet and social media have created a puzzle out of all of these things that we need solved to feel comfortable, and then all those memetic settings like side hustle or the the means of go on social media and become an influencer.
That. Right? Right. All of those things are coming out of that. Yeah. And part of like the common vernacular now, which means they're part that's part of the normal flow of society, not everyday parlance. I mean, everyday conversation. Yeah. You know, some version of it gets brought up all the time.
So which brings us to what I believe is the number one more moral failing of 2022. All right. You look at global globalized, society. Right. Look at the global community. Now this is hard because it stands in direct contention with the military industrial complex, but agro industrial complex, the way that we have a relationship towards animals and the way that we use land, is, I think, probably bigger than military, because that's the thing that is going to inevitably unless something which I, you know, I'm not a not much of a person that prays much.
But if I were, I would pray for some technology to come out to save us from this climate disaster that we're seeing headed towards on a one way street. Yeah, but it doesn't. We don't seem to this point in time has the technology to stop that freight train. Yeah, even really mitigate the effects because we know they're coming.
The climate refugee situation that I've had nightmares about is going to be, incredible gut punch to all of humanity. Like, you know, we we're we're we're really tackling some of these metrics, you know, infant mortality, poverty, we're getting immunizations out where they need to be, eliminating certain sectors. But if we create conditions that create another dust Bowl, hey, you know, our technology is still not great enough to leapfrog that you bet.
And you still need the land to grow things. You bet. And right now, the land use that we have to grow. Basically what science has clearly shown is luxury products. You know, basically food of meat is really not a luxury. There's just so much evidence now that, you know, if anything, a tiny supplement of only once in a blue moon meat is more than enough to, you know, if there's even really any trace minerals in there that we need certain amino acids that, you know, and we can get.
But that's been proven otherwise, is we need from complete proteins like gene lock. Exactly. And all in all, proteins originate in plants. And all that science is out on that. Now, it's pretty damn convincing that, you know, there's there's people that have been vegan for 30 years and like, yes, healthy as fuck. They're careful and understand the what their body needs to be given.
For the most part. You know that your average Joe, if they just got thrust into veganism, would get fucked. Okay, yeah, maybe. Maybe they, you know, because they're only eating, you know, certain certain things that have no idea. But that's what everything. Right? If you're uneducated about a system trip headed for trouble. Yeah, right. You're right. Yeah.
Don't implement something. You have a, threat and steeped yourself in that way, right? Yeah. Cool. I thought would try to hustle you back. Just. Yeah. That's right. Well, fuck it, let's go this way because we need some time. Okay? I can think of, like, three more things that need to be discussed. All right? I didn't necessarily come hot topic burning issues.
Now, it's not necessarily I came prepared. It's that, I've been thinking about this. Yeah? Yeah. Dude, because I was, I was interested, I was thinking, like, you know, all this talk about looking back over, like, slave times or, some other draconian activity that we, you know, through today's what we now feel is obvious was wrong, right?
What is obviously wrong now that I could get ahead of the curve as far as a human being, you know, like, how can I improve myself now? Be, you're looking at you're being, taking a moralistic view upon the present and future. Yeah. Right. Like, not to not to gain advantage, but to, like, try to see the reality in my moment.
Okay. Well, you know, because I would like to think I really like to think, Sean, that if I were alive during slave times, you wouldn't be an abolitionist or exactly, exactly. Yeah. I would like to think that. Yeah, so do I. But, you know, it could just be delusional. And so then I wonder, you know, what kind of thinking would be required if you were at that time to kind of see the light if you were all right.
And wolves, certainly the first step would be to be a non-religious person, because every church was like, oh, slavery is not God. That's how God set it up here, right? Right. It's like these people are animals, subject subject to us. That was that was one of the ways of thinking that, you know, God gave us dominion over to animals.
And these are animals. Yeah. There you go. All you have to do then is just classify this group as animals. Yes. And it's all part of God's plan, right? Yeah. The dark skinned people were the people that didn't take the side in the holy war because they've been scorched by the fires of hell. Yeah, that's their mark of shame and punishment for their ancestors and decisiveness.
Okay, so this is a this is a minor. I'm going to get back to the food in a second. But this is a minor, thing. It's pets. Oh. Keeping them for our own youth, selectively breeding them. You know, I mean, it is selective breeding them to disease, you know, to to genetic ability because they've got all these, you know, hogwash.
I can't think of the word, but basically in built genetic defects because they're, gene pool is so small. Right? Right. Yeah. You know, hip dysplasia, you know, this or that bad skin. Yeah, you name it. You like the dog with the short snout, and therefore it's got all kinds of sinuses. Here we go, etc.. And that's just one aspect of it.
But, you know, dog bites are a real issue. The sanitation is an issue, but it does give us a convenient comparison for the genetic diversity of human beings to say, hey, look at all the different kinds of dogs. They're one species. Look at all these different kinds of humans. We have genetic diversity, y'all. I mean, you know, there's there's a there's a pretty clear distinction is that if there's interbreeding, if possible, it's the same species.
Yeah. Exactly. With with some. Yeah. Like, you know, caveats. Right. You know, that was find some weird things in nature. But in general rule of thumb, that's not to that's not that inappropriate to apply that basic litmus test. No. Well, that's what I'm trying to say. Is that right there, that one fact it's not hard to understand should dispel race.
There you go. Yeah, yeah. You you hit the word. You should have just requires a little bit of rational capability. Yeah. You know, and there's on the bell curve. Many people are, you know, just don't have the intelligence necessary, you know. Right. Or the information, they may be just holding accurate, true, true or in experience. Yes. Inexperience can lead to a lot of those deficiencies.
It really can because you cleave to that what you are raised to believe. Yeah. And it's also like that whole built into humans thing where you know, to try something new. We're creatures of habit because that's the same, that's the safe route. Right. We've been there. We know the results. So it's like battered battered woman or battered spouse syndrome or battered anybody syndrome.
You know, a lot of people are in those relationships because even in those environments they still know what to expect. Yeah. Right. So like, yeah, I might get that beating, but you know I it's comfortable. Yeah. Yeah yeah I know I know what the limits are of it and I know what the boundaries are. Yep. And you know.
That just made me think about how I've been advocating consistency with my girlfriend's kids. It's for the same idea. So they can build the mental model like the battered woman. They know what's going to happen if they do this or that. They know where the boundaries are. It's like, yes, I will take my lumps, right? You know? Right, right.
Yeah. So we can always wonder to what form of the cycle of abuse are we in that we don't see because, you know, it's been normalized and that's it. I think we have to look at all these things. We consider them moral failings, realize they are on a continuum that, you know, they might actually like, you're saying, it might have been normalized for us.
Do all these factors in our particular lives as individuals? And, you know, you have to question even what your stance is on this. If it's if it's right or if it is myopic and, and, parochial, if it is really just that very if it's a narrowed mindset, unnaturally. Yeah. So what what cultural for example, you know, quote unquote norms are victimizing people.
And it it's not even I think all of these things to some degree that we've mentioned are victimizing people. Yeah. Now. It might be that most of that some of these things, it all comes out in the wash and that person ends up being okay. Hey, you know, maybe at 12 they felt victimized, but at 27 they're fine.
Maybe. Yeah. They kind of like get over, you know, they they finally see through it and therefore it there's no effect on anymore. Yeah. They understand it, move past it. But then there's others that just pass it down to the next generation and it continues. There we go. And culture has such a strength. And it's you know, like anything that we're mentioning that and that we haven't mentioned that women's choice, anything that limits the ability to explore and understand what your own philosophy of life is, is probably an abuse to some degree.
If you reduce someone's ability to do, become or explore morning, then that's bullshit. You got it. So we just walk or walking by for individuals that work for the city and are wearing reflective vests and are clearly blue collar people, right. And they're all, horrifically morbidly obese. And two of them were eating cake. Literally. Yeah, yeah.
And, you know, this is this is par for the course of what we're talking about right now because we talk about food, right? Like overdue. I mean, some socio economic access has to be talked about when we talk about that, like, you know, food deserts and, and things along those lines. But these guys have a, have a government check and that they're, they can get it, they can shop it.
But where do they live and what is convenient for them to get, I don't know, but built into that culture of that particular, you know, line of work is definitely unhealthy food. Oh, hell. It's like, you know, crack a beer at 5:00, you know, it's like, right. Oh, I've earned it. I've worked my ten hours today. And, you know, you can see, just without having to see, you can see where their lives are headed.
Right? You know, when they're when they're dealing with the really bad diabetes and the really bad, all the all the health consequences of obesity, right? You know, so that is, definitely massive moral failure. And we're talking, you know, everything. Oh, dude, just diseases that just ravage the body, you know, you know, and that is a huge, huge moral failing of our time is that, you know, society and government and all the actors and institutions not getting together to help change the course of this.
You know, where this is going. It's not just personal choice at this point. It's epidemic proportions, disease. And therefore and that's and that is controlled by subcultures, right? And perpetuated by some of the lack of choice in some of the governments in some of our states. That's right. And there's this really kind of like, what do you want to call it, like externality or a way that that the corporate institutions get away with it built into the culture, too.
And that is where people suffer. They suffer alone, quietly at home amongst their family, because we're not a collectivist society. We don't take on the plight of others, but only to a degree when it is extreme plight. We in essence leave you, to leave you to your own devices. That's right. You face it yourself. You might need it yourself, but you need to.
You need to face it yourself. That's right. And so we, the society, doesn't see or hear. It's not part of the it's not raised. It's not like the squeaky wheel gets the oil type thing. You know, there's not enough people out there explaining their suffering. No. And so people then don't understand the magnitude of the suffering because it's not broadcast.
Empathy is something you have to practice and have and be courageous towards. Yes. Have courage, keep your empathy intact. And so if if we aren't hearing about people's plight, if we aren't carrying about the daily struggle, then I'd wager to say rather than be fatigued, if we heard more about it, I'd say we'd be more empathetic overall. Definitely this would.
At least we would start to desire some social change. Yeah, once we know the magnitude and once we stop basically victim shaming because often that's what we do. Oh, it was their fault. Oh, they got lung cancer. Oh, they got this. They got that. What really it is a lot of it's a societal problem. Yes it is. And a moral failing of our time.
Yeah. I mean addiction, you know, the way we ostracize people who have all sorts of different what are terminal diseases now? Right. And the thing is, we've always done it. Hey, you know,
The people who had polio and are still around, there's only a few that are still in, iron lungs. Yeah, still still alive. But they're marginalized. They're pushed to the edges. They might be an ever dwindling group, but it's an example of what we tend to do with suffering. We push it to the edges. We put it in our peripheral vision.
We don't want to look at it and confront it exactly, exactly. Yeah. So again, a huge moral failing of our time. Yeah. So, I'd say it's across history. We've always done we kind of ramp up on a ramp up on the, on the, on the agriculture and food and land use. But, I said that that is like, you know, a contender with military industrial complex is that that one is going to be really, really binary because it's either going to fuck us or it's going to go away.
It's going to tail off, okay, right. And we're going to and we're going to like dodge that bullet literally, you know, no pun intended. So humanity is either going to have a major event where basically the nukes go off or, you know, whatever dreadful weapon of the future, right, you know, goes off, creates a worldwide disaster like a nuclear winter or some kind of human suffering on a, on a level that is not even imagined, just unfathomable.
Or that, like, maybe it is imaginable that you don't want to type situation. So the military industrial complex could could definitely very well be leading us, you know, humanity into that, into that. That might be the Great Filter, if you will, that you've heard people talk about, you heard of this great filter. I have not so great filter is this cosmological, concept that perhaps once species or any kind of intelligent life anywhere in the galaxy or the universe for that matter, hits a certain level of, technological sophistication?
It's a self eradicating phenomenon. So it's kind of like Emmet mentioned this before, but say bacteria growing on agar or something like that, and someone's put a ring of antibiotic around a certain area. They only want the one bacterial culture to get so big. Yeah, yeah. Sort of like, maybe the idea that the whole Earth was made of agar and bacteria start dividing and, you know, consuming all available.
Yeah. The consequence of that is just there's no more food. And now there's all these organisms feed. Yeah. And so then they collectively and nearly instantaneously die. Yeah. Once they hit a critical. Well that, that that idea of technology technologies has this explosive exponential growth. But then we have the limit that we will reach and will in essence, self-destruct.
Exactly. So the idea is that could be like the great cosmic filter, the reason why we don't see billions of, you know, intelligent species just flooding the galaxy in the universe. Okay, that might be the reason why we haven't heard anything from that, that, you know, star system that we should have heard something from by now. Right? Because they're all dead.
Yeah. Just the natural consequence of of an intelligent species. Once it hits a hyper intelligence mode through technology. Self eradicates. Right it. Yeah. And I mean that's a it's a big assumption to make that no life to the universe evolves. Could move fast enough socially to keep up with this technology. Right. So the technology becomes an end unto itself and it outpaces.
But I'm saying that's a big assumption to make. Well there's this at least there's data for it. All right. But our sample size isn't all that big. It's not. But but the size and the magnitude of the universe and the age that we think that it is. Yeah, there should probably be something out there. So you're saying the universe should be replete with life?
We should see it. It should be obvious. Yes. Or it takes out a different form once a certain level technological that that no longer. No, no, I reckon I've always kind of for at least a generation, people have talked about the idea of it being through a pure energy. Right? Yes. You know, have transcended dictatorial. They are, it's a great sci fi, you know, line.
Yeah. And it's been done in so many different creative ways. It has. And, you know, I like the more is that the next form and, you know, even some movies have come out recently like interstellar explored it. Yeah. Yeah. Like all of a sudden you can have a subspecies like in a, you know, near black hole orbit, come out a million years later into a completely different future.
Yeah. And, you know, 20 minutes went by for them. You know, times I think that's fine. That's really fine to talk about. It is so, you know, huge world filling at the time. This military industrial complex, this idea that, you know, this the power brokers of, of war and those that create the mechanization of war, those that create the means of the material and intelligence to to conduct war, right.
Then having extreme power and influence over government, which then in turn asks for more of that stuff. Right. It's a it's we have a feedback loop. Yes. That's what these complexes are, is they're just complex feedback loops. They're, they're machinery that keeps themselves running. They're, you know. And growing and growing. Yeah. It's, it's a perpetual machine.
Like, could never exist in any other arena. It's, you know, example being the work machines of, like, Tammany Hall and all these other places, you know. Yes. Yep. And then all the stuff that, that then that leads to the. Yeah, all the lies, deceit, death, destruction, false flag operations. You name it, all imbued in that system that are just part of its nature.
Yeah, yeah. So that and then finally, since we're getting to being back, is this idea of this, you know, what we're doing with animals in general and land use. So the amount of the amount of arable land that's been, you know, converted to just grain for feeding animals is, you know, immoral by any standard, by any measure.
And there in the soil depletion, erosion and desertification that we're getting with this is creating a global event. Yeah. And the global event is, is definitely fast tracking us towards. Oh, shit. Your timing's off. Here. I have time. I can probably trust Street twice by the time I got there. So the collective efforts of humanity to live this western consumptive diet of, you know, lots of animal products, right?
Because it's considered luxury. And, you know, to some standards, it's considered like, you know, that's a that's a measurement of I'm improving my status in life. Yeah, right. I was able to get a ribeye this week. Yes. And the cost of that was China and India entering first world nation status. So now you have the majority of the population of the world wanting to be like the Western.
You know to some extent, yeah. The pressure that's putting on the land use and the, animal agricultural feedlots, I mean, it's, it's go so deep is so beyond a moral failing of our time. And of course, this is directly or indirectly, this is where the whole pandemic came from. It came from the intermixing of species, dynamic infections, right.
Or from a lab leak where they're doing gain of function research to try to stay ahead of the power curve of having all these animal interaction. Right, right. And either way, either way, it's from the same source. Yes. Yes. Our relationship with this, and I don't think it's worth arguing about. I feel like it's such a big thing.
We really just need to focus on the symptoms, because we can never really narrow down the cause. Because either way, it's endemic to our world. Yes. And so that could be the number one moral failing of our time is our, is our, abusive nature towards other sentient creatures. You know, inevitably that the desire for that, because it tastes good.
Right. And we've been told by at least one major religion that we have dominion over it. It's ours to use. And that ties into the culture, which is religion again, which is one of the trifecta of ignorance, as I call it. Yes. And so the moral of those are like at least a good five, moral failings. You can probably do 3 or 4 episodes about this because there's some there's so many smaller, nuanced ones, they no doubt.
And but I think we also came up with the idea that, hey, this could also be down to not necessarily the trite, never used concept of unconscious bias, but like you said, we are it is incumbent upon ourselves not just think about the moral failings of society, but to think about why did we arrive at those moral failings as being the things, those touchstones that needed to be spotlight?
Maybe we are wrong or need to widen our mindset. Maybe we've got strictures. Yes, in narrowing things that need to be fixed in individuals. And I have direct experience and evidence that that, to this, to this phenomenon because when I was, like completely unplugged from television and no cell phone everything when I was in Iraq for about a year.
Yeah, right. When I came back to the United States, I felt like I was in la la land. Like, I mean, disillusioned people beyond imagination. And yet I could not understand the acclimate to that dude. And it was so bizarre. I mean, and now and now I have that sense, right? I have a new I have a new sense that I came from that.
Right. You know, I have it and stand back objectively and see that, well, I wish what I was saying is that I have a consciousness that I no longer see it, because now I'm so entrenched in it. All right. So I have but I know that it's that I remember the nuance of, of of being just being unplugged from it, from so long and coming at it almost with like, fresh eyes.
Yeah, right. But for a moment, seeing it for what it is and being like, oh fuck, right. But that did, in essence, give you a new sense because you can go back into that mindset. You can explore that mindset. You can have a you have a maybe a maybe, you know, a lens to filter something through. You can say, which has gotten cloudy, but it's still yeah, it's still there.
It's like that, that old spyglass you can still see through. You can't quite make out the details of this with it. Right. I'm on the ship approaching. That's a really good way to look at it. I mean, you know, that's going to say the lens might be chipped and cracked, but it's still there. Yeah, it looks cool as an epitaph.
My, you know, that's a, that's an icon on my on my on my brooch. Yes, yes, it's definitely a conversation piece. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Is that a spyglass in your pocket? You haven't seen me. No, it's just my. It's just my local telephone pole. Dude, that thing was ridiculous. I've never seen a telephone pole that thick. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, normally they're pretty standard as well. I guess. You look at those two, that one's thinner, but they're about the same. They have that general consistency of what, maybe like 12in diameter. Yes. Not that one is like 18 to 24 range. Yeah. Easily 18 to 24. There's like the they make these mostly from what I understand fast growth pines.
Yeah. Yeah. And on on these renewable kind of huge farms where they, you know, selectively harvest and come back and they plant and it just keeps it going. From what I understand, that's where the majority of them come from. That makes sense. I think that one that was like on the corner of the lot or something, they've got the harvest that they did that one where it gets.
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's massive. Geez, that one had to cost more. They had to just be like the extra large one. We're going to charge you like three times the amount. Cool. All right. We're out I did.