Real Time With Bill Maher: Overtime - Episode #228 (HBO)

[dobbs123456789]

Penn is the Man!

[MrBobbi1980]

wow, even hardcore democrats are against Obama,,,,it's true he is awful.....he extended the Bush tax cut,,,,what the fuck????

[evilyig]

@MrBobbi1980 I wish I was able to look at things as if they were so black and white.

[mrpapisho1]

The top comments are exactly the same!!!!!!!

[ThePhantom135]

"I don't think that without God people would kill one another."

Then what's the point of religion?!

[Phaillanx99]

@ThePhantom135 believe it or not theres more to being good than just not killing people,

[evilyig]

@ThePhantom135 The point of religion is to make the aesthetic meaning and beauty we find in our lives "official" since we could not just appreciate it based on it's merit alone, we have to invent absolute moral law and truth and pretend meaning just floats around in space regardless of an observer. But that's contemporary religion. Originally, it was intended to explain wtf is going on, but then we discovered humans are biased and superstitious and science helps eliminate that bias when it works

[ThePhantom135]

@evilyig True dat.

[talkindurinthemovie]

the guy in the middle of them so cute 7:27 

[decep01]

not with bill on this one, cops suck 

[InfinityEnterprises]

I love how Penn always has this way of taking the issues he's talking about seriously but not taking himself too seriously.

[lavinder11]

The difference between two realists: one is optimistic the other is a cynic.

[ASexyChef]

I agree with Penn that Most people are decent and Good, but you ignore Tribalism, which is an Us and them mentality, so you take away police we create tribes and they will fight, in their communities people will be good, but conflicts start with a few bad apples.

[evilyig]

@ASexyChef I don't think Penn would disagree with these subtle distinctions. But look at what people have done in the last thousand years through altruism alone. At one time all the power in the world was in the hands of hereditary dictators, who had no interest in giving up that power. Through nothing but intellectualizing and people defending what seems fair, we now look at this as an antiquated relic reserved for backwater countries. Then look at slavery, and women's rights, and more.

[ASexyChef]

The world has not always gotten better, it has been since the industrial revolution but prior to it it sucked! Right now the US sucks though but its repeating history sadly, if you took the police away in cities it would be shit, if you took them away in like a small town it would be fine, in many, like my home town if there were no cops tomorrow, rural places would be fine because community is strong cities are not like that though so we need cops!

[NexisFilms]

In my opinion I can't imagine the USA being without police .

Chaos would brake out .

But I'm not sure about European countries .

[Davidrochat509]

Lmao i cant belive a baptist pastor is on bill maher!!

[NexisFilms]

@Davidrochat509

And he's kinda cool 2 ..

[kaloncar]

He used to be my Pastor. There is hope for Bill yet.

[437thx1138]

Nazi guard-see Milgram experiment. Penn is right that is defined percentage of population. And not on their own-see authoritarian personality for that piece of work.

[someone2sayit1]

@onebaud1 lol. Thanks for my laugh of the day.

[BrotherAtticus]

Pretty civil discussion. The elephant in the room was when Bill Maher said that the world is getting too mean. Bill Maher. Still, I enjoyed the talk. Penn's a pretty funny guy.

[xmenprince]

My Bro Atheist Penn is just wrong. I'm an atheist too, but I am inform, we need structure in order to be good with people that are different than us, like people that are our enemies.

[BonDobbs]

The only people who use aggression in a goal-directed fashion are psychopaths. Most people (95%+) would not act unethically even without the police.

[warnation101]

Penn has a point about people being good. But making the argument that people not having list of people to kill is rather weak.

Most criminals doesn't have lists and there are random criminals. It's true that there are many people that are good against people that are bad. But I have to agree with Bill. It's either they are forced to commit a crime or they chose to, for some personal reason, given the situation. We can only hope that people are good but you cannot always expect them to be.

[surrealnumber]

PENN, the only person there with an IQ over apple pie

[theresistance45]

Yeah when you give people the power to do bad they would, and now that the government is getting more and more power they will use it against whoever stands in there way, like the poor countries in the middle east. 

[dutytocareforothers]

Thom Hartmann is really cool. Too bad that zany hog took up all the talk time.

[loveofphysics]

We may be better off than we were in 1905, but we are certainly worse off than we were in 1975.

[4PAMMERS84]

"he's an atheist, he's a christian, but THEIR BOTH COPS!!!" LMFAO!!! 

[kaloncar]

Our my former pastor admitting to eating Jack Daniels ice cream. Priceless.

[joshuaoha]

Excellent conversation.

[Di0genesus]

lol. Liberals fear their fellow human. They think we all need to be in cages. They don't believe in altruism anymore than their opponents.

[maxceleo]

the ending was epic

[forcegfx]

The first question was mine. Intention was to ask whether he confuses unintelligence with conservative's instinct to be mean when they are confronted with the illogic and hypocrisy of many of their positions.

[forcegfx]

The first question was minw

[SuperAnidem]

Best panel ever

[mfentruck]

@SuperAnidem

That was pretty hilarious. The pastor seems like fun

[ImperiousViking]

is the pastor a little-person?

[varange2]

Bill doesn't seem to understand that the regulators are the people who INITIATE violence mostly. The problem with having regulators is that they themselves become the Demjanjuks.

[hungryman211]

The trouble with not having a police force, aside from the argument as to whether or not people will take it as an opportunity to commit crime, is the question of what to do with someone when they do commit a crime. Do we go back to religious style trial-by-elders? Stone them to death? Do we gather together a posy and hunt them down for a lynching? And at what point does a posy become a police force, anyway? Abandoning legitimate policing is a step backwards in society.

[hungryman211]

@hungryman211 (cont) Having said all that, I do like much of what Penn has to say. He is obviously very intelligent and funny also. I just don't altogether agree with his politics.

[SketchyBack]

Penn is a radical libertarian. He believes religiously that people don't need laws.

[adknerr]

That Pastor is so gay.

[dutytocareforothers]

@adknerr I was thinking the same thing.

[MrMagedramy]

Enough with this no heaven no hell I will kill and rape everyone argument! It's fucking silly. Since I became an atheist, it never crossed my mind to kill people and not even animals. Actually, I became more giving to stray cats and dogs!

Please religious people stop this non-sense once and for all!

[getshijan]

@MrMagedramy atheist does not believe in god....as you said that does not mean that we don't know what is good and evil......atheist have high moral value and sense of justice......bcoz they use reasoning and logic....which i cannot say of theist....

[tomofnorthcal]

I agree with Penn. The stats also agree. 99.622% of the time nothing is going to happen.

[adknerr]

@tomofnorthcal Absolutely. Certainly there would be some people that would be terrible without the law enforced. But think of how many people live in rural enough areas where you could literally do whatever the hell you wanted to you distant neighbor and likely not get caught for an extremely long time. Either that does happen and we just dont know or hear about it, or (much more likely) it's extremely rare that it happens.

[SlyBeGone]

I miss George

[zaneacademy]

"It is getting meaner and dumber..."  funny but true :)

[psistarpsi80]

Best panel ever!

[gandalph54]

wtf penn, wheres your red tie?!?!

[stefers08]

I disagree with both Bill and Penn Jillette. First off, I definetly don't believe all people are naturally good. Both psychology and sociology disprove that. Morality is learned and yes, people do tend to be situational. Second, It's been proven that in a state of disasters people tend to either revert to most basic destructive instincts while others become almost saint like in their desire to help others. But Thom Hartmann said it best. In the game of life, we need referees to keep us in line.

[guitarfuckist]

I have a list of people that I feel should die. I dont see how that is funny.

[greyfox5000]

Yo im high and that was pretty deep. Pen mentions how people are inharently good, Bill claims inherently evil. Id like to argue that its not good or evil, its weak or strong Those who are truely strong are the ones who push and become extrodinary. They become Good or evil, heros or criminals in the eyes of everyone else who is weak. But do the weak exist because they lack a passion for life?

[sgillhoolley]

Yeah, I mean, no black death going on, so who cares if the banks have a financial incentive to tank our economy. Jack the Ripper isn't stalking our streets, so let the cops send a 2-tour Iraqi vet into critical condition, no worries. When is the last time a barbarian horde raped and pillaged its way through your community? So lay off the mortgage derivative market...it's the last thing Americans know how to do well, don't you know?

[ASexyChef]

@sgillhoolley Are you serious? Please tell me the statement is a Joke, bankers with their scheme, robbed millions of people around the world, with a bullshit fraud futures market. Were they took loans and sold them for 10 times the market value, and in most places thats called FRAUD gold line right now is under investigation and having to pay out for selling gold for 3 times its market value, so sorry, the bankers should be treated like a barbican horde and be crucified for their crimes!

[skinmelive]

what is that experiment called? the Millham?

[Ano1dfatguy]

Penn is my hero.

[Ladiesman1447]

I agree with bill, there's a lot of people out there who are only a few enforceable laws away from being total savages. As george carlin said, we're barely out of the jungle, we're just apes with baseball caps and machine guns.

[Th3Wab3]

im with Penn!

[VoteYou]

The Pastor is hard to not like here LOL

[VoteYou]

Bill is 100% right.

[doublepenetr8or]

I love Bill but I'm not going to buy HBO. Damn you, ABC!!!

[mistacramer]

Does Penn demand to have a guy one foot shorter than him at all times?

[Avocadoish]

@mistacramer He's a gigantic dude. Hard not not have someone a foot shorter next to him. lol

[zammmerjammer]

I got here after watching videos of dogs being skinned alive in China and kittens being used as shark bait, so hearing that people are inherently good is a little hard to take.

The results of the Milgram experiment can't be denied -- when there are no consequences to bad behaviour (or when it's implicitly condoned) bad behaviour will flourish.

Be in charge of a kindergarten class for a couple of hours and THEN tell me humans don't need rules.

[pinkycheeks]

@zammmerjammer in regards to shit china does, i think it comes down to cultural relativism. i can't imagine the chinese skinning dogs and baiting kittens solely because they get morbid satisfaction out of the act alone. they probably just see it as another way to profit from things like shark fin soup - therefore they don't consider it "evil" as you or i would. some countries probably think killing cows for meat is despicably evil, but it's fairly normal for us. i hope i'm making sense lol.

[zammmerjammer]

@pinkycheeks Well, actually the kittens as bait was a bunch of rich white guys who obviously just thought it was funny. And as for relativism, causing unneccessary suffering is wrong no matter who does it or what the species. I'm not under any delusion that just because eating beef is "normal" the way those animals are farmed and slaughtered isn't horrific.

But I remember as a child being cruel to others only because no one had yet told me it was wrong and made me think about how I would feel.

[jaysz9]

love the end

[TreonZaden]

I love Penn Jillette but I have to counter his Polio argument with one word, Cancer. When polio came about, there was an effort to actually cure it which succeeded but due to our corporate manipulated food system, stunted healthcare system and the massive money from "treatments" as opposed to "cure", I fear that we will see no actual cure in our current system even if one does exist. There's simply too much money in keeping the disease around.

[rustedhope]

@TreonZaden *puts on tinfoil hat*

[AntiSkill42]

@TreonZaden there can't be THE cure for cancer. cancer = cells ins your own body gone crazy because of hundreds of different factors. polio = virus. vaccination might work for a generation or two.

[DynamicMotionsHD]

@TreonZaden What? If you knew advanced biology you would understand that your accusation is completely ridiculous. Wow you're comparing polio virus and the complexity of cancer. I guess the money generated from the treatment of polio virus STOP it from discovering it's cure.

[TheronSax]

@TreonZaden That's because finding a vaccine to a virus is nothing compared to curing a genetic mutation. You sound like a 911 truther or Obama birther.

[Mattm1986]

@TreonZaden

True. Plus Jonas Salk, the guy who found the cure for polio luckily wasn't a greedy man. He could have made millions even billions of dollars but instead, he gave it away for free. I don't see many people doing that today. Even if there is a cure for cancer discovered, the cost would bankrupt most people.

[Burchellvideos]

@TreonZaden not to dismiss your argument, but it is fair to say that when polio was a problem, life expectancy was half than what it is right now. The older you get the more likely you are to form cancerous cells in your body.

[gtrblues83]

@Burchellvideos But Cancer is also developing more and more rapidly at younger and younger ages..So I wouldn't correlate age with cancer, at least not that directly.

[bel2u]

@TreonZaden it's wrong to compare polio to cancer b/c they are very different diseases with very very different mechanisms of action. Also I think ppl need to be more educated about what cancer actually is. There many many different types of cancer so one "cure" will not be able to take care of them all. I suggest you read up on the biochemistry of cancer because if you understand what cancer is and how it comes about you will understand the difficulty in producing a "cure".

[ASexyChef]

@bel2u WHy is it horrible if you viewing it like by the death rate, its different, but than WWII is totally different than WWI was, people will compare them but they started different totally different equipment yet allot of the same countries were fucked and allot of people suffered and died so its fine to compare them.

[charlesvan13]

@TreonZaden

Polio is cured. There's a vaccine that is given to all babies.

You see people who are crippled in poor countries because they didn't get the vaccine untile more recently.

[Jalilvideogeek93]

@TreonZaden But there is a lot of money in curing a disease as well. The providers that offer only treatments lose money, but the ones that offer a cure can make money.

[CalebAlucardtheHagan]

"If the constraints of society were lifted and I was all that was between you and a meal, you'd crack my skull open with a rock and eat my mating parts."

I absolutely agree with Bill. Without our internal restraint or outside forces of suppression (e.g. the police), it would be utter, debased chaos.

[alphacause]

Steven Pinker, a Harvard professor, has a book "The Better Angels of Our Nature: The Decline of Violence in History and Its Causes", which catalogues, with statistical rigor, the decrease in violence/suffering in society, which is at odds with our exaggerated sense that things are getting worse - a perception driven by media hype. This decline in violence and suffering demonstrates, despite what religious people say, that increasing secularization of a society DOES NOT lead to moral decline.

[zammmerjammer]

@alphacause How does that jive with the enormous number of casualties (and the growing proportion of civilian casualties) in modern warfare? Are we only examining Western societies? Because that would not exactly be a representative sample.

[alphacause]

@zammmerjammer Even if you account for casualties in modern warfare, including both military and civilian deaths, they are far less in number than what we had just 40 years ago. Compare the Vietnam War's military and civilian deaths to the number of deaths we have in Iraq and Afghanistan COMBINED, and our death toll in both countries is miniscule in comparison to what happened in Vietnam (continued)

[alphacause]

@zammmerjammer (continued from previous response)The same goes for conflicts in other parts, not involving the USA. Even if you look at deaths in modern war torn Africa they are small in comparison to deaths, in Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, Maoist China or Pol Pott's Cambodia. Watch the lecture by Steven Pinker, which gives a brief summary of his book that I mentioned:

Short version:

watch?v=ramBFRt1Uzk

Long version:

watch?v=MfYlSBbp0k4

[zammmerjammer]

@alphacause OK, well then I feel like 40 years out of all human history is not a long enough span to draw any conclusions. I feel like you could find a lull in our violent history at multiple points in the past but that isn't necessarily indicative of some greater peaceful trend. Wasn't the 20th century the bloodiest century? And aren't the proportion of civilian deaths in warfare INcreasing?

[mickeypopa]

One of the funniest overtimes recently. :)

[acphenom]

The Hobbesian cynicism of liberals is unbelievable; do people tip because of the government? Do people recycle because of the government? Considering examples of social practices such as these, I hardly think Penn's suggestion was anything less than respectable. There are violent areas of the country, and how are police handling them? What about the Amish community? They rarely involve the police in their affairs. People are the key. I believe in government but Maher was an ignorant cunt here.

[zammmerjammer]

@acphenom People DO in fact recylce because of government. The infrastructure to collect and process recyclables has been created publicly for the public good in response to a demand from the public. There exist social practices on the negative side that far outstrip any good done by tipping or saying "thanks."

And the Amish community (a strictly authoritarian society that functions by enforcing blind obedience) has violence and abuse just like the rest of us.

[pinkycheeks]

jeffress may be the only christian in existence with a good sense of humor.

[zammmerjammer]

@pinkycheeks Hey, there are lots of us. The frothing rednecks just get more airtime.

[tookthenight]

Their discussion makes me think of Lord of the Flies

[Wardrielm]

@tookthenight Except these guys are adult...except for Bill...huh

[purpurpledog8]

"And while it is a fact that not all conservative people are stupid, the reality is that most stupid people are conservative." (not sure who said this)

[zammmerjammer]

@purpurpledog8 Well, classic conservatives latched onto stupid people as a stable base of voters so it's their own fault that denying facts like evolution and global warming have somehow become "conservative" dogma.

[balistik94]

One of the funniest overtimes.

[BigMrFirebird]

Great panel. Just wish I could watch entire episodes.

[Marsman315]

That was an excellent overtime, considering how lousy that particular episode was. I'm glad Bill, Penn, and the pastor did most of the talking.

[NorseMariner7]

Humans are neither bad nor good. It all depends on who has the authority.

[90122123769462375608]

good show bill

[90122123769462375608]

lol .......0 really there are 6 billion humens on mother earth .......0 interesting indeed

[oakcliff42]

Hillarious

[VoVaKissCam]

Humans are bad, and they will do evil every chance they think they can get away with it. The FAT guy is wrong.

[Undergroundhiphoop]

@VoVaKissCam And what gives you the right to speak on my behalf? That I'm bad and will do evil every chance I think I can get away with it? I could have cheated on a test today, several times, a 3 hour test, but I didn't do it. And I didn't even study that much.

[VoVaKissCam]

@Undergroundhiphoop I feel that you are evil, too lazy to cheat....repent now for your end is near.

[Undergroundhiphoop]

@VoVaKissCam LMFAO, a obvious troll is a obvious troll.

[VoVaKissCam]

@Undergroundhiphoop Exactly what i was thinking about you, young man.

[IneffableLifestyle]

@VoVaKissCam Many will. Definatly not everyone.

[dfg93353]

Um.. Cool story bro, Where's Cenk?!

[onevision1991]

Bill is spot on on this topic. Penn is right that everyone isnt bad. But without the police there would be anarchy, it would be awful.

[1019drummer]

Really great!! :-)

[ThePeacefulAtheistt]

One of the best overtimes I ever whatched

[sparkyj99]

~~> What about party marijuana for everyone... Loved it...

[lopsaitis]

Get Cenk on!

Wolf-Pac

[Sylinic]

@lopsaitis SERIOUSLY! Wolf-pac needs alot more coverage, DO IT BILL GOD DAMNIT

[mmmodafoca]

dudee wtfff?? that was the most funny ending i had seen of a show in a while.

[Ilamarea]

Haha! Awesome!

But Penn really should get his idea of how vicious humans are straight.

I'am not saying that everyone would become murderers, it's just that everyones capable and it would happen for a LOT of us if there would be nothing to stop us.

[SmoothCriminalAaron]

0:42 Mountain of mans!!!!

[fiercefunky]

OMG the guy between Bill and Penn looks so adorably little. I just wanna pick him up and kiss his little forehead.