 We don't want to treat children as their blank places. There's no philosopher called Calvin Hobbes That's the comic book You didn't read the comic book. Is that just a generational thing? What's up? Hey, that's a talk to you again. So what do you want to start off on? Let's make the list You want to make the topics? You pick one that you want to talk about Sam Harris's book you're reading Sam Harris's book I want to know I want to know how you determine good things from bad things before You read the book and like how that book might be changing here now. That'll be like a cool thing Where else you want to go from there? Let's go with I guess you wanted to talk about how like we kind of Picked our top Marvel movies. Okay MCU Ranking. Yeah, you wanted to hit on that. Okay. I I I actually believe that you can work with another person and and come out with at least with the people who are a part of that list Yeah, a good Teared system of where you say this movie if we value this this movie's actually better like a criteria We have a great fun criteria I hear that we're judging each movie from yes, probably set them in a very nice Like objective order absolutely, but you have to have a read-up on criteria And then and it's cool to just watch people like work work on that Okay, but yeah everything's recording and then do you want to do the racist movie where you inverse the races of the people? Like how would that work? Uh Or general let's talk about What would have? The benefits of creating a white slavery movie because let me tell you something. Oh, we can talk about that. Yeah, I The white slavery movie that's I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it would be. Okay, and then Let's see before the end of our lives. What is what's one last thing to like hammer out at um? I Want to talk about the let's talk about the political landscape and how we approach discourse in it. Okay, okay? Landscape and Discourse all right. So first thing morality you heard you're reading Sam Harris's new or one of his books Which book was it? It's called the moral landscape the moral landscape one of his Middle-area books his first book was the end of faith and Then his last his most recent book is waking up. Okay. Yeah, and then this book falls somewhere in the middle of that progress, okay, so You're reading the moral landscape by Sam Harris Where were you at morally beforehand? I guess by that I mean like just to make sure you're an agnostic atheist Is that how you would recognize yourself? Yes outspokenly. Yeah, if somebody asked me What is my belief in God? I would say I do not know whether or not a God exists Okay agnostic, but I do not believe in a God sure Atheist then because I have not been given what I would deem proper evidence to Completely convince myself a hundred percent that there is a God This is also kind of rudimentary, but like how do you define? Gnosticism agnosticism like in explicit terms. What does that mean to you and what's atheism the agnostic as I understand the definition is Lacking evidence to know something. Oh really and then narcissism as I understand it is Having having complete evidence to know something What was that first definition you gave me just so I make sure liking evidence liking evidence to completely believe something What is that? So, what is that the definition for? Agnosticism so to be agnostic is to not know something because you like The pro you like enough evidence to completely believe means you don't have enough conclusive evidence to come to a conclusion So your position is I don't know so your position basically is I don't know okay, okay, and then Gnosticism in my in simple terms is I know mm-hmm and normally people when talking about Gnostic atheism Would say I know that God does not exist Yeah, that's when you like a definitive a definitive no or don't know right like there are no gods I'm claiming that claim yeah, what do you think? Theist is compared to an atheist Up to you and I I think most theists are Probably not or agnostic theist agnostic theist is something basically what faith is Because you don't people will tell you we kind of got ahead of ourselves like what is a theist What's an atheist just real quick for me a theist is someone who believes in some sort of deist God yeah, and then an atheist is someone who lacks a belief okay sure sure sure not someone that doesn't believe that God Doesn't exist well. I also don't believe in a God, but yeah That's not because I say there is no God now. I'm a theist I'm an agnostic the atheists as well, and I would say like I know these terms are really confusing But it's good to hammer them out that way if we'll mention like 30 times in this conversation Well, I when I because I inform people I'm an atheist Yeah, they often ask me so you believe there is no God Yeah, that's and I say no I lack a belief in God theist believes in a God atheist does not believe Gnostic claims to know agnostic claims to no So I am an agnostic atheist. I do not know if there is a God I claim to not know because and are you open to the idea of a God actually? Oh, yeah, okay Oh, yeah, I'm just need the evidence for yeah I would have to and if you got the evidence for it Would you change your position and become a theist if I got evidence if I got the Evidence through the proper channels that I use to claim that I know Is it possible to be for the same God claim for the exact same God claim for that one singular God claim to be both an atheist and a theist This is where we get into that like we Jordan Peterson kind of where you don't necessarily believe there is a God But you act as if they're that a God exists. That's what I would consider an atheistic theist Cuz the terms are kind of contradictory. Yeah. Yeah, it's like I don't believe in a God But I'll act as one exist. Do you dare call Jordan D. Peterson a self-contradiction? I Think a lot of the things he says is self-contradiction. I think so too. Anyway, so morally and I think I think I think That's what makes a lot of his arguments hard to follow So you don't believe in a God Where do you get your morals from because a lot of people would say that without a godly if you wouldn't be able to Tell what a good action is from a right action How'd you do that before you read Sam Harris's book and you're still reading the book? Yeah, I'm so reading but like where how did you determine that even be? Um Interestingly enough, I was raised inside Christian, okay, that was why I grew up. Sure. So The argument that I don't know if you've heard Ben Shapiro's argument is that a lot of people in the Western in Western civilization has have the Morality that they do because they were they grew up in a Judeo-Christian foundation. Okay. Um, I Although I think there is some validity to that argument I will grant him that there was probably some Judeo-Christian foundation along with a lot of Greek philosophy that played into developing the West I Would not a hundred percent say that you have to have those things But it's hard to it's hard to say exactly where morality comes from For me without acknowledging the aspect that I was indeed raised in that kind of set Okay, so I can't for I can still part of your environment Yeah, I can't foresay that your formative years. Yeah, my formative years were not developed alongside those marathons but that being said a Lot we have we have a Ebalt a lot of the Christian morality So for instance a lot of a lot of Christian texts and a lot of religious texts in general has a very strict view against homosexuality sure and I even at a young age argued myself out of that vote out of Adhering to that dogmatism of the religious text. What would you say if someone said that was your Holy Spirit talking to you? Like like I would say that you were able to come to a what some people would argue a more moral perspective Yeah, was by virtue of the late in God belief that you just were trying to deny in your life I would say That Like if I come from a perspective that you need to have a God to have morals Yeah, the fact that you came to the moral position was through an aspect of a spirit speaking to you I would say it's very interesting that the spirit would speak to me now But not to the religious text writers at the time that they wrote the text. Hmm. It seems it Because when you read that text it seems like a very Dogmatic view of the times sure it seems like the prevailing view of the time. Yeah in that book. Yeah, and I Think based on a lot of different human emotions throughout time We have managed to argue ourselves out of that position through rationale. Okay a lot of these emotions or empathy You have you logical rationale of like why is that any different or worse? Then you know sexuality that I have sure things such as Things such as the argument of like I did I really choose my sexuality and did they really choose their sexuality right? I think actually whether you choose it or not. Yeah, why is it a big deal? Like yeah, is that anything to morally hold against somebody sure my view and I was just like I Don't believe that it is. Okay. So why did you come to that decision like? What was the machinations in your mind that took place for you to determine this is wrong and this is right I Feel like it comes. I feel like a lot of morality is Harsh Partially decided through empathy. Okay, because I feel like to to come to moral That's nice. I think you come to a lot of moral things The you have thoughts that run through your head of This was done to me. You have to have the ability that to put yourself in someone else's shoes, okay, and Decide if this was done to me if the actions that are getting done to these people if the actions that are you know said about these people if the if the rights being upheld away from these people if That were to happen to me because of something. I never chose or Or or make a ditching that I did choose either way, but didn't have an effect on other people outside of my life Would I find that a fair and just thing to happen to me and would I deem that to be acceptable to happen to me and When I thought about these things in an honest way it without Without ever letting trying trying to keep as much bias from my religious past from coming in as possible sure I Had to honestly level with myself if that was me if I were these people I would not agree that that is a correct and moral way to treat me So you're saying you determined it based on your sense of personal empathy Do Does your personal sense of empathy? Is that an objective standard? To determine right things wrong things or could your empathy actually lead you to determining something? wrong or incorrect or like actually Hapazardous for like I think maybe systems I think maybe Empathy wouldn't be incorrect in the situations like you would feel something bad for somebody, but I think They they there's a saying and we've all heard it. Sure. The the path the hell is paved with good intentions. Sure. Yeah, a lot of people do Bad things because they felt empathetic sure for people like how about this? I'm thinking My sense of empathy if I was a slave master is well look these guys were living in the swamp or whatever now They're my property. I took good care of my property. They're learning jobs. They're learning values. They're learning English I'm while they are working for me as my property. They are at least having a a Life with potentially more American values that I value Taking place in their lives like I can I can twist I can twist my sense of empathy to make yes by slavery So I guess I'm wondering if is that would you agree that's possible with empathy? Um, or is there something different? I? Do agree that's possibly but as the other part of empathy is you have to be honest with yourself. Okay, I Don't know many slave owners that would be honest with themselves that they would want to be treated the way that a lot of slaves were treated I can tell you right now if I was like I can't say for certainly But like the slave people slave masters even like antebellum times didn't look at slaves as people. I know they were not pretty Yeah, so in that case like I'm still being empathetic to all the people. I know I'm just not qualifying my slaves as people Then in that point in time you have to You have to put yourself in your shoes had you had the misfortune of Being born into that situation of being just born a different skin color than you are now Would that be a just and fair treatment for somebody to do to you? Yeah, based on nothing that you chose just on the arbitrariness of being born into this world into a Situation you had no control. Is there a more objective standard to determine good things from bad things good things from bad things Other than empathy or there probably is okay There's a lot of things that we don't know for sure and there's a lot of like Adjective truths that we don't know about yet and I would argue that just because we don't know about them now Doesn't mean that we can't work to figure them out or work to better ways of getting to them And I would say that like just as just as like the Objective of good health that we had this is actually if you want this is actually an argument the same hair snakes in his book Okay, okay. Yeah, we're getting we're getting to the area of yeah Yes, there might be more objective methods Maybe reading about them might be a good way to like learn more and so one of the things Okay, I thought that one of the things Sam Harris brings up in the moral landscape It was first in the first section of it when he's talking about how like morality sure he says we didn't we don't We didn't always have the objective standard of health that we do now, okay But that doesn't mean that there wasn't that objective standard out there Explicitly right explicit got it got it. It exists somewhere in the ether we have truths to be discovered We implicitly know we value health. Yeah, but now we have it like a codified Yeah, okay, and we and over time we developed a better objective standard Moving towards what is the truth of what is good health or perfect health or whatever so be it that? You know the objective standard objective truth of good health will be okay We are moving slowly towards that, but we we have we developed better objective truths Objective standards. Yes to uphold to reach what is good health Can I try to summarize that or can I just so I can catch up? Yeah. Yeah, we back. I mean, yeah Didn't always explicitly say health is good thing We should make laws that maximize our appreciation crowd of a foundation of health that we've been maybe not laws, but Maybe like guidelines societal contracts societal guidelines By to reach good health or two right, but now we have those and we're constantly improving them Right and see that from like our desire to have like health care laws and like Better fair wages or fair prices for medicine and stuff like that like we it's it's the reason why if you get the flu Yes, you wouldn't say to somebody I'm in good health Because somebody would look at you very awkwardly and be like but you have the flu No, and you'd be like no, but I'm in good health, right would be like and it's like we have laws We're not rules the contradiction would play in your head because we but we developed the objective standard Fundamental recognition yeah that having the flu is actually not what good because now we know what the flu is Yeah, I see. Yeah, so we've developed an objective standard that says flu not good health. Okay, so we I get it So yeah, I'm glad we got that back and forth. So the basic you're saying before we didn't know so much what it looked like Before we didn't explicitly recognize the status of what someone who's not well It's like compared to someone who does now that we know what it looks like to be healthy What it looks like to not be healthy now we can take any person and say is this personality because now Yeah, so now we so what Sam Harris would probably recognize that is this moving the objective standard But how do you interpret it because I know Sam Harris has a book and he says it But how are you is that your interpretation of it? Um, or I would say I would say something sort of along the same lines It's a better it's a better way of defining something that was originally hugely subjective sure to Better contain that definition the subjectivity right into a more objective I think it's always good to have a firmer reference and then have standards of okay Well, yeah, you're healthy But are you in a capacity where you can maintain this status? Yeah, long period of time Or are you doing things that are detrimental to your health? I'll be active long-term like we can it's good to have framework references for that. Yeah But I guess I'm going back to like if there's a guy who's doing something that we would both agree is bad Why are we in agreement that that thing is bad? Like here's my other argument for it just Coming back to empathy real quick. I developed empathy as I get older and it comes stronger and stronger They're more experienced. The empathy that I have at 10 is not the empathy that I have at 30 Yeah, so usually I 10 year olds do pretty awful right stuff to people and I would hope by the time I'm 60 my empathy is much more improved than it is where I'm at. Mm-hmm. Does that mean that I'm better To make a good moral decision. I should only do it at a certain age like no No, and it's see that's where you would have that's where you want the importance of older generations as they've learned To develop this empathy make laws for us not maybe make laws But help younger generations have that guideline because you don't want to There there's the blank slate theory. Yes, people. I know they think that people start out with blank slates Sure, it's been highly proved that people don't always start out as blank slates and there are other Biological factors that play in Calvin and Hobbes the great philosopher came up about the tiger. Yeah, they're great Yeah, so we don't want to we don't want to treat children as their blank slate So there's no philosopher called Calvin Hobbes That's the comic book You didn't read the comic book. Am I is that just a generational thing? Yeah, okay, man. Dang. Sorry. It's a good comic Any comic books. Yeah, okay, like I mean like in the newspapers. Oh, no funnies You would love Calvin and Hobbes all comic books. I read you would love I read dober I'm gonna send you some links. You're gonna be amazed how much like this kid's mean So what I was you would you would want to not approach people as though they're blank slates Sure, and you go back like you would have older generations trying to set up a better man of guy But I guess what I'm saying is if you can make a decision based on empathy today Knowing that your empathy will improve dramatically as you get older How confident can you be in any of the decisions that you make morally if you're using a Individually individually probably not very confident. Hmm. Wouldn't it be better to have a more Objective system that's not based on how old you are. Yes, and I'm not saying that we couldn't create a better one. Okay, okay I'm just saying that There are there are many things that play into the aspect of morality Empathy is probably one of them. Okay, sure. Yeah, there are things. Yeah, like for instance having a point of reference It was probably another good one. So let's make this let's make this morality right now Let's say. Hey, we both thought I could I maybe I can slip in my my idea of what Sam Harris was saying Maybe night this even Sam Harris's idea. It might be a slight combination of like the Dillon tea Sam Harris and a bunch of other people but more or less like yeah, also some manual condom there, too But like well, here's my here's my thing. We both value empathy It's probably better to be empathy and be empathetic treat other people empathetically than not treat other people Yeah, there are exceptions But we both value empathy when it comes to treating as long as you don't prevent as long as you don't like perverse empathy Yeah, sure. That's that's probably the goal there. Yeah perverse and and we also wouldn't want to use empathy like empathy in a way Where we start to deplete generally our sense of health because we value health over being sick Yeah, we also value life over being dead like there's a lot of List of things that we can greet and like it's good to have frame of references for things It's nice to be able to have the right to explore Ideas and get a good frame of reference where I've been not be able to explore ideas and get a good frame of Reference all those things wrap up into what I call the social contract the social contract is basically good will or well-being It comes by a lot of different names based on whatever philosophy you're going for but I value well-being and empathy Frame of references asking questions health life all that falls into it. So We'll put a pin in that Put a pin on that what does that mean? It's just like you know, I put a pin on a board like pin So we got well-being. Okay. Yeah, but what I was gonna bring up is I think a Lot of the stuff that I kind of Had noted in form morality. Yeah comes from like different philosophers of red as well. Sure. Sure. So one interesting philosopher is John Rawls, okay? John Rawls is the guy who came up with social justice Warriors no, no, this is the actual Philosophical thing of social walking through it. So John Rawls says that You want to try to develop laws in the real world as though you were developing them in some Pre-existing area. Oh, where you can't see the traits that you're going to be born with You can't tell what situation in the world you're going to be born with I know this so you try to make laws as fair and just as possible because you don't know where You don't know who you're gonna know what that society look like and what kind of laws with that society make up If you don't know if you don't know the traits you're gonna be and that is the idea and that is the idea of what social Justice, and I like that. Yeah, I like that. Um, I think There's a guy named Emmanuel Kant. He's like this dream philosopher. Yeah, basically He's basically saying like if I'm gonna make up a rule that guides my actions I'm gonna imagine that everyone else is gonna also act on that same rule as well And what would the world look like as a result of that? So like if I wanted to just you know do something horrendous like steal something if I say well It's okay for me to steal this then everyone's gonna be able to think it's okay for me to steal this Then we have a world where everybody thinks it's okay. It's on the wall. That's normally called precedence. Yeah When you set precedence for something Usually it means that somebody else can refer to that precedence right that you've said and can come back and do the same thing to you I think in both in the case of Rawlings Kant and your empathy It's the action of taking yourself out of a situation and seeing how it affect the general public And I think without knowing with without setting it in such terms that it can You want to set it in such arbitrary terms that you don't rule anyone out right because you don't know Whether or not you could have been somebody that would have been you don't want there to be special pleading in the rule Yeah, so what I'm saying is going back to that pin well being is basically just an agreement that we Fundamentally agree that certain things are more valuable than other things and because of that We can make up objective rules to support this well being Yeah, and if we do that what we'll end up with is a society that's better off than people who don't make rules To support well being yes, so like if we value not getting murdered compared to getting murmur We should make a law that says don't get murdered We should come up with a punitive list of things that will happen to you if you do murder And this is our social contract and people who murder will will refer to the song cut the contract and be like now You get put in a box or you get put to death if we agree to that But like that is what we all agreed on and the societies that don't come up with those kinds of rules It says you can murder anyway You want won't live as long compared to the ones that come up with the well the social contract We'll have some sort of objective truths that we know about the morality that we're living by We have a we have a test it's basically what you're running is a giant moral test Kind of it's like more or less like we have some subjective things that we like But we can also come up with objective rules to support those subjective things that we like and we can step out of ourselves And like do a model of our head of like is this a good rule? Does this rule that we're coming up with support well being or does it not support well being? And I think empathy and all the other things that you're mentioning fall into like the things that I value I want people to behave empathetically I want people to look up, you know Full officers and come up with better ideas to improve the laws that we have that deal to take how we interact with each other Okay, I think that's all good. So now I will bring in a counter argument Oh, go for it. Well, actually, let me let me finally state the last bit of Sam Harris's go for it so The basically the reason Sam Harris has stepped into this argument is the goal of the goal that I can Get kind of from his perspective of why he's doing this is he wants to try to avoid two really big things that happen in the world that kind of make Make morality very strange for the world. Okay first thing is if he wants to try to avoid like Not just religious dogmatism, but dogmatism in general. So dogmatism being Being things that you strictly adhere to that you might not have evidence or support for those being the best thing But you're doing them doesn't want people to talk out of their ass. Basically. Okay. He wants he wants good supporting rational like evidence based logical reasons for why people are behaving the way they are It sounds like he just wants people to have good reasons for the things that they believe Yeah, got it and evidence for the things that they know to base their reasoning off as much objective truth as possible Okay, sure. Okay, and then the other thing he wants to avoid and I think many of people will Maybe understand this as moral relativism, okay, so let me give you a good example of what that is Okay, go for it for the camera. Yeah I mean, I think I might I might I might be educated go for it. Go for it More relativism is Sam Harris puts it is we we don't want to say that something in another system is Moral just because it has existed in that system and that's just a way of life Yeah, and that we can't judge that on our own moral. Have you heard a cultural relativism? Yeah, that's the same thing Same thing. Yeah, so for instance We wouldn't think we in the West wouldn't think female genital immunolation is a moral act No, but it is something that goes on quite often in the Middle East and it goes on quite often incident And that doesn't make it a more and that just because but there are people who will be apologists for it happening Because they'll be like that's their culture. Those are their morals. That's what they live by and we can't judge them for that Sure, Sam Harris and I yeah, even before reading Sam Harris book firmly disagree with that Right because if that is the way that we live in the world then what we're saying is Whatever you're born into you can arbitrarily treat anybody the way you want based on however you were born into the world Yeah, and that causes a very chaotic disaster a situation for the world because all you all it needs is One society born thinking that murdering everyone in the world is the ultimate goal of their society yep Yep, yep, and people around the world will be like, that's all more Right, right, and you can't respect that just because I think people who will be more Relativist about that Oh, yeah, exercise is great. Oh, oh exercise the rights. Oh, yeah Before me good