 103.9 FM, WZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WZO Radio. 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, October 10th, 2021. I'm Larry Rhodes, or Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host, Wombat on the line with us. Hello, Wombat. Welcome to our 20th episode of All Time. Oh, no, more like 420. More like 450. We're keeping on keeping on. Our guests today are George Brown, two and a half. He'll be with us here in a little bit. Dred Piratig. Hello, Dred. How are you there? And John Richards, all the way from England. How are you? Hello. I'm fine. Thank you. I'm recovered. I'm happy you're fine. I'm very happy you're fine. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also be talking about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books, and superstition. Wombat, why are we going to be talking about today? Well, why do you have to make it mean versus you? Why can't you guys tell me? I can talk about it right now. What you, the topic is, are you making these walls? It's always us versus them. We're going to be talking about that on this show today. Tactics of narcissism starting with us versus them, and then whatever else we want to talk about after that. But before we get into the meat and potatoes, I want to fill it up for our own Dred Pirat Higgs for our weekly invocation. Arr. Well, be me captain. I shall not want. He maketh me to float in salt waters. He stireth me through glassy seas. He filleth me bowl. He stireth me through the states of noodliness for goodness' sake. I, though I sail through the heaving of tempestuous waters, I will fear not sinking. For thou art with me. Thy mast and thy rudder, they comfort me. Thou preparest a feast before me in the presence of me, mates. Thou quenches me thirst where grog. My goblet runneth over. Truly, pasta and grog shall abide with me all the days of me life, and I shall dwell in the galley of our quub forever. Rah. Oh, man. George, it looks like you're finally set up now. Let's do a quick check. Are you there? Oh, I think I'm here. Am I there? Fantastic. Yes, you're absolutely right. Wonderful. It's good to see you. Guys, we're going to be talking— Uh-oh. I'm getting some weird internet wards. We're going to be talking about narcissism again today, but specifically about tactics of narcissism. But I do would like to check up with everybody and see how you guys have been doing. John Richards, you just survived. Like what was it? Something, it was basically the flu, right? Well, let's tell me about like, well, let's tell me about, right? Coronavirus 2019. Yes. No. I'm a survivor. It's unfortunately, of course, I was vaccinated way back. So for me, it was, you know, people who are my age and don't get vaccinated have a 50-50 chance of living. Yeah. But in my case, I was vaccinated, so I suffered a mild sort of cold flu type of thing. It wiped me out, to be honest, you know, I had to lay down and sleep a lot, and there was a lot of people who didn't get vaccinated. To be honest, you know, I had to lay down and sleep a lot, and there was a bit of upper respiratory nonsense, but I'm fully recovered. Fantastic. I'm so happy to hear that. I really am. I really am. That plus another win for science, right? Absolutely. It's just a wonderful, wonderful thing. It's like, hey, I get to keep my friends around. And yesterday, I had my flu jab. Okay. Cool. I got my, you call it a flu jab? Yeah. It's a slang term for vaccination. Okay. Dredd's nodding has had, you call him jabs over there in Canada too? Sure. Okay. Sure. Jabs and stabs. Can I please get stabbed and jab today? Hey, Dredd, how have you been? How was your week so far? Well, today we're going to be celebrating our Canadian Thanksgiving. Congratulations. Yes. Thank you. And what's probably not known to most Americans is that Canadians started celebrating Thanksgiving well before the American holiday came into existence. I believe it was 1592 and some guy came over from Europe and landed in Nunavut. And so they gave thanks for having arrived safely on the shores of Eastern Canada. Wow. We, so that's the story of Thanksgiving. Yeah. I am sometimes appalled with how much American-centric my education is. Right? Yeah. I really am. I was discussing, I haven't really long discussion about that yesterday. I'm not going to bring it up again today. So don't worry about it. The guy who listens to the show. I would have something to say. I know. It's crazy. It's crazy just the things I'm like, of course it wasn't an American thing. Of course it was somewhere else. If you ever hear about that, it's cool. I did also want to say, so I put my culinary skills to the test. So last night I cooked a ham with a honey mustard glaze, which is just divine. And then I made the stuffing today for the turkey. And then I'll be cooking the turkey after the show. So silly question. Is it the same kind of standards of Thanksgiving in America? If you know the traditions, like the same sort of ornaments, turkey. We just go for the food. We don't, we don't, we dispense with the ornaments. Got it. It's just turkey, ham and Brussels sprouts and scallop burgers and that kind of stuff. Can I come? Yeah. Absolutely. There's plenty to go around. I'm surprised there's no maple syrup involved. Yeah. I'm absolutely surprised by that. Yeah. You're right. No, there's honey, but no maple syrup. Okay. Okay. Okay. Larry, we're going to play a game called what's on your shirt? What's on your shirt? What is on your shirt? It's flowery shirt. This time just flowers and palm trees and jungles. You know, it's no longer summer. Are you just going to, are you just going to? The high today is supposed to be 81. Well, that's global warming. You know, we know we're ruining the planet. It doesn't mean we got, there's still fashion clocks that run by the hour. You mean like September 1st? Yeah. Yeah. There we go. And I did switch a little bit before over to flannel, long-sleeved flannels and stuff, where the cold snaps we've had. But I'm getting back more again. It is. It's too warm to be wearing that all day. It is. I love, I love Dredd's shirt. Yeah. What is on your shirt, Dredd? Yeah. Oh, Wanted Dead or Alive? Schrodinger's cat. And it's a black cat, too. Notice it's blood analyzed. It should say dead and alive. Yeah. It does. Dead and alive. Oh, dead and alive. Yeah. I've seen a brilliant meme on that theme, meme theme, which is we've got Saint Schrodinger, the forgotten saint, standing outside the tomb, and the rock is rolled back, closing it. Okay. And he's saying to a couple of visiting women, Mary and somebody, he's saying, and if we keep it shut, Jesus is always both alive and dead. That's awesome. We're going to throw it up to our own man at the hour. George Brown. We're talking about narcissism today, specifically about the tactics they use. And so, Well, that's why we're talking about this. Yeah. We could. Well, before that, I just wanted to mention what I've been up to. Sure. I have, as you may know, I am interested in the effects of destructive people on my own personal life and kind of delving into that as a personal quest to try to peel the onion and plow through the cobwebs. And so I was doing a little reading on a few people. Jim Jones of the People's Temple. And Jeffrey Epstein. And honestly, I got so disgusted when reading about Jeffrey Epstein that I almost couldn't keep reading. And anyway, the topic of the hour about him is compromise. It's a new Russian term that I think we're all going to be hearing more and more about in the future. But I will leave that to rest right here. So that's where I've been putting a lot of time. Of course. What does that term mean? Well, it's a form of blackmail. But we're used to thinking about blackmail, the goal of blackmail being money. In this way, it's the manipulation of another person. Yes. To do what you want them to do. Yes. Okay. Coercion. Yeah, it's a form of coercion. And I believe that J. Edgar Hoover was actually running the United States in a way by doing that to politicians. And there was a fellow in New York City who ran New York in the background. And his name was Robert Moses. And I believe he did the same thing. Anyway, enough of that. Can I flag up? George's wonderful mixed metaphor. I've never heard it before. Peel the onion and work through the cobweb. Well, I'm peeling my own onion. At my old age to understand myself. If I peel an onion and read some cobwebs, I'm not peeling that onion anymore. I was just like, okay. You're trying to work out your baggage George. Yes, exactly. George, what I love about your, the story that you just told me us right now is that it sounds like there are a lot of different kinds of tactics. Narcissists use to coerce people to make them do what they want to do. And it's unfortunately really effective. And I think it leads into the power that we, how about it? It leads into a direct example of how we give narcissists power. And then it asks a question of like, why do we do that? And why are these things so? Yes. And so, That's a wonderful question, I think. And it's what we're going to bring this show. And I think it's like, it was a problem that you brought up from yesterday. It's like, why is this so effective and can we break these tactics down? So we know when we see them. May I say, I would like to just one little overview here for a moment and say that there is a difference between what we're talking about and official definitions of narcissism. And so, or let's say, narcissistic personality disorder. And so these definitions, and I think this is very exciting, the work that psychologists are doing ahead of the official diagnoses in a way. So the official diagnoses are conservative. They are what people have observed and validated and codified. So it's a scientific approach and they tend to be back a little bit, whereas there's very exciting work being done ahead of the official definitions. So we will be talking about what we've observed kind of from the armchair and not the official definitions. Sure. We have an expression for this, which must be an American expression, I think, because it refers to a movie. We call this sort of mental coercion. We call it gaslighting. It's something new that I've been hearing about. Yeah. Well, that's one. You said it came from a movie. Which movie did it come from? Gaslight. Oh, there's a movie called Gaslight. Is it just some guy gaslighting another person? Is that where that thing came from? The old black and white movie where this sort of Sven Gali figure controls a girl to do his bidding by, you know, not threats but manipulation. Wow. That sounds like the premise of V for Vendetta as well. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, George, what's that? Well, what it is, is one tactic that they can use. Right. And what it is, it is the convincing somebody else that what they know to be true is false and replacing the truth with the fantasy. And when you say that, the main thing I hear is when you convince someone that something is, you misinform someone even against their own credit. That sounds like you're taking advantage of someone who doesn't have a good standard of evidence. And the funny thing is, is we are all perceptible to that because no one has a perfect standard of evidence. It's something that you can't afford, right? Which means they're in lies, the problem with how we give narcissists powers because they exploit a weakness that we all share. And that it's a tricky thing to figure out two things from false things. And when you have a very clever person who knows how to manipulate information in just the way that you want to hear it, they can completely make you do things that are against your own interests. Larry, what's up? Well, it's particularly effective, I would think, against people who are religious and that they already follow a totalitarian world view and they're susceptible to taking something at its face value. It's terrible. Well, gospel. Are they adding another dictator to a dictator? Yes, yes. I would argue if you are already religious, you're already a victim of this. Because there's no reason why anyone's born is convinced that any higher power or anything exists. You're convinced of that when you're born, starting from the fact that you're not. And to young men, think about it on your own. Exactly, exactly. When all your authority figures, your parents, your pastor, your teachers, all believe this, you will take it. Oh heck, the law enforcement agents, the politicians all the way up to the president. People make your license plates. Yeah, everybody. And I was born anyway. I'll wrap this up into this too, because when you have an authority figure who believes in a God, it makes it very easy for that person to make enemies of other people, because it's like, they don't believe in our God. They're not, they don't have our values, like I see us in them. In group, in group, out group. And I feel like in my head, that's the OG path of religion. And while it's been so effective in terms of shaping cultures, it's essentially one guy, because it tends to be a dude, let's be honest, on a hilltop or on a church pew or some sort, being like, We're the microphone. We're the microphone. They are the bad people. Let's take their stuff. And everybody agreeing because they're not us. So of course we should take their stuff. Right. It's such a shame. It's real shame, but I feel like we fall prey to you today. If we look on the news, I can, I can't flip through the channel right now. If I were, I don't even have cable, but I know if I did have cable and I turned it on, I flip through the channels. If I had 30 channels, I think that's how many channels are. It's been a while. I guarantee you, I would at least see 10 narcissists. Or mouthpieces of narcissists telling me how the world works or why some group of people are terrible or why something terrible is happening. Why I don't have cable, but like I don't think the internet's any better. It's being honest with you. I know I'm getting a little bit preachy here, but John Richards, you know, in England, right? I would hope that it is not as polarized as it is in the US. Is that the case? Or do you feel like things are worse in some other ways? Well, it's not so polarized here. You are in a ludicrously polarized situation right now in the US, I'm afraid. And we're going that way, which is usually the case. You know what you do, but we follow 10 years later. But what I wanted to mention a couple of things. One is George brought up Jeffrey Epstein. And of course he's very topical at the moment because one of our princes, the Queen's second oldest son, is implicated in a case which is being brought against him for, what was the expression, seducing, wasn't raping? I'm not sure it was that. An underage woman. I'm pretty sure you said he didn't do anything. He looks very trustworthy to me in that interview, right? Well, I can't. He's letting truth be all around his face. I think that's an outstanding guy. I can't possibly say anything more about that because I'll be thrown in the tower. But yeah, it's weird. The other thing I wanted to mention was that permeates, but yeah. The other thing I wanted to say is that where do you stop? There's a line, isn't there, between sort of benevolent manipulation and narcissistic coercion for your own mean purposes. John, I wish you didn't say that. What do you mean by benevolent manipulation? And is there such a thing? Please explain to Sven Becker. Okay. Well, I'll give you a personal example so you can pull me apart. Many years ago, when I had sons, but they're now fully grown up and flown away, one of them wanted a gun. He wanted an air rifle. I mean, you can't get guns in this country, but at the time you could get air rifles. It's very hard to get even them now, but back then some boys had air rifles and they did target shooting. So I said, okay, I'll get you an air rifle, but remember that the only thing you can do with it is point it and pull the trigger, and that's it. That's the end of the fun. So I was trying to persuade him not to want it. And that's manipulation. Without telling him not to want it. Exactly. I was trying to persuade him to change his mind about wanting it, but that's benevolent manipulation. We don't want young boys with guns. So the principle behind it was, you know, fatherly. I bought it for him. He pointed it and shot it a few times, and then it's been rotting in the garage ever since. Okay, okay. He didn't put out his eye with it. No, he didn't. The most harm he did with it was ruin one of our drain pipes. Which is still broken. The rain runs down the outside because there's a hole. I remember the Red Rider air rifle from a Christmas story, and I think that's what Larry was referencing. You're going to take out your eye with it. That's right. But I was going to comment because when Ty had asked John about whether, you know, Britain or the English are divided, I mean, I thought Brexit was a perfect example of that absolute polarization where it was 49 to 51. Wow. I mean, how can something be that contentious? If it isn't clearly obvious that there's a benefit to the greater proportion of the population, why does it sit at 51, 49? I would say that that decision shouldn't happen until it's 65, 35, you know what I mean? It just seems that this one vote over the post is just an absolutely ridiculous way because you disenfranchise essentially half the population when you allow a decision to go through on that basis. It's crazy. Don't get me on this. It's almost as if a bunch of narcissists made government. It's off a system that a bunch of Greek narcissists made up. And they say it because they're the ones who've benefited because their money is already offshore. Yes, of course. And it's only got more valuable while the rest of us have seen everything get more expensive or even unavailable like petrol for the last month. Yeah. Wow, I didn't even know that. Yeah, ours just went up 20 cents a liter. Yeah. It went from $1.37 to $1.57 a liter. So it's crazy. Yeah. But we're paying that. Oh, no, you did say liter. You did say liter, didn't you? Because I was thinking it might be gallons like they asked him. No. These guys are still gallons. Yeah, we're still doing it by gallons. That's why all the satellites and spacecraft are crashing. Yes. They're sticking to the standard measurements and all that. Well, the story behind that was in the early shuttle, what wasn't it? When one company made part of the rocket to metric and the other company made it to Imperial and they didn't fit properly. Wow. Yeah. That's not cool. That's not cool. What are you going to do? You got to get your rocket chips together. Those damn narcissists. Yeah. So here my thing is narcissists have definitely an impact on our society. They have an impact on our government, but it's not just something that's like recent. Like we can't just point to Trump and be like, Hey, narcissists were done here. Like it's systematic and it's been affecting it since the conception of what government, you know, if we are taking it from Greek principles, it is and was. Because even the people that we were basing off of their ideas were probably not the best people in the world either. They we like, for example, Aristotle Plato, known slave masters, known people who write literature on how to own people does not want women in positions of power only men, but not just any man has to be land owning men. And that means rich people. So like, you know, you have a system of government that we're based off of who are people who are only interested in their own self interest for the most part and aren't privy to the consequences of bad judgments or bad calls as the people that they are in control of. And I feel like that is in my head, an aspect of narcissism. And whenever complications or complaints come up, it's like, well, at least we're not like the Chinese. It's like, whoa, whoa, why are you, why are you us versing them? Like why can't we focus on our problems? And why is pointing out another weird system or a different system from a different people in any way helpful to improving ours? Like, can't we work on making it more perfect union together? I feel like we have to struggle so hard to get through that we have to struggle through waves of narcissism to get good at anything. But we are at the bottom of half hour. George, I saw you raise your hand. We're going to get straight back to you when we come back to the show. Larry, why don't you take a step and we'll come right back to narcissism, how they're screwing up. Everything's nice. This is the digital free thought radio hour on WOZO radio 103.9 LPFM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after the short break. 103.9 FM WOZO radio. Welcome to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour on WOZO radio 103.9 LPFM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm doubted five. Let's talk about the atheist society of Knoxville for a second. ASK was founded in 2002. We're in our 19th year. We have over a thousand members now and we're back to having weekly in person meetings down in Knoxville's old city at the Barley Taproom and Pizzeria out on patio. We also have weekly Zoom meetings for those who don't live in Knoxville or are old like us and don't want to get out into a crowd and take the chance of getting COVID. So check on our website. That's KnoxvilleAtheist.org or go to YouTube or Facebook and check on our pages there. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start with our friends. On that way, you won't pick up. Hey, we're leaving mid-bought on a question from George. We're talking about narcissism and why narcissists won't let us have nice things. George, what was on your mind? Well, you know, following up on what we were talking about in the last half hour. Narcissists are master manipulators. And that's the name of the game. I think to me, I mean, there are various characteristics that they have to control. And they have many different techniques of manipulation to bring up the unspoken name so far, Donald Trump. The thing that perplexes me, the question that I just have not been able to understand in answer to, is why does anybody want to work for this man? Because they should know that he is going to throw them under the bus. You would think. I mean, as much as we read about that happening all the time, we just have to wonder about people like that. Dread? Dread has an idea on this. And this is a good topic. I was going to ask, because you said narcissists are master manipulators. Are they master manipulators by virtue of being a narcissist? Or are they narcissistic by virtue of being master manipulators? No, chicken. Yeah, there's one kind of causal to the other and which way does it go? I have a quick comment on that, Dread. I think no one took Trump seriously until people in power realized that they could use Trump. And then eventually came to the point where Trump was just his own tool that was so good that people were like, okay, even if he gets kicked out, we'll still be here. So let's just keep pushing whatever he's doing because it's working good for us now. And so I think Trump is very much in the same position as he was, six years ago when he was in president, where he's just this loudmouth guy who thinks very highly of himself, but now he's lost all political power and he's still acting the exact same thing except no one's paying attention to him nearly as much as they were. Well, that's kind of my question is because certainly there was a large portion of the population that realized he thinks he's a master manipulator. And in fact, he's just a goofball who is so self-involved that he believes these things about himself when clearly reality does not agree. And I'll just book in this and then we get to Dredd or George. I don't think he's not a narcissist. I just think he's a terrible one that was probably being used by more clever north of New York to affect a certain agenda, right? It's like, hey, we're going to go bomb this country, but we don't want people to talk about it. Can Trump say something stupid? Yeah, of course. Just put the camera on him. Great. Trump says something stupid. That's in the news. And meanwhile, no one talks about that, right? George, what do you got? Well, you know, last week I mentioned three psychologists that I recommend that everybody pay attention to. And I'll mention their names before we go today for everybody. But one of them, George Simon, who's a rather conservative fellow, was asked in an interview, why does Trump do this stuff? And his response was, because it works. And that's it. But in answer to your question, I think it was Dredd Pirate. I think the narcissism came first. Certainly in his case. Yeah. In other words, the narcissism was formed very early as a response to being abused as a child, to being traumatized. Overlooked, at the very least. And then this tendency is then an expression of narcissism, right? Yes, exactly. And the psychologist, Ramani Dervisala, who I highly recommend, her attitude about people like this is that they are responsible for the destruction that they caused. No matter what was done to them in childhood, they own the devastation that they caused in the lives of others. They own it. They are accountable for it. And as much as I love nature and nurture, I will say this. There are a lot of people who are overlooked growing up. There are a lot of people who are traumatized. They're not all narcissists. So there is something specific to people who go that route that speaks to their character, which makes them accountable for their actions. Larry, what's up? We were talking about a chicken and egg kind of thing. And George has been asking us why do we always allow them to lead us? I think to run for office, you have to have a very healthy self-respect and self-thought of yourself, self-image. And I think that a large proportion of the people that would actually get into office would be narcissistic and attributed to nothing else. Of course, there are a lot of people that run for office to be able to help their fellow man. But that's one of the things about just having a good healthy self-respect to be able to put yourself forward like that. But a lot of narcissists would definitely have that. Self-selecting. Or even the sense of duty, like we've had veterans before who have applied who I think were pretty upstanding people who are just thinking like, hey, country, I fought for this, I've led for this. I want to make sure that we can put ourselves in a direction. It's not about me. It's just I've already come from a position of soul sacrifice and I am willing to, if America chooses me, do what I can to continue to do service to my country. It's like I can appreciate that. What is it, the Constantine? Is that his name? There's a famous Roman emperor that brought Christianity. I was Constantine. Okay. Well, then I am mixing up my parables, but unfortunately there was one who was like a general who was like a farmer and people brought him in and they were like, you need a lead and he led. And then at the end he's like, I'm going back to farming guys, see ya. And he just went back to going back to being a farmer. It's probably not Constantine. No, I'll look it up. You guys have a fun, have a conversation with yourself. And he served as an emperor? No, not an emperor, just a general, just a general. Well, isn't it the premise of that movie with Russell Crowe? Glad he ate it. Yeah, glad he ate it. Didn't he want to go back to being a farmer after you finished fighting for the emperor and that war? I'm pretty sure he just really wanted to rub long blades of grass. Like very, very slow. I think you're thinking about Cincinnati. Cincinnati, yes, yes. Cincinnati. I knew it was a C name, but I didn't know if it was Cincinnati. So yeah, Cincinnati's general, was done serving, went back to his regular life. He like threw away a bunch of money just to go back to doing the things that he did. And I'm like, there are people who are like that. And I feel like some of them do ask to be president. Do they get successful and get in? Who knows? Who knows? I'm not going to. There's a city named after him in Ohio. I'm sure that was his end goal at the end of the day. It's like, I want to be in Ohio City in a place called America. George, what's up? Well, I was just, you know, what flashed into my mind was differences in manipulative technique. Hitler's method was to use the southern minister approach in addressing the crowd. Whereas, and I think Martin Luther King did the same thing being a southern minister. It's an equal opportunity sort of a thing where you start out talking very quietly and rationally and logically and you build and you build and you build and you're just screaming at the end. Trump's method is different. Sorry, sorry. He blurt, you know, he puts out a pepper spray of blurt and of attack on somebody else. But so that's his MO. It seems to work either way. So, yeah, it's a very bizarre thing. George, you made a brilliant point. It's almost as if people are willing to listen to someone, whether they speak fast, slow, loud or quiet as long as you're saying the things that they're feeling, right? And not what they're critically thinking about, but what they're feeling. And that's the case. Then it's very easy for anybody who's crazy to amass a very popular fan base if they were just saying things that the fan base wants to hear regardless of how they're saying it. And I feel like there's... Yeah. See, I think that people like us want to influence other people with logic because we are assuming that they will meet us on the logical plane, whereas these master manipulators have it really figured out. They're hitting them in the gut. Right. And we don't know how to do that. And, you know, there is something with the way how Trump does speak or the method of how he speaks. It's very similar to a fast-paced car salesman or a used car salesman who's like, hey, this is the best car in the world. It's an incredible car. You know, it's got a little bit of bunches and patches, but, you know, it fell in fire the last time. But listen, it's so good now. It's going to be the best car ever. Sure, it explodes every other Wednesday, but this is the car that's going to be reliable. It's going to drive your kids to work. It's like you're saying bad things and you're mixing in with good things and you're focusing on like huge adjectives that stick and like the person's more entranced with how you're speaking than with the actual topics of conversation that you're cherry picking from. And unlike, you know, the Southern Baptist approach where you almost completely circumvent the bad and you just up swell, up swell, up swell and keep building up. Trump will say things that are absolutely horrendous, but he'll mix them in with, but it's fantastic. It's fantastic. It's like, we're all going to get the virus, but you know what? Who cares? We're Americans. We're going to live through it. It's going to be great. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be terrific. It's going to be terrific. It's going to be terrific. But people who are listening critically, it's like there's no substance here. And you're in fact making me more scared, which makes me listen to you more because I see what you're saying as a threat, which makes you want to pay attention to what you're saying, right? And for the people who want to hear what he's saying, they're willing to happily listen to them just to, just to hear the person that they chose was a good person. And so what ends up, what you end up with is people who are critical thinking, paying attention and people who aren't critically thinking, paying attention and it just continues to build a crowd. And I feel like there's danger in there too. George, what's up? Well, you know, one thing in terms of manipulation that occurs to me again, back to Trump is that if we read a transcript, if we watch him speak to an audience or read a transcript of what he actually said, it's word salad. These are sentences that don't compute. They make no sense whatsoever. They contain the buzzwords, but they don't make logical sense as sentences. And I remember there was a, there was a reporter from a New Zealand paper who was trying to cover Trump from New York and he's in Washington and she said that the reporters have to get together and rewrite what he says because they don't make sense otherwise. Right. So they have to put words into his, into his mouth. Okay. And my point is that he knows how to speak English because every once in a while he does. I don't think he does. His vocabulary is pretty big, in fact. It's pretty big. My vocabulary is pretty big. It's the pretty big vocabulary. It's incredible. It's the best vocabulary ever. Yeah. It's the biggest vocabulary that was ever big and pretty. You know, it's the biggest one, but I'm saying he's the best words. Yeah. He's literally said that. I feel like there's a little hint of sexism in here too, because we just before Trump, the last, maybe the second, the last political roundup we did, we had a lady called Sarah Palin who in my head was, what was that dread? I'm just a laugh. I was just a laugh. Sarah Palin. We had a Sarah Palin, but here's the thing. If you, if you run Trump speeches over Sarah Palin speeches, Sarah Palin was making full sentences and was not using the same word multiple times in a sentence. They were silly. And had punctuation. Yeah, but like, I can see Russia from my house. That's a complete full sentence that had begins and end. If Trump was doing it, it'd be like, Russia, biggest, most terrific place ever. You know, great place. Love to be there. Anyway, seeing from my house, I live in a big house. Gold made of gold. Love my house. Great. It's like, what are you even saying? Like what makes sense in that word? Yeah. We, I looked at one guy as president and the other one we were laughing at for being vice president. I feel like, you know, as much as we are pointing out narcissists, I still feel like there's a little bit of sexism there too. Anyway, George, what's up? Yeah. Okay. Statistically, I believe so far. Narcissists tend more to be men than women. So why don't we just mention a few women narcissists? And I'm pulling a blank. Maybe Sarah Palin, what Madonna, maybe anybody now, anybody? Well, if you go by who takes the most selfies. That's pretty much a lot of them. You're shooting pretty low. You're shooting pretty low. You're basically saying every 14-year-old and lower. Going on the story of the original narcissist who looked at himself in a puddle. That's the measure. There's so many narcissists that they put a camera on the front side of the phone as like, you remember, like that was probably a board room. It's like, we need to put two cameras on the phone. It's like, no, why would you do that? You just turn your phone. It's like, no, trust me. We have a demographic that would love this idea. It's like a camera facing. You can see your face in the screen on the reflection. It's like, no, trust me about this. It's going to be brilliant. This is a high-tech mirror. Should we patent it? No, let's not patent it. Let's let every phone company from here on out just do that idea because it's so crazy. No one's going to ever want it. It's like, that guy's like in Hawaii right now being like, I had the zillion dollar idea and no one took me seriously. Dang it. Sorry about that, guys. So narcissists, I feel like you talked about Madonna, who was like a female narcissist. I'm willing to see that they are definitely, as John was alluding to, benevolent forms of manipulation and then obviously harmful forms of manipulation. And my point would be, I consider Madonna one of the good forms because while she was focused on herself, she was doing it in a way where there wasn't really anyone pioneering the music that she was doing, the messages that she was going for, the vogue identity. And I'm like, hey, good for you. You actually made music kind of awesome for like a period of time and I don't have a problem with that dread. Well, I was just going to say something similar to that is that on the register of actors and their behaviors on set, you can differentiate between those who are narcissistic and those who are just self-promoting. You know, there are some pretty bad examples and I'm trying to think of that one guy who was... I mean, you hear stories about how petulant and childish and stomping on the thing and stomping on the ground and I only want blue or take all the blue smarties out of my bowl because these terrible demands that some actors and other performers make on their assistants and on other people around the set to sort of place themselves at the center of all attention, whether that's positive or negative. Sure. Sure. And then what do you mean by self-promoting? What would be the alternative to that? Well, that's like Madonna. I mean, she's got an agent. She's got a promoter. She's got... Got it. You know, a stylist. She's got... I mean, it's about creating an image. Got it. And that person may go to cancer treatment centers after the fact without telling anyone. You know what I mean? By age. So using their position to do good but without drawing attention to themselves. You know what I mean? Bill Gates Foundation, for instance, is in that case. So there's a lot of well-known people out there that care about their image. But it's not in the narcissistic way there. That's the benevolent sort of aspect to it. And you know, we were talking about this last time when we were talking about narcissism, but Alfred Nobel, creator of the Nobel Peace Prize. Right. That is literally a guy being like, I need to promote myself. I may have done some bad things. Not bad things personally, but people might be using my invention for bad things. Let's see if we can't use it to inspire some good in the world. And we'll make an award that's like, hey, whoever's doing the best things for peace, we'll give you a million dollars because I got the money. Right. And let's try to make an example that people can follow, like a testament of chains of people. We'll give it to women. We'll give it to men. It'll just be whoever's the most peaceful person, right? It tends to be the case that nowadays it's giant corporations that are applying for peace prizes, which is this own thing. Why would you want a million dollars giant company? Do you really need it? Like for real, but anyway, I am happy to see people take the route of promotion in that aspect that you're referring to than petulant narcissistic tirades, right? Though I will say this, when Will Smith is on set, he brings his own trailer. Like he doesn't charge the company, the movie company that's like, I got my own van. I got my drone trailer. I'm bringing my family with me. So it's not like I'm going to like clubs or anything that's like, like I'm a family man. I have like a three tower trailer that I bring with me. It's like a multimillion dollar thing, but it's his. It's like, hey, I bought this my own. Like I already made the investment. Just tell me where the movie is and I'll drive there or my guy will drive us there and we will have fun. And when we're done, we'll drive ourselves back to our home. I'm like, well, I like the idea of like, hey, just invest in being the star that you feel like you are. And instead of having people pull your blue M&Ms out of your bowl, just buy like your own bowl of blue list M&Ms. And I feel like I, I gained the system. That's the way of it. I like the things that narcissists like, but I'll buy it for myself. And I feel like he kind of shortcut of the system there. I think there's something good to say. Larry, final thoughts and then we can go go around. You have any thoughts on narcissism? Just what I was saying about it. It just tends that they would want to go into public office because they think so much of themselves. That's a little above this, but I mean, there are a lot of people that run for office that don't think that way. Look at all the Democrats. But I'm sure every party would look at the other party and think they're just a bunch of narcissists. Sure, sure, at least some representatives. Hey, George Brown, how do you feel like we have open narcissism in today's show? I think there's a hell of a lot more to it. And you know, may I read my list of criteria again from last week? Sure, sure, sure. Okay. And then I want to mention three people to pay attention to. Okay. Characteristics. This is narcissistic personality disorder. Grandiosity. Need for admiration and recognition. Distain and lack of empathy for other people. Sense of personal superiority. Establishes abusive power and control over others. Fragile ego. Intolerance of criticism. And belittles other people. And I added the word seductive. Before you get to your list of people, I was just going to say that sounds exactly like God. Well, there's something that's not in there because a narcissist doesn't like to take responsibility. Do they? Nice. So they always try to pass the can down to somebody else who is to blame. And that reminds me of a certain son who allegedly took on board all of the sins of everybody and died. May I give my list of people, please? Go for it. Okay. I've got to do this real slow. If you're of a conservative bent, George Simon, he's a psychologist. George Simon, S-I-M-O-N. Romani Derbysala, D-U-R-V-A-S-A-L-A. And she uses the handle Dr. Romani, R-A-M-A-N-I. You'll find her on YouTube. She's an exceptionally good explainer about cluster B personality disorders and narcissists in particular. And Sam Vaknen, S-I-M-V-A-C-N-I-N. And what's so fascinating about him is that he is a psychologist who is also a narcissist. So he will tell you the story from the inside. Self-diagnosed? I can't say. I don't know. He didn't just get a medical dictionary and read it and decide he had all the conditions. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, these people have a presence on YouTube. Simon's own material tends to be very stale because he hasn't updated his stuff, you know? But it's still good. John, where can we find you? Free Thought Productions. That's my YouTube channel. And I've just made another video today that is one minute and 10 seconds long. Oh, he's gaming that algorithm. Nice. You got a sneak peek about what that one minute vid is? Yeah, yeah. It's about atheism, our birthright. Ooh, interesting. Where do we find it, John? Free Thought Productions on YouTube. Also, Global Atheist News. I'm big in that channel. I love it. I love it. I love it. Thank you for that. That's my weekly review of how religion impacts humanity. Well, every single time I cook breakfast, I have that thing playing. It's really good. By the time I'm done, it's like, this is great. This is a great little update. I love it. Very cool. Yeah. Dred, Pirate, Eggs. Give me an update. How you been? Not too bad. I was going to give a name here, and I was thinking specifically about Val Kilmer, the actor who has been well reputed as being one of the worst actors to work with on set. And this is his quote. As you know, I have a reputation for being difficult, but only with stupid people. So that really does say it all. But as far as my content, you can find me on YouTube at MinePirate, M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. I stream their show when I'm on it, live on Sunday mornings at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. I'm up to 95 people, subscribers. Five more is my threshold. Please subscribe. Very, very nice. And you can find me on Let's Chat. I'm on YouTube, and we'll be here every week. Larry, you know, this atheism thing, I think it's just a fad. Unless you know what it's about, tell me what you got. I happen to have a book. Nice. It's called Atheism, What's It All About. It's available on Amazon. And I would also like to recommend people read Mary Trump's book on Trump himself. She is a trans psychologist, and it says that he is a textbook narcissist as well. Remember, this show, the Digital Freethought Radio Hour, is available on Apple iTunes, Pocket Cast, Amazon, and Podcasts everywhere. Just search for the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. My own content is on digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, Atheist Psalms, and many articles on the subject. You can find my YouTube channel by searching for Larry Rhodes or Daughter 5. If you have any questions for the show, you can send them to AskAnAtheist at KnoxvilleAtheist.org. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, you can get help from RecoveringFromReligion.org. And by the way, if you're a member of a clergy, a preacher, a mom, pastor, priest, but no longer believe in the claims of your religion, there's help for you at the Clergy Project. The link is clergyproject.org. If you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. This has been the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life, and we'll see you next week. Say bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, guys. Robin!