 Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of League of SC Reviewers. Three best friends getting together. Finally, after the long wait to talk about what we love to talk about, which is talking to other people. Isn't that ironic? Anyway, I'm here with some of my best friends in the world. Linda Mako! Hello, everybody. It's so nice to see you, Tyrone. It's so nice to see you, Ben. I've missed you guys so much. It's like, it's been hurting. I'm so glad you're back. And I'm really glad to be here today. Let's not forget the notorious, the one and only, Ben Diesel. Hey! Good to see you guys again. Linda, I've been so jealous of everything. You've been doing the last couple of weeks. Very true. Just like an adventure. Not even that. It's the whole cabin thing. But we're going to get into that today. Absolutely. Me too. My name is Ty and we're going to talk about so many things in this show. I want everyone to get really excited. But before we get into a whole plethora of stuff that we're going to talk about, mostly just catching up, we're going to go over some of the comments that we had in the last episode. In a subject dialogue to call, where is the love? Where is the love? Linda! You mind sharing some of the love that we got in the last episode? Yeah. So, this is the feedback we got from our last episode, episode eight from Engut Engut 40. He says, Geez, you guys are really pushing the word play to smuggle in your fruity words. Thank you. Engut Engut 40. We appreciate criticism. Oh, yeah. And then P-B-T-M-I-T-A-S-O-L. Is that it? Right? Correct. Says, Dr. Tyrone Wells, S-E, sit down. I couldn't take my eyes of the lovely Linda Mokko, immersed intently in the discussion. She's such a sweet soul. I don't practice S-E, but enjoy the content the three of you guys put out. Thanks for the great energy and enthusiasm. Nice. Oh, thank you. P-B-T. And I just would like to recommend starting taking up S-E. It is fun. Then you'll be a part of the, you know, fun in another way. And then Reid, nice wonder, also known as... Reid, nice wonder. Curiosity. Says, great show. Thank you, Reid. That's so nice. And then Jeff Wrench says, I hate the secret word game. Any chance you could drop it? Hey, that's a great question. I'm thinking let's do a change of pace because I'm always up to new things. Let's try a different game today. Let's do a game called Goals. All right? Goals are pretty simple. We won't interrupt each other during the show, but what we will say at the beginning of the show, what our goals are, that we need to complete by the end of the show. And they can be about anything you want. For example, my goal by the end of this show is to level up to level... those levels. I've been grinding recently. I'm like at about level seven right now, but I'm going to push myself up to that level 20. There's one big boss battle that I think I'm going to prepare myself for, but I got the right equipment. My stats look good. I'm ready to do this. Level 20, let's go. Linda, what's your goal? My goal today is to encourage people to go out and try SE, even if they have never thought of it before. So please give me feedback on that. Like in the comment section, like did it work? Like if you've never thought of it, did you think about it this time? That's my goal. I love it. Ben, what is your goal? My goal for today is to teach you guys a new Afrikaans word. Awesome. I can't wait for that. And we'll try to make sure it's not a rude one. Your family-friendly show after all. So yeah. No promises. Guys, I had, or I've got a secret about greed, which you shared on the SE Discord. Excellent. It's actually where cordial curiosity comes from. It's literally just synonyms for his last name. Nice, wonder, nice, cordial, wonder, curiosity. Mine! That's a lot. That's deep. That's really, really deep. That's not bad. I like that. I think I was there during that Discord. Maybe we should plug the Discord thing. Hey, why not? SE Discord. So we have a street epistemology Discord. If you guys want to join the chat or learn more about SE or want to engage in role-playing sessions, you're free to drop in anytime you want. Just search for street epistemology when you're in Discord. And I don't think we have any, like, ins or out. We've had everyone from straight-up atheists to apologists, really anyone that's friendly to having a really cordial conversation and exercising the curiosity can come by and join the chat. Also, if you like just SE in general, but don't necessarily make content, but you want to give your feedback, I would also recommend the SE League Messenger Group. It's pretty easy to get to, and more people are joining every day. I think it's really cool. In order to get into that group, give either me, Linda, or Ben a shout-out on Messenger, and we'll be free to add you in, and we can talk more about how to talk to people. Okay, you guys, we're into the real heart of the show, catching up. This is an extended session that I like to call Ben, Linda's and Ty's Excellent Month. All right, Ben. I know Linda's got the card, so we're going to work with you and me. You and me are going to work with you and me. Ben, how was your Excellent Month? My month has been super interesting. About six weeks ago, I started something which I call Alpha, and it's this course for Christians with questions. It was developed by a guy in the UK, Nicky Gumbel, and as part of one of the guys at the South African Circular Society, of which I'm a member, suggested that we should check this out so that we can, number one, expose ourselves to ideas that we might not necessarily subscribe to, which I think is always a good thing, and also to maybe promote some critical thinking among the people who attended the course. And it's been very interesting. It's actually become one of the highlights of my week. Very nice people. It was good conversation. Very, got very philosophical, which I enjoy for some weird reason. Started enjoying the last couple of weeks. So that's been awesome. They've got a camp this weekend, so I'm actually going to ask the one pastor there if he'd be happy for me to do some interviews. So if that works out, I'm going to be super psyched. I'm going to set up a table, see how it goes. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Did you just say set up a table? I said table. It's going to be really cool. Yes. That's going to be really, really cool. What kind of, I shouldn't say props, but what kind of tools do you have from the table? I still need to get like a second camera, but I'm thinking of maybe crowdsourcing that. I know a couple of people who might be able to sort me out. It's going to be super super big, and it's going to be. Yeah. Because unfortunately in South Africa this September has been very bad for going out and recording September and October. It's been so windy and there was a school break. So I haven't even had the chance to go out for like a couple of weeks, at least, some itching. Even in the States right now, it's getting really, really cold. And I'm thankful for everyday that it's kind of warm out. you know, like yesterday to do some interviews, it was not enough foot traffic for me to even justify setting up. I like the idea of like the whole, you know, your way of doing it where you just stand up and you have the camera on you, because I feel like you could do that almost anywhere. But for me, it's kind of a commitment, like where I set up, the time that I invest is setting up, and then sitting out there hoping I can catch some, catch people. So yeah, I definitely feel like we're getting towards the winter is coming era. That's the key. Hey, by the way, Tyrone, have you thought about trying that with the, just a little camera, like with the harness thing? Like you just said, like. Yeah, so when I first started doing that, I didn't have a table set up. I was doing it kind of like in the Anthony style where I didn't have a camera even set up. I would have my cell phone. I'd have my cell phone and a microphone app playing and I'd just go up to people and talk to them. And I was able to have a really good conversations and that helped bolster my confidence. So it was like a non-video aspect of that. And there were some early attempts of that on my YouTube channel. But for the most part, I like the table set up only because the stand up session kind of stresses me out because I feel like not only am I having a conversation, but I also have to keep the person talking to me because it's very easy for them to be like, okay, well, thank you very much, walk away. But like when they sit down there, they're having like a conversation and that's one less thing that's on my mind. But I think it'll be really cool to hear from Ben, his ideas of what it's like doing as he's standing up since he's so well-versed with that. You've probably been doing it for about a year now versus doing it on a table. I'm really interested in that kind of thing. Well, I'm going to have a captured audience that might not be the most unbiased view, but I'm going to see how it goes. If it works well, I think I might actually try it, go and sit up in an ice park over the summer and see how it goes. And Christians with questions, what's that? I mean, is that a Christian led event or is it like a secular briefing event? No, it's hosted by a church. So it's a very conservative church. I was actually amazed. One of the pastors asked to speak with me and we had a separate lunch chat and he was just like the nicest dude. Well, maybe to be expected, but also in the way his own beliefs are very, very liberal. Like I did not know that there are people in that church who subscribe to those specific views. And so much so that if he took what he said and just removed the God part from a lot of it, I'd be a hundred percent on board. So that at least for me was something which was made me think a lot to see, even can Christianity, and that's kind of his point of view, Christianity needs to be reformed to be more receptive to the problems that the world faces at this point in time. And the idea is interesting to me, but the question I have is the baggage that comes along with that, can it be justified? That's a completely different conversation. I think I could be busy on that for a couple of hours. That would be good. I also think it just as a tip from my point, if you're gonna do SC with people, if you're doing SCs with actual pastors versus the people that go to the church and then there are pastors, maybe not as well-versed, do you think you'll gauge the expectation that you have of the kind of goal that you might set for yourself as part of the SC conversation? Do you understand what I'm saying? For a person who just goes to a church, you might ask them, is faith a reliable way to come to a true conclusion? But for a pastor, you might have a unique opportunity to try a different goal of what are some of the best benefits to secular thinking? Or could you see a value to doubting everything? Maybe you could privately ask pastors different things because they might have the other answers kind of down pat. The man I'm really thinking about a lot of critical thinking to it, but if you ask them, it's like, hey, is critical thinking valuable? Is questioning everything valuable? Are there things that we shouldn't question? Why is that not a good thing anymore? It might be- Our conversation actually naturally went in that direction and it was very, very cool to get us points of view. At the end of the day, I actually shared a couple of SC videos with him because the challenge he faces, he wants to get rid of fundamentalist ideas in his congregation. And he sees that as probably one of the biggest challenges that he faces. So I explained that this idea behind SE is to, bypass those defenses and get people to honestly and critically analyze why they hold beliefs. So I don't know if I convinced him. I'll keep going in that direction because I think that'll be amazing if he could get some benefit out of it. For me, both of what you both, both of you guys just said was just like, honey to my ears. The whole, you know, getting- Oh no, watch me or I'll see. What? Honey, like sweet. Like- Like getting to the pastor to think of different things and not get into the defending of the belief, maybe or like that. I thought that was like brilliant. And then the whole like, what you just said, Ben, I won't repeat it. But yeah, both of those are like, all right on. Just wanted to say that. Nice. One other random question, Ben, is the churches in South Africa typically divided based on like racial lines? Cause even in here, particularly in USA, you'll have things that are called like black churches or white churches have very distinct styles of how they teach or pastor or preach. Yes, we've, I think we've got pretty much exactly the same landscape as you do in the US. All of ours is very much driven by the segregation of apartheid. Actually, I drove past one of my old church a couple of months ago and they still had a sign up which basically says, the service for white people is from seven to eight in the morning. And you can bring your gardeners and domestic workers from 10 to 11. And I was like, holy shit, this is terrible. Holy crap. Yeah, but I think I might just be something which they might not have funds to update the sign or something. I know a lot of the churches are struggling but there's also this rye similarity in the US of these mega prosperity driven churches that are super charismatic and very fundamentalist. And I've recently spoken to a couple of people from those churches and it's quite concerning the ideas that they drive. We also recently had a case where a pastor convinced his congregation to take insecticide and spray that into their own faces as like a test of their faith. So, and the same guy even had his congregation eat dog meat. So, and I'm not saying this is at all what Christianity leads to or a mainstream thing but these people accepted it because they were convinced this is what is expected of them. And I think that's where spreading ideas like street epistemology is so important in our country. Right, I also think, go for it. No, and also I was just thinking that it, that I think example really illustrates how it's not about atheism, which we're so often linked to in the whole book, a manual for creating atheists and all that, even though, you know, it's, well, you can talk about that later but it really is about challenging those ideas, understanding what people believe, why they believe the pesticide is necessary to test somebody's faith, regardless of what the church is or the ideology behind it. But is there a better way maybe to do things than dog meat? Also dog meat's delicious. I don't care what people say. I'm just playing. I like monster. It kind of feeds into my excellent month. Okay, so I live pretty close to a Walmart and that Walmart shut down so it's no longer there. And it's kind of a cool thing because now there's way less traffic around where I live. I feel like the area's got a lot safer. Everything just feels a lot nicer. Just, you know, walk down nice park and you don't have to hear, you know, cars or traffic. It's just really, really nice. Just nice and open right. You also bought like a two year supply of taco shells or something at the closing out sale. What was that? So yeah, there was a closing out sale that was like 90% off everything in the store. So like a Walmart where everything's 90% off is ridiculous. And like lines were just like all the way through the store. But like, I'm like, I'll pick up some stuff. And I was finally able to get some like, where's my cat? There's my cat buddy right there. Vinnie. I was finally able to get some like super high quality cat food, like really, really high quality. And I opened it up and I'm like, this is basically a Campbell's soup. This is basically the soup that I eat. I don't think there's a difference. There was just smaller proportions, but as far as things that I did that were kind of cool in the last month, I did two cool things. One, I finally have a chance to really set up at the University of Kentucky, which is the school that's nearby here in Lexington. And I have friends here in Lexington that helped me with my Essie stuff. It's kind of cool. There's a guy named Eric Green who gave me a parking pass to be able to work there. He's staffed on school and he hooked me up with a parking pass, even helped me at a park. He was like out there looking for a spot because parking in university is always super hard. So he was like, I found a spot. I mean, helped me get there in part, helped me move my stuff. He had friends that also know that I do street epistemology come and just check in on me, watch my table if I had to use the bathroom, give me water, give me food. I'm like, this is like really, really high class teamwork. And I really appreciate everyone here for helping me out. But the interviews that I got at University of Kentucky are probably some of the best ones that I've done. When I look at the quality of the questions that I ask, then compared to the first time I was out, I can tell how much nervous I was in the past because a lot of times I would try to keep, I guess, my position off the table. But a lot of the times when I was on campus, I started off saying like, hey, my position is I don't know. I don't subscribe to any religion. I'm trying to figure out, you know, honestly the best way about learning things. And I felt like I was just so comfortable about that that the people who were in front of me were like, oh, okay, sure. Yeah, I'll be happy to tell you whatever I got. And it wasn't a big issue. And I felt like a really good back and forth. I had maybe seven conversations that day and I got progressively more tired as we went going on. So the last two were pretty bad, but I'll probably share those on my Patreon. But for the most part, they were like, they were pretty good, but I was definitely asking questions that were like, just throwing things out to see if they would work enough. But I've been releasing those on my YouTube channel and I found a really cool way to just, you know, assess how much better I've been getting at this because now I've been doing it for about a year and it's just cool to see that progress on that part. And then the second thing that I did was did another's talk at Dalton State College in Georgia. This was over Skype, but it was with one of the people who are in the SE League messenger group. And he contacted me like very, very early on in my SE, you know, hobby. And he said, hey, would you like to come over to our school and do a talk? I'd be like, yeah, I would love to. And we came back and set up a date and I was able to talk to his secular student alliance group. There was about maybe nine people there and it was really, really fun. I gave basically more or less the talk that I did when I was in Tennessee, but this was more of like a Q&A session. And I got to actually hear a lot more from young people who are interested in trying to ask people questions and figure out like, how do you even start this process? How do you even like figure this out? What kind of mindset do you have when you go out there? And I love questions like that. I have one more talk coming up in Newport, Kentucky, which is just below Cincinnati, Ohio. And this will be at the Atheist, American Atheist convention. There'll be about 80 people there and I'm already stressing out, but I got my slides ready. But it's really cool that I'm getting a lot more comfortable with talking about stuff like this. Cause when I first started out, man, I can't tell you how nervous I was about like putting my name out there, about letting people know about my position. I thought there'd be just a lot of shame behind it or a lot of public backlash. I put like an American Atheist label on the back of my car and I was worried that it'd be scratched up the next day. But like now I'm just like, it's not even a thing on my mind anymore. And it's just making me a lot more, that's feeding into the way how I have conversations with people. And I'm just really happy that not only have I had gotten better at this, but people are a lot more receptive to it and accepting of my position once they understand me better, rather than like this idea that they had of me. It's like, oh, Tyrone, he's so nice. He must love God. Or like, no, Tyrone's an Atheist, but he's still a nice guy and I like this guy still. I'm like, oh man, I like you way more. I think that's really cool. And my mom's, who's Joel Witness is like super supportive of me. When I first told her I was an Atheist, it was kind of like, I don't know about this, but I think being out about where you are on God is like one of the best kind of free advertisements to people who know who you are and know that they can put a face on atheism and it's the face of their friend or their son or like a really family member. So I think it's really helpful for her and I think it's really helpful for my sister and just people at my work, just don't know where I'm coming from and still be willing to like have fun with me. I got friends who are Mormons at work and I'm like, oh man, I'm Mormon from Hawaii. Like I didn't even know how it's possible because I get stronger. And I'm asking him questions, he just asked me questions and we go back to talking about Marvel movies and it's just like the most free, most freeing thing about just, hey, like we all have religious or non-religious beliefs but we can still communicate with each other and that's what SC is all about, just a good communication. And I think that's, go for it. Yeah, I was just thinking that I think one of the cool things also about putting a face on atheism because I mean, I just said that we can ditch the title of the book, A Manual for Creating Atheists and that's not the main thing in SC. And I still hold by that but I also think there is like other work to be done when speaking honestly and openly and saying the word atheist, just because to educate people that it's not that we don't want to believe. Just as little as they, it's not like always the choice that I don't want to be a Muslim or I don't want to be Christian or I don't want this or that. It's not that we don't want to believe, it's just we're not convinced. It's like what it is for me and just to have the opportunity to educate people about that and use the word atheist when doing that I think is really valuable. And we're open to having our minds be convinced. Yes, if we just want to get evidence, it's like, okay, then. Let's assess it. Yeah, let's think about it a little bit more. Okay. Do we have the good evidence for it? All right, not about it. When I started out doing AC, I had this phase where I had to tell literally everybody about it. Ah! And... It didn't work. The one of my colleagues at work, after which he came to me and she said she is so grateful that I spoke to her and I said, what was it? What means something to you? And she said she was having doubts and she thought she was alone. She had no fact that never made anybody else who had doubted the beliefs that she was brought up with. And it was just refreshing to her to find out that no, she's not alone and it's okay to actually question. And if that's all I achieve, I'm super happy just to do that. Right. And even with the conversations that I was having at UK University of Kentucky, where I knew that the conversation wasn't going so well, those are like the last two, I realized that if I just set back my goals from trying to analyze a belief or whatever to just, hey, I'm an atheist, can I have a good conversation with you? You won't have that for me for like five minutes? That does weigh more than a lot of people give credit to. Just having that fun conversation, short little talk with someone that you didn't think you would ever be able to talk to face to face. Yeah. And let it end on a positive note and say, hey, thanks very much for telling me about that. I love that. And then move on. I think that's one of the great powers of just being able to talk to people. One other weird thing. So I found out that Peter Pugosian didn't even want to call his book, I'm Daniel for Creating Atheists. It was his publisher that wanted to do it. And the publisher was like, man, gotta sell these copies, guy. This is a nice book, but we gotta sell copies. And Peter Pugosian was like, I just don't want to make waves. I think it's going to lead to long-term problems like, nah, we gotta sell the copies. He's like, okay, fine. So they titled it that way. It's very unfortunate name. But if you ask me, the way how I say it is, the true manual for creating atheists, at least for me, it's always been the Bible. I read that. I was like, I got questions. I think I'm gonna have to change my mind on some things. Anyway, we're about to open up the floodgates right now. Linda's about to roll into the conversation. Before you do it, do we want to take a wee little break or a shameless plug, intermission or anything like that? Ben, what's your channel? Seize of Thought. Nice. We'll soon be active again after a big hiatus. So what type of that? Very, very nice. My channel is called Let's Chat. Feel free to comment or subscribe. We would love that. Linda, what's your channel real quick? Super Curious. Boom. And you're watching this video. You're probably on that channel right now. Don't forget to subscribe, check her out. And you've got a video coming up soon, right? Well, you see. I was just thinking as I was listening to you guys talking and that, I mean, the three of us almost started doing AC at the same time. So we've all like done it for about a year, but I haven't uploaded a single in the street conversation yet. The conversations that I've loaded up have been in the kitchen and they've been live streamed. And a big reason for that is that I really don't know how to edit. I have taped four conversations in a park in Finland, but I just haven't had the time to edit them. And I noticed that I don't really like editing, like at all. Like I think it's like the most tedious, horrible thing. And it's like, oh, I have to do it. I have to figure all of this stuff out. And it just doesn't come like naturally or eagerly to me. But what has happened, I still feel, and you said Tyrone, like you see how you've developed and all that, and you do like great videos. And I see how your stuff is like developing on all levels, like the edit, the captions, the content, like everything. And you upload a lot, very productive. Yeah, and you said that you can see your development. And for me, I feel that my development since I started is that I'm becoming better at talking about street epistemology to other people and kind of convincing them to give it a go. And that's where I get into where I went, not this weekend, but last, the QED convention. And I'm really excited about that. So I think I'm finding kind of my niche in SE, which would be more doing the talks, teaching, and yeah, enthusing people to give SE a try. Cool. I don't know if I need to do videos. Hey, I'll tell you one thing. One, if you need me, I would be happy to edit your videos for you, because I don't actually mind it. And I figured out a really nice template that allows me to just drag and drop stuff in. I think Ben has a background with developing programs and stuff like that. So, and I've done animation for like about eight years. So we're both like very familiar with like sitting in front of a computer and wasting like daylight hours. I feel productive afterwards, like we did stuff. Meanwhile, the sun rises and sets, like you missed everything. It's like, nah, we made some child listening and now there's no errors. That's our college for the day. But yeah, editing does take a very, very long time. Even when I did the first video, Anthony said, you're gonna be surprised how long it takes to edit even short conversations and it does. So if you want, we can work on that offline and I'll be happy to at least output the four talks that you did. And if you're cool with that, I definitely would love that. Oh, man, I really appreciate the help and I really felt that I got stuck because I didn't have the know-how and I had limited time. So then I just kept on pushing it away. Cause I've done those, I, what's it called? I did the videos, did the actual conversations, like it's at least two months ago. So of course I have had like evenings and stuff. And while I was in the cabin in Lapland, I didn't really have access to electricity in the same way as I would at home. But of course there were opportunities if I would have the know-how and the want to actually sit and do it. For me it's like picking, I don't know, what's the word? Something really awful that you have to do. So yeah, I really appreciate the help so I can move forward with that because I'm just stuck. Doing SE with just yourself versus working with a team of people is monumentally completely different things. And the whole point of the league, the point of the league is to find a group of people that are willing to help you out. Like when I did the talk at Delta and I was helping out another guy who wanted to just have people talk to him or his group about Street of Pistemology. When Ben did his talk or did his survey, Ben, your survey is really popular. I've seen other people use it in their videos. But it's just this feedback center and a helping center. And I think the whole point of the league is that you're not alone when you do Street of Pistemology. You're not just one person with a camera, part of a group, a group of losers. The league of Pistemology. And one thing that I would like to put out there that I would like to help other people with. And I hope somebody takes me up on this that if you are giving talks, if you're doing anything publicly with SE, I really like giving feedback, doing hangouts with stuff like that. Because that's where I have experience in like watching people perform and helping them do it better or not perform but giving talks and stuff like that. Like putting people at ease if they think stuff like that is like nerve wracking and maybe going through the talk as it is being created. Did that make sense? No, it makes sense. Did you get an opportunity to do that at QED? Did some people speak to you? Well, I kind of bounced in with this T-shirt. It's a two-day conference. It started on a Saturday morning. What's the T-shirt say? What's the T-shirt say? It says Street of Pistemology. Let's examine how we know what we know. I love that. I like that. How we know. Yeah, I think it's a really good T-shirt. I like that. That's very good. I know where you got that. From Anthony Magneboske, thank you so much. He was giving them out in Norway. Yeah, and I wore this T-shirt for four days. So I was wearing nothing else during this conference. It was like two days with like talks but before that there was like a space quiz, like a social gathering where they like ask questions about, you become a team and then you, they ask questions about space and conspiracy theory and astrophysics and physics and stuff. I got all the physics questions, almost all of them, right? Who knew? And then that was a lot of fun. Yeah, so it went to the point where people were asking me, like, don't you have any other clothes? But then again we're intrigued by the title street epistemologist and that would start really good conversations where I got to practice my elevator pitch, my a little bit longer, like let's talk about SE and then like it even went to like hour long conversations with people about the possibilities within SE and if we experiment with it and how it is a conversational tool and how it can help people think in a not so polarized manner and find nuance and like the whole tool for world peace. So like all those kinds of different types of conversations because that's how I think of street epistemology. It's a dialectic that will help us become more peaceful with each other. Where was QED? How did you get there? How long did it last? Like what were the kind of people there, the events there? Like as I know nothing about QED, walk me through it. And I saw you hanging out with a very weird looking dude. He kind of looks like a Disney movie villain. Yeah, Aaron had a lecture on Thursday. So that was prior to the conference, but it, okay. QED is Question Explore Discover. It's a skeptic conference. QED, I should, anyway. So far. And it's in Manchester in the UK. It was held the two days of the like actual conference for the 13th and 14th. The space quiz was on the 12th and Aaron Ra spoke on the 11th. So I went back to the front there. Yeah, what was the other question? Now I've got all sidetracked. What kind of events or speakers were there? Was it strictly just for secular activities or were there like anti-science? You said there was conspiracy theorists there as well. What's going on? Well, it's a skeptic convention or a skeptic conference. So skeptics unite. It begins Saturday morning, nine o'clock. Everybody gathers into this big like hall. Okay. And it begins with this video, a fantastic video. I'm going to link it in the description because it's available on YouTube for anybody to watch. It was the coolest thing I've seen in a long, long while. And I'm sitting there excited with my little booklet. You get this booklet with the program. Oh, it's a booklet. Yeah, so it's got the program inside. So you've got it with you all the time. So you can like choose which talk you want to go to. And it's got your name on it so everybody can see who you are. They also see that you're a part of the like conference. So it's really easy to talk to anybody at any point, anywhere like queuing for a beer or outside in the smoking section or waiting in line to get into a talk. People will be like, oh, so what? For Americans queuing for a beer means you're waiting in line. They're just helping out. Yeah. And yeah, so it begins with a video where they had done like a parody, not a parody. They used like they, what's it called? You imitate David Attenborough. And David Attenborough did this talk or like was explaining about the skeptic species and have it migrate once a year to come to QED at Manchester the biggest skeptic conference in the world. Oh, it was so good. So that video will be linked. Just watch it. It's hilarious. I at least, I am definitely identifying as a skeptic species of the skeptic species. You're a skeptic, yeah. Yeah, so it starts like really fun, a lot of anticipation, a little laughing in the audience and crying and so on and so forth. And then I just met like really cool people everywhere I'd heard there was somebody interesting who had something interesting to say. And just this mindset of more like questioning, it kind of felt like people were kind of naturally doing SC or at least like just asking a lot of question, questions and challenging what I was kind of there to sell because I did go there with the whole thing like I wanna promote street epistemology. And what was cool was that Anthony did speak at that convention last year. So some people recognized it and say like, oh, that was really cool. Could you tell me more about it? And then there were a lot of other people people that just kept on seeing me in the same t-shirt and then eventually they asked like, so what is that? How do you even say it? And that is how the conversation. Yeah. And that's how the conversations would begin. Yeah, and so they've got like four different like spaces where there are talks and workshops and stuff at the conference. So you kind of like have to choose. You can't watch everything. And initially I was like, oh no, but I would really like to see that critical thinking thing and see that other neuroscientist thing. But they're going on at the same time. Actually those two weren't at the same time. I got to see them both. But anyway, but the thing that was good that in between talks, when you're queuing for the beer or something and it was really casual and nice and people don't get like sloppy drunk. It's just like a nice kind of chill sipping on a beer kind of fun drinking. So yeah, when you're waiting in that queue you'll ask the person, so what did you see and how was that? And if you're lucky, they went to something else. Or I don't know, if they went to something else you get to hear about that from their perspective. And if they went to the same thing as you you can start talking about it and like nitpicking it and like asking questions about it. And like, this is what I thought and I didn't really agree with that. And like, you know, I think that's really cool. Skeptics unite. I felt like I was free. It's really risky to be part of a group like that. I found that I also joined this local Skeptics group, Skeptics and the pub and we have a meetup every two weeks and it's just like the highlight of my calendar really. And it's what I found is every day conversation tends to become boring. It's really nice to have these conversations where you're challenged and you're exposed to new ideas and just to go back to the office and discuss, you know, how the team did over the weekend. That just doesn't do it anymore for you. I don't know if you guys have the same experience. No, that's absolutely true. I think I strongly encourage joining like a local humanist free thought or Skeptics group if you can. I think we have three great examples cause Linda goes out to these conventions where she can finally like let loose and then you have this local meetup group that you can go to Ben. And then for me, I have not so much that in Kentucky in the heart of Kentucky. So what I do is like I try to have my sessions with street cosmology. That tends to be sort of my outlet. And then I meet with you guys on the internet. So like whatever situation that you're in, you could always find a group that's willing to talk to you about things that you believe in. And even on Discord, we have like these like role play sessions where we can like freely talk afterwards or before, even during the acting that we do. Well, we just try to engage in street of cosmology with each other and then hang out and play video games and talk about like issues that we're going through with regard to our more rational mindset. I think there are a lot of ways more than ever before if you just want to have an outlet to talk to and find people that think the same way you do. And I thought it was a challenge that. Sorry, my bad. And I thought it was just like wonderful. I felt completely at home and at ease because we were constantly, we at that convention I felt it almost felt like a little festival because the atmosphere there was really like liberating free and like we were all playing and having fun together. I liked that aspect of it. And then I liked that very rarely did we start with, hello, my name is Linda, I come from Finland and all that kind of small talk thing that I as an introvert find kind of strange to do. I don't always get it. Like why are we doing this? And there I felt like we just jumped into conversation and then the whole, oh, so you're so and so and you come from there and that makes sense because now we're talking about something where it's relevant for us to exchange our life stories. And I think kind of like, I guess I'm used to in other situations that the whole life story comes first and then people start talking about things that are important to them. I like this way much better. But of course we're at a convention so we're thinking about ideas the whole time but I really liked that and it felt so comfortable. And I haven't just had that really. Well, maybe the first time in Norway with the skeptics there, but I didn't even know. I feel like I didn't even know that this, this way of being existed. Like it's, you have to watch the second time being there. That's, that's crazy good. So what? That was your second time being there and you still felt like. No, no, no, no, my first time at QED. Oh, okay. I was talking about the time in Norway when I went to the skeptics in the pub in Oslo was my first experience with like a group of kind of skeptic people that are there to question. And I remember saying this to Anthony too that I just, I feel like, wow, like, where have I been and what have I been doing? And like, I can't describe it. But it was like, all of a sudden everybody's like rational, rational is a bad word. It's something else. It's that then they're not like a hundred percent there. Like, this is the way it is. And they're not like defending ideas to the death. It's like, oh, so you see this differently. Oh, well, tell me about that because, you know, I've got good reasons. I'll tell you my reasons. And it's kind of, it's like working on the problems for reals. It was interesting the whole time. I was not bored one single second. I could have gone for a week doing that. Excellent. Very cool. What else did I want to say? I feel like I started by going like, yeah, I think my skill is speaking like really well about S.C. But I feel like now that I'm trying to do it, it's all over the place. So there, go figure. Sorry. I don't know what happened. You know something I'd be really interested in seeing? I don't know something I wanted to say, but I keep on forgetting it. Sorry, what? Have you live streamed or live streamed yourself talking about the convention to put up on your channel? Cause I would love to see like just a Linda Mako. Yeah, free flowing. Free flow, the QED event, just taking your time. And that'd be really, really cool. And I think it'd be a really strong recommendation for other people who are in the area to be able to check it out themselves. And you're in Finland, you went down to Manchester. In my mind, jumping three different worlds apart. But for you, I guess it's like, not too long would drive, right? You see, I love to travel and I love going to, but before like doing these skeptic things, I've been going to watch like a scientist, like the great Richard Dawkins talk or Brian Cox in his show. And there it's like, you're the audience and then you're watching the show and the scientists saying brilliant stuff. But this was different, both like Anthony's talk and the skeptic convention in Manchester, QED, which are my two experiences where I go specifically to engage with skeptics. It was different. We were engaging, we were thinking. It was different because we all got to talk about it afterwards. And yeah, it was that. We got to talk about it. So there were like conversations happening everywhere. And oh, and there was so much food for thought and there was music and comedy, but everything had that little kind of either science-y flair or that like question, discover. Cool. Explore. I said them in the wrong order, but it doesn't matter. But just that feeling of wonder and question, explore, discover. Very nice, very nice. It was the perfect place for me. Yeah. And I thought I wrote down here that I might have learned something and that was the best thing I really feel when people are open like that and interested like that and want to explore and learn things and question. It's just the best environment for learning. I had so many moments. It was like everybody was essaying me too. And then I could essay them back. And it was so much fun. And also having the tool in my toolbox of SE, I felt was really cool. I felt like I could really get to understand the other person's point of view. And I think this was so funny because we're all kind of like almost thinking the same way. We had the same kind of attitude, I guess, more. So when our ideas might have differed or somebody was maybe not understanding what street epistemology is, I used street epistemology to get the idea across better. So it was kind of like this meta thing where I felt that having street epistemology and talking to skeptics using street epistemology kind of like it's not like it's a weapon or anything. It's just a way of talking, really. Do you think anyone who watched you or spoke with you felt more encouraged to employ street epistemology themselves? And I guess if anyone's watching this video now, what would you tell them that you told people at QED? What I would tell them that I told the people at QED. To encourage them to try out and see themselves. Like what was the pitch to encourage people? Well, I guess for me, it's not so much the pitch. It's like really listening to the person I'm talking to and trying to understand them and how it would be valuable for them. And then like helping them see where they could maybe use it and then, because you can use SE so many different ways as we see every week now on YouTube and different styles. And I think we can use SE in negotiations. We can use it at work. We can use it when we order food. You can use SE anywhere the way I see it. Yeah. I would like the prize, please. But I don't know. Do I want prize? How confident am I? Do I want prize right now? You tell me. I don't know, sir. Meet him. I think that's all just asking the way too. So what's your best dish at the race to run? Is that really good? Yeah, and why? Isn't that? How do you know that? Yeah. But that's something that I would just like to add to what you have to say, Linda. I think a lot of people are intimidated by the idea of trying out skepticism, trying out something like street epistemology, because you look at people who you admire, somebody like Anthony Magnobosco or maybe a skeptic like Matt DeLahanti, and you're just amazed. These guys, the ideas they have, how easily it flows from them. And remember, you have to start somewhere. Right. And what I found, what EC has really imprinted on me is the value of when you go somewhere, being inquisitive and asking questions. When I went to my first skeptic meetup, I was terrified. I thought, all of these people have this completely different mindset and they're going to see straight through me and think I'm an opposer. But when you go in there and you ask questions and it basically automatically gets you to engage and it gets the people you speak to to engage with you and it's such a rewarding experience. Really, anybody who's never tried it, go out and just ask questions. It's the best thing that you can do. It's really fun. Something I worry about is a language barrier. I don't know if, or like, you know, the facial, but language barrier, all that stuff. Ben, do you have any tips? If I'm talking to someone who might, for example, only speak Afrikaans, how can I get to them? What's like a good keyword that I might be able to use to get through to a person like that? Buy a donkey. What does that mean? First, you have to say it. It's literally you say, buy a donkey. Okay. Buy a donkey. Can you say that? Yeah, buy a donkey. Yes! Thank you very much. See, Afrikaans, the lightness is key. So you need to be, always say, thank you very much. Buy a donkey. Oh, is that, thank you very much? Yes. Very, very cool. I'm writing that down. Buy a donkey. Buy a donkey, Ben. You guys have perfect pronunciation. I am just, I'm astounded. You know what's crazy? Is I met a guy from Pretoria in Lexington. Dude, I enjoy that conversation so much. Really? Because I want to be posting that in like about two weeks. And I'm really excited because I was like, my friend, Ben Diesel's from South Africa. This is so crazy right now. But he's like, who's Ben Diesel? I was like, don't worry about it. Let's keep talking about it. Really cool dude though. All right, so we're getting near the end of the show. Is there, well, let's do one final round. We're gonna go and basically say, hey, Ben, thank you so much for telling me about the alpha, the community event that's held by pastors in South Africa, allowing kids to question their beliefs. And I think you'll be an absolutely excellent asset in that kind of development. And I hope you get a lot of it too. I'm really looking forward to if you can get like any kind of recorded talks out of that, it'd be really, really great. And then Linda, you sound like you had a wonderful competition or convention in Manchester for QED. I think that was really, really cool. And I love the enthusiasm. And I think you really touched a lot of people with regard to why they should be interested in talking to people about how they came to their beliefs. And I think that's always a useful thing, especially out of spectus conversation. Because a lot of people will call themselves skeptics but not really engage in that stuff. Well, actually now, and I don't think that the thing that I did there with SE and the interest that I kind of created towards SE wasn't about people having to question their beliefs, but rather see that there is another way to communicate about beliefs, about opposing beliefs, a way to have conversations without it turning into a debate. This is what I think is most valuable for skeptics and how skeptics can go out and be like great skeptics and have fun talking to people and maybe make this movement spread even quicker. If we get all the skeptics on board and they're having fun with it, I, yeah, I think it's great. I'm gonna do one weird thing that I just had. I had a random thought. And we might give it again this later, but like SE is always based on the Socratic method for me or like Socratic examination. And I found that like the difference between like the Socratic method versus SE street epistemology is that when you're using the Socratic method, you tend to be trying to teach someone something. Like you try to be like, my position is I'm right and I'm asking you questions so that you can see my opinion. You've already got a destination in mind. Exactly. Whereas SE is very much, this is a conversation that I'm trying to have with you and I might learn way more from it from just asking questions for you. But what we're trying to do is put the evidence on the table and see if it's reliable. If it is, holy crap, I'm following that because you just showed me awesome. And I think that more evenness as you approach the conversation is what makes SE really distinct. And I think it was the missing key ingredient that we've probably been missing since like 400 BC. Like just being able to meet on the even ground. What do you think? And also the whole thing about really trying to listen and understand what the person is saying, going with their definitions, going with their understanding of their belief. They're expressing what they believe. My job is to understand what they're saying, not to impose my ideas of the words they're using or something else or this concept. Like example with you, Tyrone, when you went to the ARC encounter and the guy is like, are you atheist? And we see already that he has an idea that is not matching with you. So he was actually doing kind of good SE on you in that moment also because he then, or you helped him do that because then he realized he needed to ask you a little bit more to understand what your position really is, what you mean by atheist. That's the most important thing, not what he thinks atheism is if we are talking about you or me, then it's what I think and my definitions. And also with SE and the dialectic, I think the really cool thing is to like say it back to the person so that they feel that they are heard and they can hear it themselves and they can correct it, I think is the best thing. I was doing that the whole weekend here and there with different things when I was trying to understand what anybody was saying to me about anything that they had learned. It was saying it back and going like, did I understand that? And then I feel I get it more. Like they are hearing it and I hear it more and then I learn more from them than if I would just be making up my own ideas because I'm just listening to somebody kind of. Right, right, right. Like really precise listening. That's when we know that we're talking, we're working together, we're not just butting heads or maybe not even talking the same thing, you know, like doing this thing. What is this? This is, I'm talking about this. What is this? What is this? We thought you don't ASR. We need to talk like this and not like this. Very cool. I see. And this is a Socratic method, maybe. Hi, I think it might be pretty close. Ben, you got any closing thoughts before we close up? Just want to add to what Linda said. I asked a question at one of the sessions at Alpha and the one girl explained how she knows that she's following the true God. And she explained that it's when you, you can live your life fully. And I just repeated, I'm like, so when you live your life fully, does that mean you're serving the right God? And she said, I've never said that aloud before. I need to go think about this. And I was just like, yes, that is the best. It needs to happen. This is the best. And if anybody, like, I think this is a good place. If you are interested in engaging with people who are religious and you want to try and promote some more critical thinking, Alpha is a good place to do it. It's there, actually the course promotes openness, a non-judgemental approach. I dropped the Atheist bomb in our very first session there. And I didn't have any issues, which I thought I was going to basically empty the table when I do that. Yeah. If you're interested in looking at it, there's a website, just Google Try Alpha. Try Alpha. Basically, whenever there's a course that where they use this material, somebody registers it and they've got a map up of the entire world where people are hosting these courses and it's usually open, it's for free. So it's worthwhile. Explode yourself to some other ideas, go and model openness and maybe get somebody to think a bit differently about what they believe. That was so great. You guys really are some of my best friends in the world. This is really, really great. I can't imagine where I could have a really fun conversation with you guys. I love you guys. But we got to end- Can I- Oh my God, we're gonna go for it, go for it. Can I please say a quick, I just destroyed my mind. I wanted to say one more thing about QED. I wanted to thank all the organizers for it, because it was so great. And like the stuff like there was, do you know Doctor Who, the show? I don't know. Yeah. So they had like a police box. Oh wow, that's great. Like in front of the, sorry? The TARDIS? Yeah, the TARDIS. Oh yeah, that's what? The police box? Is that called the, oh, constantly learning. I didn't know what it was called other than the police box, but it was really cool. Cause it looked really like some Doctor Who and everything. Linda, that's just how our British telephone boxes look. Do they still have- But it was Doctor Who, it was, really. Do they have legit phone boxes in England since you were there? Like, do they still exist like phone booths? The red ones, yeah. Whoa, they got rid of all of them in the US. There's like only like two more or less. I saw three on the way to the convention. Wow, that's impressive. Wow, that's cool. And Quaint, I love that. Anyway, we're closing up the show. I hope everyone had a good time. Thank you for listening to us. Let's, before we end, we got two things we gotta do. First is review goals. Ben, did you accomplish your goal? I did. I got some help from a friend and we can all say bye, donkey. Bye, donkey. Thank you for teaching me that. That's so funny because I was thinking that I got Ben to take care of my goal because he did a, he did like a comprised version of what I said where I think you took down the like, the like, what's it called? Oh my gosh, I can't speak anymore. I also helped you down like the- You helped me- Wiggly fingers. Ben, you taught me something, Linda. You helped me express that SE, you don't have to like go full force and do like something super magnificent. You just have to start, strike up a conversation. Okay, I can't talk today. I don't know what's going on. Sorry, guys. It's the excitement. It's the excitement. Ben, you got a point for completing your goal that gives you up to two points this year. You're at happy humans number two, two points. Happy humans, let's go. But you're happy humans. Oh, am I happy humans? You're casual canines. Casual canines, let's go. Oh my gosh. Linda, did you accomplish your goal for the talk today, which was- Yes, with help of Ben. Okay. Hey, we got a pro team work, and that's what this is all about. We will know definitely next time when we get feedback. So that gives Nordic Neckos two points for this year so far. Nordic Neckos! All right. Guys, I'm a little, I'm not sad. I'm not sad. I'm more motivated. I said I'd get to level 20, but you know what? That boss battle was a little bit more frustrating. It spawned a bunch of little smaller bosses when I got it down to about a quarter health. And I thought, that's unfair. I didn't know where that was coming from. So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm just gonna, I'm not giving up. I'm gonna go back to the grasslands and just like wail at some level two to threes again. Just bring up the AXP, just make sure my controls are good. I'm thinking if I just come out with a good mindset, I won't lose. And I'm just gonna probably stock up some potions. I think if I do that, everything should be okay. I think that's the goal. So level 17, no point today, but you know what? I'm gonna keep working on it. That puts everyone on, thank you. That puts everyone on an even playing field at two points a piece to the end of the year. Let's go, everybody. Good job. Let's go. All right, let's close out the show with our cat treats, Rupert and Blue. Are you guys ready? Three, two, one. I am Bo, I am Bo, Rupert, and Blue. Yay, blue. Bye guys, bye.