 103.9 FM, WZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour and WZO Radio, 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, September 5th, 2021. I'm Larry Rhodes, or Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host on the line with us. It's me, the Wombat. How are you? It's me, the Wombat and the four ducks. Quack, quack, quack. That was only three. Hello. And our guest today are John Richards. Hello. Hello. I'm the dread pirate Higgs. Howdy. How are you? I'm George Brown, the two and a half. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, gods, holy books and superstition. Wombat, what are we on about today? Today we're going to be talking about good ideas from bad people. And I think maybe we've even gotten to vice versa. Is it possible to get good ideas from people who may not necessarily have the best lifestyle or best role models? And are they always tied together? And what can you extract from the two? But before we get into it, we're going to fill it up to our own dread pirate Higgs for our weekly invocation. Corby McApton, I shall not want. He maketh me to float in salt water. He stireth me through glassy seas. He filleth my bowl. He stireth me through the straits of noodle-iness 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 my thirst with grog, my goblet runneth over. Truly past and grog shall follow me all the days of me life, and I will dwell in the galley of the quab forever. Rawr! Guys, I want to catch up with everyone before we dive into it. We're going to start with Dredd. You got a shirt on. I know it's radio, but may I walk me through what this shirt says? Sure, it says, think while it's still legal, but the words in think are thorium, indium, and potassium. Nice, nice. Classic elements, classic elements. Also, Dredd, with the correction from last week, offline, I, or while I think, I don't know if it was on the air, but we had a conversation about Schrodinger's Cat, which always irked me as a kid, because I always thought Schrodinger's Cat had this, I think I saw a TV show with like, Penn and Teller where I was like, the sexy version of history always overtakes the real version of history. And they talked about Schrodinger's Cat, and they're like, he didn't even come up with that idea. That's just an argument some other scientists came to make fun of him. And then he just got labeled with that for the rest of his life, and it was sad, but no one ever knows the name of the guy who made that joke, but we remember the name Schrodinger. So like at the end of the day, Schrodinger won. And I'm like, that's baffling. I had no idea it was like that. Totally not true. I think and I appreciate you helping me out with that. So I wish Schrodinger that came up with that kind of thought experiment to explain his position. And it was actually Niels Bohr who came up with the Copenhagen interpretation, which was out of his physics lab up where Copenhagen is. Very cool. Good thinking. You inspired a good thought. You helped me get rid of some false ideas and got closer to truth ideas. So I really appreciate that Dread Pirate. John Richards, you're not looking any pinker today than you did a few days ago. What's going on with that? Actually, I think that the cat won because it was in two positions simultaneously. That's got to be a win. That's got to be a win. If not a win-win. Oh geez. And we're starting early today. John, how you been and how has your interview been going on free thought? Well, like Dread, I also have a shirt on. But it's got no atomic symbols on it at all. Is that a pocket pen protector you got in your front pocket there? That's your phone. I bet you if we did an EDS analysis on your shirt we'd find some potassium. Probably. So this isn't actually just my phone. It's also my memory. Yeah, yeah. Roger that. So what have I been up to? Well, I've been in the pink because I held this free thought hour. Lots of you have been on my free thought hour. So you know what it's about. And I had Bethany Carter, who was lovely. Yeah, a good friend of the show and a personal friend of mine met her up in Nashville at the, well, geez, secular, Larry, help me out. Secure Alliance. What's the atheist church called? Help me out. Boy. Sunday Assembly of National. I was thinking of the Secular Student Alliance. There you go. Thanks. But Sunday Assembly for sure. Yeah. I know the guy who set up the Sunday Assembly. Oh, okay. Okay. Fancy, fancy. We're cool. That's where it started in England. Many years ago, I spent the day with him and he had, what was his name? What was her name? Pippa. Pippa, I can't remember her surname, but she's turned into quite a well-known comedian. She appears on our radio. Wonderful. Great voice. Fabulous singer. She led all the singing. Sorry for interrupting. I just want to say good friend of the show that you interviewed. How'd it go? How did what go? The interview with Bethany. Interview with Bethany. Interview with Bethany. Yeah, sorry, you broke up a bit. No. Yeah, Bethany's a charm, isn't she? She's lovely, dear. And we had a lot of fun. And it's now available to be watched as a podcast. Right. And so I can put the link to you in the details underneath. Fantastic. We appreciate it. So I did that. And of course, every week I do my global Atheist news show. So there's that. It can also be viewed. And I've also, this week, I've made a podcast, a video podcast with the, some of the other council members of Atheism UK. And what did we discuss this week? It wasn't morality. We have a different topic each week. And sometimes, unless it's in my memory, I can't remember what it was. It's just like this, but there's four of us. And we need some more diversity. We want some women. We want some ethnically different people. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that. I appreciate the call for it. It's better when it comes from. And I don't mean this in a bad way. It's better when it comes from old white men who are asking for that. Then the other way around. So good on you. They complain that we're old white men. But I go back at them. I don't want to be an old white man. I want to be a young brown man. It's not my fault. So hey, you do better than just clicking that link that I've provided in the comments descriptions. You can actually subscribe to Free Thought Productions, right? Free Thought Productions, name of the YouTube channel. Check it out. Cool. George Brown, second and one half and only one half. George Brown, how you been? Well, I've been getting older. And I don't think that you all want to hear about old people's stuff like my heart surgery or the fact that I have a bunion now. Which reminded me more about the heart surgery. The stakes went down in that conversation. Tell me about the heart surgery. What's going on? Well, the heart surgery was like two years ago. But I'm giving you an example. When you get old, you get stuff happens all the time that is going to be boring to younger people and boring to the older people too. Like I go to the senior center every week here in my little town. And they pick up some lunches. And so I was invited to come back. Hey, we're open again. The pandemic's over. I'm right. Come back. We got bingo. Bingo. Good luck with that. Yeah. So I've been looking up some interesting stuff online that I want to share with you all. First of all, in the Guardian, I think it was yesterday or the day before, there was a piece on Edward Snowden about surveillance. Yeah. And where it started big time back around 9-11 here in this country. And, you know, I have a feeling that Edward Snowden is going to go down in the history books as a great American patriot. Interesting. What's going to happen to him in the meantime? I'm afraid, to be honest. Hey, why don't we hold on that thought? Because I think it would be good if we had that when we were talking about people and ideas. And I think that might. OK. But let me get on to the second topic. And then I'll drop this. I've been reading up on Typhoid Mary. OK. Whose real name I'm forgetting. But this was a person of good intent, I guess, or desperation who was exercised her freedom, you know? Like a lot of people want today, you know? George Brown, you got so much stuff on your mind. I just want to see how you were doing. And I got. Oh, I'm here. I'm alive. It's better than the alternative. What else can I say? Let me introduce one last person for the show and before we delve into this, because I know you got a lot. You want to say Larry, I'm going to do a segment called What's on your shirt? What's on your shirt? Larry, tell me what's on your shirt. I don't know what's on your shirt. Larry, tell me what's on your shirt. Well, it's just another Hawaiian shirt, but it's kind of pale. It's got plants and structures and tropical stuff. OK. OK. It's long the same vein as usual. It's summer. I wear Hawaiian shirts all summer. And then I'll switch to flannel in the winter long-sleeved flannel. So we'll get bored with that. I dig it. I dig it. The more we know, the more we know. Larry, I just went to a wedding this weekend. I had a really fun time. And I just want to say it's like one of the first weddings I've been to since, you know, the whole COVID things happened. Everyone there vaccinated because it was all my team. It was one of our members from our laboratory group. So it was just good to see everybody outside of the lab setting happy again. Just want to say. John Richards looked like he wanted to say something. Well, before we leave the subject of shirts, it's against my religion to wear a shirt with somebody else's name on it. Because, you know, that's free advertisement. If they pay me, I'll wear their label. OK. But I'd rather they wore mine. You know? Sure. Sure. Sure. So the icon, do you have a topographic icon in mind? A free thought production logo. Nice. Nice. So guys, we are talking today about, what is it? Good ideas from bad people or from, you know, allegedly bad people even. I'd be willing to entertain. And so is it possible to get good information, good details, good ideas, good philosophies from people who may be morally corrupt or under prosecution or may be known for one very, very bad thing that they've done, et cetera. I think it's an interesting topic. And I think it's something that we were touching on yesterday or last week that we didn't have so much time to talk about. Dred, you want to start that? Sure. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I thought about this a lot because and not just about good ideas coming from bad people or morally bankrupt people. But sort of the cancel culture that's prevalent now where, for instance, Benjamin Franklin is taking a beating, you know, in spite of the good things that he did for some of the beliefs that he held at the time, which were, you know, common in society, the idea that, you know, many of the founding fathers of America actually had slaves and that in this day and age, they're taking their, they want to take their faces off the money because of the ideas that they held at the time in spite of the fact that they founded an amazing country like America. And so that's, I mean, that's where I was kind of coming from when you were talking about this. The idea that, and this is an ad hominem thing, right? Where people conflate ideas with the character of the person who holds it, right? All ideas must be kept secret or kept separate. And that's what you criticize, not the person from whom the thing comes from. Sure. That's kind of my belief anyway. Cool. We'll open up. John, you want to come on up? Yeah, yeah, we've had the same thing. We had the statue of Edward Colston toppled over in Bristol because he was, a statue was erected to him because he made the city of Bristol rich by trading in slaves. So this is the problem, isn't it? Right. So what classifies as bad changes? So we didn't see that as bad then, but we do now. It's interesting. What do you mean by we? Who's we? When you say we didn't see it as bad? I can almost guarantee you the slave saw it as bad. Well, I don't know why you say that. No. So I'll throw out an interesting, maybe this is an interesting topic, but I actually think it's important to recognize people for who they are in not the historical sense that we romanticize them to be, but as the actual people they were. And I think what we're getting now is a reckoning of who these people actually were that we've so lauded over a period of time because the people who identified with them were also the ones who wrote the history books. And so when you have a figure like Ben Franklin who has some great ideas, but liberty is a good thing. Anyone can spouse the virtues of liberty, even if they're doing horrendous things in the background. And now that that's finally coming to light and people are actually talking about that. I don't see that as a bad thing. I see that as an evolution of our culture finally being willing to look at bad things from bad people. Oh, I totally agree. Fantastic. We finally have the standards that we've been espousing since the beginning of time or. But by the same token, it doesn't erase the good things now. It doesn't. Liberty's still a good thing. We're now doing another good thing, which is looking at people honestly. Absolutely. And I think that is the value. And so when we have two options of like, well, should we rectify the fact that we used to like this slave master and now that we know he's a slave master, we shouldn't have him our money. It's like, maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we just can take the good stuff like the liberty and the foundations of having an honest government and get rid of the mascots that were, you know, enslaving people in the background at the same time to like, we can do both. And one doesn't just diminish the virtues of the good qualities that are being presented. I also, I also, you know, I really do think Richard you meant it genuinely, but I have heard a lot of times I've had conversations with people being like, you know, well, that slavery was okay then, but now we know it's a bad thing. I'm like, even back then the slaves knew it was bad. Like there was no misunderstanding from the perspective of slaves that this was a bad thing. It's just that their opinions had no value because they weren't seen as human beings. They were seen as property. And that in its own right is a bad thing. The fact that we're all recognizing that's a bad thing only means that other people are finally understanding that it's a problem too. Which is a good thing, but it was a bad thing then too. And we should be, we should, it's almost alarmist not considered as such, right? You won't catch me defending slavery. If you have, I mean, if you have a alternative opinion, I'm not here to just as a, like the sole black guy on this cast trying to like sway it. But, you know, I do get canceled culture and I understand that could be problematic in certain senses, especially if it starts to over swell and take good things that were being perpetrated by bad people. I think it's important. I see you, I see you George. We'll separate the two, but I think the fact that we are recognizing that bad people can say good things is a good thing. And we should just recognize bad, but the good is still good, but bad people. And I think that's overall a net good. Hopefully I'm making clear with that. Yeah. George Brown, what do you think? Well, I have a question on my mind. I was wondering if other people have the same question. Exactly. What is canceled culture? What does that mean? Larry, why don't you step in? It's been a problem. What do you, what do you mean? What do you think cancel culture is? I'm not the big authority on it. I have a marginal understanding of it best. But my, my idea of it is that if, if somebody does something that the society thinks is bad, they might, let's say he has business. I might boycott his business. That type of thing. Dred. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's like, for instance, if you start taking someone's books off the shelf because they held an unpopular idea. Um, when the books are not about that unpopular ideas, you know, you could be a biologist and you came up with some really great ideas, but you held a belief about you were a misogynist or something or, you know, had a bad marriage or whatever. But sorry, that's a fly. I didn't know if you're just advocating with certain points. Weird points that he's enunciating. Talking like an Italian, right? Um, but recently there was, uh, there's a spacecraft, um, that the James Webb telescope and there is a faction of people who are trying to, you know, um, say that he's not worthy of having a spacecraft named after him for some behavior, uh, he displayed, possibly displayed during his, his life and that, uh, and NASA, of course, is taking this claim seriously. So at what point does, uh, you know, is it to what extent is a person's life, uh, scrutinized by the public, uh, just because you want to name something after them? You know what I mean? Like pretty soon you can't name anything like Huygens, for instance, or, um, any of the spacecraft that have, that bear somebody's name. Hmm. You know, if we start looking into their lives and scrutinizing them and then renaming the spacecraft because, uh, we didn't like a particular idea they held. Um, that's a form of cancer culture right there. John, would you mind espousing on cancer culture? What do you think it is? And what's your... Well, it's, it's what Dred says, is what Larry said. And, and in addition, it's, um, no platforming. When people want to express their maybe contentious views, not giving them a microphone. No, I think that's, that's part of cancer culture. And it's a bad idea because we should let all the bad views come out so that we can argue against them. Yes. Oh, that's interesting. Absolutely. That is interesting. Uh, it's fundamental to free speech. Exactly. Exactly. So I will throw out, um, so I may not have the best definition of cancer culture, but I do think it is about deep platforming, right? And I think it goes under the concept of, um, not everyone's entitled to have a platform, right? Or you can say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean that you're not beyond the consequences of your speech. And so if we determine that your speech causes what I would call needless harm, or if we put you in a position where you represent us and you're criminally going against what we've, you know, asked you to do as part of your body, but for some, you know, corrupt reason we can't get rid of you and you're actually causing needless harm, maybe censorship in that capacity is something that we can, or terms of service is something that we can all agree. These are the conditions in which we would take away your platform and do so rightfully as part of the community, like cancer culture is like in the capacity that we can do it now and the power and the speed that we can do it now is like this new thing and a new power and unpowered new powers that are often unchecked can quickly exacerbate into the cells into this is no longer a good thing. It's immediately a bad thing or it's a bad tool. So how do we manage this new functionality that we have? Well, we actually have the states because I'm not there, but we have laws in this country against hate speech and raising people to harm others, calling others to be victimized by the audience. It's not allowed here. Yeah, and I think we have so in my head, like a lot of the platforms that people use to espouse ideas, YouTube, Twitter, etc. have strict terms of service right and in those are codified rules of what they will accept and what they won't accept and the means of repercussions will happen if any of those terms are violated and it's only when they are enacted or enforced that sometimes people have like, well, that's against free speech. It's like, well, this is a private company that is espousing specifically what they would want that someone clicked and said, yes, I accept these terms of service and if they don't like it, they can make their own service platform, but you're not entitled to do that on my contract as a private company, right? A lot of people are raising their hands. I would like to see George because he had something we want to say back and then we can talk about this. George Brown, what do you got? I forgot topic number two. Mary, number one is we have we have a concept. I don't know if it's enshrined in American law or certainly illegal arguments. You can't cry fire in a crowded theater. I wonder why. You have some sort of basis in public discourse for not allowing unlimited free speech and it's kind of like what you said, Wombat. If there are consequences, if there are negative consequences to somebody else that person who violates that your wholeness, let's say, is responsible for those consequences. Larry? I think they call it inciting to violence. You're not allowed to do that. I'm not familiar with the law structure around that. You can't incite people to go out and hang people or burn buildings or whatever. It's against the law here too. Dredd? I was just going to say that this is moving away from what cancel culture is. Sure. I've had this happen to me on Facebook and in my community where I've said something that I've chatted something that was not liked by a certain group and then I've been personally attacked and canceled out and shut down essentially just by the mob who suddenly now decides that I am a bad person at root and that anything I say is worthy of attack and abuse and all the rest of it. Just to throw this out, I'm thinking of it as like a spectrum that's very ambiguous right now because this is like a new muscle that the internet's using for the most part. And on one side you have hey, I just made a bad joke 10 years ago please don't fire me for this. This wasn't even something I genuinely met. I'm not even that person anymore. I don't even remember posting that. And then also now where it's like the president's actively causing people to rush into the capital with Confederate flags completely destroy our democracy and possibly threaten the lives of our senators when he gets blocked on Twitter it's like that's cancel culture. You shouldn't have this ability you should have been a piece like four years ago like crazy. There's a wide spectrum unfortunately it seems to be hitting everybody in this proportionate amounts where some places I feel like it's needed in some cases I feel like ooh that was what taken way too far. And I feel like if it was just more explicit rules of engagement that was just like something you can like well what's accepted what's not accepted where's the line and I think we're still in the process figuring that out. John I'm sorry for taking up your time. What's up? No no no fine. We've jailed several people in this country Muslims for calling for non-Muslims to be victimized and anti-Muslims for calling Muslims to be victimized but the problem here is who decides because it's always up to who happens to be in control at the time. Imagine this if Darwin had not been born and lived in Hampshire, UK if he'd been born in which we say Alabama. Ah we'd have a hard time. Do you think that he would have been able to get his ideas launched? Right even in England it took him 20 years to do that after he formed them. It's very hard for him to do even so and it's not like he wasn't the subject of ridicule immediately afterwards right? Well he wasn't actually the ridicule came later he was for the first 20 years That's literally the sentence I just said John. And it's time to break we're at the middle of the half hour. This is the digital free thought radio alright we're going to be back in just about as long as it takes you're seeing a little bit. Hello and welcome back to the digital free thought radio hour second half we're on W. O. Z. O radio 103.9 L. P. F. M. here in Knoxville, Tennessee I'm doubter 5 and this is Sunday morning September 5th 2021 let's talk about the atheist society of Knoxville for a minute. ASK was founded in 2002 we're in our 19th year we have over a thousand members and we have weekly zoom meetings during covid but we're also meeting in person out on the deck at the Barley's Taproom in Pizzeria in Knoxville's old city that's every Tuesday evening right after work around 5.30 to 8 or whenever you can find ASK on facebook meetup.com or just go to KnoxvilleAtheist.org or even just google it it's just that simple 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 and one star one a moment where do we want to pick up we're talking about can we get good ideas from bad people I think the general consensus is it is possible to abstract too because just because you came up with an idea doesn't mean you own it or it came from you it's freely available to everyone it's just a bad guy probably found it first and it doesn't mean that if we recognize that that person was bad takes away anything from the good things that they found let's focus on the good things and be aware that we can see people more honestly as human beings maybe that makes us all more John what do you think we're facing the same John Richards what do you think we're facing the same problem in reverse here because we're up against what is bad and what is we were up against what is bad in the previous half but now we're up against what is good because I can tell you a story English general who invented this new kind of bomb which when you could throw it and when it exploded little pieces of metal went hurtling through the air and injured and maimed a large number of people in the vicinity now at the time that was thought to be a good thing depending on whether you were on the receiving end or the throwing end and this general his name was Shrapnel General Shrapnel literally Shrapnel Shrapnel had no idea where that name came from that's great that's where you're born and your name is like peanut butter sauce you're going to be making something really good one day usually or your last name is Crapper Thomas Crapper let me take the story a little further because quite recently a pub in a town near me was being redeveloped and it was looking for a new name because it was going out as something completely different from its previous image and it discovered that General Shrapnel was born and lived in this town they didn't want to call the pub Shrapnel in that wouldn't have attracted very many customers so they looked him up he's got a his first name was Henry so that pub became called the General Henry and very few people know the actual history to it John, I love all the UK pieces of advice that you give me I have more trivia about the UK now than I've ever had in my life and I feel like I can surprise so many people if they got like a a Scouse accent you know about Henry, that little pub over there it's like yeah, guess who that guy is yeah, perfect I guess I'll have to work on the Canadian version oh, tell me, Dredd do you have examples of I'm sure it could come up with them would you like to share one? I don't have one yet okay, fair enough Larry, do you have an example of perhaps a bunch of good ideas that were discovered or put into words by a particularly person that we're realizing may not as be as good as we thought well, I didn't when I started the show but so I went online and I looked up a few the inventor of the transistor who also oh, that guy helped invent the computer William Shockley was apparently a big fan of eugenics and a very big racist so he had some good ideas as far as technology goes but as society goes not too good yeah I will say this too, here's one of my favorite ones Han or Faber, the Faber process are you guys familiar with him? so there was the pencil guy there's a guy named Fritz Haber and he is the reason why we exist right now because before there was not enough nitrogen to make agriculture fertilizer to feed more than 2 billion people on the planet and if you add and check recently there's way more than 2 billion people on the planet and the reason for that is because we found a way to take air that nitrogen and air and precipitate it into a form that can actually make plants grow and plants need DNA DNA needs nitrogen so you need to figure out how to get the nitrogen and air into the plants he figured that out the thing is and it saved so many lives from hunger and our population has exploded ever since but the thing is guy was outright probably one of the most notorious Nazis of all time made chemical weapons one of my first jobs was getting rid of the chemical weapons using the same formulas that he devised like we were breaking down chemical weapons as part of like America's treaty with other countries Larry one last thing also stabbed his wife to death tried to run away from it total huckster tried to soul making gold from seawater which was like not the best just the worst guy good idea though and I'm willing to abstract that away because for as many millions of people he's responsible for directly killing in the most violent and harmful ways possible he's also potentially responsible through his discovery for the livelihoods and the existence of billions of people after the fact and I'm not saying one counts without the other I'm just saying just because a bad guy discovered something doesn't make that thing he discovered a bad thing right and I'm willing to abstract the two Larry what's up well you mentioning him made me think of runner Ron Braun who helped engineer the first rockets that we had and if hadn't been for him and his his thoughts on that we may have not have made it to the moon in 169 and then have our space program as far along as we have yeah he was the one that created the v2 right he was the rocket engineer so we're gonna come to Nobel now aren't we oh let's do Nobel that's an interesting one yeah that's a very interesting one yeah exactly so he was embarrassed about the way his invention was being used wasn't he so this is why he set up the foundation to award people for peace amongst other things what foundation is that John Richards that would be the Nobel Peace Prize huh you got to get that piece in there you got to get that piece in there because they were thinking let's just call it the Nobel Prize gotta get peace in there I'm doing this for a reason what was his original intention for explosives oh it was what he did was he tamed nitroglycerin nitroglycerin was a very unstable substance and he worked out that if you mix it up with very finely ground clay called Kieselger German word then maybe Norwegian but then it would be safe to carry around in these sticks you know like we've all seen sticks we should totally use for making towns renovating like unusable land and then military is like hey we could use this for our thing too and he's like I like money and he made a lot of money and then at the end of the day he's like I don't like what my legacy might be what can I do as a marketing campaign and they said Nobel Peace Prize interesting thing oh go for it like John what prompted him to do that was an article appeared in the death column of the news announcing that he passed away now this was actually a mistake he passed away but it misnamed him so anyway he took fright about this because he could see that what his legacy was going to be like because the description the description he wrote wasn't very flattering right his discovery responsible for like the deaths of XYZ number bad thing am I a good person how can I turn this round you know Nobel is actually kind of a good story because it's almost as if you can see the mechanics of a guy being like how do I force correct this how do I try to inspire it and again it's ideas and I'm not trying to say that he's a good or bad person in my head it's more of like the invention is absolutely has great utility but it could be used by the various means it could be used for war it could be used for you know litigation, punishment, etc but also useful things too and so it's a great quagmire it's of nuance and I love it this is a nature of science and technology isn't it what they do what those two aspects do is facilitate they make things easier so for example a tin over or can over makes it easier to open a can and I need one of those and a gun makes it easier to kill people and I don't need one of those true and like it's the same way as like the guy who invented a blade like a knife blade like that could be used for so many different things right and so is he responsible for every single use of it that's it I wouldn't I wouldn't say so but I think it's an interesting thing that you know Nobel saw that and saw it what can I do to course correct made the Nobel Peace Prize and here's an interesting thing a good number of people who get Nobel Peace Prize tend to also be war criminals if we want to talk about nuance here too and I think is a particularly interesting thing to be like I'm thinking of a U.S. President won the Nobel Peace Prize also categorical war criminal like at the same time to Theodore Roosevelt one of them for example probably one of the most popular examples because when they got the Nobel Peace Prize it was sort of like the committee didn't know what the magnitude of the award was they thought by giving it to him that it was sort of a promise that he wouldn't go to war and be and treat the Native Americans here more nicely totally didn't but it totally accepted the award and was like and I'm going to put my face on a mountain next to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington is like oh this guy is really really bad yeah that's a narcissist right there that is like probably the one of the worst people they could even award like that too I'm not sure he actually did the sculpting guess what he did he used dynamite he heard that work out so George Brown we were talking today about Edward Snowden do you think you said he thought you think eventually would see him as a patriot do you think the things that he did were good and what do you think about him personally well I think he may be a pretty complex person and I really don't know I know that he made quite a transition in his own mind right it's all I can say and I mean he was part of the surveillance machine to begin with yes and then I think he realized that how would I put it the conceptual devastation that it would cause if left unchecked right and so that's what is motivating him now and he's had to get out of the country you know to save himself and look where he's had to go to do it I know right if this is paradox on top of paradox you know what I wanted to highlight was people are complex and the more you delve into these situations the more complexity is there but that in my head is where the true thinking and weighing begins for like a person to adjust or assess good bad maybe we don't need those terms maybe those are just smaller things that we can put on small aspects but much more complex issue and so like when we you know this probably goes back to Benjamin Franklin sort of situation where it's like we have forefathers that we only think of in good terms right but we know that there are people and we know people are complex and I feel like we deserve to at least have that resolution of complexity because in that light we get to understand the person better and be able to understand other people empathetic and knowledgeable beings when it comes to assessing humanity and that make give us terms to appreciate flaws in people at a higher you know fidelity when we know we don't have these altruistically perfect standards that we're comparing everybody to like when we say hey Jesus had problems like there's you know Jesus in the book of the Bible has you know he's prone to anger he's judgmental he literally thinks he's the son of God right like these are not we want to invite to a party but yet he's the standard that we judge most people to in terms of philosophy and being a person I think if we just were willing to look at the complexity humanity we'd be able to appreciate humanity more and that'd be helpful everybody George well in the first half the term cancel culture came up and we battled around a little bit and I just want to bring up something another side to what we've been talking about pushback you know we've been talking about the desire to understand the backstory behind the legends and in fact we've been getting a lot of pushback lately from the right about this you know and the attempt to to suppress what you want suppress the truth coming out we want the truth specifics on that well right here in our state of Tennessee I think there's been an argument within the state government the legislators and the governor about textbooks in schools but maybe I'm thinking about Texas right this moment I'm sure Tennessee is the guiltyest but you know that there certainly are some black folks here who want to open the door to the truths of history what is really what really has happened we've been talking about CRT then what's that book? it's critical race theory so I actually would say that's way beyond that like the Civil War the reconstruction after the Civil War played a big part in what was being taught in schools to rectify you know a lot of the humanities that were occurring during that time and making sure that they glossed over a lot of aspects of really terrible things America have done overall to paint this picture that's very picturesque what America actually is and that's still in the history books and it's weird how if you open up a history book in America for high school it goes to like jump straight to World War II and you're like what was there a World War I it's like no no no it's basically that and then you know you have Columbus visiting World War II and then basically now dred I saw you raising your hand what's up yeah it was actually when you brought up Jesus there just recently I've been watching a lot of the genetically modified skeptic and apology is another YouTuber really good stuff but recent ones I was watching were the non canonical Gospels such as the book of Judas and the Gospel of Thomas and you know when it comes to sculpting history to the benefit of whatever image you're trying to portray those are great cases where if it was common knowledge what were in those books and how they characterized Jesus people would not think of him as all love and happiness you know he's like a bratty little kid with superpowers killing people and then raising them from the dead just because one pushed past them or something like that and just pretty crazy stuff yeah so it was enlightening to see that so we had to talk about Schrodinger's today because we had a correction of a misinterpretation of history that I had because I was given one with an agenda the agenda being selling dog food commercials right and then you had sent me the true sources and the citations and I was able to look that up and you know I was reading through the history of Schrodinger I was like man this guy is boring he has friends like Einstein but gosh this like the other version that I had was so much more memorable and exciting and fun but this one's just plain applesauce man who just comes up with math formulas it's like boring but it helped me understand the truth better and I feel like a lot of the history that we have regardless of where we were born or raised was given to us with an agenda and that tends to be the case for everybody but we all have different agendas and that's a lot of reasons it drives a lot of conflict and so what I say is it is beneficial for us to have the desire for truth and through that truth if we make adjustments after the fact after we have a better clear picture of what humanity was that is in the interest of the truth and good and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing obviously cancer culture could take it too far and I think if we don't expel good guidelines for conduct for people I think we fall just as susceptible for over correcting if we don't make the grounds for why we correct in the first place explicitly clear but I do value the idea I have this idea it's a good idea but it was made by a bad person I just don't want to associate this bad person with this good idea anymore I think that's totally fine because there's so many standards of good people who can say the exact same thing that we could look up to if we need role models in that capacity and why not adjust as needed Larry what's up George did you raise your hand okay I did yes you know I the older I get the more interested in psychology I get the need to understand why people do what they do including my own self this is a major goal of my own is just to understand me that's a major undertaking and why do I do what I do and one thing that is occurring to me while we discuss our topic for today good ideas from bad people is the push back the resistance and people I think have a tendency to want to cling to what is familiar to them it's comforting what's familiar and when we go beyond that point to many people it feels threatening and that's why they want to come back restore what was push those those people away because they are different yep you know that's what I want to offer right now guys we talked about Mount Rushmore I know this isn't very good radio but maybe it will drive people to our other sites our YouTube site or something but I've got a picture of the new Mount Rushmore that I'd like to share with you can you let me put this off go for it the one with Homer Simpson it's still white men oh well they're awesome better luck next time guys now who are they that is Mount Rushmore so who are the people on it Carl Sagan Daniel Dennett James Randi this one is Bertrand Russell so I will have a hot take it would be good all these things that these guys are espousing believe it or not they are not the first people to espouse the things that they have espouse if you were to go into other cultures or history from other countries and find well Egyptians were saying this exact same thing we don't care about black people in Mesopotamia the white people are saying it now okay that's fine but Chinese were saying all of these things in literature for like thousands of years ago but these guys have really nice pictures that we can put on mountains I feel like we don't need to have to necessarily associate four white faces of men to have the face of rationality and we should be careful in my head of that immediate association as even as fun as it could be Dredd what's up you were talking about you know the Schrodinger thing how the story you initially heard was much more interesting and that you eventually came around to the boring story and that sort of justifies in a way of having an incorrect appreciation of what he was I have an appreciation for it but I like the truth more yes and I think that's absolutely valid if you're a critical thinker and I think it's important to continually help and assist people to become more critical in their own thinking not only about their own ideas and the ideas of others but their selves as well that's something that because like George says we've become very enamored by our beliefs and often without any inspiration to believe or think otherwise you could go your entire life thinking that Schrodinger was being made fun of yeah yeah yeah and even if that made me feel better it wasn't true which could let me to be wrong about other things in the future so I'll take the boring truth over a sexy lie any day but I still like the sexy lie to know that it's a lie cause that was very funny I still like my Spider-Man comic books George Brown and then we close up the show George Brown what's that for our audience and me please tell us what Schrodinger is all about we'll tell you next week cause that's a I need to know the definition of what you're talking about we're at the end of the show hey we'll go into it everybody else Jon Richards where can we find you at not at non-locality you wouldn't find me there you can find me at what's it called oh yeah Freethought Productions Dread Pirate where can we find you at I'm on YouTube at MinePirate M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E click and subscribe I livestream this at 8 a.m. P-S-T Larry Rhodes where's your channel at if anyone's seeing this on me let's chat on YouTube you can find me by going to search for doubter 5 or Larry Rhodes that's R-H-O-D-E-S my own content is on digitalfreethought.com be sure to click on the blog button for radio show archives, atheist songs and many articles on the subject questions for the show send them to askanatheistatnoxialatheist.org by the way if you're a member clergy, a preacher, pastor or priest who has no longer beliefs in the claims of religion you can find help at the clergy project that's 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's 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 so I heard a voice in my head that told me 80 is almost true