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Penn Jillette wants to talk it all out
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoGreat read. A very interestingly thoughtful person.
- padjo 3y agoOne of my favorite people
- hackerlight 3y agoHe's changed politically/ideologically. I remember him being very right-libertarian a few years ago. > So, if it’s not A.I., what do you worry about? Without being overly dramatic — but, I think, being accurate — there’s a small chance, but still real non-zero chance, that we’ve destroyed our country with monetizing hate and monetizing aggression and monetizing outrage. What makes you the most money is outrage and hate. > For so long, you identified as Libertarian. What changed? I completely have not used the word Libertarian in describing myself since I got an email during lockdown where a person from a Libertarian organization wrote to me and said, “We’re doing an anti-mask demonstration in Vegas, and obviously we’d like you to head it.” I looked at that email and I went, “The fact they sent me this email is something I need to be very ashamed of, and I need to change.” Now, you can make the argument that maybe you don’t need to mandate masks — you can make the argument that maybe that shouldn’t be the government's job — but you cannot make the argument that you shouldn’t wear masks. It is the exact reciprocal of seatbelts because if I don’t wear a seatbelt, my chances of fucking myself up increase — if I don’t wear a mask, the chance of fucking someone else up increase. Many times when I identified as Libertarian, people said to me, “It’s just rich white guys that don’t want to be told what to do,” and I had a zillion answers to that — and now that seems 100 percent accurate. > So how do you identify politically? Well, let’s go to empirical evidence: I’m going to vote Democrat, maybe that’s all you need to know. I will not vote for a third-party candidate. I believe all the clichés, I believe they’re true — I believe that Trump and MAGA might make the United States unrecognizable enough that it’s not a beautiful place to be.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 3y agoCracked is back? I loved it like 10 years ago but it seemed like the site fell off the face of the earth
- 31carmichael 3y agoI remember when I noticed that all the authors were woke. Was never the same.
- JackMorgan 3y agoI don't know that word "woke", could you define it? I see conflicting definitions online.
- gardenhedge 3y agoOverly zealous or performative adherence to progressive and liberal values, where individuals or groups are perceived as seeking out instances of offense or injustice, often in contexts where such issues are viewed as minor, exaggerated or misinterpreted
- Pigalowda 3y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woke
- zen928 3y agoIt's a word you use when you want to signal to everyone that you'd like to cease having a polite discussion and turn it into a battle of ideologues, very commonly initiated by those who lack introspective processes that fuel the political narrative that they pretend to demonstrate against. When someone's inner monologue is so full of derisive irrationality that buzzwords pushed with an agenda are the first "opinions" they share, its somewhat of a moot point to engage with them as the point of their post wasn't about having a civil discussion. I generally consider it an indirect act of kindness when people like this immediately show their cards, because it's pretty easy to spot and ignore (if the loud sound of their mouth breathing doesn't already give it away).
- santoshalper 3y agoGreat interview, but man that ending was abrupt.
- lttlrck 3y agoYes! I needed some forward looking wisdom to round it off. Thoroughly enjoyable.
- CharlesW 3y agoI love Penn & Teller, and also have huge respect for their efforts to debunk grifters and charlatans. Fool Us (a segment of which is embedded in the article) is also really good, and a fun family watch. One of the most interesting parts of the show is how Penn has a post-presentation conversation with the magician to determine if P&T know how it was done without giving the trick away to the audience.
- BLKNSLVR 3y agoI love trying to pick it out, identify the key words.
- jrflowers 3y agoJust goes to show that you can be 16 or 68 — there will always be opportunities to grow out of a libertarian phase of life :)
- hayst4ck 3y agoTimothy Snyder calls this dream that people are in the Politics of inevitability. The politics of inevitability is a rough awakening for believers of any ideology. These are all things you will find people believing in the wild: Good outcomes for yourself is an inevitable consequence of a free market. Equitable outcomes are an inevitable consequence of liberal policies. Peace is an inevitable consequence of trade. Democracy is an inevitable consequence of being an American. Morality is an inevitable consequence of being a christian. Democracy and Liberalization are an inevitable consequence of capitalism. Rule of Law is an inevitable consequence of having a constitution. Freedom is an inevitable consequence of gun ownership. You can pick your ideology/identity, and there is a good chance that there is a belief of an inevitable outcome of it, an outcome determined primarily by following the ideology, not doing the actions required by it. People are waking up to the idea that outcomes are a result of actions, not beliefs. Democracy is not a belief you have, its a set of actions you perform. Democracy is not something you are, it is something you do. You can only be a libertarian (the ideology, not the identity) until you understand the collective action problem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_action_problem).
- schwartzworld 3y ago> Democracy is an inevitable consequence of being an American. Morality is an inevitable consequence of being a christian Ehhhh
- BLKNSLVR 3y agohayst4ck is pointing out how the belief is believed to work, not how the reality works. I was similarly cross-eyed at those statements until the point was made: > outcomes are a result of actions, not beliefs Just because someone identifies as Christian it doesn't make their actions moral - even though they themselves may believe that. Their actions have to be moral in order for the outcome to be that they are moral.
- mdrzn 3y agoVery interesting read.
- mdrzn 3y agoThanks for the downvote?