Would You Be Catholic or Protestant? | YES or NO: Ben Shapiro

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Would you lean Catholic over Protestant?

Very, very good question.

Very spicy.

I actually know the answer.

I don't know if you know the answer to this, but I do know the answer.

I would be shocked if you had any other answer.

It's an obvious answer.

I know you think it's an obvious answer.

Welcome to Yes or No, the bibulous battle to discover who knows whom better.

My guest today is Ben Shapiro.

How do we play?

I'll ask Ben a yes or no question.

He will select his answer away from my prying eyes.

Then, I'll guess how he answered.

If I guess correctly, I get a point.

If I guess incorrectly, I lose a point.

No matter what, I'll probably drink.

Then, it's Ben's turn.

Neither of us has seen the questions beforehand.

Whoever has the most points at the end wins.

The stakes could be higher.

You know, the stakes for America are also high, which is why you need to get Ben's new book, Lions and Scavengers, the true story of America.

Pre-order it right now.

Ben,

thank you for coming to my show in your soundstage.

I mean, this is magical.

It's pretty cool.

It is pretty awesome.

Since the last time you were on, we've kind of raised the rent a little bit.

Yeah, you definitely have.

So we're spending even more money.

I didn't think it was possible.

Now we have moving lights.

Now, I have to ask, what are you drinking?

I don't know.

Whatever they gave me.

This, because there was a debate.

Apple juice.

I'll let people in on it.

It's a little early.

It's the morning.

Yes.

And so I said, I'll have a martini, dry, little dirty blue cheese olives.

Breakfast of champions.

But apparently, I think they gave you a non-alcoholic drink.

Did they?

I don't know.

Or is it the whiskey?

I told them to give you the whiskey.

That's whiskey.

Is it?

Yeah.

All right, there we go.

All right.

I'm glad to hear that.

It's kosher.

It's kosher.

Do you know the rules?

I think so.

I don't.

Okay.

But I'll go first.

Okay.

If I were running for president of the United States, would I need to kiss the wall?

Do I have to?

Wow, that's a very realistic.

The AI has gotten good.

Professor Jacob, your co-religionist, made this up on AI the other day and showed it.

This is not my first time seeing this picture, but the question is a serious one.

Both parties, people go to the wall in Jerusalem.

Yes.

If I were running, would I need to kiss the wall?

I have to, you have to get.

I'm going to answer, and then I think you have to guess what I would say.

Yes, okay.

Okay, ready?

Okay.

What does Ben think that you would have to do?

Yes.

I can see Shapiro-esque arguments for both answers here.

You would say

no.

No, I would not have to.

Yes, you would not have to.

Because I'm Catholic.

Right.

If I were evangelical.

If you're Jewish, no one has to kiss the wall.

It's ridiculous.

It's not even like a Jewish thing.

I was trying to explain this to some people.

Like people do if they want to, but it's not like a commandment to go kiss.

It's not even a commandment to visit the wall.

And certainly for non-Jewish, like I've said this to Ted Cruz.

All these people, they'll come to synagogues.

But

I'm put on Yamaka.

And I'm like,

why?

You're not Jewish.

I don't care.

I think he would have to kiss the wall.

I think for evangelical Protestants or Baptists, I think it plays very well to kiss the wall.

Because it largely came out of evangelical movements in the 20th century.

Whereas for Catholics, that's not like a traditional thing to do.

You go to the Holy Sepulchre, you go to all these different places.

But I tried to explain this to someone.

I was like, because people say that you kiss the wall basically because the Jews force you to.

I was like,

the reason American politicians have started kissing that wall or praying at the wall or whatever,

I think, I don't know, maybe you tell me if I'm if Gassad has the other view.

It seems to me the reason is because evangelical Protestants have played a huge role in American politics in both parties, especially in the Republican Party, and they tend to be into that religious ritual.

And so

I think it's more playing to them than it is playing to Jews.

Well, I mean, I think that's certainly true.

I also think that it has to do with, I would assume, biblical solidarity, meaning like Jesus clearly, I mean, this is the temple that Jesus was talking about.

And so it's not that Jesus was a big fan of the temple,

but it is the idea that Jesus was actually, well, he was an observant Jew.

I mean, like, it does talk in the New Testament about Jesus, you know, being a Jew and doing Jewish things and such.

And so, like, that whole area, these are areas where Jesus legitimately walked.

Yeah.

You can walk up, I believe in September, they're going to open up the pilgrimage road that goes down from the Silawan Pool all the way up to the temple and to the Western Wall area.

And like, you can see the stones where Jesus walked.

You can see where he was standing and yelling at people about the moneylenders in the temple and all this kind of stuff.

So I think as sort of a, this is connected, this is like an area that Jesus was.

I think that's probably why evangelicals are doing that sort of thing.

But from a Jewish perspective, as you know, we've known each other a long time.

I don't care.

Like politicians come to Shul and again, they'll put on the keepa.

I'm like, Why?

You're not Jewish.

You're not Yankee.

It's fine.

You can wear a Yankee hat.

Right, exactly.

But for me, what I would prefer,

streimel.

Well, I mean, that's pretty slick, right?

I mean, if you're going to go like the old school Polish garb from 1750, the Polish nobility, that's where it came from, then you should totally leave it.

I'm too cheap for them, though.

Apparently, I've heard they're very expensive.

But for all the anti-Semites in the audience, actually, what we mandate is that you wear it like fully the side lock.

And also you have to have a radio near the western wall to shut it all down.

You do.

That's actually where they take you.

It's like all right, he's coming.

He's coming.

He can be president now.

He can, okay.

You're up.

Okay.

No clear answer.

Okay,

do you, Michael Moles, have dual loyalty to the Vatican?

I'm warning you, so you don't think that I'm cheating.

This answer goes down about like three levels.

I know,

I actually think I know what the answer is going to be here.

Okay, okay, go ahead.

Okay, correct.

Why?

Because you have soul loyalty to the Vatican.

That's like the second level of it.

So I would say, if

not for an unfortunate event in history,

well, a few unfortunate events.

They concluded with the Lateran Treaty.

But one of them was this event that began with this awful man, Garibaldi, who stole a lot of land from the church and from the Pope and all these problems in the 19th and into the 20th centuries.

There could be real territory.

Now,

I'm still an American.

None of my family, they all came from either North Africa, also known as Sicily, or from England and Ireland.

But

if the Vatican had the papal Zuaves with that great uniform and a sword and whatever, and I could go, I don't know, like slay Saracens or Lombards or something.

We're cool, I'm in.

But the reason I would say no, I don't have dual loyalty, is because the loyalty to the Vatican as presently constituted, which is about half a square mile of a space, and to the United States, are loyalties of a different kind.

So one is a national loyalty, one is a spiritual loyalty.

Just like my loyalty to the Yankees is of a different kind than my loyalty to, well, I have no loyalty to Ben Davies, but to someone on my producing team.

Yes.

That is the reason why.

But if they reconstituted

the Vatican's Army.

No, no.

I don't know.

I don't know that they're going to be able to do that.

I mean, honestly,

when I said that, I was kind of half joking,

but not totally, because the reason I'm saying that is because of what you're saying, which is we have a very dumbed-down conversation about the nature of identity.

Yes.

And the truth is that everybody has layers of identity, right?

So like for me on a personal level, I have an identity as a Jew, meaning like that's my religious adherence.

And then I have an identity as a father and a husband.

And then I have an identity as an American.

And the idea is that these do not conflict.

I can be a good American and also be a good Jew and also be a good dad.

And hopefully all three of those things not only don't conflict, but actually buttress one another.

And so me saying that you have like soul loyalty, that's like, that's like saying, if you ask literally any Christian in America, are you a Christian first or are you an American first?

They'd always say Christian.

They would say Christian because, of course, that's the answer.

Of course, that's the answer.

And the fact that that's somehow become radically controversial in some way is because people make gigantic category errors about this particular question.

Yeah.

Yeah, of course.

So I'm not insulted by that at all, or I don't find it troublesome.

It's bizarre to even think that way, but I think it's become kind of a trope that's designed to

create conflicts where none automatically.

It's not usually directed at my religious group.

Well, it was.

It was.

And then I was essentially.

Actually, a huge percentage of our politics from about about 1830

to probably 1960

was about this, right?

I mean, this was a major issue in the JFK campaign in 1960.

Schlesinger said that anti-Catholicism was the deepest prejudice in America.

Not that I always quote Schlesinger, but that was a real reality.

It was a real thing.

I mean, watch Gangs of New York, right?

I mean, like, this is a real thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but

it is funny, because

this is kind of what pluralism is, you know, which pluralism can be taken way to too great an extreme.

But it's like, obviously, there are different identity, identity, layers of identity.

But this is, you know, whenever we talk, the Westphalian system has to come up at some point, obviously.

Of course, I mean, we're going to have it has to come up.

We're like seven minutes in.

Yes, yes.

But this is one of the problems.

This is one of the many problems with the modern system of nation states, is it

just complicates everything.

Even the very notion of acuios regio eos religio, you know, whose reign, his religion, it just, it makes,

am I a nationalist?

Like, kind of.

I also think empire is fine.

I also think it's not...

Like,

nation matters, but it's not the be-all and end-all of my identity.

Right.

And it matters in one context and not in another.

Yes.

Right.

Like, I don't think the king has the right to declare religious truth.

I don't think that's real.

That was a consequence of the end of the religious wars, but like...

I don't know, most kings can barely articulate political truth.

And this actually is the fundamental basis of the United States Constitution in many ways, which is that the king does not have the power to declare religious truth.

Now, there were many states that had instituted religions, but not at the federal level, right?

So anyway.

Yeah, that's pretty okay.

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You went deep on that one.

That was good.

I know.

That was, Mr.

Davies is thrilled because at this rate, this episode will only be seven hours long.

So that'll be right.

Okay.

Did you have, did you have a pleasant experience on surrounded?

There are also like, I could think of like five different ways that you can.

Yeah.

I think you would say it was pleasant enough.

Yes.

That's right.

Pleasant enough is a good description.

I mean, it was rather variable.

Being screamed at for like seven solid minutes by a trans person was not.

the most pleasant thing I've experienced.

It was definitely, and at a certain point, I was like, okay, I'm just going to sit here and this person's going to yell at me.

And I I was amused by the fact that nobody would raise the red flag when that person was like, it was the most boring thing in the world.

And they're all like so intimidated by the idea that this person's identity is sacrosanct.

I must not raise the red flag under anything.

That's true.

Wow.

That gives them an advantage even in the game of surrounded.

Yes.

It's like, well, I can't silence.

I can't tell this trans person to sit down and shut up, even though she's saying nothing.

But yeah.

And so that was.

kind of unpleasant.

But overall, I thought it was pleasant.

And afterward, a bunch of the people who had been arguing with me kind of came up and wanted to snap selfies and were kind of fans.

And you were on it.

What was your experience?

I quite enjoyed it.

I don't know.

It wasn't a day at the beach.

You know, it wasn't like walking around the Parthenon or something.

But it was pleasant in as much as

there were some moments where I felt like I was actually talking to someone.

Yes.

There weren't many of them, but there were a few moments.

This is right.

You know, the funniest thing about that show, and this I did find delightful, there was one kid on there.

He was the kid at the top who was, he was actually raised a traditionalist Catholic.

He's kind of fallen away for now, but he'll come back.

But he, very left-wing and all this stuff, very pro-LGBT.

But I was sitting there, and he was starting to ask good questions.

He was starting to go from angles of the natural law, and he was kind of, he was a little clumsy about it, but he was starting to get into a decent conversation.

So, of course, they voted him off immediately.

Exactly.

They're like, enough of this.

We just need some giant maniac to yell at you.

Yeah, exactly.

So, So, yeah, I enjoyed it.

The funny thing with that show, though, is

I get a kick out of that environment.

Some people have not done well on that show.

And

you did well on the show.

But I've noticed, without naming names, some people have had a tough time because

you can win for two hours of that show.

If the show is two hours and two minutes long, you can win two hours of it.

If you flub for two

seconds.

It's very high pressure.

It's very high pressure.

You'll lose.

You look crazy.

You look terrible.

Because it all gets clipped.

It's all about the clips that come out from the thing for sure.

Yeah.

And that is very, you know, it's not as though the arguments that are being made are stellar most of the time.

Most of them are pretty terrible.

But you're right.

But that's now kind of the name of the game on the internet.

And so, if you do any sort of long-form thing,

the chances that if you screw up for 30 seconds, that ends up as like the featured thing on Twitter.

That's very, very high.

That's high stakes.

Yeah.

All right.

You're right.

All right.

Here we go.

Hmm.

Would banning TikTok save more lives than banning fentanyl?

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Okay.

I would be tempted to, because

it depends how trolly you were being that day.

No, but it's sort of like you could, do you mean save their body?

Do you mean save their soul?

Right, that's kind of where I was thinking you were going to go.

And I do think that that TikTok is more rot for your soul for a larger number of people than

fentanyl.

Fentanyl is killing 100,000 people a year, isn't it?

Yes.

Yeah, it's a lot of people, but TikTok is poisoning more people at a spiritual level and just answering.

By the tens of millions, yes.

Yes.

The difference is if we banned TikTok, they would just go to Instagram Reels or they would just go to Twitter Reels or they would just, and maybe that's not quite as poisonous as TikTok is, but it does rot your.

So, okay, fine.

So I actually disagree with this.

And I'll tell you why I disagree with this.

Because if you...

If you, so first of all, fentanyl is already banned.

Yes.

Right?

I mean,

it's not as though you can just go down to your local corner store and pick up fentanyls.

They banned fentanyl already.

And so banning fentanyl would not save additional lives at this point because it's already banned.

Banning TikTok, actually, there's a Delta.

So TikTok's algorithm is tremendously good, like very, very good at featuring virality and maximizing for virality.

And it's run by the Chinese communist government.

And so even if you were to say that, you know,

people are going to game the system, they'll go to X or they'll go to Instagram.

First of all, Instagram does have better controls and they're not run by the Chinese government.

And two, X is kind of a shit show at this point.

So you know, like it's just kind of a lot of everything all over.

And you see people hard gaming the system there for sure.

There's a lot of bots.

There's a lot of foreign governments that are messing around on X.

I wrote a whole book about how conservatives need to get on the bandwagon of restricting speech in a proper and civilized way.

And it completely went out the window.

This is proof.

I was a prophet ahead of my time.

I know.

So, right, and that's an interesting way to read the question, which is banning TikTok would save more lives than banning fentanyl.

You say, well, if it saves one additional life, it's already no delta.

Okay, all right, that's fair, that's fair.

With the hire of Isabel Brown, it seems that you may be Christian curious.

If so,

would you lean Catholic over Protestant?

Ooh, very, very good question.

Spicy.

It's very spicy.

I actually know the answer.

I don't know if you know the answer to this, but I do know the answer.

I would be shocked if you had any other answers.

No,

there are some people.

Well, I'm not going to give away mine.

I'll just let you answer first.

It's an obvious answer.

I know you think it's an obvious answer.

Okay.

I understand all of the problems for the obvious.

But yes, Catholic.

No, give me a break.

Give me a breath.

That is cope.

That is cope.

That is total cope.

Okay, I'll tell you why.

Okay, so.

In order for me to become a Christian, the central pitch of Christianity to me would be getting rid of all of the rituals.

I mean, that's like the central pitch, right?

You're saying you'd want to mix it up.

You got to.

Yeah, man.

I mean, like, like, if, like, I do more ritual than you, right?

I'm like as Jewish as it's possible to be almost.

And what that means is that if the, and I've said this before, Catholicism is more similar to Judaism than Protestantism.

Yes.

By far.

There's no question because Catholicism, as I said to Bishop Aaron, backfilled all of the ritual by basically saying

faith will save you, not works.

But also, it turns out that if you think that that is like a practical way of governing, it turns out that you need hierarchy and actual ways.

And

let's give some

credence to James here, who says, you are justified not by faith alone.

You're justified by works, not by faith alone.

And so

Paul also complements that by writing a lot about faith.

But it is.

There's a lot of stuff you do.

There's a lot of doubt.

100%.

So it turns out that the actual practical life of a Catholic is much more similar to the practical life of a Jew than Protestantism.

So I guess the question is on what basis.

So first of all, let's just acknowledge the obvious.

Whichever Christian converts me gets a million heaven points.

And we all understand this, right?

And honestly, I'm very flattered by all the people who want to convert me and care enough about my soul that they wish me to be saved.

That's

really, that's very nice of you.

I was at the NAPA.

I'm not insulted by it at all.

I don't find it a problem.

I was at the Napa conference.

It was, I don't know if this is Tails Head of School or whatever.

It's a big Catholic conference.

And anyway, I was speaking into a room, and some people were saying, like, hey, some of our favorite guys,

you, Charlie Kirk, you know, Protestants,

you know, how close are they?

Whatever.

I said, well, look,

it would be tough for Ben.

It would be tough for Ben for a number of reasons.

It's like, but I am, you're, that's such a fake answer.

Because like, you, the thing is, if you converted, you would not just convert because you got sick of doing the rap.

Rapping filling.

Yeah, yeah.

You wouldn't do it because you got sick of Shabbat, which is Shabbat's actually a very nice ritual to be.

It's not because you would have gotten sick of faith.

You would do it because you would be convinced that the most Jewish thing to be would be Christian.

Right.

And if you were believing in the future,

that's a totally fair argument.

Honestly, it's a totally fair argument.

And so that's what I was going to say: is if you believe that I was going to convert because I was actively attracted by the story of Jesus and his divinity, then I would probably end up Catholic.

Give me that point.

I want that point.

Okay.

If, however, I were to convert because I just got sick of the Jewishness of it,

I'd go Protestant because honestly, like you guys do a lot of stuff.

It's a lot.

It's a lot.

But you're right, Catholic.

Listen, both the Pope and I wear kipos.

You can see the picture of us.

His kipa is bigger than mine.

Right?

That picture was so wholesome.

Dude is this sweet.

You're giving, you're meeting the pope.

You're like, you know, Forrest Gump or something.

Yeah, exactly.

And you're like, you're standing there meeting the Pope.

And then you hand him a, it was a signed.

It's from my collection.

I mean, I'm a White Sox fan.

So I had in my collection a signed 2005 World Series baseball.

And I said to him, you know, Your Holiness, you're Catholic, I'm Jewish, but the one miracle we can both agree on is the 2005 White Sox winning the World Series.

And he laughed.

He thought, he thought it was funny.

It was funny.

I presented it to him, and he goes, is it for me?

I was like, well, yeah, I mean, I'm not bringing it here just to show it to you.

It's not sure what's going on.

Look what I had, you know.

Someone said to me, Michael, how is it that your Jewish colleague gets to meet the Pope before?

Yeah, no, that's the one does.

That's a good question.

I said, well, they have, look, the Pope and I have a lot in common.

You do.

I said, but the Pope and Ben have a very, very deep connection.

The White Sachs connection is carried by few.

It's a burden carried by few.

It is a true suffering experience, maybe sanctifying.

I don't know.

Yeah,

that's pretty good.

Now, okay, my final point.

Look, you're going to take the point.

But my final point on this is, okay, I get it.

One day you say, look, I've had enough of the rituals.

I want it.

You're telling me Ben Shapiro

is going to, just in order to get out of the rituals, you're going to go show up to the big auditorium with the smoke machines and the electric guitars.

You're going to, I'm going to see Ben Shapiro in that audience.

I mean, I wasn't aware that that's all Protestantism.

Well, no, but if you're not.

That's a particular type of Protestantism.

If you become Episcopalian, that's just twice the liturgy, half the guilt of the Catholics.

So now you're kind of right back where you were.

I mean, Episcopalian is a whole different thing.

I wonder if that bishoprist from the National Prayer Service would love to meet you.

I don't know.

She's

no, she hasn't answered my calls.

Okay, you're up.

I need to drink.

Okay, fine.

Davey's in my ear.

I have to drink.

Okay, fine.

Yeah, the good news is when you lose, you drink.

So that's nice.

When I went, I was already drinking when I wanted.

That's true.

Okay.

All right.

It's almost, it's five o'clock in India.

You're going to like this one.

You ready?

Is it more likely that the moon landing was faked than that Brigitte Macron has a penis?

Okay, come on.

Come on.

Who am I not a fan?

Read the question again.

Okay, is it more likely that the moon landing was faked than that Brigitte Macron has a penis?

I don't know my answer to this.

Okay.

Oh, he got it.

Yeah, he got it.

Yeah, we went to the moon.

We definitely went to the moon.

That's going to get 100% went to the moon.

We went to the moon, right?

Yeah.

And the thing is, it's not,

as I said on the show,

I think there are

in the political fight over the gender of the First Lady of France, there are all sorts of legal and political maneuvers that could turn

lawsuits out in any direction.

All sorts of things that are not necessarily relying on biology.

But we live in a time when transgenderism is accepted.

We live in a time when people think transgenderism, some people think it's normal.

We live in a time when people go to the doctors to get chopped up, and usually they don't really look that convincing, but whatever.

So

I cannot be convinced that the Soviet Union would have let us get away with lying about the moon.

That's my biggest problem with all the moon stuff.

Why, if it were all fake

and it were so obviously fake that anyone in this dorm room can figure it out, why would the Soviet Union let us get away with it?

I mean, that's a great question.

Also, questions would be like, we went back there multiple times.

And then golfed, right?

Right.

Also, we developed like actual inventions based on things like travel to space that ended with the landing on the moon.

To space, yes.

But they would say, yeah, we've been to London.

Yeah, okay.

So, so here, here is my thing.

Obviously, both of these things are untrue.

We did land on the moon, and Brigitte Macron does not have a penis.

However, what about Carla Bruni?

But you are right that actually the basis of the dismissal of a case in France about this was not whether or not Brigitte Macron had had a penis.

It was that the court said you cannot show that there are damages from claiming that Brigitte Macron has a penis.

Meaning, like you can't even say that's an insult in France.

So no damages, therefore, attend to the case.

It got dismissed on that basis.

And so you're right that the widespread acceptance of the silliness means that anything is at least slightly possible.

I would go even further, like, yes, because you say, how are there damages?

That's a good thing.

If anything, you have to be tolerant.

Yeah, exactly.

But the other thing is on actual malice, you know, you have to prove actual malice, which means either you knew you were lying, you knew it wasn't true, but you said it anyway, or you had a reckless disregard for the truth.

To me,

again, I'm not a lawyer, but when you're talking about the transgender issue,

everyone tells us it's totally normal, it's existed forever.

It's a reasonable assumption to make that someone could be transgender.

And if you're asking me who has the reckless disregard for the truth here, It's the pro-transgender activists.

It's not the people of the world.

Of all the people in the world.

Yes, that's true.

But yeah, I mean, the moon landing happened.

As you know, I'm deeply annoyed by virtually all conspiracy theories

because they assume a level of competence that is not in evidence.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it was.

Are there any you buy into?

I mean, I sort of buy into the Justin Trudeau's Fidel Castro's kid.

Do you?

Yeah.

I mean, like, I'm joking.

Depends on the picture you look at.

Right.

Because

some, he's a dead.

ringer.

Right, exactly.

The mom was like buddies with Castro.

Yeah, and was traveling in that area at the time.

Yeah.

And was kind of known for, you know, knocking boots.

But yeah, but

in general,

that kind of conspiracy theory is more plausible to me because it does not actually, it involves a personal relationship, not an actual gigantic conspiracy to accomplish a thing.

Right, exactly.

So if you're talking about a conspiracy between two people, that's a lot more plausible to me than every single person at NASA was complicit in the shooting on a stay on stage and everybody in PR, everybody at the Pentagon, everybody in the White House, all the media, they were all complicit in this gigantic.

Have you seen how any of these institutions work?

They're filled filled with with humans and humans are stupid and venal and bad at things and like i'm just i'm astonished that people it would take more brain power to come up with the conspiracy about a moon landing than it would brain power to actually put a man on the moon yeah i i noticed something i was totally opposed to all conspiracy theories and then i i got into some of them i at least enjoy entertaining them because it's kind of an intellectual exercise and they're kind of fun to go down and then i got into them a little bit and then I came out of them a little bit more.

And the determining factor from stage two to stage three was

when I was not in politics,

I thought, whatever, everything the government tells me is true.

And I got a little bit into politics, I thought it's all a grand conspiracy.

And then I got pretty into politics where I am spending a lot of time in the halls of power and seeing with the players.

And I realized

they are human beings.

Yeah, it's Veep.

It's not

cards.

It's definitely

much, it's 99% Veep and then 1% people thinking they're in heaven.

I think it's exactly right.

I think it's exactly right.

The other thing that I think, the reason I went from like mildly amused by it to annoyed is that I do think that a lot of these theories are enervating and actually are driving negativity about the country.

I don't think that the moon landing stuff is just like, oh, it's fun to speculate about whether there's a moon landing, who cares whether there's really a moon landing.

It was more like America was never awesome.

America wouldn't have been capable of that.

And it's kind of a rip on America, which I think sucks.

America kicks ass.

We did put a man on the moon.

We beat the Soviets there.

We took down their entire empire.

Like we are awesome.

And can you please stop trying to?

And I feel like every conspiracy theory, not actual conspiracies where there's actual evidence of people in a room doing the thing.

Anthony Fauci and Jay Bhattachari are somewhere.

There are false flag attacks.

That's real.

Yes.

There are actual government operatives, like Fauci, who conspire to cover up crimes and do they rush up at least incompetence, Russia gate.

That does happen.

Yes, and then there's evidence of it.

And then we we can tell there's evidence of it.

But so many of the real conspiracy theories are really about just kind of, in the end, running down the country and also making you believe that you have no control over your own life, which is really my bug about.

I hate that shit.

I really hate it.

Like, to me, the fundamental basis of Judaism and Christianity is if your life is screwed up, there's like a 95% shot that it was probably you.

Yes.

Right, like that.

It's not 100%.

Terrible things happen to people.

People have health problems.

You know, a brick falls from the sky.

Things happen.

But most people's problems, most of the time, are at least partially caused by them.

On a long enough time scale.

Yes.

And this is a very biblical principle.

The Old Testament, which I'm much more familiar with than the New, the Old Testament is very big on the idea that

you screwed up and then you got walloped.

It's not like the gods were randomly fighting in the sky and then you just kind of like got knocked over.

What do you say?

You violated the rules and then you got walloped.

And so

that's in one sense scary, but on the other hand, it's actually quite empowering because it it means that many things in your life are in your control.

You see this in the New Testament, though, when

the parable of the man is in hell and he says, oh, no, I want to go back and warn my loved ones that you can go to hell and everything.

And he says, no.

Why?

You had all the prophets.

You had all the, I told you so many times.

Like,

you think one more...

No, no, no, but me, one more time, I'm going to go try to...

That's not going to do it, man.

And this is the thing about these people in their basements doing the conspiracy.

Is your life better because you're doing this?

Like, really, this is the thing: if it is your life better because you're sitting in a basement theorizing about a shadowy cabal who's running your life, it would be if they could uncover, if the premise were true, if they could uncover the truth, if they could act upon the truth, right?

Yeah, of course.

Then, in principle, it would be.

But

does that happen?

Right, is it's it's never do any of those things happen?

No, no, no, they don't.

Uh, your turn, I think.

I'm up.

This question will follow a short video prompt.

Speaking of, speaking of.

Wow.

Wow,

this is good writing because they knew that we'd be talking about that.

Now that you've seen more evidence,

wow, man, this is good writing.

I never compliment Eric.

Wow.

Now that you've seen more evidence, are you at least skeptical that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself?

Oh, my God.

It's such a good idea.

We played again.

We played again.

Wow.

Okay.

Are you now?

I thought Mr.

Facts don't care about your feelings.

I know.

You're asking me not to believe myself.

Okay, ready?

Yeah.

You are wrongly going to say no.

No, you said yes?

Ah, man.

Yes, because it was because it's a logical conundrum.

I don't believe that's it.

That's a terrible piece of evidence, but

I've also set up a paradigm wherein if I see additional evidence of a thing, I have to then change my opinion.

So, you know, I think the premise of your question is that we're going to pretend that's actual evidence and not AI of Hillary play.

It's better than the video they released, that's for sure.

By the way, I mean, that would take some serious strength on her part, right?

Like, if it, like, does Hillary have that sort of, you know, grip strength that she could really go after Jeffrey Epstein then?

The adrenaline.

Maybe.

The adrenochrome.

That's what does that.

Yeah, exactly.

Did I pronounce that correctly?

The CBS report.

Did you see the CBS report on Epstein?

Which one?

The one that came out like a week or two ago.

And it kind of just goes down the list of, okay, we've examined this video evidence.

And yeah, it's not raw footage.

The metadata show.

It's a screen grab.

Also, there's like a cursor in the footage.

And it's missing a minute, but it might actually be closer to three minutes.

And

it goes through even beyond the video.

But within the video, it's important because it shows actually there was another person kind of on camera who they said was carrying linens, but it's probably in an orange jumpsuit.

And actually, you can't see the entrance to Jeffrey Epstein's cell and actually you can't and actually actually actually actually then it goes through all of the confusions I don't want to say contradictions but contradictions in the government's reporting on this

I'm not saying he didn't kill himself necessarily I'm not saying he you know is the greatest super spy that's ever lived in the whole history of the world

There is no way we're getting this straight story.

Don't you think?

I mean,

it depends on how you're defining

straight story?

Why would they say they're releasing the raw video, say the device is reset at midnight like it's 1993?

Now, certain government agencies do not know.

I mean, because

they literally, until we, they literally were storing all government documents in a cave.

Yeah, right, right.

No, I get, no, I get government agencies sometimes are like that.

But you had, according to CBS at least, so Grant's,

they said, hi, government source in Intel says that's not what's going on.

The FBI has the full footage without the skip, without the frame reset, without,

come on, it's like, come on, man.

One or two anomalies, I say whatever that's the government it's like you know a dozen anomalies so again I said this to Megan Kelly and she got pissed at me but the the reality is that I'm talking to people whose names people would know yes in the government yes who looked at all this stuff so you have to now posit that they are in on it that they aren't involved in the cover-up and knowing the people that I'm talking about I do not believe that they are in on the cover-up I don't think President Trump is in on a gigantic cover up.

I certainly think that the most extreme version of this case, which is that Jeffrey Epstein was a Hassad agent who's running child sex trafficking on behalf of Israel and the United States.

With compromise on Trump.

With compromise on Trump, and then Trump is covering it up.

Like, I think, first of all, if people are actually articulating that theory, they should have the balls to just say it out loud.

Yeah.

See how President Trump takes it from them.

I noticed that they like to kind of flirt around the edges of it, but they won't actually say the thing.

But, yeah,

Dershowitz said that he thinks that Epstein killed himself, but that he was probably aided in the killing of himself.

That I find plausible.

Because you did have somebody who was removed from his cell.

He had a cellmate.

The cellmate was gone.

He went out.

He apparently, according to the CBS report, he went out.

He made a phone call, an unsupervised phone call, like hours before he...

I mean, I could certainly see a world where Epstein was bribing guards.

And you can see why he would kill himself.

He's about to spend the rest of his life in prison for raping children, which, as it turns out, is a really, really bad way to spend the rest of your life.

So, you know, could there be, again, if there were.

Is every question I have answered?

No.

I have to make a judgment now as to who I think is lying.

And I haven't seen the evidence to suggest that the people I'm talking about are lying.

And if they are lying, I want to know why they're lying and what your theory of the case is.

I'll give you my question to why they're lying.

Because my view, as is often the case, is probably the least popular view, but it's certainly correct, which is

I don't think the government's being forthright.

I think the government has contradicted itself many times on this.

I think even just looking at the video,

the video was told on itself in a way, you know, just the reset and the time and the framing and everything.

The interpretation of what the video showed, whatever.

But because I'm not a libertarian and because I'm not like one of these, you know, I'm

I think politics is

a complicated, nuanced system of alliances and long-standing operations that go on for many presidential administrations.

The Epstein thing long predates Trump.

And we know, we've known now since 2018, though Radar Online reported it as breaking news like three days ago, that the FBI had a deal with Epstein, at least by 2007, at least by the time of his sweetheart deal that he got in Florida, that had been reported by Daily Beast through Alex Acosta, reportedly when he was in the United States.

It was FOIA.

And they say it was FOIA now, but this was reported in 2018, that the FBI was getting information.

We have memos from the FBI.

It was getting information from Epstein.

Well, as part of his plea deal, which again is incredibly common.

So, yes, there's it, by the way, I should mention here that what the document says is that as part of the plea deal, which means that it was supposed to close the case, essentially, he was going to provide information, but that does not mean in an ongoing relationship.

That's true.

It could have been

for that case.

I just want to be clear about the legal.

I mean, that is the legal of it.

Now, maybe he was, but there's been no evidence of that.

And, again, I think

but if the government

Look, if

the FBI wasn't totally forthright about its relationship with Epstein, even around the plea deal.

But I guess my argument is governments governments don't have to be.

Governments are not meant to be radically transparent.

Governments do sometimes cover up intel they're getting from people.

They do cover up certain clandestine operations.

They do,

I think what the American people want on the Epstein thing is they want to know that justice is being done in some way.

So I think that's true for some.

I think what some people really, really want is for there to be a giant ring of pedophiles, people who control the world.

Yes.

And anything short of that is going to be insufficient to quell the uprest.

Right.

Yeah, no, that's true.

It's like

if a bunch of these people who are pushing this got what you said, which is, okay, you know, here are the names of three low-level Randos who Jeffrey Epstein trafficked girls to, and that's it, and we're prosecuting them.

Right.

They would not be satisfied.

No one would be satisfied.

Certainly.

Because what they actually want is for there to be this thing that happened.

Because

it's a nice thing to believe.

Again, it goes back to the whole, like, there's a secret cabal running your life.

Again, if you provide me evidence that the secret cabal is running, then you're now in the position of having to argue that Donald Trump and Cash Patel and Dambo Gino and Pam Bondi are all involved in the secret cabal or covering up for the secret cabal.

And the people who, again, are opposing the strongest version of this theory do not have the balls to just say it out loud.

They're constantly playing around the edges.

Yeah, it's funny.

This is where as more of a traditionalist, I just say, like, if they're not, if they're not releasing everything for whatever reason, I think I elect them for their judgment.

I like them for their judgment.

So you and I are making kind of similar arguments here, Meaning, like, I don't know.

I don't know what's in the files.

You know what's in the files.

But, you know, who knows who's in the files?

Cash.

Yeah.

Dan.

Right.

Pam.

Presumably Trump.

Presumably JD.

Yeah.

Like, right.

We're all meeting on it this week.

So, yeah.

Yeah, it's true.

They were all meeting on it a couple weeks ago.

Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

But I'm still pretty firmly team.

Nothing ever happens.

The number of things that happen in history that like happen, happen.

Yes.

That like happen.

Yeah.

It's like four.

I agree.

Maybe five.

I agree.

Okay.

I think I'm reading you a question.

Yes.

Here you go.

We have a message from Lizzo.

My jeans.

Oh, come on.

Are stolen.

Hmm.

Wow.

Okay.

Wow.

Was the Sydney Sweeney version better?

You have to guess my answer.

Yeah.

Did I enjoy it?

I don't know.

I kind of enjoyed it.

It was both body-shaming and racist, wasn't it?

Yeah.

Yeah,

look,

I could make a little joke or something, but

the Sidney Sweeney Jeans ad.

I said the whole time, two cheers for Sydney Sweeney Jeans.

Because

it's not, I don't think like

women burying a lot of their bodies and like inciting lusts is like the I don't think that's like the best thing.

The best thing,

but a return from whatever we're at, androgynous, creepy 2020s to 90s moderate liberalism is an improvement.

And she's very beautiful and she's normal.

This is a very good take.

So I said this on the show, that I'm old enough to remember when conservatives went nuts over Paris Hilton grinding on a car for a Carl's Jr.

commercial in like 2005.

That was like a big thing on the right.

I remember.

And we were all like, what is this?

She's only famous for doing pornography.

And here she is grinding on a car to sell burgers.

Like, what the hell?

Like, this is gross.

And so I'm still from that school, which is it is not good for women, but

we live in a time in which they have gone so far crazy

that it is now right-wing coded for a beautiful woman to be on your TV in a sexy way.

Yeah.

And so, like, as a, I've said this before about politics is one of the very weird things about politics is that it's sort of like that optical illusion where you take one a color and you put it against blue and then you put it against yellow and it looks like two separate colors, but it's the same color.

Yes.

Right.

So if I go on Bill, if I go go on Bill Marsh show and I say a thing, I look like a rabbit right-winger.

But if I go on a show with you, then I look like a moderate.

It's the exact same thing, word for word.

So I feel like that about this particular genes ad.

You put this jeans ad on TV in 2005, and we're all like, man, the kind of pornification of American society just continues apace.

It's not great.

And then you put it next to...

By the way, men are women, and this could have been Dylan Mulvaney.

Yes.

And it would have been.

It would have been if it were three years ago, it would have been 100%.

The Cad War ad was crazy.

100 prisons.

Yes.

I mean, I had this thought, which is my reaction to the Sidney Sweeney ad,

is, that's a good ad.

I'm fairly disciplined.

But if I looked at the ad too long,

my reaction might be, oh, that's a nice ad, you know,

I'll watch it again.

But my reaction to the creepy, androgynous, weirdo sex ad is

actually nausea.

Yeah.

It's actually a, because

in one, it's appealing to the Peruian interest in a way that is natural.

Yes.

Okay.

In the other, it's appealing to the Peruian interest in a way that is entirely contrary to nature and everything we know about reality.

I guess the former is better.

Right, exactly.

Right?

And I'm with you.

Okay.

I'm up.

But you know what?

You know what's going to happen before I read this question, Ben?

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Yes or no?

Because the family game night wasn't heated enough.

Ben, do you know what time it is?

I don't.

It's time for the rapid fire round.

Slow fire.

It was the slower fire way.

But I have to say, on the dogs going to heaven thing,

that is an unanswerable question once you have kids.

We have a dog, and I have four kids: 11, 9, 5, and 2.

And I was asked this question.

Yes.

And you know the answer.

Of course, I know the answer.

And so you are left with two possible answers to a child.

One is to lie, and the other is to also lie.

It is to either say, yes, the dog goes to heaven,

or two, the dog never dies.

Right?

And so, right, I actually felt the second was less blasphemous.

Yeah.

So I went with, don't worry, we'll come up with medicines and the dog will be 150 years old.

Wow.

You didn't even do like, well, maybe the dog, we'll send the dog to a farm.

No, I didn't.

Ash box.

Yeah, you're not going to send it to a glue factory.

No, I guess that's horses.

I mean, my son did say this the other day.

He, for some reason, was just in a dark mood.

He turns to me.

He's like, I'm very sad the dog's going to die.

And I was like, yeah, the dog's really young.

And the dog's like two and a half years old, probably lived to be 15 or whatever.

That's the most Shapiro, like you're a Shapiro kid.

You're just like, well, in 11 years, this is what's going to happen.

I need to prepare.

He's still kind of sad.

Like, listen, you know, we can talk about this, but let's be real.

Like, in a billion years, the sun's going to explode and eat the earth.

So like, you know, we can just put off this conversation for another day.

I love this idea.

He's like, you think

the dog's going to die?

Wait till you hear what's going to happen to us someday.

Yeah, exactly.

He said, we'll all be dead by then.

He asked me about that one time.

He's like, is it true the sun's going to eat there?

I was like, yeah, we'll all be dead by then.

Who cares?

Yeah, it will all be.

Whatever.

I know.

I know.

I was just talking about this with Elisa last night.

She was like, how do we tell the kids about death?

They're reading fairy tales, and they're talking about so-and-so died, so-and-so almost died.

And they're starting to wonder about death.

It's like, what do we tell them?

Yeah.

We're going to tell them

brutal realities, which includes some hope, but it's going to be.

By the way, I mean, death kind of naturally comes up in a biblical worldview pretty much all the time.

Yeah.

I mean, like, it's within the first few chapters of the Bible.

Like, you're there.

We were walking around a church in Italy, and so it's like,

the tour guide said there's the skull over there of Saint, I don't remember what Saint, and, but, you know, it's very controversial, the veneration of relics.

It's not controversial to me, but it's very controversial.

And I don't know if you want to see the...

And then my two-year-old, just like, I want to see the skull.

Show me the skull.

There you go, buddy.

My son,

we were in Italy.

We went to one of these, it was actually Malta.

We went to one of these catacombs.

And they had unburied some of the,

there's like a skull and some bones there.

And my son was like, I can't believe that.

And so later he turns to me and said, you know, Dad, I never thought that I was actually going to see that face-to-head.

I was looking right at him.

Face-to-face.

He has a face-to-head.

It was very funny.

Now,

Ben, do you know how to play this round?

I don't.

I don't either but they put it in my teleprompter

three rounds 30 seconds no time to outthink each other okay fine that's that's speech shorthand for shut up yeah okay uh you're up no i'm up i'm up okay ready rapid fire even though they're crafted in the likeness of pagan idols are lab labooboos

laboobus labooboos or lababus like a succubus incubus are lababoos totally fine

yeah you're gonna say yes, you sicko.

Oh no, you said no.

I thought you had one on your set.

I mean my producers put it there, but I don't prove what I'm at.

It's like wow, my producers are like my children.

I don't approve of what they do.

Yeah, no, that's fair.

Yeah, no, nothing named after and looking like a demon gets to go on set.

It's crazy.

Do you believe the remains of giants can be found?

You're gonna say no.

All right.

Yeah, because again, it gets into definitions.

It's like are we talking about like a giant back in biblical days, which means like some of the people around the office.

Yeah, he's like five foot eight.

Yeah, exactly.

Given the overwhelming scientific evidence for the miraculous image on the Shroud of Turin, have you been shroud-pilled?

I know the answer, but there's a good episode if you're a doubter of a show called Michael And that you can watch about this.

Are you shroud-pilled?

You are, for now,

so far, going to say no.

Correct.

I want to watch I'll watch your episode okay the episode is good and weird this is weird it's with a Protestant whoa I thought the Catholics were the shroud people whoa don't you automatically go to hell

for bringing Protestants out Johnston he was amazing and actually another guy came in with the

Sudarium of Ovieto it's very good and I was very I was actually very glad because I said to Davies I said I thought only Catholics believed in the shrouds what you talk about I believe in the shroud my whole life and anyway you should watch it you should watch it I know nothing about the shroud of 2010

watch it and then we'll see.

Okay.

And then do you go to the auditorium with a smoke-filled thing?

And then we get to that second question.

Okay, here we go.

Per words written, are your books more successful than mine?

What?

Okay, hold on.

By word.

By word.

Yeah, for sure.

Now, the thing is, if it had been copies sold total, then I would win.

I think that's a good thing.

Hundred thousand books.

For sure.

Okay.

All right.

Well, I'll take that.

okay but you contributed to that book

you can never get a book

yeah it was the most important word that was the key the first word you said and then I got you an agent for that book and you got a second advance on that book

well for the rights yeah for the rights to a blank book yeah

unbelievable does standing and sitting methodically during mass count as physical exercise for you

Yeah, it does.

Well, he forgot kneeling because he's a Protestant and doesn't know about that.

But it does also.

because

I got my kids jumping on me the whole time.

So that's like actually, that's still like all the little muscles in there.

All right.

Are you surprised you've lasted as long as you have at this company?

Are you surprised?

I'll give a.

Okay.

I'll give an answer.

You got it wrong.

Give me those points.

It's not a lack of self-confidence.

Yes.

I'm not surprised that I have lasted in any organization.

I could have at least been the Pizza Boy or something.

I didn't, when the company was starting up, it's not that I, I just, these things don't last.

These things don't last.

Wait, I mean, like the company itself?

Yeah, yeah.

And I thought, and so I was like, oh, whatever.

That'd be a fun thing to help out on for like six months or a year, whatever.

That was like at this point 47 years ago.

How long have we been doing that?

10 years in real time, but like the planet's in interstellar.

It's actually like 70 years in politics now.

Yeah, that it's amazing.

Okay.

Now, Ben,

it's time for the final round.

The prompt will be read.

We will both lock in our answers, then move our glasses to yes or no to see if we can read each other's minds.

This round is worth double points.

It could change

everything.

The score right now, Ben, this is unfortunate.

I actually didn't think it was this bad, is one

to three.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

You're winning.

Okay, so the way you do it, I'm going to put my glass here.

This, hold on, I'm going to move these cards because all the books and all the merch that we're hawking shamelessly is taken away.

Okay.

So

I read the prompt,

then

we each lock in how we would answer for ourselves.

Yes.

Then we move the other guy's glass.

Okay.

How we think the other guy would answer.

Okay.

If it were allowed by the Constitution,

would you support a third Trump presidency?

In principle or in practice?

I'm overcomplicating it.

If it were allowed by the Constitution, would you support it if there had not been that amendment?

Would you be in favor of him running again?

Okay, it's my own answer here.

Okay.

Okay.

Correct.

Wrong.

Wrong.

I mean, good answer.

But okay, so why?

Why, why, yes?

So I actually think that, shockingly, Donald Trump is now the most rational person maybe in American politics.

Like, truthfully, like, I actually think that, as you know, I'm a pessimist by nature.

Yes.

I think that we're at the end of something.

And I think that Trump is holding back a flood tide of bad stuff.

Oh, interesting.

I think that Trump is a populist by appeal, but a pragmatist by nature.

And so he's not ideologically a populist in the sense that he's just going to continue running that car directly into the ditch if the populism doesn't work.

I could see a world where you get somebody very ideological after Trump on the right, either in a very populist direction, which I would oppose, oppose, or in a very anti-populist direction, which would provide some political problems.

Trump is a shockingly pragmatic figure who's able to unite many, many things in what he is doing.

And I don't agree with everything he's doing.

I've opposed his tariff wars, for example.

I don't think they're a good idea.

I've criticized some of the ways, like firing the BLS head.

I think there's stuff he does that I don't particularly love.

But

what I've said about him is that he's heterodox but responsive.

And so he will do a thing that he'll break a long-established precedent.

And at least half the time, that's very good.

At least half the time, that's really good.

He's done this on foreign policy a lot, and I've loved it.

He's done it some on domestic policy, and I've really loved it as well.

Going after DEI, for example, which was like an untouchable thing.

Yeah, yeah.

Breaking the trans momentum, like all that.

And

so the question of a third term or not for him is because I don't know who picks up the mantle of sort of pragmatism in a

popular way after Trump on the right.

And I think what comes after him on the left is going to be egregiously awful.

You know, I came to the same answer.

I have totally different reasoning.

My reasoning is more in principle.

I know this is unpopular in some quarters.

I'm with Ronald Reagan.

I hate the 22nd Amendment.

I'm anti-term limits as well, actually.

Yes, I think we have a term limit.

It's called the ballot box.

Yes, I agree.

And I think the way the government is set up,

fairly consciously actually by our framers, is to be a mixed regime where you have a monarchical element, an aristocratic element, a democratic element that kind of balance each other out.

And FDR took that, obviously, to an extreme.

That's how you get the 22nd Amendment.

But

I like the idea of more continuity of the executive kind of flexing itself so we're not just governed by judges or whatever.

And I think Trump has done a very, very good job.

I'm a little more hopeful about the future of the Republican.

You're friendlier toward the populist kind of sentiment than I am.

Without question.

And I do see

an uptick in traditionalism, in a good kind of...

Populism is kind of a term of injury, but I think it's

some good version of it.

It's more a tactic than a philosophy, to be fair.

Yes.

And so I think there are a lot of people in the administration who are great.

Obviously, probably the heir apparent is the vice president.

I'd be thrilled with that.

Rubio is getting a lot of play right now as Secretary of State, and he has like 100 other jobs.

But I think even there are other people who could run for president in the admin, in Congress.

So I

it could go wrong, but I think there's good stuff.

But I

was waiting when Trump was reelected for a full Charles II moment.

He shows up to Capitol Hill in a joint session.

Gentlemen, go home.

You are not needed here.

We will govern ourselves.

But

we still have that 22nd amendment.

It's true.

That's life.

Okay, you're up.

Morally speaking, is AI-generated porn worse than real porn?

This is not, I don't have a confident answer on this.

You're going to say no, and I'll barely say no.

I'll barely say no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Why?

Because

AI-generated porn involves the sinfulness and evil of the person who is typing in the prompt,

but does not involve a second party who is prostituting herself.

And real porn involves multiple parties being horrific in a myriad of ways that empty sex of its meaning, content, joy.

And yeah, so I mean, it's AI generation.

First of all, I assume AI-generated porn will mostly be just men using Grok

imagine to fulfill their most perverse fantasies.

But

their most perverse fantasies.

So I think that you're thinking there's a limiting principle here for the ladies on OnlyFans.

And I think you are wrong.

So

I think that if you pay with ladies on OnlyFans enough, they will do whatever is the most perverse.

But they're at least limited by

the constraints of reality, Alexander's.

Are you having raped by an alien?

Yeah, no, this is the issue for me is it, I might even change my answer.

There are these medieval arguments, which I'm sure you've seen, which are that, you know, like masturbation is worse than rape or something, or that sodomy is worse than rape or something.

And people are so shocked by that because they say, well, one's consensual, one's not consensual.

The reasoning behind those arguments is that they're both terrible, but one is contrary to nature, whereas one is not contrary to nature.

And so

that's that's an argument for another time.

Leave it to the scholastics.

But you can see this play out in the AI thing.

What are people going to use AI porn for that they can't get on OnlyFans or any of these other things?

They're going to go undress their classmates.

You see these reports about this all the time.

They're going to go make...

porn of people they know.

They're going to create porn of things that cannot exist in reality, that are so going to melt their brains.

There was an article just the other day in Wired magazine, a guy who got addicted to AI porn, and it was creating these creatures that are like not barely recognizably human.

And so you say, well,

is that more evil to so contradict reality, even if it doesn't involve immediately harming another person?

I mean, this is a good argument.

I like this argument.

I think that's a good argument.

I think that you can make the case that, what was the wording of the question?

It's always porn.

Is it worse?

Except for that one time.

Is it worse?

I mean, if we wanted to really quibble, you could make the case that in the immediate ramifications, real porn is worse.

In the societal ramifications, AI porn is worse.

You could make that argument.

Yes.

Although I do think that removing the incentive structure whereby women get naked for money, which is what AI porn will do, is going to be a good thing.

A lot of these young women who right now think that their pathway to fame and fortune is by essentially being online prostitutes.

The business goes away.

AI steals their jobs.

Maybe the thing they can actually offer to people in real life would be like marriage, Like actual like real physical sexual activity with another human being involved in a deeper relationship.

Like all the best parts of what you are simulating on OnlyFans, you can do that in a way that will be edifying and lead you to happiness and flourishing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe.

What is such sexistim?

I don't know.

It's awful.

It's terrible.

Yeah.

It is the other on the just one last point on the OnlyFans thing.

They

do it because they think they're going to make millions of dollars.

And because like one of them ever made millions of dollars.

it's like every Faustian bargain, you trade something valuable for something that's not that valuable and you don't even get the thing that's not that valuable.

That's the craziest part.

I mean, even the ones who make a lot of money have destroyed themselves.

Yes.

Destroyed themselves.

They usually lose the money, too.

Is the other thing?

I mean, that too.

But they destroyed.

Yeah, it's like there is no.

There is no life behind Bonnie Blue's eyes.

Yeah.

That lady is dead inside.

It's horrible.

Dead inside.

And you can see it.

It's like, it's kind of horrifying.

Do not turn yourself into a human lublalus.

What is that thing called?

Labooboo.

Labubo.

Don't turn yourself into a label.

I love that you turned it into a Latin term.

Labus.

La rubbas.

Lababee.

La babo.

Yes.

Final score.

That's a horror.

Are you kidding me?

Seven

to one.

Well, I got wrecked.

Yeah, I got wrecked.

That might be the

worst one ever on.

No, because at least I didn't go negative.

I didn't go into the negative numbers.

Right now, you need to go pre-order Mr.

Benchburo's new book, Lions and Scavengers, The True Story of America.

See you next time on Yes or No.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

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Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

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