TAGQ (That's A Good Question)
TAGQ (That's A Good Question)
Flying Spaghetti Monster
Remember those clever classroom systems we all encountered as kids? From point systems to mini-economies, our early education was full of inventive ways that taught us about value and justice. In this episode, we reminisce about those nostalgic school days, drawing parallels to the serialized storytelling of Charles Dickens. Just like a Dickens novel, our educational experiences unfolded over time, leaving us with lasting impressions. Join us as we explore how these quirky yet effective teaching methods shaped our understanding of complex systems and left a mark on our perception of fairness.
Have you ever wondered why the worlds of Disney and video games are so captivating? We dive into the mesmerizing appeal of these immersive experiences and compare them to the often mundane nature of real life. Exploring how these fictional realms offer endless possibilities and a sense of belonging, we share a personal tale from a night out in San Francisco. This story highlights the power of community and shared experiences in making reality more engaging. Together, let's discover how we can find wonder in our everyday lives, even amidst the challenges and monotony.
Do humans have an innate need to believe in a higher power? We ponder this intriguing question as we discuss the role of spirituality in providing societal cohesion, contrasting it with the pursuit of material success. Through exploring different interpretations of spirituality, we examine how neglecting this aspect can lead to a spiritual void. Even those who seem materially successful might be unconsciously guided by this void. With a touch of humor, we also explore the connection between the words "human" and "humus," encouraging you to stay grounded and enjoy life's quirks. So, grab a cup of your favorite drink and join us on this humorous yet thoughtful journey in our latest episode.
welcome to the welcome next chapter of gonna be a good question.
Ben:No that's gonna be a good question that's gonna be a good question. First episode in a little bit. I don't know Is this the first episode since I started graduate school?
Scott:Or have.
Ben:We had one just before I started.
Scott:I don't know. I just put out one the week I've lost track, the week you moved to Seattle. Okay, and the cliffhanger on that one was what you were sent to this park to discover on a Monday night.
Ben:Oh, yes, yeah, Okay. So I think that was just before starting school.
Scott:People will have to look at two episodes before this to find out what you found in that we won't tell them.
Ben:You can't just play the most recent podcast. I know what you're doing. I know what you're doing, listener. You just open up the podcast and say I haven't listened in the last six months, I'll just listen to the most recent. Say, oh, I haven't listened in, like the last six months, I'll just listen to the most recent one. No, you can't. You can't do that Come on. I thought we had your loyalty.
Scott:Do not listen to this unless you listen to every bit of it.
Ben:Okay, you got to start from the very beginning. Okay, no, you can do that. Please don't do that better. You got to start from the very beginning.
Scott:Okay, no, you can do that. Please don't do that.
Ben:Please just listen to the most recent one. You'd be doing yourself a favor. Or you listen to this one and you love it. Just keep working back, or you can go about it however you want.
Scott:Or forward.
Ben:Just wait, this isn't. This isn't like a tale of two cities. You know that was first published in whatever that english, english readers digest. Really, when a tale of two cities first came out, yeah it, yeah, sometimes, yeah.
Scott:Yeah, sometimes novels were published.
Ben:Yeah, sometimes novels were published, like a TV show on TBS or something you know. Yeah, charles Dickens came out with one new chapter every every month or week or whatever it was.
Scott:Came out with one new chapter every month or week or whatever it was.
Ben:It was the best of times it was the worst of times and it was a hard book to read.
Scott:I think that's the TikTok clip from that book.
Ben:Yeah, that's been the TikTok clip long before TikTok ever did?
Scott:yeah, but what's the character's name? What's his name? Mr, mr, no idea. So that book was read out loud to our class in fifth grade fifth grade.
Ben:Wow, I remember reading it as a sophomore in high school and being like I don't get what's going on. This language is too weird. Yeah, kind of felt like in. I mean, I guess it makes sense. Uh, from a generational perspective kind of felt like it was halfway to modern english from shakespeare and hearing shakespeare out loud is a lot easier to understand. It's easier to kind of get the vibe for what's going on than reading it.
Ben:Yeah so maybe if I were to have Tale of Two Cities read out loud then I would have been able to follow along a little bit better. I just remember it being such a dense book.
Scott:Yeah.
Ben:Very gray tone, also Very fitting for this time of year.
Scott:Quite a choice for the teacher to pick to read to a class of fifth graders over. He read it in serial fashion, you know, over several days.
Ben:What? Why did he think that was a? Well, what's your testimony for that teacher, that particular pedagogical choice being a case study?
Scott:He was my favorite teacher and Was or was not?
Ben:He was.
Scott:He was.
Ben:He was your favorite teacher.
Scott:Yeah.
Ben:In fifth grade A lot of period of an exploration.
Scott:I guess the most telling thing is in the class we had a judicial system and a point system and you could take people to court and sue them for a point system. And you could take people to court and and sue them for a point uh, that's that's pretty sweet, you know like like this. She like stuck her tongue out at me.
Ben:I'm suing her yeah, yeah, there's a. Scott and amelia are in the back of the class and someone goes. Ah, and then the teacher. What was his name?
Scott:I'm not going to say because I might have used it as a frequent question on a Mr Lee, mr Lee.
Ben:And then over the year there was inflation with the points. Miss Seller did the same thing. They must have learned this in grad school or something that it's like. This is a really fun thing to do with kids that are 12 and under Introduce a currency and a judicial system and have it grow in complexity throughout the course of the year.
Scott:Kids love it. We had like five dollar points, the five points and points 50, 100. I think we're like collecting and swapping a thousand point notes, you know. And they all got smaller and they were in different colors on different colored paper yeah yeah, and then, like the last week, he just goes. You know, those uh single points would probably be worth a lot if you had any around anymore. Oh my god. And then people were laying it's like a thousand points to get a single point.
Ben:You know. You know what miss seller did for us in second grade. We had pretty much the same system, more or less, and she told us towards the beginning of the year that I expect everyone here to have two thousand dollars by the end of the school year and for the first two months of the school year we were just making pennies. Like 75 cents was a lot of money. It was a lot of money and you would get charged money. If you did things like pick at the carpet during story time or whatever. She'd charge you like two dollars. There were some pretty big offenses out there did anybody go to debtor's prison?
Ben:um, no, I don't think anyone ever went. She didn't let us go negative. I don't think it was just you're out of money, that's it. It finished and then, like you know, about three quarters of the way through the year, the amount of money we were able to make, just like, kept skyrocketing. She figured I don't know exactly how it worked out, but she figured out how we could make investments and, you know, get compound interest and all that stuff. As a second grader, though, it was all just like it was always just so adrenaline was.
Ben:I was just so adrenaline filled. It was just like, oh my god, I have 500.
Scott:I did not understand the mechanics of any of it but as a fifth grader I think I was a little hip to the.
Ben:It's like oh, this is just a manipulation here, you know yeah, yeah, as a second grader I was, I could buy so many bags of Reese's with this.
Scott:Oh, this is like getting fancier outfits on Silk Road.
Ben:It's like yeah right, Listener, for those of all of you probably because no one here knows what Silk Road is, it's a massive multiplayer online role playing game that me and my brothers played growing up. That was really quite niche, but really quite a beautiful game to watch and to play. Yeah, we were always talking about those outfits. Do you remember them, dad? You remember those outfits?
Scott:That was the whole point was just yeah, Cause they were so sexy.
Ben:They were so cool, yeah, and you could either pay real money and get it in an instant, or you could spend about 200 hours of gameplay to get the cool one.
Scott:To be more specific, you'd spend real money to someone who'd been like a gold man.
Ben:Well, you could do either. You could either break the law and do it that way, oh you and pay pay money to like a really sketchy company that has the bots that just get programmed to collect what the chop wood or whatever it is you do right, right, and you could either pay those companies that are more or less exploiting the system or you could actually buy silk from Silk Road and the company directly, and then the silk would allow you to buy like special items and things.
Scott:Did anybody figure out how to do that?
Ben:Do which one?
Scott:Buy silk from the, or either one, either no we did that a few times.
Ben:I think you as a parent probably didn't either know the difference or didn't care about the difference, because either way, you're giving a third party money.
Scott:I like to spend your allowance for a week on it, or something like ah, that's what you want, okay yeah, right, right, yeah.
Ben:So no, we did that a couple of times. That's how you got like the cool animals and, um, yeah, there were outfits there. Yeah, and we figured that out. We, we, we went both the nefarious as well as the.
Scott:That raises an interesting question. You know, my imagination growing up was completely corralled by one guy. You know Walt Disney, but your imagination growing up might have had more things than just Walt Disney to think about?
Ben:Yeah, the manipulation and exploitation of my attention was much more decentralized. This is true.
Scott:This is true, right. So what is in those games? Well, in video games in general, this is the. What is the draw of them? That's similar to, like the draw, you know, disneyland had on me. You know, I just think Disneyland is magical because, I don't know, I don't want to explain it, it is.
Ben:Right, yeah, and I would say it's probably a similar thing with video games. There, I think a lot of it has to do with the story and feeling like you're immersed in this world.
Ben:Oh, that's the main thing behind disney is so different than reality yeah and is so much more pretty to look at but really it's only more pretty to look at and that fires off different concentrations of neurochemicals in your brain, whereas me, walking out in into the street in Seattle and looking at plants, it's just. I feel like it's a little bit harder to be smitten by the, by what I'm looking at, by, be smitten by just like the story of reality, whereas you log on to Silk Road or RuneScape or go into Disneyland and it's just like. It's just, it's just, it's, it's dazzling. It is a dazzling array of just all these nooks and crannies and different characters that you can step further into and it feels kind of endless and reality is just like how do you make a lot?
Ben:harder to tap. In reality is just not so kind well, that's what I try to do. I strive to make reality feel like disneyland right and I think we humans are just I think in this culture we're just pretty out of practice with that.
Scott:Alcohol helps, um, but I don't use that, so I gotta try something else to right.
Ben:Well, for me, the alcohol is just like it doesn't last very long the other day I had a party here I drank two beers, started to kind of feel the headache, but was also like oh, yeah things.
Ben:I felt that dazzling. I was like, yes, like oh, everybody, yeah things. I felt that dazzling. I was like, yes, like oh, everybody's interesting. I'm just this is fun. Oh yeah, I'll play that drinking game. We'll do that. 40 minutes later I'm just like, okay, I have a choice here. Just let this end or have another drink and do it all over again and let this headache get worse and then wake up tomorrow feeling extra shitty. I'm gonna decide to not drink and go sleep on the porch for a little bit and then see where I'm at when I wake up from that nap. And it's just reality is not a video game. You can't, it's just full of it's.
Scott:It's just so balanced, you know, yeah but it has far better um 3d rendering. It has uh yes, oh, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah um, but, but it's hard to be amazed by that, because you forget.
Ben:Yeah, exactly, we get in our groove with it. You know, and I think we have so much exposure to things that catch our attention in a much more, much much. They just grip, they just kind of like grab your, grab those parts of your brain that just want that quick fix. You know the video games substances. It's just so much easier to be able to turn to those.
Scott:Yeah, yeah, wow, this is really video games are are kind of like an interactive form of Disneyland.
Ben:Yeah, right. So it does feel the same sort of like oh what a wondrous story feeling that I got from a Disney cartoon, or yeah, and I think Disney does a really good job, compared to other media companies, of making you feel like you're part of the thing. Sure yeah, I mean, some people feel so at home on Disney Channel, or feel so at home.
Scott:What are the ads for on Disney Channel? Disney Channel, exactly, you are in the world.
Ben:They're all for Disney. They're just ads for the world, for their universe. Yeah, I would be so interested to go back to Disney channel right now, like the same channel that we watched growing up and see what those commercials are like, because the world of Disney has just just expanded out so much, and see what those commercials are like because the world of disney has just just.
Scott:Oh yeah, now you got expanded out so much it is consumed so much. You got yoda, you got um the kermit and yoda could have ever do they own marvel yet pardon they own marvel. Yet oh yeah, kermit yoda and spider-man could be hanging out.
Ben:Boom in a bar right right, yep, yep and then not to mention like the brick and mortar, like locations too, yeah, which have also grown. Harry potter right? No, or I guess they don't. They have the rights.
Scott:That's universal universal has the harry potter parts to their lands, to the thing that, uh, disney invented, which was this theme park, all focused on his company's product. Yeah, yeah, oh, there were also parts of it that were fairy tales that he sucked in you, you know, and made them his own.
Ben:Right, they were folk tales that he kind of.
Scott:Snow white.
Ben:Appropriated. Yeah, yeah, yeah so. But yeah, I think it's a similar thing. Okay, you know, play, play in RuneScape, just if it's. I mean, it's kind of the same reason. You get really into a hobby. You end up building a community of people that are like obsessed with the thing. Yeah, you know it's, it's just a belonging. You know, I think Disney does a really good job of instilling a sense of belonging in people.
Scott:Disney does a really good job of instilling a sense of belonging in people.
Scott:After going out to dinner last night with your uh Adam, your brother, and uh his girlfriend, uh, we picked him up at at his work downtown and we went out to uh Marnie Thai. And then we went to this uh where musicians friends were playing in a band, um Marnie Thai. And then we went to this uh where musicians friends were playing in a band. Um, in San Francisco, just uh ale, a place where that served beer or like ale house. It's called ocean ale house and uh, it's just a good story. I mean, you know, mom knows uh has connections to these people too. So we're um and I didn't even see this. But some person came in and walked up to the wife of one of the performers and said you know, I've got a gun lay down on the floor and you know, there's loud music playing. There's loud music playing and and I guess the person was diminutive some people thought it was a, maybe a teenager, like doing a prank or something, because the stranger wasn't obviously that committed to the crime.
Ben:They were uh well it's in this story. It's too early for me to tell you got to keep going, bro and then, when she said, huh what?
Scott:he went on to the next person and oh my god the same thing and um, and that person was also like what you know no one saw the gun or anything. So it was like right he was. Just it was. Three people got that message and the third one called the police and and the police showed up but the kid wasn't person wasn't there. But it's just weird, it's like what yeah, what is this motivation?
Scott:is this a gang initiation, or is this, uh, how big of a gang initiation, or is this a how big of?
Ben:a venue was this? How many people were there?
Scott:20 people. Whoa Ha, yeah, yeah.
Ben:What's the motivation? I don't know. World's weird like it's in a weird place which is okay.
Scott:That seems more reasonable. I just don't get it. Where did he go? Why do you come in? And yeah, um, this is the first time I've ever. Why do you come in and yeah, um, this is the first time I've ever seen such a thing in my life you didn't see any of this.
Ben:I didn't hear about it afterwards.
Scott:Talking about it afterwards and it was like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's.
Ben:I mean, why do people do bomb threats? Isn't it a similar thing?
Scott:Similar question. People are just kind of.
Ben:I mean, can you imagine the amount of adrenaline you feel? And just I don't know. You probably feel really somatically, just like charged and alive. So it's like you want something and you're not. You're not getting what you need in life. So I mean why? Yeah, so why do people do really horrible shit? And I feel like a lot of the time it's because they're not getting really basic human needs met and so they're like I'm really I've got all this pent-up emotion. There's no avenue for it. I'm confused. There's just this cascade of different challenging emotions in people and then they say like and then they freak out and they just do the craziest shit they could imagine it could be a mental uh illness thing.
Ben:I mean, yeah, and there are all those stories going on in people's heads so you're combining those emotions with like stories your particular circles or your own mind has been telling you about the world and you just say this is what I'm gonna do.
Scott:This seems like a good idea and I don't know that's the doors are wide open in front and back so you could hear the music like through the neighborhood. So it's like it might've triggered some person. Who's right, yeah, issues.
Ben:Yeah, so someone kind of yeah, just walked in, yeah.
Scott:Yeah, this is fun. I can't hear, I went, it's just well, yeah, dramatic. Dramatic, dramatic, I think it's. I'll remember that show. It's like oh, remember that show.
Ben:I think authentic belonging is a good cure for that sort of thing. I think if those people felt more belonging in their daily life, that sort of thing would be less frequent.
Scott:They should just go to Disney. And how do you do that? Watch disney channel. Maybe our sponsor will tell us how to do this. How do you find more belonging?
Ben:you make sure that you listen to our podcast from the very beginning. No, no, no Because if you're not listening to the podcast from the very beginning, you get locked. You can't just start reading Tale Through Cities in the middle of the book.
Scott:Okay, yeah, yeah, he shakes his head, yeah he shakes his head. He's like Ben no no, we don't, we don't, we don't want to be. Um, tell him, sorry, what's the thing I'm trying to say? Uh, how do you belong without having to believe in something impossible to hold you, to bind you to that group? Um?
Ben:well, why do we decide to do? We decide to keep on living in the face of life and death. So you gotta believe in all of us.
Scott:Believe in something yeah, but if you have to believe in the flying spaghetti monster monster to join in fraternity with this group of people, it just seems kind of foolish. It's like why do? Why do we? Why can't we just have the fraternity without raising the flying spaghetti monster, praising the flying spaghetti monster, you know?
Ben:Well, I think, I think it's just very human to have to like, to need to like grab on to something like that, because the the intensity of which humans experience, like loss and pain, and just the intensity of which we just experience life in general is it's a lot, and I think that ended up what that's. One way that we just differ from other species is that we all of all of our ancestors one of the main things that set us apart and created us as a species that was clearly separate, was our, in a lot of ways, need to believe in a higher power, and that's a cohesive belief in our, you know, family and tribal groups was really, really important for getting us to work together um, okay, so you start with uh, belief in higher power.
Scott:That's, that's fine, but that's like um I mean it could be your belief in a higher power. You know might not be the same as my belief in a higher power.
Ben:Yeah, I see the number.
Scott:I see the number dad well, it's time for the commercial, and I think we're figuring that out right now. Keep going, we'll figure it out, don't worry, we'll remember.
Ben:We just can't remember who the sponsor was. We always have a sponsor ready, it's just we can't ever remember. But we're getting there, we'll figure it out.
Scott:We're just pretending like we don't know who the sponsor is.
Ben:Yeah, that's right. I'm totally pretending.
Scott:But um yeah, I was going to say that you could be sponsored by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Ben:Oh yeah, okay yeah, our sponsor will tell you how to find belonging. Believe in the flying spaghetti monster. Get out there to your local church of the spaghetti monster and you'll get everything you need figured out you need figured out.
Scott:Yeah, I don't think we should take money from churches now I'm changing my mind or support them. Well, I can support that one because it's a parody religion, so it's more about comedy than, honestly, ben, no one's ever seen the flying spaghetti monster.
Ben:Truthfully, yeah, yeah, you know.
Scott:But to join the church you have to believe, Just because somehow believing in this thing will make you in communion with all the other beliefs.
Ben:That's kind of what I'm thinking, though, is that I think it is still very human for us to believe in a higher power and to worship. And I think there is no being human without worshiping something. And I mean you talk to anybody and whether or not they realize it, they are.
Scott:They're balls to the wall, like fully believing something beyond themselves. Matters. And why should my own take on?
Ben:that separate me from other people, right, and that's I think that's the question that's facing humankind, uh, and has for a long time, and that's kind of what we're grappling with these days is this kind of narrative of separateness.
Ben:That's kind of like through and through, um, and one of that, one of the ways that narrative of separateness plays out, is through this sense of just like religious zeal.
Ben:And yeah, it's kind of an age old question how do we live better together in the face of all those different beliefs?
Ben:Um, but I think one of the main problems is that there are a lot of people that don't think it matters to like actively believe in a higher power and to actively like think it important to like practice healthy worship, and so I think a lot of people don't actually reflect on how irrationally they are behaving and how irrationally they are kind of giving up their responsibility to something beyond themselves, like in the case of like just rabid free market stuff. Like a lot of people like give themselves up to the idea of the free market, like just being that higher power in ways, and I think at the end of the day, that's just people don't realize that there's a need for healthy spirituality. People don't realize that there's a need for spirituality at all, but it's always a part of our life. But if you ignore it, then it kind of like starts doing things and starts acting on you in ways that like you can't really. If you think that it has no role in your life, then like it'll start controlling you in ways that you're not even aware of.
Scott:Can you do you have an example of that, a story of of someone who had that happen to him?
Ben:I, just I I.
Scott:I'm not, I'm not doubting, I'm not doubting what you said. Yeah, I'm trying to flesh out the story in my head of, like I just oh, yeah, here's a guy who didn't go to well, let's not talk about going to church. Yeah, here's a guy who didn't go to well, let's not talk about going to church. Here's a guy who, uh, wasn't awed by the universe and this is what the universe did to him. Because he wasn't awed by the universe, um or her well, I think that think.
Ben:Donald Trump's a great example. I think Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are also good examples. I think there are a lot of billionaires that worship have put value in certain things above all else. They end up kind of flying around like really hungry ghosts that don't even realize how much right how much pain they're causing right um. I see your point you made it, they're not. Yeah, I think there are folks like that, yeah, yeah, there are folks like that, yeah, yeah, there's.
Scott:And they are the people that are like quote unquote most successful by kind of the unspoken standards and values of Western society. And who attribute their success to Grunt work, I don't know, or luck I don't know.
Ben:Hmm, I think they acknowledge that. I think they would say both. Yeah, bill Gates says that it's both hands Because he worked sleepless. He worked for years in a sleepless state building Microsoft. But this is a very complex conversation, so don't go telling me that Ben says, like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are just like they're bad people. It's like they're. I think, everyone's doing their best. But all this to say is that I think there's this really kind of lack of intentionality behind, like, where we as a culture decide, like, what's important. There's no sense of mystery, and I think it's real.
Ben:I think when humans first evolved, we had a really really healthy respect for the things that we could not understand and will never, understand, respect for the things that we could not understand and will never understand, and that humility and giving up of ourselves to something greater than ourselves is largely gone from mainstream society. I think it's not thought to be an important question to say life is full of mystery. Life is full of mystery. How do I best live?
Ben:in accordance with that mystery, and I think inherently a lot of humility comes from that question and trying to live that question, and I don't think I, yeah, I really think that's a trait that's sorely lacking in our culture.
Scott:Is that like profound level of humility?
Ben:anyway, no, that's our sponsor. The root word human, connected to human, and humus of the soil. Get back down to earth. Okay, less than a minute, we got 30. Let's get the energy back up.
Scott:Alright well anyway, Busta move.
Ben:Life is funny, isn't it? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, you can listen to this podcast in whatever order you want. Go for it. It's all good, don't worry about it, know? Just just don't pet a cat and suck some grass I think this is number 20.
Scott:Okay, this is our fifth. Sorry to that, congratulations.
