The M3 Bearcast from Male Media Mind

Dialogues on Spirituality, Life, and Curiosity

• Malcolm Travers • Episode 98

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M3 Bearcast Ep. 98: Dialogues on Spirituality, Life, and Curiosity

Welcome to another episode of the M3 Bearcast. I’m your host, Malcolm Travers. At Male Media Mind, we are a grassroots organization dedicated to uplifting and unifying our community through dialogue, insight, creativity, and knowledge.

In this episode, we’re taking the "bullshit-testing" approach to the videos and trends flooding our feeds. From political absurdity in the White House to the psychological power of a fortune cookie, we’re peeling back the layers of our prior assumptions to find the heart of the matter.

On the Table Today:

  • The "Unserious" Cabinet: We discuss the bizarre ritual of Donald Trump guessing his cabinet members' shoe sizes—and why figures like Marco Rubio find themselves walking around in "clown shoes" rather than speaking up. Is it incompetence, or just a lack of seriousness at the highest levels of power?
  • The Liturgy of the Fortune Cookie: Why do we take 20th-century California inventions so seriously? We explore the connection between positive affirmations, prayer, and "setting an intention" as a tool for personal motivation.
  • Choosing a Lifestyle, Not Just a Person: A deep dive into relationship compatibility. When you pick a partner, you’re signing up for their sleep schedule, their stress levels, and their "version of Tuesday" for the next decade.
  • The Ethics of Omnipotence: We tackle the "problem of evil" and the deconstruction of religious faith. If God is the arbiter of all that is good, does He even have free will?
  • The Digital Boundary: A heated discussion on the etiquette (or lack thereof) of cold-calling on Facebook Messenger.
  • The Power of Curiosity: Malcolm reflects on reading 140 books in a year and the therapeutic power of asking "the next question," even when it feels like a character flaw to not already know the answer.
  • Vibes-Based Theology: We critique the logic of "cherry-picking" information to fit a worldview, specifically looking at how some religious leaders conflate the failures of capitalism with government overreach.

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Peace.

 M3 Bearcast #p 98 First draft from M2 Live Mar 18. 2026

M3 Bearcast #p 98 First draft from M2 Live Mar 18. 2026

Speaker 49: [00:00:00] Welcome to the M three Bear Cast. My name is Malcolm Traverse. Male Media Mind is a grassroots organization dedicated to uplifting and unifying our community through dialogue, insight, creativity, and knowledge. And on this podcast, I bring up topics around connection, spirituality, and mental health. And I bring on videos from TikTok and Instagram.

From therapists, counselors, philosophers, content creators about how to live better lives through communication, self-love

and better living. But oftentimes, it's hard to tell it I am. Self-selecting for these topics. So I run them by my panel on my M three live streams every Wednesday at 7:00 PM Eastern, and we banter back and forth sort of bullshit testing whether or not,

I'm just confirming my prior assumptions. We usually have a pretty good time. I throw in some jokes, but on this podcast, I try [00:01:00] to hone in on the heart of the matter. And hopefully get to a deeper understanding of the topics. So let me get into it.

Speaker 50: I never think about tall privilege 'cause I live in a house with someone that is 6, 6, 6. Yeah. He's ub. He's like my human reacher. 

Speaker 49: It's true. Like it's um, in one of those,

 so in this first video, Kamal Bell talks about. One of the weirdest rituals that Donald Trump

Speaker 49: inflicts on his cabinet. It's something that he's done for years in his businesses and it kind of goes to show the nature of the current White House whether or not we should be afraid of how incompetent they are. Or just how unserious they are as people. I don't know. Like this, it always seems to be some sort of crisis happening in the federal government since he started his second term.

But something about this story made me feel a little bit more at ease because it just kind of makes me recognize how unserious they are as people.

Speaker 7: Trump does a thing where all the men who work with him, he guesses their shoe size and then he buys them a pair of his favorite shoes. [00:02:00] Now, before you go, like, oh, I bet Trump likes real nice shoes.

That's pretty cool. No, Trump likes floor shine shoes. What? Honestly, I didn't know they still made floor shine shoes. I remember when I was a kid. They're not, they're fine. I mean, they're fine, they're fine. I'm just, they're not, 

Speaker 2: they're 

Speaker 7: not presidential. Right. Sorry, I just lost that floor shine, uh, sponsorship.

Anyway, uh, so Trump guesses the shoe size of the men around him and then he buys them a pair of these shoes. But he doesn't ask people their shoe size 'cause he's Trump. He guesses, and this is what Marco Rubio's walking around in. Yep. That's Marco Rubio's foot. And he's literally walking around in a pair of clown shoes because Marco Rubio couldn't say, sir, no, I don't wear 10, I wear seven and a half.

They're not serious. People doing serious things. Not serious people. 

Speaker 2: That is crazy. 

Speaker 7: You know how much my dad would yell at me if I let another man do that to me? 

Speaker 2: Yes. [00:03:00] I was just like my father would dig himself out of the grave and come kick me in the face. If you let another man bitch you out like that, you wearing big ass suits like clown clown now.

Speaker: So there were memes of that. I did not know what it was about. But there are memes of Marco Rubio and big clown slippers. Yes. Coming up and being alls to Trump. 

Speaker 2: The other thing is he is Cuban American. We don't play that shit. You don't let no other nigga bitch you out for no shoes. 

Speaker: Well he is Trump's bitch.

He is. 

Speaker 2: No, mark. This, 

Speaker: you know, there was another thing, I think it was on, um, where was it? Um, the Bull Work podcast. He had a, um, representative or someone from the government who was making an official White House, uh, visit. And he was walking with Trump going to different people in the West Wing. And they would ask him, you know, like, how's the economy?

The economy is wonderful sir, it's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It was like people are literally bullshitting him. When they didn't have to bullshit [00:04:00] him, you know what I mean? Like, this was a private meeting. Right. And he, he started to realize like, no, the economy is not great, but it, that's the kind of environment that exists in his White House that they, you know, he's the emperor with no clothes.

Speaker 4: Right. 

Speaker: And you have to go wear the big 

Speaker 4: go. 

Speaker: Mm-hmm. You have to wear the big ass shoes 'cause oh, these are great shoes, sir. You ain't gonna know what's not shoe you got on anyway. He can't 

Speaker 2: even remember what he gave you

Speaker 49: So this next video is actually about fortune cookies, but he was applying this concept of fortune cookies to prayers and setting an intention and holding it in your heart how it can change your outlook on reality. I think it's funny to me that people actually take seriously the fortunes inside their cookies.

Um, I think this just happens to do with some of the

romanticization of Asian culture because fortune cookies were actually developed in California by a restaurant. I mean, it's [00:05:00] not an actual Chinese tradition, but because we have this sort of impression. Of Chinese culture, I think is given this amount of seriousness sometimes. And when you read this positive thing that's gonna happen to you, there's a willingness to want to believe it and to, uh, look for the opportunities for that fortune to come true.

And I think the same can be said about prayer when you actually believe in the liturgy and in the doctrines of your religion. Uh, asking for, uh, God's will to be done, uh, can make people feel at ease about things and stop worrying about them. Um, and I didn't recognize this until recently. I started reading a book called, uh, black Liturgy and um, it really did open up my mind to the idea of asking whatever it is you believe the universe.

Infinity, I've, I've started using that word for the divine. Um, whatever it is that complexity grows out of from this [00:06:00] chaos that is our universe. Um, asking it for guidance on and clarity with your intentions and desires is incredibly useful. Like I'm reading through this book of prayers and, um, I feel it.

And I think that feeling can be put to use. Um, and I'm, I'm in favor of anything that can, um, provide you fuel and motivation.

Speaker 50: To go after what's important to you.

Speaker 11: So I grew up on these, this is a fortune cookie. 

Speaker 2: Alright. 

Speaker 11: And I'm not gonna open it. I don't eat them. But um, growing up. I would open these up. And the thing about the messages inside, uh, along with some lucky numbers is that it was always positive.

It was always a positive message, right? Let me tell you about the fortune cookie in prayer. When I would read the positive message inside of the Fortune cookie growing up, what it did for me was it would, it would heighten my expectation that whatever it was that was said in the fortune cookie was gonna [00:07:00] happen for me.

So when that happens, you raise your awareness and you are looking for opportunities. And it is the same way with prayer. When you believe in God for something, you raises your expectation of good things happening for you. That is the positive about prayer. But under no circumstances, you cannot pray and change someone else's circumstance.

Hope that makes sense, though, this way now. 

Speaker: You can't do carbs, I guess, but you know, I always did. You know, you know, I'm the super, um, analytical person and I was like, why do fortune cookies work? 'cause they do. Right? And you know, like, you know, this is just some shit that a guy in California came up with.

This is not ancient. 

Speaker 4: Believe you believe in work. 

Speaker: Yeah. Especially if you want to believe it. Right? If it's something that

Speaker 2: positive affirmation 

Speaker: and I, you know, I, I'm just saying I appreciate it now when I didn't before, like, anything that's positive [00:08:00] that gets you to think in a positive way is a good thing. So,

Speaker 49: Now this video is actually about relationships and the idea that when you get into a relationship with somebody, you're not just going to be interacting with the physical. Aspects of someone and their personality, but there's an entire ethos around them, around the way that they live their lives. That's unlikely to change, at least unlikely to change at your direction.

And part of finding someone who you're compatible with is in a way getting very practical.

And pragmatic about the ways in which your lives can come together. Okay, so here's the video.

Speaker: alright. Number 14. 

Speaker 12: When you select a partner, whether you realize it or not, you are choosing a whole lifestyle and not just a person.

You're choosing their sleep schedule, you're choosing their money habits, you're choosing their stress levels, their family drama, their levels of cleanliness, [00:09:00] their work ethic, their coping mechanisms. All of these things will be a baseline of your daily life. If their normal is doom scrolling until 2:00 AM avoiding all conflict, impulse spending, and never exercising, guess what?

You are signing up to live in that ecosystem. Love does not cancel out people's flaws and fact love just makes you tolerate them for longer. Most people obsess over, do we have romantic chemistry? And they completely skip. Can I live with this person's version of Tuesday every week for the next 10 years?

The hard truth is you don't fix somebody's lifestyle from the inside. You either accept the package as they are or you walk. 

Speaker: I think one of the things he's getting at is the, um. I would say sort of the difference between the excitement and the chemistry and the sort of practical ways in which relationships function.

The most obvious way that people think about the practical things [00:10:00] is dealing with money. But I would just say like there are so many other little tiny practical things. 

Speaker 2: Well, if you a throwing at too, I'm going to bed. 

Speaker 49: So this video is actually on morality. We had a really interesting conversation about it, and one of the things that I didn't get into is this concept of free will and the problem of evil. It's one of the easiest refutations of the God hypothesis that if God is good and all powerful, then why does evil and pain exist?

And typically the answer is free will. But in this conversation we talk about how God probably doesn't have free will if he is the arbiter of everything That is good. If what he says goes and has to be good. Um, God can't have free will, uh, if he can only choose good things to be good. And if he can choose good things to [00:11:00] be evil,

that would mean he has free will and always chooses the right thing. And if he has free will and can always choose the right thing, then why can't we? Do we have to suffer just because we have free will if God can have free will, and always choose the right thing. These are just some questions that come up when you start deconstructing your religious faith.

And for a lot of people that could be disorienting. It is disorienting, but it is ultimately helpful for all of the times that. You are told what to believe and to believe it without question. And getting comfortable asking questions and getting comfortable with not really having answers is part of the process.

And so I think, uh, this conversation kind of brings up some more questions about morality free will and, uh.

The question of the problem of evil.

Speaker 13: What is the difference between, [00:12:00] it's raining and you know it's bad that it's raining.

What is the difference between a murder just occurred and it's wrong that that murder just occurred. If you try to isolate what the actual difference is there, I think it has to just be an attitude. It's an expression. It's the way you feel. The phrase murder is wrong. Translates to something like, I don't like murder.

A phrase. Like I don't like murder is a claim about my psychology. I could be lying. I could say I don't like murder, but actually I do secretly like murder. It could be something that I'm lying about. It could be true, it could be false, that I don't like murder. It seems to be a claim about my brain, about my psychology, about my attitude towards murder.

Meaning that these ethical claims are literally not the kind of thing that can be true or false. 

Speaker: Yeah. So I'm gonna talk about this for a little bit 'cause I'm gonna probably bring this up on my podcast. But, um, you know, this gets into like the, one of the major hurdles that people have for letting go [00:13:00] of God in a big G kind of way.

And that is, without God, how do you determine what's right and what's wrong? And I think it is a kind of a scary thing that without a big God telling you what's right and wrong, it comes down to what different people's opinions are. And it just feels like chaos, right? 

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Like what if everyone just decided, or enough people in the United States decided.

That, uh, they were gonna bring back slavery, would, that makes slavery okay. You know? Right. Um, I remember like a, um, podcaster on TikTok said that one time, it's like, you know, I believe it, you know, if the voter said that we wanted to bring back slavery, it'd be okay with that. I remember it might have been a clip that you played, um, swag, but there was, um, you know, obviously there's like a lack of understanding about what human rights are.

And, you know, in a democracy you should, you know, still not be able to pass certain laws, you know, because you protect human rights. But in a moral sense it can be like chaos to think that, you know, to say certain things are not wrong. It's just a [00:14:00] matter of opinion. So that's where God comes into play. Um, God says it's wrong, therefore it's wrong.

Now here's two ideas that might get you to think or expand your idea of what God is for this reasoning. So like we talked at once. About what omnipotence is and you know, like the burrito so hot you can't eat it. Dilemma, think about it like this is, if God is the ultimate determiner of what right and wrong is the ultimate determiner of ethics, is it right because God says it's right, or is it right because God sees and knows what is right?

You know? And so you got two options, right? You got one where God is then subject to something outside of himself and therefore is not omnipotent. He's subject to the laws of nature that say this is right and that is wrong. Or God is the ultimate determination of what right and wrong is. And therefore the other sort of [00:15:00] problem is God could just change it.

You know? Like he could just be like, well, you know, slavery really is okay. I mean, 'cause you know. Let's be honest, there are pastors in within the Bible where slavery was okay. Mm-hmm. Um, was it okay because God said it was okay. Um, which is kind of interesting. And so, and then there's another down, um, stream thing.

If God is the ultimate determination of what's right and wrong, um, does God have free will? Right? Because we also say that God is all good, you know, he uses right what's right and wrong, but if he is subject to only one type of good, right? 'cause we're gonna say like you, he's never gonna just say slavery's wrong.

He's gonna have to choose good all the time. Right? Then does God have free will? Because God is now constrained to only choose what's good. Because if he chooses what's wrong, then all of a sudden the wrong thing is now good. You know, I think this is just one of the. Things that just gets [00:16:00] you to expand.

Not to say that, um, your idea of God is wrong, it's just like open up to the concept that there are many different theologies and lessons from millennia of philosophy and religion that are all trying to coalesce into this one idea called God that can be separated out, teased out, and you know, you don't have to, um, people call this deconstruction the process of deconstructing this entirely complicated, you know, messy, um, construction.

If you start thinking about it, this is one of the reasons why at a church, they really don't want you asking too many questions because once you do it just spirals more questions. Once you have this question, there's another question. Then you start questioning even this and that and that. I think this is ultimately healthy, this sort of curiosity ultimately.

Leads you to truly understand what's important to you, because it goes back to what the guy said, what's [00:17:00] important to you? What do you feel is right and wrong? Because that's truly important, you know, and truly having a good story and an understanding of why you deeply believe that certain things are valuable or important or, you know, um, important to protect.

Say for instance, um, should say something about

Speaker 2: the sound went out. 

Speaker: What's that? 

Speaker 2: The sound went out for a second. 

Speaker: Oh, okay. So one of the reasons why I believe in, say, transgender rights or, uh, the rights to abortion is this idea of bodily autonomy that you are, um, ultimately. In charge of your own body. It can be challenged at times. And I have a video in here that I'm gonna discuss that challenges that, but I ask myself why that's important to myself.

And I think it's okay to wrestle with those questions. And sometimes people do things that make me feel [00:18:00] uncomfortable. 

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Am I gonna just jump to, that's wrong, you know? Well, or am I gonna interrogate why I think that way? Go ahead. I'm sorry. I just wanted to get that out. Oh, 

Speaker 2: no problem. No, no, you're good.

I, I think that's, that is also tied to a societal construct because as a society allegedly, we all chose, um, Trump's way of thinking. Good is bad and bad is good, you know, and, and I'm a Christian, but I, I support a pedophile and, you know what I mean? So then now we are faced with the question, 'cause that's a.

I already just, you brought this up 'cause I was just thinking about it this morning, is that now we have changed the definition of what it means to be Christian, so mm-hmm. Now you have that, when you, when you, uh, present that title, I'm a Christian, you know what I mean? It doesn't mean half the shit that it meant before.

It has no moral, actually, it's a trope that we laugh at, you know, you know what I'm saying? So I I I, I agree wholeheartedly with that. But also, and, and just like the church changes with [00:19:00] society, therefore it changes whatever view of God that we have, you know, like 

Speaker 4: mm-hmm. 

Speaker 2: Um, the Kings wanted to get divorced, so they, they created another church, you know what I mean?

Speaker 4: Basically. Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and then people couldn't stand what the Catholic church was doing, swags, and they was like, walk off and we going to create, you know, the a ME or we're gonna do this over here, and then. And lo and behold, we forget about the Christian Crusades. Millions of people got killed in the name of Jesus Christ because white people have decided, if you don't believe what I think you must die.

And so that we forget about all these things because we have been to, Santa Claus has become, you know, the thing that Easter Bunny, you know, and then we, and we have been taught to, to villainize, um, Muslim countries in that there are more Muslim, there are Christian. We have been taught to villainize these people because, and otherwise, and, and it's, it's, and I agree totally what you're saying.

Go ahead. I'm sorry. 

Speaker: Yeah, no, no, that was good. 'cause I, I just wanted to open up the idea that, um, you know, there are [00:20:00] psychological underpinnings to our beliefs. And it's just important to like interrogate them. Just 

Speaker 2: overall I think religion make feel better about 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Daily. 

Speaker: I don't have demon. I think it's a very good tool and um, in the right hands.

Right. Okay

. 

Speaker 49: So what about the discourse on. People calling you on Facebook Messenger. I had this happen to me recently where I matched with somebody on a dating app. We exchanged Facebook profiles and then he proceeded to call me and I had no point, said I wanted to receive a call. And when he did call, I kind of hinted at the fact that I said, did you, did you mean to call me?

Was this an accident? And. I can't remember what his response was, but I know that I was just like, I'm done. I can't, um, we message about calling or we exchanged numbers, but this was, uh, something that came up in this video and we [00:21:00] talked a little bit about it.

Speaker: Number two. 

Speaker 2: That's funny. Let it be a cat video. Geez. Please, 

Speaker: hopefully 

Speaker 14: allow me to uncle this early in the morning, 

Speaker 2: Lord. 

Speaker 14: Um, 

Speaker 2: that's your boo. 

Speaker 14: So somebody called me on instant messenger like. 10 minutes to go. I don't wake up till nine o'clock 'cause I don't have to be at work till 11. But you know it's eight here or a little after eight.

So you done allowed your horniness for whatever reason we've exchanged five messages. Something and, and nowhere in there. Then I say, oh well you should call me. Or, or, or Oh you should call me at eight o'clock in the fucking morning and then when I call you on that shit, you get a fucking attitude. For real.

Y'all get a little better with that whole instant message and calling thing. Like don't do it. If people want you to call them people my age anyway. We want you to call us. We will give you [00:22:00] our telephone number 'cause we still use that. Okay. So if you ain't had a, a previous conversation, if y'all ain't talked about it beforehand, don't just decide.

And, and, and then why would you call somebody at eight o'clock in the fucking morning on a work day? And, and and ain't nobody dead and ain't nobody on fire and y'all ain't related to each other. 

Speaker 2: Yes, Lord is on fire, is lo on fire. 

Speaker 4: So I, I did this because this happened to me too. 

Speaker 2: Me 

Speaker 4: too. I wanted to like you.

Why are you calling me? God damnit, I can't like you now 

Speaker 2: at two. At 2:00 AM 2:00 AM 

Speaker 4: It didn't matter when for me it was, it was an either, I don't care. I'm just like, do not call me. I did not give you right to call me. We 

Speaker 2: have had 

Speaker 4: no, at first I gave him a hint. I was like, did you mean to do that? Did you really mean to call?

I was gonna give him the, the weird 

Speaker 5: thing is like if my, like if Puppy and Joe, like, they will text me and be like. Is it all right if I call you? [00:23:00] I'm sorry. Hear that This thing, it's funny that we do that. Like we will literally ask somebody, is it okay if I call you? Bitch? You can call me. You got my number.

If I, if I can't answer the phone, I won't answer the phone. But to ask me, it's okay if I call like 

Speaker 2: I, 

Speaker 4: I am here for

Thank you. 

Speaker 2: Being polite. I like that. But we enjoy polite people. Yeah, that is nice. But Uncle Derrick is the road for me. Uncle Derrick is the road. It's the road. 

Speaker 49: So the next video is about. Curiosity, and I had the pleasure of spending Easter with my niece, and I just thought about how beautiful it is to have curiosity, to ask questions, to not be afraid to ask if you don't know, and there's something, as we get older, we get embarrassed for the things that we don't know, which of course is crazy because it's not our fault if we don't know something and yet.

It feels like a character flaw of some sort if you don't know [00:24:00] something. Um, but yeah, I just think it's a really beautiful thing to ask the direct question, get clarity on what's happening, and also to follow your heart, your desires in spite of whether or not people around you are also interested. This is something I've had to deal with when I think about doing a book club for M three.

Um, I have struggled to get other panelist to read books with me and I used to have some feel some kind of way about it that, uh, this is not something that everyone else is into. Um, but I think that is a product of me not having enough, uh, security within my own desires. To not need anyone else to go on that journey with me if I wanna read.

And so in 2025, I ended up reading about 140 books. I started tracking it on good reads, and um, I was impressed with myself and really felt [00:25:00] different. Like I was really, um, delving into the topics that interested me the most. And I felt more like myself in a while and I, I found out later, um, that it can be therapeutic because it activates parts of your brain that are associated with empathy when you have to understand characters and situations and build worlds in your mind, uh, reading is definitely therapeutic and so.

I'm gonna seek those people out. Hopefully in future episodes of this podcast, I will talk more about the books that we have read together. But if I can't find anyone, I'll be okay. And, um, I think it is a great idea to be curious and that's what this video is about.

Speaker 15: Part of your problem is that you're not curious enough, and I say that because as humans. One of our superpowers is an intense curiosity, almost a violent curiosity to like go explore, to go try [00:26:00] that new thing.

Why is traveling so fun? Why do people love to travel so much? It's because you're experiencing something that you don't typically experience. You're tapping into curiosity that can be dangerous, right? Trying a new thing. Can kill you literally. But there are many ways to be curious. Imagine your ancestors that were just slightly more curious about the way that the world worked.

This gives you a huge leg up, a big time advantage, such that we all have this curiosity gene inside of us. But in modern times, you don't have to be curious to survive. In fact, I would argue that one thing that we are taught growing up is to not be curious, not ask too many questions, not think too far outside the box.

Just be like everybody else. That's what you see on social media. What, what is a trend? A desperate, desperate attempt to be like everybody else, to be seen as cool or [00:27:00] desirable or whatever, attractive. It's just a desperate attempt to suppress your curiosity and absorb the social norm. But deep inside of you, and you know this, you know this is true deep inside of you on a d, on a DN, A level, on a genetic level, you want to be curious and find the things that are interesting and important and valuable to you.

And if you don't do that, then you won't feel right. You won't feel fulfilled, you won't feel happy. You need to be more. Curious. An added bonus is that being more curious makes you like 96 times more interesting than somebody who's not curious. It just, it just makes you more intriguing to be around, like, who is this person that went on their own curious journey and is not a cookie cutter version of every other human being that exists need to [00:28:00] be more curious.

It makes you smarter, it makes you more enjoyable to be around. Curiosity is the tool that we use to sculpt our individual greatness. 

Speaker 2: That is so fucking, that whole video is so fucking presumptuous. If, if you are less curious, to me, that does not make you less interesting. Interesting. To me, that is a, that is a educational preference and a, a bias that he has that is fucking ridiculous.

Speaker: Okay. I will take on a different deck because for one, you know whether or not you're interesting to other people. I think expressing or following your own curiosity helps you come better into contact with who you are as a person, you know? And I think like doing something that I don't know other people don't find interesting, even against the grain of what [00:29:00] other people do, it could actually lead you to be alone.

I'll say this, uh, a criticism about what I thought he said. I don't think curiosity makes you more interesting to other people all the time. Uh, in fact I think it can do the opposite. I think it can make you somewhat of an outcast. Agreed. You know, I think the reason why people follow trends and do things, what other people are doing is 'cause they wanna belong.

They wanna be a part of the crowd. Um, but that may not make you happy. I think. Um, what I find true about what he said is that following your own innate curiosity is going to make you happy. Whether you're in a group of people like-minded, which would be great, or if you're alone, because you will actually be steeped in the things that truly just genuinely interest you.

Um, I can remember, you know, for instance, like if it's a game or a movie or a book that, you know, I really like reading [00:30:00] or whatever, you know, why, you know, I, I used to be the type of person who's like, why would I read that like five or six times or read it over and over and over again and, you know, like I, there are so many other books I could be reading.

I read it because I like it, you know? Um, I, I'll say like, the Color Purple is one of those books for me. And the reason why is that when I first encountered it. I couldn't have been more than like seven or eight years old, and I just could not read it. You know, there was a lot of, um, you call it like dialect, you know, like the way that the words were spelled.

It was, you know, like southern, uh, accent of English. And I just was like, I can't, I can't make heads or tails of this. And it's written as a, you know, a epistolary novel. So it's like either letters to God or letters to her sister back and forth. And it's just like, it's, it's a difficult book. Um, but as I got older, you know, got better, I saw the movie, then I understood who the characters were and I came back to the book again.

It's one of those books that is all now just like a comfort, you know, that I read it probably like [00:31:00] two or every other year or so. Um, kind of, kind of, kind of weird. I don't know. But I'm just saying don't be afraid to follow what you like, you know, despite what anyone else has to say. Um, 

Speaker 2: now that is a way better message than what he said.

Speaker 49: This last video is kind of about the opposite, which is when people have priors and they are just looking to cherry pick information to fit their worldview, how twisted their logic can become. Um, this video is about a conservative Christian. Preacher, um, talking about how the government doesn't want you to own anything when he's talking about banks and loans, which are not issued by the government.

They are instruments of large financial institutions. And when we talk about like paying taxes, I think they get a lot of people upset. About what their tax dollars go into, but most people get more out of their taxes than they put in. It's something that, um, fails to register on a lot of people. Um, when services, when [00:32:00] you talk about things like social security, Medicaid, Medicare, public services, education, um, police and fire.

You know, regulations to keep your food safe, all these things that are paid for by your taxes, uh, I don't know, it just doesn't register in people's heads because they already have a preconceived notion that they don't wanna pay it and that it's not going for anything that matters to them. But it's also crazy when people talk about

doing something to help the average person, and then when it comes time to vote. They vote against their own interests because they have no desire, um, in seeking the truth, but only to cherry picking ideas that meet their criteria for the truth. So I'm gonna play this video right here,

Speaker 23: How many of you own a house? Their their job is to take it. How many of you own land? Their job is to take it. They don't want you to own anything, and they don't want you to have anything to pass on to your heirs.

But the way they, they work it [00:33:00] then is even if they don't seize your land, they keep racking up your property taxes to the point where you can no longer afford your land, which means you never actually own your land. You're renting it from the government for the rest of your life. The older I get, the more I read the Bible, the more conservative I become.

Because I've been reading the Bible. 

Speaker 10: I thought we exercised this demon like a decade ago. He's still around. That's crazy. Mark Driscoll is a moron, and it was bad enough when he was mostly known for just doing abhorrent theology stuff, but he seems to be getting more and more political. He was always a little political, but it seems to be like a really big part of his shtick now.

And he represents a problem for all of evangelical Christianity because so many Christians are getting their information about politics and theology from people who have never challenged their own assumptions. They don't ask the next question. They hear something, it supports what they already believe, and they go, yeah, that's it.

And you can be sure that anytime these kinds of people criticize [00:34:00] socialism, what they're actually criticizing is capitalism. They actually hate capitalism. They just don't know what things are called. And it's sad because he's right. They don't want you to own your house. They want you renting from them forever.

But the, they in question, at least in the American context, isn't the government, it's the capitalist. Home ownership in America actually is collapsing because we consider housing and asset class, and it's completely normal now for one person to own 50 houses while someone else owns zero. Meanwhile, in communist China, home ownership is above 90%.

In the free market United States, it's at 65% and falling. And the one time we reached our peak of home ownership at, or just under 70%, it was due to a massive bubble caused by predatory lending that left millions of America in the wake of complete destruction, losing. Everything. Driscoll's been reading his Bible and getting more and more conservative and that's fine, but at some point you've gotta [00:35:00] read something else.

You have to ask the next question. There's a big difference between doing theological work that helps to cultivate and formulate your political beliefs and just doing vibes based nonsense and attaching biblical verses to it. And every week, millions of Christians sit down to learn from people like this, people who have total confidence and zero levels of curiosity.

And that's a travesty I hope that they can break out of. 

Speaker: Yeah, it is funny like when, you know conservatives talk about, you know, the government, um, doing something to the little guy or whatever help at, you know, in the next breath, they're not interested in helping. You know,

Speaker 2: somebody of color might get something that they don't have. Exactly. Yeah. 

Speaker 49: okay. And that'll do it for this episode of the M three Bear Cast.

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