Serious Inquiries Only

This podcast is an audio version, with some elaborations, of my first ever blog post, entitled "Whoever I Don't Like Is Ruining The Atheist Movement."  Definitely check out and share the blog version! It has screenshots and links and stuff. Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, remember short and to the point! Support us on Patreon at:  patreon.com/seriouspod Follow us on Twitter: @ seriouspod...

This episode is another attempt at debate across the social justice divide. CJ (@VieKeng on Twitter) has taken exception with my characterization of the Evergreen situation, and perhaps most strenuously with my use of the term "whitesplain." I'm very curious for feedback on this one! Listen to most post-analysis and if you have thoughts, I'd love to heard them in voicemail form! The debate ends ar...

Back for the severalith time is Ishmael from Angry Black Rant ! Lots of listeners requested this interview and Ish was kind enough to oblige. We discuss cultural appropriation, the Bill Maher situation, and more race-related issues in today's discourse. It's always fun talking with Ishmael, but it's also very real and revealing as well! Leave Thomas a voicemail! (916) 750-4746, remember short and...

What the Gender Studies Hoax and Jordan B. Peterson's pronoun mania both have in common is the bogeyman of postmodernism. It seems to be conventional wisdom that postmodernism is manifestly crazy. But how substantive is that criticism in reality? I've invited a philosopher, Aaron Rabi, to give us a bit of a lesson on what postmodernism is and perhaps where the criticisms are accurate and where the...

Please share this podcast with any Democrat you witness losing their mind about the special election results. In reality, the trend is very, very positive for Democrats going into 2018 elections. I go into why. After that, we have a lengthy and most excellent voicemail segment. Listen in! Our Brand Is Worse Than Trump ;  Anti-Pelosi Republican Ad ; Lots of Info On Special Elections At Ballotpedia...

In the same weekend, a teen found guilty of manslaughter for convincing her boyfriend to commit suicide, and a police officer found NOT guilty after shooting and killing Philando Castile. It has left many wondering, how did this happen? This demands expert analysis, so I've brought in the big guns in Andrew Torrez, resident law expert at the Opening Arguments Podcast  to help us understand the sit...

Back for a second time is Michael Shermer! He's the editor of Skeptic Magazine and has been a very prominent voice in the community for decades. After our last conversation, a couple of things happened. One was the gender studies hoax, which was explained and endorsed by his magazine. The other was the Evergreen incident, which Shermer tweeted about and wanted to know my thoughts on. We discussed...

Joining me this week for interview Monday is Dr. Gleb Tsipursky! Gleb is an expert in decision sciences, focusing on politics and business. In the wake of the 2016 election, Gleb has decided to focus on fighting against fake news and misinformation in our politics. That's why he has created the Truth Pledge, which he tells us all about in the interview. His insight is very valuable and is another...

Due to popular demand, I've decided to embark on a fact-finding mission regarding the Brett Weinstein/Evergreen College fiasco. It took an incredible amount of digging to find anything beyond the same few talking points that have exploded across conservative media in the past few weeks, but the deeper story is a little more complicated and worthy of our attention. As usual, the easy way out is to...

It is immensely important to me that I do my best to engage with those who disagree, and in that spirit I present a conversation with someone who argued a lot with me on Twitter about Jordan B. Peterson and Canadian bill C-16. This conversation took place on May 4th, but with a lot of Trump news and some key interviews I kept the interview as patron only . Lots of listeners have requested its rele...

After a few small points about the last couple episodes on the hoax paper, we're back to normal here on commentary Thursday! Today's main topic is the CBO score on the new incarnation of the evil AHCA bill. AHCA is, in my opinion, the most important political scandal currently happening. After that is a very difficult voicemail segment, in that there are 3 tough questions with no easy answers. But...

Last week you heard Eli Bosnick's side of why the 'Conceptual Penis' hoax paper was disingenuous and unskeptical, and today I speak with one of the paper's authors, James Lindsay. James has been a previous guest on the show; he's been someone I have always admired for his intellectual rigor and willingness to back up what he believes and to have the tough conversations. For that much I really, rea...

An embarrassingly unskeptical article appeared in Skeptic Magazine recently featuring a hoax paper published in a Gender Studies journal  by two authors: James Lindsay ( past guest of the show ) and Peter Boghossian.  Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine, and several major figures in the skeptic movement like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins took the conclusion that Gender Studies as a fi...

I'm pleased to bring you Dan Arel, of danthropology.net , who is self-admittedly far, far left. While last week had me debating free speech with a more right-wing friendly Michael Shermer, this week I'll be debating from the other side. Dan, in my opinion, is quite extreme in his tweeting and online expression. I do not hide the fact that I disagree adamantly with a lot of what he has said, but I...

We've reached the point where it might actually be reasonable to talk impeachment. Can we let ourselves get carried away though? I don't know. I've definitely got some thoughts on it for you! Also, I watched Fox News this week and it made me fear for the future of our politics.... But in happier news, Gad Saad was obliterated in the Canadian Senate while testifying about C-16. I play an amazing cl...

I'm very pleased to be speaking to Michael Shermer this week, someone who has been more on the free speech war side of things, and someone who has said previously that liberals won't dialogue with him. Well, to his credit, he eventually noticed my Twitter chirpings at him and was willing to have a long form conversation about our disagreements. I think there's a lot of room for optimism at the res...

This might be my magnum opus on the overblown "war on free speech" in Universities. In my research I discovered that, to a degree even further than I thought, Berkeley administration has gone above and beyond in protecting free speech. They were willing to have Milo on campus despite the fact that intended to call out individual undocumented students AND call for the defunding of Berkeley itself....

Joining me today is Seth Andrews, of the immensely popular podcast The Thinking Atheist!  I've long followed Seth's work and have always wanted an excuse to talk to him on the show, but somehow only just now gathered the courage! But Seth is here to talk about something he has seen cropping up recently which is a sort of "inactivism," or people who want to discourage others from speaking up and sp...

When I saw the news of Obama's $400k paycheck for a speech to a Wall St bank, I posted  this reaction on Facebook.  The slew of comments that resulted was quite surprising to me. In my view, a lot of liberals are doing some logical backflips to justify Obama's payday, or to obfuscate and divert attention away from it. I think these gymnastics are unbecoming of skeptical people. I hope to add a lit...

Joining me today is Josh Zepps! I first came across Josh's work when Sam Harris and Hannibal Buress had a bizarre interaction on his podcast #WeThePeople LIVE (here's a SoundCloud link) . I was impressed with how Josh handled it and have followed him ever since. He has interviewed people like Gad Saad and ACTUALLY challenged them on their narratives. Josh is an impressive thinker and interviewer,...

Trump is closing in on 100 days as president, something that he simultaneously has said means nothing but is also important enough to have him scrambling for any sort of policy victory. I'm going to give you the details of two very important pieces of legislation to keep an eye on - that is the new version of the AHCA, and Trump's Tax Reform bill. They're both.... not good. So tune in and find out...

Joining me today is Eiynah! You may know her from her podcast Polite Conversations or from a very active and insightful Twitter account, @NiceMangos. First up we talk a bit about the jarring experience I had of seeing fully burka'd women in Europe and what, if anything, can anyone do about it. Then we talk about the hatred that Eiynah has been the subject of from multiple fronts. Some of the discu...

The guest has requested I take this episode down and I'm respecting that request. Apologies.

I support Trump's Syria strike against the Shayrat airfield. That is the punchline of today's episode but I encourage you to listen with an open mind as I go through the reaction to the Syria strike, what different pundits and columnists and congresspersons have said, and why I think ultimately it was a good idea. There's a lot of muddy and motivated thinking going on in our public discourse; I'm...

I'm back from my Europe trip! And it couldn't have come at a more news-heavy time. First I've got a couple quick stories to talk about - Chechnya and Susan Rice. After that I go to the main topic for this show, and unfortunately next show... which is Trump's strike on Syria. This part one involves the backstory, what happened, how we know what we know, and some thoughts on the Putin Trump relation...