January 13, 2026 • 28 mins
Happy New Year, Robert and Sophie sit down and answer listener questions.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media. Happy New Year, everybody. Welcome to Behind the Bastards.
I'll be leading this episode. I am your executive producer,
Sophie Lickterman. I'm gonna ask Robert some of your questions. Robert,
how you doing, buddy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm doing. You know. It's that fun time of the
year where the holidays are over. We still don't quite
have to work. But also I can feel it coming
the real world, having to get back into the real world,
you know, So that part's not great, the like looming
knowledge that the stuff that you were like, ah, the
(00:42):
world's over, news is over. I don't have to pay
attention to anything for the next period of time. Well,
that period of time has come to an end and
it's time to re engage with reality. I'm at that
part of the year, so, you know, mixed.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, what was a highlight for you over your semi
time off.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I don't know, not really any particular highlight. I just
didn't do much.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Excuse me. We had a party, thank you, and your
highlight was it starting fire with the lightsaber torch I
got you.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, you got me a lightsaber torch that I started
a fire with. That was fun.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
It looked really good.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Got me some nice liquor that was fun.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I did you did? You looked very cool that night. Yeah,
Robert got me. Every year Robert gets me some kind
of really cool weapon. At the beginning of twenty twenty five,
he got me a bowie knife after I had surgery.
Everybody else set flowers, not my business partner. Robert got
me a really cool axe.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
One.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You're shetty what you called Sophie. This is your perse knife,
which was one of my favorite things you've ever said
to me.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And this year everyone needs a perse knife.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You got me this thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, it's like a it's a Moroccan like a ceremonial dagger,
so you know you're supposed to it's like a it's
a I think it's like one hundred years old, post
to beaut and weddings and kind of fancy events like that.
I can do. I could stand and do some rehab
on the blade for you, because it's kind of dull
at the moment, but yeah, you could. You could cut.
You could cut like a I got like a goat's
(02:13):
throat with that if you had to, if you're being
attacked by a goat and had to defend yourself with
a knife. You know it would work for that. It's
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
You also one year for my birthday, got me this
uh like horseshoe knife that's like for like that looks
like a horseshoe, but it's for like a cheeseboard. I
got caught all the time.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And I yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that knife.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Robert's a great gift giver everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Anyways, it's easy if you're just getting knives.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, but you know, nobody gives me a knife the
way you give me a knife, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We got four hundred and eighty one comments on the
thread asking for for questions for this Q and A as
of time of recording, which is New Year's Day. Everyone,
I'm gonna ask as many as many as we have
time for you.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Ready, let's let's do it. Let me let me get
a slug of my mountain dew. Baja Blast.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Shut the fuck up, that's what you're drinking?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah? Maybe good? Yeah you're free Baja Blast.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Do I need to drink that? Because I I've got
a I've got a sweat?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Is that what you say?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I don't even know if that's how you say it.
It's bad swepes.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, that seems that sounds right. I know what you're
talking about.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
That's a good ginger. Wait, uh do I need to
drink that.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I wouldn't recommend it.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's not good fair enough unless you want to sponsor
this mountain.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Dew then yeah, sure, then it's great.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Then we'll say whatever you want. Anyways. Uh, what are
your tips and tricks for identifying false information while doing
your research?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, hmm, that's tough because there's such like a wide
variety of false information right, and and and some there's
not really any basic tips that can help. I call
this like good natured disinformation or good natured bad information.
And it's no one's trying to propagandize you, no one's
trying to like fuck with you. It's just a false
version of reality has spread because somebody got a story
(04:08):
wrong and started telling it, and other people have been
like retelling it and adding into it. And if there's
not like an agenda, that's kind of hard. You just
have to actually dig into like what the work historians
have done. I would say, as a general rule, if
something sounds too good to be true, like if it's
exactly what you want to believe about a really complicated
(04:29):
and difficult situation, you should take a second look at it.
And if it just sounds like too cool and wacky
and like something in a movie, like a lot of
times that is true. A lot of times history is
crazier than anything that winds up in a movie. But
if there's like a specific anecdote that I'm like, I
don't know, I'll just like type a description of that
anecdote in and then I'll put in like ask historians,
(04:53):
Reddit or something like that to see if and that
gets rid of the low hanging fruit. Right, if it's
common disinformation or a common just like inaccuracy that gets
spread around, someone who knows their shit will have talked
about it there and will have sources. Right, so you're
not just relying on a Reddit post. You can look back.
You can find where the myth has been busted. You
(05:13):
can also just like type in again like a brief
description of the anecdote, comma, myth, comma, you know, something
like that to see if like it has been discussed
in that context or if there have been a lot
of times, which you'll find as historians who are analyzing
it and who have found Okay, this these couple of
parts probably aren't true. This part might be surprisingly true,
(05:33):
but like, that's that's kind of how I go about
doing that sort of thing. If you're asking about, like
how do you tell if like pictures or videos are
AI generated, that's a separate set of like skills and
tactics that probably runs longer than we have in this episode.
But when I'm just like casually studying history and I
come across something that I'm like, I don't know about that.
(05:56):
It's also useful when you are reading a history book
when you've like, especially like if it's kind of more
in the pop history side of things, and you're really
enjoying it. That always, if it's super entertaining and I
find myself like unusually into it, sometimes that's just a
sign that like a really good writer got a hold
of some history. But it's also sometimes a sign that,
(06:16):
like someone's massaging the facts to make a better piece
of pop history. So I will search for the book
and variations of like historians analyzed response from historian and
see are there some professionals who have better or equivalent
credentials to the author who have taken issue with some
of the claims that they've made right. These are all
(06:37):
kind of like tactics that you can use. There's not
like a one size.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Fits all, and like how many sources are using for
different things. I feel like, never just accept one source.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You try not to accept one every now and then
you run into something where like, well, there's really one
book about this guy, or there's like one good book
about this thing, and I will at least try then
to like come across like, well, what's some like untrue,
what are some bad books? Like what's some bullshit that
got spread? Because then at least we're broadening it from
here's what's in that book too, and here's some stuff
(07:08):
that's spread that's not true or whatever, like you try to,
Like when I'm at least putting together the podcast, I
always want to be saying like, Okay, there's there's more
than is just in this one source. Like when I
was working on the new episodes, I started reading that
any Jacobson book. I realized that there's a number of
people who have some good issues with that book, including
somebody discussed in the episode. So I read two other books,
(07:31):
and I read that John Rubel's like you know essays
and stuff because they provided like more context and when
I looked at the stuff. Okay, there's people who have
like issues with this part of Jacobson's book, but they
seem to speak highly of command and Control. So why
don't I use, you know, for that segment of the history.
I'll focus more on what command and control or what
(07:52):
fifteen minutes has to say. And that way, number one,
you're just you're getting a more varied You're giving the listeners,
the audience something more varied and effortful. Then just here's
one book and what one guy said in one book.
And you're also hopefully avoiding some of the most obvious pitfalls.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Sure, and I mean again just to say the obvious.
Never trust the Google AI summary.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
No, no, And you can always when you're googling. Now,
if you just want to avoid that, just with whatever
you're typing in add minus AI at the end, just
a space and then minus AI. And it doesn't mean
that there won't be AI generated articles or whatever in
your responses. That's basically impossible to avoid, but it cuts
out the AI generated summary because that alone. Sometimes it's right,
(08:41):
and when it's right, it's like fine, I guess, but
the downside is when it's right, you'll read that instead
of reading an actual source that probably will tell you more.
And it's also hard to tell when it's wrong, and
there's often just kernels of wrong baked into the right,
and you're really doing yourself more of a favor by
trying to find a better source. I find that just
not having that little summary there can kind of like
(09:04):
avoid you sort of casually almost acts, because sometimes it's accidental.
Sometimes you can't just the way your brain works, your
eyes work, You're going to read part.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Of that summary even before you scroll down, right, Yeah,
even if you are scrolling down to read a real thing,
you may catch something in there and not realizing it,
realize that you're picking up some disinformation.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So I kind of start with that, like that's my baseline.
I've also I'm you can do the same thing on
Duck duck go, I think, so I've been using that more.
I'm kind of experimenting. I'm hoping to find this next year,
like a search engine solution that I'm happier with, because
nothing that we've got right now is better than Google
(09:44):
was like six years ago. But I've found Duck duck
Go generally better than Google now and doing the minus
AI you know, thing gets you better like or at
least reduces the odds of you getting some bad information.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Sure what bastard or bastards have you not done because
the research will take too long or they're just too complicated?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Uh? I mean, I haven't done the Nixon episode yet
because there's so many books that I know I need
to get through to do it. And that's only part
of it. I had been planning to do it in
twenty twenty four and talked about doing with the doll
Up guys. They were on board, and my dad got sick,
and I just haven't gotten Like it's been a while now,
I should have gotten back into it. I just kind
(10:28):
of haven't because it's it's such a it's such a
heavy lift. Sure, I haven't done now yet for the
same reason. You know, I do those heavy lifting episodes
periodically throughout the year. The Nuke one was a heavy lift.
You know, there were all a number of books involved
in that. Himmler was a heavy lift, a number of
books involved in that. You know, The Zizians was a
(10:51):
heavy lift.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Several comments on Himmler. People want more Himmler.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
People always want more Himmler. That's what everyone was saying
when he died. So like, I'm try, I try to
do like at least every quarter, like a heavy lift effort,
you know, longer episode. But there's a lot of those,
So I just there's not like a particular reason other
than I just didn't feel confident tackling that one at
that time.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Sure, this next one says, what are some unexpected commonalities
between bastards other than grew up in poverty and had
abusive parents slash guardians.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, I wouldn't even say. I mean, those are commonalities
between a number of bastards from specific time periods, but
they're not commonalities I think because having being poor or
having like a household where you know, you don't have
both parents around is a common thing with bastards. It
just was really common for kids growing up in those
(11:48):
time periods, Like is it should we see it as
significant that Hitler was poor and that his dad died
when he was young and his mom died tragically when
he was not a whole lot older, and it really
fucked him up where it's like, but those were really
normal experiences for just kids in the late eighteen hundreds,
and early nineteen hundred, sickness and disease were a lot
easier to you know, just wipe out portions of your family,
(12:10):
and poverty of that sort was a lot more common.
So I think you're kind of like a misnomer if
you're looking at that as like a and those are
common traits of monsters, because even if we're looking at
the Nazis, it was more common for the big Nazis
to have been comfortable and of like what we might
call at least like a middle class upbringing than it
(12:31):
was for them to be as like poor and downtrodden
as Hitler was. He really you know, he had a
very tough childhood. But I would say that's almost the
exception more than it is the rule. One of the
big rules is a kind of I mean, it's almost
like too much to say, not even like a sense
of megalomania, but a desperation to be somebody, to like
(12:58):
be someone who matters in your society is like you
see it, and like this kind of desperate need to
be attached to whatever group is in power. Right. It's
this yearning to be close to power that I think
often predicts a lot of like the worst people, like
(13:20):
the folks who will do anything for their career to
like improve the perception of their place in society. That's
like the biggest warning sign. I think that you see
that somebody's going to do some really bad shit.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Let's go to a quicker ad break and then sure
we'll back more questions back. All right, So, Robert, what
made you initially want to become a journalist? Was there
a specific journalist or publication that inspired you to take
(13:55):
that path?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I mean, I remember as a kid during the Yugoslav
Civil War and the you know, the genocide in Bosnia
catching some news like live news footage from Sarajevo and
thinking that, like wow, like what a like what a
what a important, serious job. Maybe I'll do something like
(14:18):
that as an adult, like the you know, the reporters
on the ground that we're talking about, like what was
happening in the city. I remember thinking that, like, that's
that's like something adults do. That's a serious job for
serious people. And so I definitely like that's the first
time I can remember thinking that like something in line
(14:38):
with the career I wound up picking out sounded intriguing,
and then I don't know, like as a an eighteen
nineteen year old reading trans Metropolitan for the first time.
It's a comic book series with a journalist as a
protagonist that's set in the in the far future. It's
very good. It's one of the best illustrated graphic novel
(15:00):
series I think I've ever seen, and I really I
still revisited every couple of years. That definitely like jazzed
me up as a as an adolescent, as a young adult.
And then I was really influenced by Occupy Wall Street.
You know, I was there at Zuccati Park for a
couple of days. I saw little bits of some of
(15:21):
the regional ones, and I just was never happy with
the coverage that was going on, either like the mainstream
media coverage or the stuff that was really celebrated at
the time, which was like a lot of the people
who were like within the movement and kind of doing
movement coverage of what was happening. I mean, that's kind
of where Tim Poole came out of, right, So I
think maybe I was maybe I was just could see
(15:43):
that a problem was coming, but I was I was
not happy with what I was seeing, and I was
I was becoming as I became more, you know, in
my early twenties, more acquainted with like history and particularly
like the political history of Latin America and US interactions
in the Middle East. I grew like more and more
frustrated with the news. With what I still saw is
(16:05):
this like really important job that I thought was being
like kind of systemically done badly. I took when I
was in college, I took courses on the Holocaust in
remembrance that was about how the Holocaust has been covered
in like movies and fiction, but also how the Holocaust
was reported on at the time and afterwards. A lot
(16:25):
of that stuff, by the way, made it into the
episodes about how like the liberal media helped fascism get
a foothold, you know, the last time. So really, since
I was in kind of like twenty twenty one, I've
been I've been thinking about like the shortcomings of our
of our media and how disastrous those shortcomings are. And
(16:47):
I still kind of fundamentally believe what I did as
a kid, that it's like a really important job reporting
on conflict, especially for serious people, and there's just not
a lot of them doing it. You know, there are
there are some great reporters obviously much better than me
out there reporting on conflict. But I think the bulk
of what gets written about war and genocide and conflict
(17:09):
around the world, including you know, in the United States,
protests and the like, is bad. And I guess I
became aware of that at a pretty young age.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Just made me think about when I was in college.
I took early on in college, I got approval to
take a class. I was a freshman. Everyone else was
a senior in the class, but the professor for some
reason let me take it. And it was a psychology
of ethics class, and I had to do this report
that was like most of what I worked on in
that semester, and it was all about, you know, the
(17:42):
ethics of the insanity defense for mass shooters. And it
was right after the Aurora shooting, the movie Theater Batman shooting,
and I think a lot of that really shaped the
way that I thought about people, which I think impacts
a lot of our work. So I don't know, it
(18:03):
just kind of takes like one class. I feel like
sometimes it's just one one or one assignment really to
like influence you creatively.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, yeah, it is, because when I think back on,
like my time in school, I can think, I can
I can only really remember like one teacher two teachers
by name that I've had in like the whole twelve years. Yeah,
but I remember moments kind of more than one, like
three or four. But there's a but I do. There
are like some moments, and really for the most part
(18:34):
they were singular moments, like three or four of them
that like were absolutely foundational to who I became, which
is always interesting to me, the degree to which like
both great like school is just a complete blur, like
I barely remember it, and also I can point out
like three or four moments, so I'm like, well, that
changed everything, you know. Yeah, I guess that's how it
is sometimes stuff with how it was for me.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
There's several different questions that basically sum up to the
same question from folks that they're asking, who's the oldest
bastard in history?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
The oldest bastard, Like I'm assuming they mean like chronologically
like the first bastard Literear.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, that was asked several different times.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I mean, we certainly don't know his name right like
there because here's the thing, and this is because I've
talked a lot, you know about like something that gets
that anarchists bring up quite frequently, which is how you
had a lot of in prehistory among these hunter gatherer tribes,
a lot of like extremely egalitarian communities, right particularly compared
(19:42):
to like a lot of the settled cultures that followed them.
Right where there were was significantly more equality between men
and women, there were significantly flatter hierarchies, you know, a
lot less power being invested in single individuals. And I
talked about in the Manifested episode about like the that
ekung ritual, like the shaming of the meat, to try
(20:05):
and stop young men who are our hunters from getting
too big an ego because they think that hunting is
all that matters, because it's like the cool sexy job
to have, right, And if you're focusing on that, you're
ignoring how will most of our calories come from? People?
Like gathering nuts, and a lot of that work it's
done by women. And also people need clothes, people need tools,
all of these things that are just as important as
(20:26):
going out and killing a deer and in fact necessary
precursors that are a lot less sexy. So if you
let like the young hunter boys get you know, a
fucking ego about them because like, well, I'm the one
who brought home the meat. Then you're ignoring everyone else's contributions,
and that makes your whole community weaker, right, And it
creates the opportunity, at least that one of those young
men's going to lose their shit and bring terrible, terrible
(20:49):
suffering onto the rest of the community.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
But I think when we talk about that, we talk
about all of these different sort of like rituals and
ceremonies and rules that different societies adopted to deal with
the problem of power to ensure that they had flatter hierarchies.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
There's a tendency then to kind of forget something, which
is that those were not those were not part of
those societies because they were more enlightened than modern people,
or at least than the people that followed them. It
was not like, oh, we used to understand how to
be good as a society, right, or as human beings,
Like we used to have better cultures, we used to
(21:31):
be more ethical, we used to treat each other better,
and we stopped. I think it's more accurate to say, like, well,
all of those different rules and practices are evidence of
the fact that there's always been a problem with power
in human cultures, and that individual people taking too much
power for themselves has always been a danger, and our
(21:53):
ancestors recognize that and have throughout the entire history of
human events and some of culture developed methods of dealing
with it. But ultimately we have to assume all of
those methods hit points of failure, right, because those cultures
didn't last, right, and they didn't beat out in a
lot of cases the more stratified and hierarchical cultures that
(22:15):
followed them, and so well, I think it's really valuable
to look at here are solutions different cultures have proposed
the problem of power. The fact that those they had
to come up with so many different solutions is evidence
to the fact that that problem is kind of universal, right,
And that hints at a long history of bastards, of
(22:35):
individual assholes and codras of assholes that have sought in
every kind of society, including ancient hunter gatherer societies, to
try and take much more than their fair share from
everybody else. Right. And so there's certainly a long prehistory
of nameless bastards out there, and I think it behooves
us to remember that, both because I am one of
(22:56):
those people who says we should be looking at what
other older, different cultures developed as ways to deal with
the problem with power, without pretending that they definitely had
it figured out, because again, none of that stuff lasted forever.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Right right, Let's take another quick break and being back
with a couple more questions. We're back, Robert. Do you
listen to music while you write scripts for the pod?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah? Sometimes I used to do more. I used to
listen to more music while I was writing. The last
like year or so, I haven't done it as much.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Why do you have Like they always ask NBA players like,
what's the song you listened to before game time? Do
you have a song you listened to before pod time?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I mean not before recording a podcast. I have like
different bands that I listened to while I'm writing. More
often than other there's a different play. One place I
used to go a lot is the white Light mixes.
If you just type like white light mixes in, it's
like a set of like hour and a half long
like mixes that are meant for people to like drive to.
(24:05):
I think that was the initial idea is that these
are great for like road trips and stuff and so
different DJs will do like an hour, hour and a
half long set that you can kind of zone out
to while you're driving. I found them useful over the
years for writing a lot. And yeah, that's that's I mean,
I listened to I do. I listened to a lot
(24:26):
of like live bluegrass shows for whatever reason. I find
that helps me concentrate. Last night, as I was working
on what'll be some of the first episodes of twenty
twenty five, I was listening to Green Sky Bluegrass at
Red Rocks. I'll listen to you my SKA street Light. Well,
I'm writing, but again, a lot of the last year,
I haven't really been listening to much while writing, and
(24:47):
I don't really know why. It comes and goes in waves.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Have you ever started an episode on someone commonly known
to be a bastard only to realize you actually agreed
with them or decided they weren't worthy of being a bastard?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean, like the Beau Brummel episodes. I started thinking like, oh,
this is the guy who like ruined men's fashion and
did a lot of damage to the psychees of men
for generations by locking people into these like because that's
how he gets portrayed a lot, as he invented the
suit and made men's fashion boring and made men scared
to express themselves through clothing. I don't actually think that's
(25:23):
a fair summary of what bo Brummele did in his life.
It certainly was not fair to his intent. I think
he was a much more sympathetic person than that. But
I also thought there's a lot of bastardery in that story,
because I mean, just English culture during the period of
time that he was alived was a fucking nightmare. So
I decided, like, well, this is still good for an episode.
(25:44):
So I have There's been a couple of like times
not really worth diving into, where I've I've heard like
one story about someone that sucks, like a celebrity or whatever,
and I've looked into like, Okay, can I get laying
an episode or is this just somebody did something shitty
once Katy Perry and.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
We want Yeah, we talked about doing Katy Perry once.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That happened with a Katy Perry episode where I thought
this the whole thing with her in the Nuns. There's
controversy over this house she was buying. It's not as
bad as it seems. Like. I'm not saying I go
into bat for her as a good person, but I
don't think she's an interesting subject for an episode, sure, right,
for sure? Yeah, it's not. It's less that, like I
(26:24):
don't think I've ever had it like where Oh no,
this person's a hero, although I do find some things
about bo Brummle to be kind of admirable. But it's
more that, like, ah, this person just is like a
person who did some shitty stuff, and that's not really
a bastard, right, Like we're we're not declaring someone a
bastard just because they like had flaws and did bad
We've all done bad things. We're not all interesting to
(26:47):
hear about for two hours.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, which bastard pastor present would be the best podcast
guest to cover a different horrible person?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Oh man? I mean honestly, I feel like if I,
if he was alive, I would make fucking fifty million
dollars doing a podcast with l Ron Hubbard where I
just explained different cults to l Ron Hubbard and he
critiques them like he explains, ah, now this is where
you fucked up, this is where you rent a classic.
It would be the least responsible podcast of all time.
(27:19):
I would deserve to go to prison for making that
show because it would just create a new generation of
hypercompetent cult leaders. But it would be super interesting just
getting LRH on the record critiquing other cult leaders because
they're all worse than him. He was the best at that.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, all right, guys, we'll be back on Thursday to
answer more of your questions. Any final thoughts.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Robert, Uh, you know, in the new year, fuck it,
I don't know whatever it is to you, fuck it.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Cool Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the
Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday
(28:12):
and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash
at Behind the Bastards.
Also media. Happy New Year, everybody. Welcome to Behind the Bastards.
I'll be leading this episode. I am your executive producer,
Sophie Lickterman. I'm gonna ask Robert some of your questions. Robert,
how you doing, buddy.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm doing. You know. It's that fun time of the
year where the holidays are over. We still don't quite
have to work. But also I can feel it coming
the real world, having to get back into the real world,
you know, So that part's not great, the like looming
knowledge that the stuff that you were like, ah, the
(00:42):
world's over, news is over. I don't have to pay
attention to anything for the next period of time. Well,
that period of time has come to an end and
it's time to re engage with reality. I'm at that
part of the year, so, you know, mixed.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, what was a highlight for you over your semi
time off.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I don't know, not really any particular highlight. I just
didn't do much.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Excuse me. We had a party, thank you, and your
highlight was it starting fire with the lightsaber torch I
got you.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, you got me a lightsaber torch that I started
a fire with. That was fun.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
It looked really good.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
Got me some nice liquor that was fun.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
I did you did? You looked very cool that night. Yeah,
Robert got me. Every year Robert gets me some kind
of really cool weapon. At the beginning of twenty twenty five,
he got me a bowie knife after I had surgery.
Everybody else set flowers, not my business partner. Robert got
me a really cool axe.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
One.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
You're shetty what you called Sophie. This is your perse knife,
which was one of my favorite things you've ever said
to me.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And this year everyone needs a perse knife.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
You got me this thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah, it's like a it's a Moroccan like a ceremonial dagger,
so you know you're supposed to it's like a it's
a I think it's like one hundred years old, post
to beaut and weddings and kind of fancy events like that.
I can do. I could stand and do some rehab
on the blade for you, because it's kind of dull
at the moment, but yeah, you could. You could cut.
You could cut like a I got like a goat's
(02:13):
throat with that if you had to, if you're being
attacked by a goat and had to defend yourself with
a knife. You know it would work for that. It's
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
You also one year for my birthday, got me this
uh like horseshoe knife that's like for like that looks
like a horseshoe, but it's for like a cheeseboard. I
got caught all the time.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
And I yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that knife.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Robert's a great gift giver everybody.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Anyways, it's easy if you're just getting knives.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Yeah, but you know, nobody gives me a knife the
way you give me a knife, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
We got four hundred and eighty one comments on the
thread asking for for questions for this Q and A as
of time of recording, which is New Year's Day. Everyone,
I'm gonna ask as many as many as we have
time for you.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Ready, let's let's do it. Let me let me get
a slug of my mountain dew. Baja Blast.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Shut the fuck up, that's what you're drinking?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah? Maybe good? Yeah you're free Baja Blast.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Do I need to drink that? Because I I've got
a I've got a sweat?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Is that what you say?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I don't even know if that's how you say it.
It's bad swepes.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Yeah, that seems that sounds right. I know what you're
talking about.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
That's a good ginger. Wait, uh do I need to
drink that.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I wouldn't recommend it.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
It's not good fair enough unless you want to sponsor
this mountain.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Dew then yeah, sure, then it's great.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Then we'll say whatever you want. Anyways. Uh, what are
your tips and tricks for identifying false information while doing
your research?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, hmm, that's tough because there's such like a wide
variety of false information right, and and and some there's
not really any basic tips that can help. I call
this like good natured disinformation or good natured bad information.
And it's no one's trying to propagandize you, no one's
trying to like fuck with you. It's just a false
version of reality has spread because somebody got a story
(04:08):
wrong and started telling it, and other people have been
like retelling it and adding into it. And if there's
not like an agenda, that's kind of hard. You just
have to actually dig into like what the work historians
have done. I would say, as a general rule, if
something sounds too good to be true, like if it's
exactly what you want to believe about a really complicated
(04:29):
and difficult situation, you should take a second look at it.
And if it just sounds like too cool and wacky
and like something in a movie, like a lot of
times that is true. A lot of times history is
crazier than anything that winds up in a movie. But
if there's like a specific anecdote that I'm like, I
don't know, I'll just like type a description of that
anecdote in and then I'll put in like ask historians,
(04:53):
Reddit or something like that to see if and that
gets rid of the low hanging fruit. Right, if it's
common disinformation or a common just like inaccuracy that gets
spread around, someone who knows their shit will have talked
about it there and will have sources. Right, so you're
not just relying on a Reddit post. You can look back.
You can find where the myth has been busted. You
(05:13):
can also just like type in again like a brief
description of the anecdote, comma, myth, comma, you know, something
like that to see if like it has been discussed
in that context or if there have been a lot
of times, which you'll find as historians who are analyzing
it and who have found Okay, this these couple of
parts probably aren't true. This part might be surprisingly true,
(05:33):
but like, that's that's kind of how I go about
doing that sort of thing. If you're asking about, like
how do you tell if like pictures or videos are
AI generated, that's a separate set of like skills and
tactics that probably runs longer than we have in this episode.
But when I'm just like casually studying history and I
come across something that I'm like, I don't know about that.
(05:56):
It's also useful when you are reading a history book
when you've like, especially like if it's kind of more
in the pop history side of things, and you're really
enjoying it. That always, if it's super entertaining and I
find myself like unusually into it, sometimes that's just a
sign that like a really good writer got a hold
of some history. But it's also sometimes a sign that,
(06:16):
like someone's massaging the facts to make a better piece
of pop history. So I will search for the book
and variations of like historians analyzed response from historian and
see are there some professionals who have better or equivalent
credentials to the author who have taken issue with some
of the claims that they've made right. These are all
(06:37):
kind of like tactics that you can use. There's not
like a one size.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
Fits all, and like how many sources are using for
different things. I feel like, never just accept one source.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
You try not to accept one every now and then
you run into something where like, well, there's really one
book about this guy, or there's like one good book
about this thing, and I will at least try then
to like come across like, well, what's some like untrue,
what are some bad books? Like what's some bullshit that
got spread? Because then at least we're broadening it from
here's what's in that book too, and here's some stuff
(07:08):
that's spread that's not true or whatever, like you try to,
Like when I'm at least putting together the podcast, I
always want to be saying like, Okay, there's there's more
than is just in this one source. Like when I
was working on the new episodes, I started reading that
any Jacobson book. I realized that there's a number of
people who have some good issues with that book, including
somebody discussed in the episode. So I read two other books,
(07:31):
and I read that John Rubel's like you know essays
and stuff because they provided like more context and when
I looked at the stuff. Okay, there's people who have
like issues with this part of Jacobson's book, but they
seem to speak highly of command and Control. So why
don't I use, you know, for that segment of the history.
I'll focus more on what command and control or what
(07:52):
fifteen minutes has to say. And that way, number one,
you're just you're getting a more varied You're giving the listeners,
the audience something more varied and effortful. Then just here's
one book and what one guy said in one book.
And you're also hopefully avoiding some of the most obvious pitfalls.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Sure, and I mean again just to say the obvious.
Never trust the Google AI summary.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
No, no, And you can always when you're googling. Now,
if you just want to avoid that, just with whatever
you're typing in add minus AI at the end, just
a space and then minus AI. And it doesn't mean
that there won't be AI generated articles or whatever in
your responses. That's basically impossible to avoid, but it cuts
out the AI generated summary because that alone. Sometimes it's right,
(08:41):
and when it's right, it's like fine, I guess, but
the downside is when it's right, you'll read that instead
of reading an actual source that probably will tell you more.
And it's also hard to tell when it's wrong, and
there's often just kernels of wrong baked into the right,
and you're really doing yourself more of a favor by
trying to find a better source. I find that just
not having that little summary there can kind of like
(09:04):
avoid you sort of casually almost acts, because sometimes it's accidental.
Sometimes you can't just the way your brain works, your
eyes work, You're going to read part.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Of that summary even before you scroll down, right, Yeah,
even if you are scrolling down to read a real thing,
you may catch something in there and not realizing it,
realize that you're picking up some disinformation.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
So I kind of start with that, like that's my baseline.
I've also I'm you can do the same thing on
Duck duck go, I think, so I've been using that more.
I'm kind of experimenting. I'm hoping to find this next year,
like a search engine solution that I'm happier with, because
nothing that we've got right now is better than Google
(09:44):
was like six years ago. But I've found Duck duck
Go generally better than Google now and doing the minus
AI you know, thing gets you better like or at
least reduces the odds of you getting some bad information.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Sure what bastard or bastards have you not done because
the research will take too long or they're just too complicated?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Uh? I mean, I haven't done the Nixon episode yet
because there's so many books that I know I need
to get through to do it. And that's only part
of it. I had been planning to do it in
twenty twenty four and talked about doing with the doll
Up guys. They were on board, and my dad got sick,
and I just haven't gotten Like it's been a while now,
I should have gotten back into it. I just kind
(10:28):
of haven't because it's it's such a it's such a
heavy lift. Sure, I haven't done now yet for the
same reason. You know, I do those heavy lifting episodes
periodically throughout the year. The Nuke one was a heavy lift.
You know, there were all a number of books involved
in that. Himmler was a heavy lift, a number of
books involved in that. You know, The Zizians was a
(10:51):
heavy lift.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Several comments on Himmler. People want more Himmler.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
People always want more Himmler. That's what everyone was saying
when he died. So like, I'm try, I try to
do like at least every quarter, like a heavy lift effort,
you know, longer episode. But there's a lot of those,
So I just there's not like a particular reason other
than I just didn't feel confident tackling that one at
that time.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Sure, this next one says, what are some unexpected commonalities
between bastards other than grew up in poverty and had
abusive parents slash guardians.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah, I wouldn't even say. I mean, those are commonalities
between a number of bastards from specific time periods, but
they're not commonalities I think because having being poor or
having like a household where you know, you don't have
both parents around is a common thing with bastards. It
just was really common for kids growing up in those
(11:48):
time periods, Like is it should we see it as
significant that Hitler was poor and that his dad died
when he was young and his mom died tragically when
he was not a whole lot older, and it really
fucked him up where it's like, but those were really
normal experiences for just kids in the late eighteen hundreds,
and early nineteen hundred, sickness and disease were a lot
easier to you know, just wipe out portions of your family,
(12:10):
and poverty of that sort was a lot more common.
So I think you're kind of like a misnomer if
you're looking at that as like a and those are
common traits of monsters, because even if we're looking at
the Nazis, it was more common for the big Nazis
to have been comfortable and of like what we might
call at least like a middle class upbringing than it
(12:31):
was for them to be as like poor and downtrodden
as Hitler was. He really you know, he had a
very tough childhood. But I would say that's almost the
exception more than it is the rule. One of the
big rules is a kind of I mean, it's almost
like too much to say, not even like a sense
of megalomania, but a desperation to be somebody, to like
(12:58):
be someone who matters in your society is like you
see it, and like this kind of desperate need to
be attached to whatever group is in power. Right. It's
this yearning to be close to power that I think
often predicts a lot of like the worst people, like
(13:20):
the folks who will do anything for their career to
like improve the perception of their place in society. That's
like the biggest warning sign. I think that you see
that somebody's going to do some really bad shit.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Let's go to a quicker ad break and then sure
we'll back more questions back. All right, So, Robert, what
made you initially want to become a journalist? Was there
a specific journalist or publication that inspired you to take
(13:55):
that path?
Speaker 2 (13:56):
I mean, I remember as a kid during the Yugoslav
Civil War and the you know, the genocide in Bosnia
catching some news like live news footage from Sarajevo and
thinking that, like wow, like what a like what a
what a important, serious job. Maybe I'll do something like
(14:18):
that as an adult, like the you know, the reporters
on the ground that we're talking about, like what was
happening in the city. I remember thinking that, like, that's
that's like something adults do. That's a serious job for
serious people. And so I definitely like that's the first
time I can remember thinking that like something in line
(14:38):
with the career I wound up picking out sounded intriguing,
and then I don't know, like as a an eighteen
nineteen year old reading trans Metropolitan for the first time.
It's a comic book series with a journalist as a
protagonist that's set in the in the far future. It's
very good. It's one of the best illustrated graphic novel
(15:00):
series I think I've ever seen, and I really I
still revisited every couple of years. That definitely like jazzed
me up as a as an adolescent, as a young adult.
And then I was really influenced by Occupy Wall Street.
You know, I was there at Zuccati Park for a
couple of days. I saw little bits of some of
(15:21):
the regional ones, and I just was never happy with
the coverage that was going on, either like the mainstream
media coverage or the stuff that was really celebrated at
the time, which was like a lot of the people
who were like within the movement and kind of doing
movement coverage of what was happening. I mean, that's kind
of where Tim Poole came out of, right, So I
think maybe I was maybe I was just could see
(15:43):
that a problem was coming, but I was I was
not happy with what I was seeing, and I was
I was becoming as I became more, you know, in
my early twenties, more acquainted with like history and particularly
like the political history of Latin America and US interactions
in the Middle East. I grew like more and more
frustrated with the news. With what I still saw is
(16:05):
this like really important job that I thought was being
like kind of systemically done badly. I took when I
was in college, I took courses on the Holocaust in
remembrance that was about how the Holocaust has been covered
in like movies and fiction, but also how the Holocaust
was reported on at the time and afterwards. A lot
(16:25):
of that stuff, by the way, made it into the
episodes about how like the liberal media helped fascism get
a foothold, you know, the last time. So really, since
I was in kind of like twenty twenty one, I've
been I've been thinking about like the shortcomings of our
of our media and how disastrous those shortcomings are. And
(16:47):
I still kind of fundamentally believe what I did as
a kid, that it's like a really important job reporting
on conflict, especially for serious people, and there's just not
a lot of them doing it. You know, there are
there are some great reporters obviously much better than me
out there reporting on conflict. But I think the bulk
of what gets written about war and genocide and conflict
(17:09):
around the world, including you know, in the United States,
protests and the like, is bad. And I guess I
became aware of that at a pretty young age.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Just made me think about when I was in college.
I took early on in college, I got approval to
take a class. I was a freshman. Everyone else was
a senior in the class, but the professor for some
reason let me take it. And it was a psychology
of ethics class, and I had to do this report
that was like most of what I worked on in
that semester, and it was all about, you know, the
(17:42):
ethics of the insanity defense for mass shooters. And it
was right after the Aurora shooting, the movie Theater Batman shooting,
and I think a lot of that really shaped the
way that I thought about people, which I think impacts
a lot of our work. So I don't know, it
(18:03):
just kind of takes like one class. I feel like
sometimes it's just one one or one assignment really to
like influence you creatively.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, yeah, it is, because when I think back on,
like my time in school, I can think, I can
I can only really remember like one teacher two teachers
by name that I've had in like the whole twelve years. Yeah,
but I remember moments kind of more than one, like
three or four. But there's a but I do. There
are like some moments, and really for the most part
(18:34):
they were singular moments, like three or four of them
that like were absolutely foundational to who I became, which
is always interesting to me, the degree to which like
both great like school is just a complete blur, like
I barely remember it, and also I can point out
like three or four moments, so I'm like, well, that
changed everything, you know. Yeah, I guess that's how it
is sometimes stuff with how it was for me.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
There's several different questions that basically sum up to the
same question from folks that they're asking, who's the oldest
bastard in history?
Speaker 2 (19:08):
The oldest bastard, Like I'm assuming they mean like chronologically
like the first bastard Literear.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, that was asked several different times.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
I mean, we certainly don't know his name right like
there because here's the thing, and this is because I've
talked a lot, you know about like something that gets
that anarchists bring up quite frequently, which is how you
had a lot of in prehistory among these hunter gatherer tribes,
a lot of like extremely egalitarian communities, right particularly compared
(19:42):
to like a lot of the settled cultures that followed them.
Right where there were was significantly more equality between men
and women, there were significantly flatter hierarchies, you know, a
lot less power being invested in single individuals. And I
talked about in the Manifested episode about like the that
ekung ritual, like the shaming of the meat, to try
(20:05):
and stop young men who are our hunters from getting
too big an ego because they think that hunting is
all that matters, because it's like the cool sexy job
to have, right, And if you're focusing on that, you're
ignoring how will most of our calories come from? People?
Like gathering nuts, and a lot of that work it's
done by women. And also people need clothes, people need tools,
all of these things that are just as important as
(20:26):
going out and killing a deer and in fact necessary
precursors that are a lot less sexy. So if you
let like the young hunter boys get you know, a
fucking ego about them because like, well, I'm the one
who brought home the meat. Then you're ignoring everyone else's contributions,
and that makes your whole community weaker, right, And it
creates the opportunity, at least that one of those young
men's going to lose their shit and bring terrible, terrible
(20:49):
suffering onto the rest of the community.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
But I think when we talk about that, we talk
about all of these different sort of like rituals and
ceremonies and rules that different societies adopted to deal with
the problem of power to ensure that they had flatter hierarchies.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Right.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
There's a tendency then to kind of forget something, which
is that those were not those were not part of
those societies because they were more enlightened than modern people,
or at least than the people that followed them. It
was not like, oh, we used to understand how to
be good as a society, right, or as human beings,
Like we used to have better cultures, we used to
(21:31):
be more ethical, we used to treat each other better,
and we stopped. I think it's more accurate to say, like, well,
all of those different rules and practices are evidence of
the fact that there's always been a problem with power
in human cultures, and that individual people taking too much
power for themselves has always been a danger, and our
(21:53):
ancestors recognize that and have throughout the entire history of
human events and some of culture developed methods of dealing
with it. But ultimately we have to assume all of
those methods hit points of failure, right, because those cultures
didn't last, right, and they didn't beat out in a
lot of cases the more stratified and hierarchical cultures that
(22:15):
followed them, and so well, I think it's really valuable
to look at here are solutions different cultures have proposed
the problem of power. The fact that those they had
to come up with so many different solutions is evidence
to the fact that that problem is kind of universal, right,
And that hints at a long history of bastards, of
(22:35):
individual assholes and codras of assholes that have sought in
every kind of society, including ancient hunter gatherer societies, to
try and take much more than their fair share from
everybody else. Right. And so there's certainly a long prehistory
of nameless bastards out there, and I think it behooves
us to remember that, both because I am one of
(22:56):
those people who says we should be looking at what
other older, different cultures developed as ways to deal with
the problem with power, without pretending that they definitely had
it figured out, because again, none of that stuff lasted forever.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Right right, Let's take another quick break and being back
with a couple more questions. We're back, Robert. Do you
listen to music while you write scripts for the pod?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Yeah? Sometimes I used to do more. I used to
listen to more music while I was writing. The last
like year or so, I haven't done it as much.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
Why do you have Like they always ask NBA players like,
what's the song you listened to before game time? Do
you have a song you listened to before pod time?
Speaker 2 (23:44):
I mean not before recording a podcast. I have like
different bands that I listened to while I'm writing. More
often than other there's a different play. One place I
used to go a lot is the white Light mixes.
If you just type like white light mixes in, it's
like a set of like hour and a half long
like mixes that are meant for people to like drive to.
(24:05):
I think that was the initial idea is that these
are great for like road trips and stuff and so
different DJs will do like an hour, hour and a
half long set that you can kind of zone out
to while you're driving. I found them useful over the
years for writing a lot. And yeah, that's that's I mean,
I listened to I do. I listened to a lot
(24:26):
of like live bluegrass shows for whatever reason. I find
that helps me concentrate. Last night, as I was working
on what'll be some of the first episodes of twenty
twenty five, I was listening to Green Sky Bluegrass at
Red Rocks. I'll listen to you my SKA street Light. Well,
I'm writing, but again, a lot of the last year,
I haven't really been listening to much while writing, and
(24:47):
I don't really know why. It comes and goes in waves.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
Have you ever started an episode on someone commonly known
to be a bastard only to realize you actually agreed
with them or decided they weren't worthy of being a bastard?
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mean, like the Beau Brummel episodes. I started thinking like, oh,
this is the guy who like ruined men's fashion and
did a lot of damage to the psychees of men
for generations by locking people into these like because that's
how he gets portrayed a lot, as he invented the
suit and made men's fashion boring and made men scared
to express themselves through clothing. I don't actually think that's
(25:23):
a fair summary of what bo Brummele did in his life.
It certainly was not fair to his intent. I think
he was a much more sympathetic person than that. But
I also thought there's a lot of bastardery in that story,
because I mean, just English culture during the period of
time that he was alived was a fucking nightmare. So
I decided, like, well, this is still good for an episode.
(25:44):
So I have There's been a couple of like times
not really worth diving into, where I've I've heard like
one story about someone that sucks, like a celebrity or whatever,
and I've looked into like, Okay, can I get laying
an episode or is this just somebody did something shitty
once Katy Perry and.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
We want Yeah, we talked about doing Katy Perry once.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That happened with a Katy Perry episode where I thought
this the whole thing with her in the Nuns. There's
controversy over this house she was buying. It's not as
bad as it seems. Like. I'm not saying I go
into bat for her as a good person, but I
don't think she's an interesting subject for an episode, sure, right,
for sure? Yeah, it's not. It's less that, like I
(26:24):
don't think I've ever had it like where Oh no,
this person's a hero, although I do find some things
about bo Brummle to be kind of admirable. But it's
more that, like, ah, this person just is like a
person who did some shitty stuff, and that's not really
a bastard, right, Like we're we're not declaring someone a
bastard just because they like had flaws and did bad
We've all done bad things. We're not all interesting to
(26:47):
hear about for two hours.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Yeah, which bastard pastor present would be the best podcast
guest to cover a different horrible person?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Oh man? I mean honestly, I feel like if I,
if he was alive, I would make fucking fifty million
dollars doing a podcast with l Ron Hubbard where I
just explained different cults to l Ron Hubbard and he
critiques them like he explains, ah, now this is where
you fucked up, this is where you rent a classic.
It would be the least responsible podcast of all time.
(27:19):
I would deserve to go to prison for making that
show because it would just create a new generation of
hypercompetent cult leaders. But it would be super interesting just
getting LRH on the record critiquing other cult leaders because
they're all worse than him. He was the best at that.
Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah, all right, guys, we'll be back on Thursday to
answer more of your questions. Any final thoughts.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Robert, Uh, you know, in the new year, fuck it,
I don't know whatever it is to you, fuck it.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Cool Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia
dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Behind the
Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every Wednesday
(28:12):
and Friday. Subscribe to our channel YouTube dot com slash
at Behind the Bastards.
Behind the Bastards News
Host
Robert Evans
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