Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bill Maher does a show Friday nights on HBO. He
has weirdly become kind of a favorite pundit for a
lot of people who lean right because he uh, he's
an old school liberal. Yeah, I would say lean right,
or are are firmly centrists who are the same moderate Americans. Anyway,
he got on a long rip about people being dumb,
(00:22):
and it's pretty funny. Before we tackle any of our
daunting specific problems here in America, we have to figure
out how a country can solve any problem if so
many of its people are so intractably astoundingly mind stump numbing,
lee stupid. And I'm not saying that as hyperbole or
just out of frustration. I mean, this country just might
(00:44):
be empirically verifiable to be too from dumb to continue
as an ongoing antipo t dumb to continue. Jay Leno
used to do a classic bit called jaywalking, or he
asked ordinary citizens the kind of question we used to
consider common knowledge. And in the Internet age, that bid
has been shall we say, updated, and it's still a
(01:07):
useful indicator of where exactly we are on the bird
brain chart. Take a look at some of the answers
given on a TikTok site called Project Better. Who was
the first person to land on the sun lands? Something? Lass? Lance?
Lance Armstrong? What is the biggest city in the world?
(01:27):
I think it's like, what is the biggest city in
the world? Europe? You were born in? How old would
you be? What country is Venice? Italy located in? For
a hundred dollars, do you have any clue? Gosh, I'm
going to be a teacher, so I should know this?
Should Paris? Where is Queen Elizabeth from Egypt? Egypt? Where
(01:55):
is it Brazil? So so you tell me. If a
country is only as strong as its people, what can
the future possibly hold for a population? This moronic being
a full grown adult and thinking a human could walk
(02:17):
on these sun or that the biggest city in the
world was Asia when plainly it's Europe. And because I
saw the video, these were not like you know, you'd
look at him and think you're struggling life. No, these
are people, clearly you know, middle upper class, dressed, well
(02:40):
good looking people, very white teeth answering your teacher, including
somebody say I'm being I'm gonna be a teacher. I
should know this. You should know what country Venice, Itily
is in Well, in what country is Venice? Italy? In
um Paris? She answers with a city. I didn't even
catch that. Catchy answered the question, Yeah, yeah, what's the
(03:05):
world's biggest city Asia? You know, it's it's funny the
reaction of Bill Mar's crowd yelling and cheering and clapping,
I don't know, out of feeling superior, just being amused.
I I hear that, I'm sickened, I'm concerned. Well, he
think he has a little more, and then we'll discuss.
This country simply has no education standards anymore. They will
(03:28):
let you out of a public high school and give
you a diploma, and you don't have to actually know anything,
which used to be the mission of schools knowing things.
I know it's super important to stop the grooming of
our kids or I don't know, to start it. And
and certainly critical race theory must be stricken from the curriculum,
or who knows, maybe included in all of it. But
(03:50):
you know, while we're having those fights, could someone please
notice that the kids don't actually know anything. As I
traveled this country on weekends doing stand up, now I
see the political ads that are running on the local
TV markets, and I think, how can this possibly work
(04:12):
on people? And then I remember, oh, yes, they think
Queen Elizabeth is from me. You he is right. Bottom line,
the education thing, those other things are important issues that
I have strong opinions on, but we really should start
with before we even get to those, our kids learning anything. Yeah,
(04:33):
no kidding. I remember that that the giant article study
by that college professor that we made a big deal
about a few years ago, in which he pointed out
that a's have gone from ten percent of the grades
to I think the number was roughly that the amount
of studying that the students have do on a weekly
(04:54):
basis is declined by two thirds or three quarters. The
amount of teaching that professors do has declined something like
two thirds or three quarters. So from you know, first
grade through your graduate schools, we have devalued learning stuff somehow,
yet there seems to be more homework? Is there? Where?
(05:16):
Where is the disconnect there? Yeah? I don't I don't know. Actually,
you know, speaking of education, I read something so interesting
the other day about this movement toward uh academicizing kindergarten
and and drilling the kids and having them do academic
work in kindergarten, you know, never mind first grade where
(05:38):
that's questionable. But and and they think a that's part
of the reason it's related to the story of the
pre k turns kids off school because it's way to
academic and also that they think it's leading to a
skyrocketing of diagnoses of a d h D. You got
a six year old kid who can't sit still and
do their their work at their desk. Of first, they
(06:00):
can't SIT's still and do their work at their desk.
Six year olds aren't designed to do that, man, are we?
And yet here we the contrast between that and the
kids who ain't studying, then the professors who ain't teaching,
I mean, what is going on? Those seemed to be
(06:20):
a paradox or a stark contrast, and they're both crazy
and a tangent on a tangent. I was talking to
a second grade teacher yesterday who was cleaning out their
room because it's the end of the year, and sin
just kind of making conversation. I said, yeah, you're excited
about the year being over. A kind of said said
it is a rough year. And I hadn't occurred to
(06:40):
me if you're a second grade teacher. You have people come,
kids coming into school that really had never been in
a classroom, and she said things that you take for granted,
like don't just start coloring in the books and ripping
out pages. I mean, things that you just take for
granted in second grade, they didn't exist, because when would
a kid have earned that. They didn't go to school
(07:02):
ever in their lives. So here they show up in
second grade and just just getting up and walking around
in the middle of class. And of course you wouldn't
think when you sat down, the second grade teacher, because
you've always had for every year kids that had already
learned that you sit down and listen, this is what
that is happening here. But they hadn't. And you know
there's a million examples of that. Obviously how hard it was.
That might have been the hardest grade because you had
(07:26):
kids showed up who had never been to school. Oh yeah, absolutely,
second and third grade would be absolutely impossible. I mean
because if the kids sat in kindergarten and played and
colored stuff in like kids could should do in kindergarten,
it's literally child's garden is the origin of the phrase
in German um. But then they missed first and second grade, Yeah,
they'd be completely at sea. Well, and the other aspect
(07:49):
of it is not just you know how to relate
to school and the teacher, but how to relate with
each other. From what I've heard from teachers, it's just
been a disaster. Oh. One other thing she mentioned was, um,
she noticed the difference when the masks came off, that
kids could tell when she was mad or disappointed. Kids.
Some some kids even expressed that, oh what I just
(08:12):
did made you mad because you couldn't tell before write
the masks that protected the kids from COVID, because COVID
killed practically no kids
Bill Maher does a show Friday nights on HBO. He
has weirdly become kind of a favorite pundit for a
lot of people who lean right because he uh, he's
an old school liberal. Yeah, I would say lean right,
or are are firmly centrists who are the same moderate Americans. Anyway,
he got on a long rip about people being dumb,
(00:22):
and it's pretty funny. Before we tackle any of our
daunting specific problems here in America, we have to figure
out how a country can solve any problem if so
many of its people are so intractably astoundingly mind stump numbing,
lee stupid. And I'm not saying that as hyperbole or
just out of frustration. I mean, this country just might
(00:44):
be empirically verifiable to be too from dumb to continue
as an ongoing antipo t dumb to continue. Jay Leno
used to do a classic bit called jaywalking, or he
asked ordinary citizens the kind of question we used to
consider common knowledge. And in the Internet age, that bid
has been shall we say, updated, and it's still a
(01:07):
useful indicator of where exactly we are on the bird
brain chart. Take a look at some of the answers
given on a TikTok site called Project Better. Who was
the first person to land on the sun lands? Something? Lass? Lance?
Lance Armstrong? What is the biggest city in the world?
(01:27):
I think it's like, what is the biggest city in
the world? Europe? You were born in? How old would
you be? What country is Venice? Italy located in? For
a hundred dollars, do you have any clue? Gosh, I'm
going to be a teacher, so I should know this?
Should Paris? Where is Queen Elizabeth from Egypt? Egypt? Where
(01:55):
is it Brazil? So so you tell me. If a
country is only as strong as its people, what can
the future possibly hold for a population? This moronic being
a full grown adult and thinking a human could walk
(02:17):
on these sun or that the biggest city in the
world was Asia when plainly it's Europe. And because I
saw the video, these were not like you know, you'd
look at him and think you're struggling life. No, these
are people, clearly you know, middle upper class, dressed, well
(02:40):
good looking people, very white teeth answering your teacher, including
somebody say I'm being I'm gonna be a teacher. I
should know this. You should know what country Venice, Itily
is in Well, in what country is Venice? Italy? In
um Paris? She answers with a city. I didn't even
catch that. Catchy answered the question, Yeah, yeah, what's the
(03:05):
world's biggest city Asia? You know, it's it's funny the
reaction of Bill Mar's crowd yelling and cheering and clapping,
I don't know, out of feeling superior, just being amused.
I I hear that, I'm sickened, I'm concerned. Well, he
think he has a little more, and then we'll discuss.
This country simply has no education standards anymore. They will
(03:28):
let you out of a public high school and give
you a diploma, and you don't have to actually know anything,
which used to be the mission of schools knowing things.
I know it's super important to stop the grooming of
our kids or I don't know, to start it. And
and certainly critical race theory must be stricken from the curriculum,
or who knows, maybe included in all of it. But
(03:50):
you know, while we're having those fights, could someone please
notice that the kids don't actually know anything. As I
traveled this country on weekends doing stand up, now I
see the political ads that are running on the local
TV markets, and I think, how can this possibly work
(04:12):
on people? And then I remember, oh, yes, they think
Queen Elizabeth is from me. You he is right. Bottom line,
the education thing, those other things are important issues that
I have strong opinions on, but we really should start
with before we even get to those, our kids learning anything. Yeah,
(04:33):
no kidding. I remember that that the giant article study
by that college professor that we made a big deal
about a few years ago, in which he pointed out
that a's have gone from ten percent of the grades
to I think the number was roughly that the amount
of studying that the students have do on a weekly
(04:54):
basis is declined by two thirds or three quarters. The
amount of teaching that professors do has declined something like
two thirds or three quarters. So from you know, first
grade through your graduate schools, we have devalued learning stuff somehow,
yet there seems to be more homework? Is there? Where?
(05:16):
Where is the disconnect there? Yeah? I don't I don't know. Actually,
you know, speaking of education, I read something so interesting
the other day about this movement toward uh academicizing kindergarten
and and drilling the kids and having them do academic
work in kindergarten, you know, never mind first grade where
(05:38):
that's questionable. But and and they think a that's part
of the reason it's related to the story of the
pre k turns kids off school because it's way to
academic and also that they think it's leading to a
skyrocketing of diagnoses of a d h D. You got
a six year old kid who can't sit still and
do their their work at their desk. Of first, they
(06:00):
can't SIT's still and do their work at their desk.
Six year olds aren't designed to do that, man, are we?
And yet here we the contrast between that and the
kids who ain't studying, then the professors who ain't teaching,
I mean, what is going on? Those seemed to be
(06:20):
a paradox or a stark contrast, and they're both crazy
and a tangent on a tangent. I was talking to
a second grade teacher yesterday who was cleaning out their
room because it's the end of the year, and sin
just kind of making conversation. I said, yeah, you're excited
about the year being over. A kind of said said
it is a rough year. And I hadn't occurred to
(06:40):
me if you're a second grade teacher. You have people come,
kids coming into school that really had never been in
a classroom, and she said things that you take for granted,
like don't just start coloring in the books and ripping
out pages. I mean, things that you just take for
granted in second grade, they didn't exist, because when would
a kid have earned that. They didn't go to school
(07:02):
ever in their lives. So here they show up in
second grade and just just getting up and walking around
in the middle of class. And of course you wouldn't
think when you sat down, the second grade teacher, because
you've always had for every year kids that had already
learned that you sit down and listen, this is what
that is happening here. But they hadn't. And you know
there's a million examples of that. Obviously how hard it was.
That might have been the hardest grade because you had
(07:26):
kids showed up who had never been to school. Oh yeah, absolutely,
second and third grade would be absolutely impossible. I mean
because if the kids sat in kindergarten and played and
colored stuff in like kids could should do in kindergarten,
it's literally child's garden is the origin of the phrase
in German um. But then they missed first and second grade, Yeah,
they'd be completely at sea. Well, and the other aspect
(07:49):
of it is not just you know how to relate
to school and the teacher, but how to relate with
each other. From what I've heard from teachers, it's just
been a disaster. Oh. One other thing she mentioned was, um,
she noticed the difference when the masks came off, that
kids could tell when she was mad or disappointed. Kids.
Some some kids even expressed that, oh what I just
(08:12):
did made you mad because you couldn't tell before write
the masks that protected the kids from COVID, because COVID
killed practically no kids
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