Do you guys get the feeling something is about to drop and both sides are trying to get ahead of the story?
Isn't that the general feeling everyday?
Do you guys get the feeling something is about to drop and both sides are trying to get ahead of the story?
Not really. Without the tape, its an entertaining story of "she said that he said and he said that she sucks" but we're already at the point of reheating old information on this one. Story dies in a week without a tape.
Agreed, there are a lot of kneejerk reactions here based on the thread title alone.People really should take a minute to read the OP or better the article...
Agreed, there are a lot of kneejerk reactions here based on the thread title alone.
You've got to pretend to care what he thinks.
Yeah! It's your job. You sit at this table and this man rambles — pontificatesis giving him too much credit. And because you live in the modern world you've heard Trump ramble. But you've heard Trump ramble when he thinks he's being careful. Imagine when he feels he can be frank. And I will tell you things, but I will very conscientiously not give you quotations because I believe that would be morally wrong. I'm not trying to protect myself. This really is a moral thing.
Just so I'm clear: It's a moral thing because it would be wrong to misquote him or because you don't want to unduly have an effect on politics?
If he hadn't become president, I would be telling stories all day long. And if someone were to say, "Penn didn't get that exactly right," you'd go "Who cares?"
But now being accurate matters more.
Yeah, the stakes are really high. Not for me. Nothing I can say here hurts my career. But for the world the stakes are higher. He [President Trump] would be reading. And what I'm trying to do here is tell you the story emotionally without telling you specifics.
I don't really see the moral argument but trying to stay out of this shitshow might be a good idea. It's selffish but understandable
While he didn't give an exact quote he essentially confirmed Trump said racist/sexist shit.
Wonder what with happen if an "N-word" tape dropped? I assume would be worse fall out than grrrrrab 'em by the pussy.
...okIs our ability to internalize counterfactuals a problem for society?
Well, that's interesting. One of the most important things society needs is agreement on how we determine truth. It does seem that there are people who disagree not on the facts — we don't care about that — but on how you ascertain whether something is true. But I'm also a little skeptical about how much that gets underlined for entertainment.
What do you mean?
We know a guy walked into that pizza place with a gun because of PizzagateAfter the hacked emails of John Podesta were released, 4Chan readers interpreted his dinner plans as code words in a child-sex-trafficking ring: with the initials "cp," cheese pizza stood for child pornography. The conspiracy theory escalated until December 2016, when a 28-year-old man from North Carolina went to "self-investigate" the basement of the pizza joint mentioned by Podesta with an AR-15-style rifle, firing three shots. The restaurant, Comet Ping Pong, does not have a basement. . We know he believed in that. We also know that hundreds of thousands of people knew about the Pizzagate conspiracy idea. But those are two very different facts. We don't know how many of the people who knew about Pizzagate shrugged it off. All we know is that one guy took it seriously. Probably more than one guy did, but it's very hard to get real data on that. It's like how I have all these friends who have a clear vision of who a Trump supporter is — with no evidence that the person they're imagining actually exists.
So what you're saying is that you're skeptical that there's been a shift, which is often attributed to Trumpism, in those people's willingness to believe things at odds with facts?
But when you say "those people" you've made a huge error because there are no "those people." They don't exist. You hear stuff like, "Trump supporters are homophobic. Trump supporters are misogynist." This is a mistake that was made by Democrats. They would accuse Trump supporters of being things that Trump supporters knew they weren't. There are Trump supporters that have best friends who have gay sex. They do. You can't put a "they"-type thing on that. For 50 million years our biggest problems were too few calories, too little information. For about 50 years our biggest problem has been too many calories, too much information. We have to adjust, and I believe we will really fast. I also believe it will be wicked ugly while we're adjusting.
..okSo you think liberals who talk about Trumpism's effect on a declining discourse are being hysterical?
I do. But I'm not sure I want to talk about you as being part of one team and me as being part of another. I was being interviewed the other day and a guy said to me, "You speak for atheists and libertarians." And I said, "I do, but if I were starting out now I wouldn't." There was this sentence said to me — at the time I heard it, I ridiculed it and now it seems like the most profound thing ever said. You know Siegfried & Roy?
Of course.
I was having lunch with Siegfried and he was telling this story about dating a woman. I guess he saw a quizzical look on my face and he said in his German accent with his coiffed hair, "I am not gay. I am not straight. I am Siegfried." I think that's the only real truth I've ever heard. I don't want to be atheist, libertarian, gay, straight. I don't even want to be a man anymore. The only team I want us to be talking about is all 7 billion of us human beings.
You've got to pretend to care what he thinks.
Yeah! It's your job. You sit at this table and this man rambles — pontificates is giving him too much credit. And because you live in the modern world you've heard Trump ramble. But you've heard Trump ramble when he thinks he's being careful. Imagine when he feels he can be frank. And I will tell you things, but I will very conscientiously not give you quotations because I believe that would be morally wrong. I'm not trying to protect myself. This really is a moral thing.
Just so I'm clear: It's a moral thing because it would be wrong to misquote him or because you don't want to unduly have an effect on politics?
If he hadn't become president, I would be telling stories all day long. And if someone were to say, "Penn didn't get that exactly right," you'd go "Who cares?"
But now being accurate matters more.
Yeah, the stakes are really high. Not for me. Nothing I can say here hurts my career. But for the world the stakes are higher. He [President Trump] would be reading. And what I'm trying to do here is tell you the story emotionally without telling you specifics.
Because whatever he might've said was occurring in the larger context of being on a reality show?
...ok.Yeah. You have friends who would say stuff to you over supper that, if you pulled out that chunk, you could ruin their career. But you've known them their whole life. You know the exact context. Context is really tricky.
Penn doesn't want the smoke. I get that.
I'd do the same. If he provides quotes without evidence he'll have a target on his back. He's protecting himself more than anything.
But he went and gave enough smoke to make everyone suspect there is a raging fire underneath.
He should have just said nothing.