UPDATE: The initial version of this episode was missing two audio clips, both of them featuring exceptionally stupid people saying exceptionally stupid things.
I honestly feel like a senior citizen now, because I still primarily listen to the show at the web site.
"In my day we didn't have any of these fancy apps, we had URLs, and you had to type out the W-W-W and the backspaces, and that's the way it was and we liked it!"
I used to download podcast MP3s on to my little MP3 player and listen with wired headphones! And if I wanted to listen in the car I had to plug it into the auxiliary jack OR use the little tape deck insert that let you play audio from an external device through the tape deck! And I had to delete them after listening or else I'd run out of disk space!
The lady from the NYCLU was like, foreign actors running around dressed like Yasser Arafat spewing Jihadi rhetoric and threatening Jews is what makes our country beautiful!! It was kinda bullshit. I’m all for talking about how much you hate Israel and even Jews, but let’s not pretend this is just a speech issue.
As an obvious non-believer in words as harm towards adults, I want it recorded that I not only sent an email calling Kmele "my nigga", but you read it on the pod. I said what I said.
I was at the live event, with a table of fellow fifth fiends. As a gentile I was forbidden from asking questions, and forced to support the axis powers.
As a Spudboy I didn’t get to stay for the afterparty or meet and greet, because DEVO was staring at 8PM in Brooklyn.
I use Spotify like an RSS feed running in the background while I work because 24 hours news is really just the same forty minutes on loop. Trouble is, there isn't really enough content out there worth listening to, certainly not enough to fill a week.
I flat out do not believe that Spotify is <1% of their downloads. It has to be some kind of metric/data collection error. I don't use it (I use a general podcast app), but spotify is huge in the podcast world. Even after accounting for selection effects of the type of person who is a subscriber vs. the type of person who uses spotify, I think that's at least 1 OOM off (depending on how much "<1%" it is).
As Kmele pointed out, podcast data is difficult to accurately track, so some kind of failure on the tracking side seems much more plausible than that little Spotify presense. I just checked and the podcast has >1k ratings (average 4.7) on Spotify, and the vast majority of people don't leave ratings.
I listen to the free eps on Podcast Addict and the paid on the Substack App. But I find latter absolute hell to navigate around. Only missing popups to be worse.
To Kmele’s apprehension about Israel/Gaza. I too get it, and also I do not see how reason doesn’t immediately win the day.
If you have a fight, you don’t stop when you just decide the other “has had enough”, when you’re opponent may be on the ground bleeding but simultaneously staring up at you yelling “I’m going to kill you” and trying to get back up. You stop when the threat is gone. Even if the person is basically incapacitated, but they know where you live and they’re vowing to crawl back to their hovel, rest and recover, only to come to your home one day to *finish* the fight on their terms, you don’t stop the fight now when you are in control and the situation is in control. You beat the living piss out of them until they concede defeat and take action to validate that concession and remove the threat.
Even in professional fighting, many times as a viewer I’ve been uncomfortable with how long a fight has been allowed to continue, I’m sure any fan of boxing or mma or anything else has felt the same at some point. People I watch with will sometimes say “why is the fighter still attacking/hitting their opponent?!?! He’s a dick!” I have always thought this is the most inane response in the sport. It is fully appropriate to take a step back and give a second for the ref to reconsider, for the other corner to concede, for the fighter to show that they are incapable of continuing. But, after that effort, if the fight is still on, the fight is still on. That is it. It is the fighters only objective to continue fighting. If something bad occurs literally 100% of the responsibility and blame goes on the ref and the opponent and their corner.
All of this ultimately boils down to one foundational point for me regardless of environment (professional match, street fight, war, etc.), if you believe it is necessary and appropriate to engage in a fight, the FIRST and I believe potentially ONLY priority is winning that fight. (No, that does not mean there aren’t considerations to HOW you win. Of course there are. I’m saying the ultimate goal is winning). To my mind, if you as the entity in the position of strength is not willing to continue fighting until you win, the real issue is having started the fight to begin with. You should have had the foresight at the outset to think to yourself “oh, this isn’t important enough to me to go THAT far to win this thing”. If THAT far is in the realm of possibilities at the outset, you were a god damn idiot to start from the outset.
Now, I think all of you knew at the outset that where we are now in the Israel/Gaza conflict was easily a potential outcome when this all began. I do not think this is a shock to almost anyone that had paid any attention to this areas history. So, when people like Kmele are having apprehensions about what is occurring (with my view of these things) I honestly do not understand where it is coming from. Yeah war fucking sucks, is that news to anyone? Yeah Gaza is destroyed, again, is that surprising to anyone? Yes, it would be truly absolutely abysmal to be a normal person living in Gaza who wanted nothing to do with this, has that changed at any point since this conflict started?
I am not trying to diminish the suffering and horror at all when I say, why the hell should the effect what Israel is doing at all? All of that should have been considered at Day 0 before any of this began. If you thought a military response and the defeat of Hamas was appropriate on Day 0, then it is still appropriate today by any sane rational I can think of, Hamas has not lost, they have not conceded, Israel has not won.
The only argument for critiquing Israel I can see is on the HOW. And no, I do not mean how in relation to the condition of the sides. Because in any engagement (again, street fight, professional fight, war, etc.), the HOW that is acceptable is determined at the start, it’s not determined in between rounds or punches. If a straight right (punch) is an appropriate attack in Round 1 with both fighters fresh, it is still appropriate in Round 10 with one side beaten to shit. You don’t say at the end of Round 9, “hey, you’re winning too much so you have to tie your right arm behind your back and you can no longer throw hooks or uppercuts with your left. Only lead jabs from here on out”. That would be insane. If the opponent has taken too much damage, and your stomach twists looking at the conflict, it’s the opponents obligation to concede.
Lastly, yes when it is a war between two countries with civilians and a deranged militant religious cult instead of a sanctioned boxing match, there are 1 million additional variables to consider. However, I do not believe any of them supersede this foundational point. Israel’s aim at the start of the war is still its aim today. If the HOW hasn’t changed, and they’re utilizing what was acceptable at the start, it is acceptable today. They still need to win or else the entire reason for all of this means absolutely nothing. We saw that in Afghanistan, Israel has seen it countless times in Gaza, modern conflicts see it all the time. If there is no definitive win, if there is no definitive concession, then any stopping is just a pause in the action, if the stronger side walks away then they just beat the shit out of the other for no reason at all. What did they get out of it besides just returning to the starting point?
I do not believe the problem with Afghanistan is that we were there for 20 years. I think that was completely appropriate. I think we should have been there another 20 if it meant achieving our goal as stated at the outset. The only thing leaving did was make those 20 years completely meaningless and remove any value at all from the suffering and misery everyone experienced during that time. I also do not think Israel should ever stop until they reach their goal. Yes, dealing with a religious death cult makes this insanely difficult. My belief this goes as far as saying Israel should continue until every Gazan is running to IDF soldiers and letting them know where every Hamas fighter is. Where every Gazan citizen is pulling Hamas fighters out of their tunnels and killing them themself or turning them over to the IDF. Yes, I understand any Gazan who does that could pretty much be signing a death warrant for themselves and their family. Yes, I fully accept if I was in their position the likelihood I would be that brave and determined pretty much is 0%, and with almost 100% certainty I would be doing what they are and just trying to get by. Again, I am not diminishing the difficulty, the misery and the suffering of what is going on there, or at least not trying to. I am saying the responsibility for that still does not fall on Israel in any way for me. On October 7th I approved of Israel’s use of military force, on October 7th I fully supported their goal of removing Hamas, throughout HOW they have approached that goal has been acceptable to me. I also fully understood war is awful at the outset, and this outcome was more likely than not and at the outset I still supported the goal Israel had. Seeing the opponent suffer than does not change my calculation of is the fight worth winning. Frankly, I cannot see how it could besides a lack of consideration at the outset. I still believe this fight is worth winning, and Israel hasn’t won, very simply, because their opponent hasn’t lost.
One of the unfortunate realities of our era is the inability to deal with complex moral conundrums where there isn't a clear right or wrong answer. So people just stake out easy positions, like "I'm against war," or "I just don't want to see civilians die." It's a braindead method of dodging the actual situation and exists merely as a virtue signal.
My username implies differently, but I assure you I’m not a bot. I’m a fairly new subscriber of the show. I believe the phrase is “ding motherfucking ding.” But what compelled me to write to you guys for the first time is Moynahan’s debate at the Comedy Cellar about free speech. Specifically, the deliberately false assertions by the women lawyer on the panel (I can’t recall her name) regarding actions that violate the first amendment. Full disclosure, I am a half Jew-half Iranian, not to be confused with an Iranian Jew. My father’s family are Muslim Persians with ties going back in Iran to Cyrus the great. They had to escape Iran after the revolution because they had strong ties to the shah. I’m also an attorney. So yes, I am happy that these Ivy League schools are being punished. But punished is the key word here. The first amendment does not protect speech from all forms of punishment by the government. The government cannot jail or fine a person, or otherwise infringe on their civil liberties. Refusing to continue providing federal funds to a university does not violate the first amendment. The federal government can absolutely provide sticks and carrots for the privilege of receiving money. And that money can be taken away. Any first year law student knows that. So it’s easy to see why I conclude that she is a liar trying to win an argument instead of making valid points. This is not to say that the Trump administration is not potentially crossing constitutional lines elsewhere, but we should be searching for truth and not wins. Love the show and will continue telling anyone that will listen that they should subscribe.
Listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweets/retarded rambling, incoherent thoughts masquerading as ideas is having the same effect on me as chugging a fifth (pun intended) of bathtub-made moonshine.
Currently browsing Expedia to book a flight to Peru where I'll do ayahuasca with a shaman to cleanse my soul of her wine-drunken stupidity.
I once again encourage you guys to have historian Bret Devereaux on to discuss his article the Status Quo Coalition, in light of your conversation regarding India, Pakistan, and spheres of influence foreign policy.
The clip that Kmele played of Trump talking about Canada around 1:05:00 is not in the audio. There is only dead air and your reactions.
Being looked into, thanks.
As a Canadian I’m kinda glad I didn’t have to listen to that again anyways.
Well, the second clip at 1:23:00 isn’t in the recording either.
That never would have happened if Canada became the 51st state!
I think from now on Kmele needs to be banned from anything audio related
^^ This.
I honestly feel like a senior citizen now, because I still primarily listen to the show at the web site.
"In my day we didn't have any of these fancy apps, we had URLs, and you had to type out the W-W-W and the backspaces, and that's the way it was and we liked it!"
I used to download podcast MP3s on to my little MP3 player and listen with wired headphones! And if I wanted to listen in the car I had to plug it into the auxiliary jack OR use the little tape deck insert that let you play audio from an external device through the tape deck! And I had to delete them after listening or else I'd run out of disk space!
Get off my lawn!!
Aaah, such fond memories...!😂
If it makes you feel any better I still use yahoo for my email
Is that that one that they think is going to replace Compuserve? I ain't buying it!
Since like '95, am right?!?😜👆
99, close enough
Ditto! Except I haven't figured out how to download episodes excepting for Spotify...I am a cheeeeeapskate and won't burn data for no bawdy
The lady from the NYCLU was like, foreign actors running around dressed like Yasser Arafat spewing Jihadi rhetoric and threatening Jews is what makes our country beautiful!! It was kinda bullshit. I’m all for talking about how much you hate Israel and even Jews, but let’s not pretend this is just a speech issue.
And yes obviously only Jews should have freedoms of speech. We’ll then convene and consider who else on a case by case basis 😂
I assume each tribunal is going to be on ask a Jew?
Zoom link?
MAKE FIFTH EPISODES TWO HOURS AGAIN!
*3 hours
As an obvious non-believer in words as harm towards adults, I want it recorded that I not only sent an email calling Kmele "my nigga", but you read it on the pod. I said what I said.
I was at the live event, with a table of fellow fifth fiends. As a gentile I was forbidden from asking questions, and forced to support the axis powers.
As a Spudboy I didn’t get to stay for the afterparty or meet and greet, because DEVO was staring at 8PM in Brooklyn.
Anyone in NYC, some super fans are meeting at Cask in Manhattan at 5PM tonight (May 8).
Super jelly you guys can do this
Damn I wish I had known. You guys should post dates/times in advance!
I’m the weird one who listens on Substack and Spotify
Since I subscribe here and can comment, I use this for 5th, but Spotify for everything else
You and I both.
I use Spotify like an RSS feed running in the background while I work because 24 hours news is really just the same forty minutes on loop. Trouble is, there isn't really enough content out there worth listening to, certainly not enough to fill a week.
I don't like mixing the streams of my music player and my podcast app. I am only 31, but this is one of my biggest boomer takes.
I flat out do not believe that Spotify is <1% of their downloads. It has to be some kind of metric/data collection error. I don't use it (I use a general podcast app), but spotify is huge in the podcast world. Even after accounting for selection effects of the type of person who is a subscriber vs. the type of person who uses spotify, I think that's at least 1 OOM off (depending on how much "<1%" it is).
As Kmele pointed out, podcast data is difficult to accurately track, so some kind of failure on the tracking side seems much more plausible than that little Spotify presense. I just checked and the podcast has >1k ratings (average 4.7) on Spotify, and the vast majority of people don't leave ratings.
I listen to the free eps on Podcast Addict and the paid on the Substack App. But I find latter absolute hell to navigate around. Only missing popups to be worse.
I used to use Substack till I had problems and switched to Apple.
It's wherever it pops up first
To Kmele’s apprehension about Israel/Gaza. I too get it, and also I do not see how reason doesn’t immediately win the day.
If you have a fight, you don’t stop when you just decide the other “has had enough”, when you’re opponent may be on the ground bleeding but simultaneously staring up at you yelling “I’m going to kill you” and trying to get back up. You stop when the threat is gone. Even if the person is basically incapacitated, but they know where you live and they’re vowing to crawl back to their hovel, rest and recover, only to come to your home one day to *finish* the fight on their terms, you don’t stop the fight now when you are in control and the situation is in control. You beat the living piss out of them until they concede defeat and take action to validate that concession and remove the threat.
Even in professional fighting, many times as a viewer I’ve been uncomfortable with how long a fight has been allowed to continue, I’m sure any fan of boxing or mma or anything else has felt the same at some point. People I watch with will sometimes say “why is the fighter still attacking/hitting their opponent?!?! He’s a dick!” I have always thought this is the most inane response in the sport. It is fully appropriate to take a step back and give a second for the ref to reconsider, for the other corner to concede, for the fighter to show that they are incapable of continuing. But, after that effort, if the fight is still on, the fight is still on. That is it. It is the fighters only objective to continue fighting. If something bad occurs literally 100% of the responsibility and blame goes on the ref and the opponent and their corner.
All of this ultimately boils down to one foundational point for me regardless of environment (professional match, street fight, war, etc.), if you believe it is necessary and appropriate to engage in a fight, the FIRST and I believe potentially ONLY priority is winning that fight. (No, that does not mean there aren’t considerations to HOW you win. Of course there are. I’m saying the ultimate goal is winning). To my mind, if you as the entity in the position of strength is not willing to continue fighting until you win, the real issue is having started the fight to begin with. You should have had the foresight at the outset to think to yourself “oh, this isn’t important enough to me to go THAT far to win this thing”. If THAT far is in the realm of possibilities at the outset, you were a god damn idiot to start from the outset.
Now, I think all of you knew at the outset that where we are now in the Israel/Gaza conflict was easily a potential outcome when this all began. I do not think this is a shock to almost anyone that had paid any attention to this areas history. So, when people like Kmele are having apprehensions about what is occurring (with my view of these things) I honestly do not understand where it is coming from. Yeah war fucking sucks, is that news to anyone? Yeah Gaza is destroyed, again, is that surprising to anyone? Yes, it would be truly absolutely abysmal to be a normal person living in Gaza who wanted nothing to do with this, has that changed at any point since this conflict started?
I am not trying to diminish the suffering and horror at all when I say, why the hell should the effect what Israel is doing at all? All of that should have been considered at Day 0 before any of this began. If you thought a military response and the defeat of Hamas was appropriate on Day 0, then it is still appropriate today by any sane rational I can think of, Hamas has not lost, they have not conceded, Israel has not won.
The only argument for critiquing Israel I can see is on the HOW. And no, I do not mean how in relation to the condition of the sides. Because in any engagement (again, street fight, professional fight, war, etc.), the HOW that is acceptable is determined at the start, it’s not determined in between rounds or punches. If a straight right (punch) is an appropriate attack in Round 1 with both fighters fresh, it is still appropriate in Round 10 with one side beaten to shit. You don’t say at the end of Round 9, “hey, you’re winning too much so you have to tie your right arm behind your back and you can no longer throw hooks or uppercuts with your left. Only lead jabs from here on out”. That would be insane. If the opponent has taken too much damage, and your stomach twists looking at the conflict, it’s the opponents obligation to concede.
Lastly, yes when it is a war between two countries with civilians and a deranged militant religious cult instead of a sanctioned boxing match, there are 1 million additional variables to consider. However, I do not believe any of them supersede this foundational point. Israel’s aim at the start of the war is still its aim today. If the HOW hasn’t changed, and they’re utilizing what was acceptable at the start, it is acceptable today. They still need to win or else the entire reason for all of this means absolutely nothing. We saw that in Afghanistan, Israel has seen it countless times in Gaza, modern conflicts see it all the time. If there is no definitive win, if there is no definitive concession, then any stopping is just a pause in the action, if the stronger side walks away then they just beat the shit out of the other for no reason at all. What did they get out of it besides just returning to the starting point?
I do not believe the problem with Afghanistan is that we were there for 20 years. I think that was completely appropriate. I think we should have been there another 20 if it meant achieving our goal as stated at the outset. The only thing leaving did was make those 20 years completely meaningless and remove any value at all from the suffering and misery everyone experienced during that time. I also do not think Israel should ever stop until they reach their goal. Yes, dealing with a religious death cult makes this insanely difficult. My belief this goes as far as saying Israel should continue until every Gazan is running to IDF soldiers and letting them know where every Hamas fighter is. Where every Gazan citizen is pulling Hamas fighters out of their tunnels and killing them themself or turning them over to the IDF. Yes, I understand any Gazan who does that could pretty much be signing a death warrant for themselves and their family. Yes, I fully accept if I was in their position the likelihood I would be that brave and determined pretty much is 0%, and with almost 100% certainty I would be doing what they are and just trying to get by. Again, I am not diminishing the difficulty, the misery and the suffering of what is going on there, or at least not trying to. I am saying the responsibility for that still does not fall on Israel in any way for me. On October 7th I approved of Israel’s use of military force, on October 7th I fully supported their goal of removing Hamas, throughout HOW they have approached that goal has been acceptable to me. I also fully understood war is awful at the outset, and this outcome was more likely than not and at the outset I still supported the goal Israel had. Seeing the opponent suffer than does not change my calculation of is the fight worth winning. Frankly, I cannot see how it could besides a lack of consideration at the outset. I still believe this fight is worth winning, and Israel hasn’t won, very simply, because their opponent hasn’t lost.
One of the unfortunate realities of our era is the inability to deal with complex moral conundrums where there isn't a clear right or wrong answer. So people just stake out easy positions, like "I'm against war," or "I just don't want to see civilians die." It's a braindead method of dodging the actual situation and exists merely as a virtue signal.
MM got his obligatory dinner reference early in the episode :)
Fif' represent! It was great to see so many listeners. And Kmele as always kind, generous, and humble (I know I know...) Moynihan was funny as usual.
Content Content Content!
My username implies differently, but I assure you I’m not a bot. I’m a fairly new subscriber of the show. I believe the phrase is “ding motherfucking ding.” But what compelled me to write to you guys for the first time is Moynahan’s debate at the Comedy Cellar about free speech. Specifically, the deliberately false assertions by the women lawyer on the panel (I can’t recall her name) regarding actions that violate the first amendment. Full disclosure, I am a half Jew-half Iranian, not to be confused with an Iranian Jew. My father’s family are Muslim Persians with ties going back in Iran to Cyrus the great. They had to escape Iran after the revolution because they had strong ties to the shah. I’m also an attorney. So yes, I am happy that these Ivy League schools are being punished. But punished is the key word here. The first amendment does not protect speech from all forms of punishment by the government. The government cannot jail or fine a person, or otherwise infringe on their civil liberties. Refusing to continue providing federal funds to a university does not violate the first amendment. The federal government can absolutely provide sticks and carrots for the privilege of receiving money. And that money can be taken away. Any first year law student knows that. So it’s easy to see why I conclude that she is a liar trying to win an argument instead of making valid points. This is not to say that the Trump administration is not potentially crossing constitutional lines elsewhere, but we should be searching for truth and not wins. Love the show and will continue telling anyone that will listen that they should subscribe.
Listening to Marjorie Taylor Greene's tweets/retarded rambling, incoherent thoughts masquerading as ideas is having the same effect on me as chugging a fifth (pun intended) of bathtub-made moonshine.
Currently browsing Expedia to book a flight to Peru where I'll do ayahuasca with a shaman to cleanse my soul of her wine-drunken stupidity.
At least the bathtub 'shine will make you feel good before making you feel oh so bad though.
See you in Peru! I need to do some coffee buying anyway
you da bomb (for releasing a steady stream of lad thoughts & info to us always thirsty fif'ers this week)
I once again encourage you guys to have historian Bret Devereaux on to discuss his article the Status Quo Coalition, in light of your conversation regarding India, Pakistan, and spheres of influence foreign policy.
https://acoup.blog/2023/07/07/collections-the-status-quo-coalition/