Matt (00:02.02)
Hey, welcome everybody to another exciting episode of The Latter-day Lens with Shawn, Sam, and Matt. So we don't have anything in the mailbag this week, so let's just get to the news. Okay, so the first story is Jason Aldean. He made headlines when his music video to Try That in a Small Town was pulled from CMT. I need help here real fast. Is CMT, what is that? Is that MTV?

Sam (00:26.094)
Country Music Television. Yeah, yeah.

Matt (00:28.656)
There seriously is a channel for... Oh, okay. All right, so listener, I might not be a big country music fan. Okay, so Country Music Television pulled his music video. So in a recent concert after this, he said, "'What I am is a proud American. "'I'm proud to be here. "'I love our country. "'I wanna see it restored to what it once was "'before all of this bull,' can't say the rest of that word, "'started happening to us.'"

shawn (00:31.922)
Hehehe

Matt (00:55.704)
I love our country, I love my family, and I will do anything to protect that. I can tell you that right now, to me, yeah, I can tell you that right now, sorry, period. So to me, it seems like he's vocalizing something that a lot of people think, but they don't really wanna say it. Like, it seems like there's some people that wanna return to this bygone era in the US. Yeah, but I don't know, like, what is this? What's going on here? Why does...

Sam (01:04.234)
I can tell you that right now.

Sam (01:23.998)
So, Matt, sometimes you write questions where the first part makes sense on its own, the second part makes sense on its own. And when you converge this song with problems in small towns of racism, sexism, and inequality, which is the second part of the sentence, it all loses itself. Like...

shawn (01:44.082)
Yeah

Matt (01:44.472)
No, no, I'm not saying that small towns have that problem. I'm saying that if somebody says to me, I wanna go back to the past of the United States, I can't think of a time in the past where there wasn't more sexism, more racism, more inequality.

Sam (01:58.742)
Why? Why is that where you go? Why do you focus on that? What about in our country's past where you lived in a small town, you went to a carnival safely, you went to a pie church bake sale, and you ate food at a farmer's market, you sat out and launched fireworks. Why does it have to go to racism, sexism, and inequality? Like, that's insane.

shawn (02:13.35)
You beat your kids when they didn't obey.

shawn (02:25.878)
I don't know Sam. I'm gonna, Sam, I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to jump on, I'm gonna have to jump on Matt's side with this Sam.

Matt (02:26.813)
That's what going to the past sounds like to me.

Sam (02:28.67)
No, it doesn't sound like that. So let me tell you what's going on here. Can I tell you what's going on here? Go ahead, Sean. You first. Go ahead. Go, Sean.

Matt (02:33.922)
Yeah.

Matt (02:38.053)
See ya Sean.

shawn (02:38.826)
I'm gonna have to jump on that side with this, because first of all, the Hollywood movie picture that tells you that it was all peach pies and carnivals, we don't know that. Talk to my grandpa, talk to my grandma and grandpa and great, great grandpa. It wasn't so much like that, dude. It wasn't so much like that. And Hollywood shows like that. However, the facts that we do know is there was racism was way worse than it is today.

Matt (02:40.646)
Yeah.

Sam (02:54.955)
WHAT?!

Matt (02:57.234)
No!

Sam (03:05.054)
Are you out of your ever-loving mind? Racism was worse, sexism was worse, but it wasn't those elements that defined the past.

Matt (03:05.261)
Yes.

shawn (03:13.886)
For those people that were being raped, for those who were being killed, segregated and destroyed, it was a big difference.

Matt (03:14.182)
Will it?

Sam (03:20.718)
Wow.

Matt (03:23.516)
Jesse Martin Luther King Jr. didn't experience it like that, Sam.

Sam (03:25.246)
So I think, well, listen, there's, can I share with you what I think's going on here? So there is something very human about us versus them, right? You go back to Nauvoo, the church suffered from this, us versus them. We were being burned out by mobs, we went west, and we had a persecution complex.

Matt (03:32.421)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

shawn (03:32.488)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

shawn (03:38.154)
Ugh.

Matt (03:44.313)
Yeah?

Sam (03:49.706)
You see what you want to see. I was totally confused when you wrote this question. So I went and listened to the song. Have either of you actually listened to the song? By the way, it's not a good song. If it weren't for this controversy, it would have been dead last on the list. Guess what? This controversy took it to number one on iTunes.

shawn (03:58.834)
Yeah, yeah, of course.

shawn (04:10.354)
So you're saying it's a profit motive for them.

Sam (04:13.374)
I saw nothing racist. I saw nothing sexist. I saw a song that pulls you back to those days when things were simpler and there was kind of a little bit of a anti-crime pro hero mentality. That's number one. Number two, there's something about human nature where we want an enemy that we're fighting against. Go back to the miracle on ice, a Disney movie where the Russians

lost to the United States of America. America was super proud in that moment. And we had our good guys beating the bad guys, which were the Russians. If you go into any big town today, this isn't a thing of racism, sexism, or inequality. This is a thing of crime and violence and people suffering. You go into Chicago and the pictures from this video are crime, people being carjacked.

shawn (05:02.698)
Sam.

Sam (05:11.038)
and stores being looted. You drive two and a half mile or hours west out of Chicago, you run into Iowa. Guess what the biggest problem in the border towns between Illinois and Iowa are? It's drugs, drugs coming from big town. So when I hear this song, I think of us versus them and it's not sexism, racism. It's trying to protect your family and it's trying to protect your community against crime.

shawn (05:35.667)
Hey Sam.

Sam (05:38.482)
and drugs and all the other ills of a large town. This thing about racism, sexism, and equality is absolute bonk. Go ahead, Sean.

shawn (05:46.014)
Sam, I actually, I think I actually agree with you with your, some, with most of what you're saying, but what do you think of this? Does the mindset that leads to someone being racist, isn't the, the preface to that, this mindset of us versus them? Isn't that the same thing? Like whenever, whenever we divide, whenever we start to go, for example, I went to listen to the song and the first thing he's really trying to preach is, it's us in a small town against you in the big cities.

Matt (06:02.36)
Yes.

shawn (06:14.202)
It's us against you. We are dividing and we are dividing and dividing. We're better, you're worse. And then he goes, it's us country music fans over what? You new wave music fans, you hip hop, hip hop, or rap, or punk. But this, Sam, this thought process of division is anti-Christian. It's anti, it's really anti-Christ.

Sam (06:17.998)
It is. Yeah.

Matt (06:25.156)
Hip hop, hip hop.

Sam (06:27.17)
Beat next.

Matt (06:29.655)
Beatniks.

Sam (06:36.582)
Oh, oh yeah, oh yeah, Sean, because in the pre-existence, we don't learn that God threw a third of the host of heaven out of heaven, and Lucifer went with them. Yeah, but it's Christian at its heart, it's Christian.

shawn (06:47.067)
But that wasn't a good thing.

Matt (06:49.234)
Hahahaha

shawn (06:50.418)
Alright, it's time to pull out some scriptures, huh? Okay, okay.

Matt (06:52.964)
Wait, wait, real fast. I want to, I want to ask this question. So if it's not racist and it's not anti, so why are, why is he filming the music video in front of a courthouse where a black man was lynched? Why do you choose that as the backdrop for the music video?

Sam (06:58.23)
Yeah, it's not racist.

Sam (07:06.914)
What, why, and listen, I have no horse in this race, so to speak, I don't care. I don't think it's a great song. So I'm gonna go out on a limb and take the contrarian view. When I first watched the video, the first thing that came to my mind is I'm like, they're reenacting the January 6th riots. Like in my mind, I thought this was a Trump thing where they're saying, hey, we gotta defend our country against attacks from people that are trying to break into the Capitol and do what they did there.

Matt (07:11.852)
Yeah, I know. I know.

Matt (07:24.797)
Right, so why aren't they using?

Sam (07:36.95)
I, to me, it looked more like that initially. Then I could see a little bit of the other side, but not much. And there were no minorities in that video, as best I could tell. I went and watched it three times.

Matt (07:48.349)
They got footage from Black Lives Matter protests in the wake of George Floyd. They got stock footage protests from Ukraine from 2013. And then they got some stock footage from Germany. So it is a good question. If it's about like, really if it's about like the violence that happens in big cities, why wasn't there anything from January 6th? Why wasn't there anything? But it wasn't.

Sam (07:52.95)
Don't believe it, don't see it.

Sam (08:10.174)
It looked like January 6th. Why do you choose to see it as a race issue? How is Ukraine or Germany or anywhere else, how is that a race issue?

Matt (08:19.226)
Well, they chose, they thought it was Black Lives Matter. They thought it was all George Floyd stuff.

shawn (08:19.326)
Wait wait wait.

Matt, are you actually, are you saying, I know that there's lots of extreme commentary on this and some, one side of the extreme says it was racism. Are you agreeing with that? You think that this guy's racist and his message is, we're in small towns?

Sam (08:24.733)
Oh, it was an a-

Sam (08:34.634)
Of course he thinks it's racist, that's how he wrote the question, it's racism, it's not.

Matt (08:38.08)
No, no, I'm not... My question is about vigilante justice. But when somebody says to me, I want to go back to the past, what I think of in my mind is... So I think of America, the United States, as an aspirational cause. When they write the Declaration of Independence and they say, we hold this truth as self-evident that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights,

shawn (08:38.594)
No, no, he wasn't right. I don't think so.

Matt (09:06.324)
I know for a fact that wasn't true then, and it was aspirational. It was saying, this is the nation we want to build. And I say, from that moment till now, we're working towards that. And so when somebody says to me, I wanna go back to the past, in my mind that means I wanna go back to a society that's less equal, a society with more sexism.

shawn (09:24.982)
Matt, but Matt, hang on Matt, you know that Sam's response is not racist, right? When he says my vision of what the 50s was like is this more peaceful, more religious, you know that he's not saying, oh, and it was great because segregation was live and active. You know that that's not what he means. Yeah, I know. I agree.

Sam (09:26.062)
Why do you choose to see it that way? You choose to see it that way. I don't know why you see it that way.

Matt (09:44.284)
But it was, but that's what I'm saying, but it was racist, right? So you can't just pick and choose. If you say I want to go back to the past, you don't get to just pick and choose what part of the, you can't say I want to go back to Versailles, but I want an iPhone. I want to go back to the time of Louis XIV, but I want to have a big TV in my house at that time. You go back to that time, and when you go back to that time, there's racism and sexism. What are we going back to?

shawn (09:52.334)
I agree. I do agree with that.

shawn (10:05.114)
I agree with that. You don't agree with that, Sam?

Sam (10:09.258)
So we can never talk about the 50s without bringing up racism.

shawn (10:12.974)
Oh, absolutely not. What the heck, segregation?

Matt (10:13.304)
Well, what do we want to talk about in the 50s? What do we want to talk about in the 50s? What was so great in the 50s that I want to go back to? Ha ha ha.

Sam (10:20.979)
The space race? I don't know. You've got to be kidding me. You don't want to talk about the 50s or the 60s without always and every time acknowledging racism, as terrible as it was.

shawn (10:22.254)
Oh no! Oh no, Sam!

Matt (10:26.872)
Why don't I wanna go?

shawn (10:35.434)
Absolutely, because it was so terrible, because it was so unconstitutional, it was so unjust, it was so horrible.

Sam (10:41.642)
I need to find another show to go beyond. This show is terrible.

Matt (10:46.539)
When I go to plantations in the South and they tell me all about how wonderful plantation life was, as part of that is slavery and racism. And so you can't celebrate all of the wonderful things that we used to be able to do in the South without acknowledging that was...

Sam (10:53.803)
Yeah?

shawn (11:02.42)
Sam if we...

Sam (11:03.48)
I don't. Why would you go tour plantations? That's awful. I agree, that is racist. Why don't you go tour the Kennedy Space Center? Go tour the Kennedy Space Center. Go spend time in Washington, DC. I don't know.

Matt (11:06.788)
Well, that's... that's part... That's the pa... well that's what I'm saying! What is he wanting to go back to?!

shawn (11:10.474)
But Sam...

shawn (11:14.474)
Sam, he's...

Matt (11:16.924)

shawn (11:18.666)
Sam, if we're going to select our history to, if we're going to be selective on our history, how do, Sam, how do we learn from the past? If we're going to be selective in our history, how are we going to learn?

Sam (11:21.522)
Oh no, this is not going well.

Sam (11:28.726)
So was the pre-mortal life, was that it, racist? Just curious. Okay, okay.

Matt (11:32.044)
It absolutely was. I saw My Turn on Earth and the only black actor in My Turn on Earth was Satan. So, based on... Yeah, I don't know how to answer that question, Sam.

shawn (11:34.27)
Hahaha.

shawn (11:41.67)
No, I'm not. It's an honest. Sam, it's an honest. Sam, it's an honest question. It's an honest question. Hey, Sam, Sam.

Sam (11:44.346)
Saturday's warrior that was pretty racist. So listen when can we start talking about history without having to Deal with racism every time like I get it racism was a problem sexism was a problem

Matt (11:54.297)
Why?

Matt (11:58.427)
Yeah.

shawn (11:58.494)
Sam, it's an honest question. How do you learn from the past if you don't focus on how unconstitutional, how unjust, and how evil segregation and slavery was?

Sam (12:10.896)
So no one can sing about the past and small towns without it bringing up images of racism.

shawn (12:16.934)
No, I'm asking you a direct question. How do we learn from our past if we ignore those things?

Sam (12:19.undefined)
What's up?

Well, we have to not ignore it. We have to...

Sam (12:28.939)
Are you really is this really what you're saying? Is this the argument? I want to I want to rerecord this whole thing because this is not good

Matt (12:29.065)
Well

Matt (12:36.992)
No, no, this is good stuff, Sam. This is good content. No, I think, I think what you were saying at the beginning, Sam, there's a lot of, hold on, let me pause. You guys keep talking while I pause this. Wait, do you hear that phone?

Sam (12:45.966)
Do you have a corded phone or are you gonna pick up a wireless phone or is it gonna be a corded phone, Matt?

Matt (12:49.828)
I have no idea what just, my wife makes me have this like landline and it never rings except for, I have no idea, she's a Luddite. She likes to live in the past. I feel like I'm the feminist in our family trying to fight for rights that she doesn't actually want. Well, so, but the, well, so my question, Sam, is I feel like whenever we talk about racism, your feeling about it is that acknowledging racism in the past is like a negative thing,

shawn (12:55.303)
Why?

Sam (13:07.381)
Is it a racist pass though? Go ahead, sorry.

Okay.

Yeah.

Matt (13:20.128)
And I just say, it's just what it is. So like we can say there was racism and sexism and inequality in the past. It doesn't mean the past was bad. What I hear you saying is he wants to go to the past and you're highlighting these good things of the past, this community feeling, highlighting like, but at the same time, all of that community that's good in the past is excluding other people in the past. And so the question I have is like, when they say let's go to the past,

Sam (13:20.404)
Okay.

Sam (13:29.132)
Yeah.

Sam (13:34.699)
Yes.

shawn (13:43.786)
Correct. Yeah, that's correct.

Matt (13:49.592)
Are they saying, let's go to the past with all that exclusion that happened, or let's go to the past like, like is it, are they really looking backwards saying, let's go back to that? Or are they saying, let's take the good for the past and bring it into the future.

Sam (13:59.339)
No.

shawn (14:02.226)
That's what they're saying, Matt, but it's ignorance because they're speaking from a very limited point of view. They're speaking from his family or his background or his lifestyle, and it's being ignorant to the fact that some people didn't live very well back then because of, for example, racism, poverty, these types of things. Go ahead, Sam.

Sam (14:21.17)
I know this isn't what you're saying, but are you saying that anytime the church releases a video about the past, that there should be a piece or a portion of it that deals with racism, sexism, and inequality?

Matt (14:36.204)
I think that it would be better if they did. Because I recently found out that three of the people who first arrived in the Utah Valley on July 22nd were slaves. African-American slaves. And when we celebrate Pioneer Day in Utah, nobody talks about the slaves that came to Utah to settle the territory.

Sam (14:55.438)
Hey, hang on. I'm opening up my heritage book and I just wanna see if it's in here.

Matt (15:01.84)
Is it in there? It's not in there.

shawn (15:04.251)
Sam, what do you think of this? So two days ago, I go on a long walk with my Protestant friend and he goes, Sean, I just did a deep dive in the history of Utah and the priesthood ban. And he's like, I am shocked. And he gave me all these quotes and all this information that is not in our own, it's not in there. And man, it was hard, Sam, it was hard to, because most of us ignore it, right? Because it's such a hard top.

Sam (15:05.596)
It's not in there.

shawn (15:31.826)
But we talked for two hours about it and it was very hard to be able to answer some of the things that went down because it's such a hard topic and there was a lot of bad things that were happening and being preached.

Matt (15:45.212)
I don't have a hard time with somebody saying, let's look at the things in the past that were good and let's try to make that a part of our future. My problem is when people say, let's go back to the past, because I think that we should be a forward looking society and I think that we should, if we're gonna go back to the past, we're going back to a worse time, in my opinion. I feel like we keep getting better and we should strive for getting better. And if you want more community celebrations, then sing a song about.

Let's have more community celebrations and I miss peach pie and pecan that were cheap or something like that. Not like, let's go to the past.

shawn (16:17.543)
Matt, I think I agree with you. If we're gonna go to the past, let's be honest about the whole past and who it was good for and who it was bad for. Just let's be specific. Let's just not be so vague. But I think that Sam, the other thing that was even worse was just this sermon of division. Big towns against little towns. White country singers versus whomever. I don't know, he wasn't clear.

Matt (16:25.966)
Hahaha

shawn (16:43.89)
But there's just this idea of division is a page right out of Saul Alinsky's book, The Rules for Radicals, which is a very, very liberal... Saul Alinsky?

Matt (16:51.576)
Hey, he's not liberal. He's a socialist. Hey, let's keep on this topic of rural America. So this isn't necessarily new in the news, but there are some differences between urban and rural America in terms of gun violence. So a study came out recently that said that the most rural counties had a 37% higher rate of firearm deaths than the most urban counties in that period from.

shawn (16:56.404)
Hahaha

Matt (17:20.092)
2011 to 2020. And they said most of the difference there is attributed to the rise in gun suicides. So gun suicides outnumbered gun homicides in 2021 by more than 5,300, and they're much more likely to occur in rural counties. So my question, is there some kind of, is there something really happening in rural counties that's like causing a crisis in the United States that people just aren't paying attention to? And is maybe that part of what's going on with this outrage? Yeah, Sam.

Sam (17:50.446)
So, going back to the idea, if you drive about two hours west from Chicago, big city with all the problems that a big city has, crime, carjacking, everything, and you go into Iowa, one of the biggest problems that they're facing there is meth and drugs. And meth and drugs, fentanyl. Meth and drugs create a horrible mental health crisis. Can you imagine being in such a desperate situation that you're willing to kill yourself?

Matt (18:09.02)
Fentanyl.

shawn (18:14.538)
Yeah.

Sam (18:20.134)
And drugs are a massive problem. One that we as a country absolutely 100% don't address. And it is an epidemic in those small towns where there's not much else to do, but do drugs because they don't see a way out. There's not enough money. There's not enough opportunity. And a way of dealing with that lack of anything to do in depression is going and turning to drugs, which are being readily and quickly imported

large towns which brings us back to no I'm just kidding Jason Aldean song who wants the good old days where Apparently it's racist. It's not though, but yes, go ahead

Matt (18:52.601)
No, so that's...

shawn (18:52.606)
But why does that?

But that doesn't really, but does that really explain the difference between small towns, big towns? Why is it, why is suicide, for example, much greater and much growing at a much greater rate in small towns than in large cities? What does drugs have to do with that?

Matt (19:12.083)
Well, this is suicides with using guns, right? So my guess, my...

shawn (19:15.034)
Well, but hang on though, hang on that. I think that report was a little incomplete because there was a link to another study that said guns are kind of a moot point there. It's not just suicide by guns, it's suicides that are higher in small towns. So naturally, because guns is a common way to commit suicide, but it's not that guns are more prevalent in the small town. Sorry, it's not, well, you're right, but it's the fact that suicides are higher, not just that gun violence is higher.

Sam (19:15.394)
gun. Yeah.

Matt (19:28.429)
Oh.

Matt (19:37.177)
Well, they probably are.

Matt (19:43.46)
So Sam, are you saying that something else is causing the drug use? Or are you saying it's the drug use that's causing the problems?

Sam (19:53.075)
Well, A, I'm no more qualified to answer that question than anything else, but my own opinion, having seen it and having driven through it, like I've seen the trailer parks where it's a big problem, I've seen the parts of town where it's just terrible. Well, you know, because you live and you work in a small town, when you have nothing else to do, people try to find ways to entertain themselves. And...

Matt (19:56.412)
Well, right. Right.

Matt (20:08.752)
Yeah, in rural America. Yeah.

Sam (20:17.014)
Drugs are an easy way to entertain themselves. And as soon as you become disconnected socially from other people, drugs take an even greater hold on you until it pulls you down to, I mean, suicide is a terrible thing. Mental health is a big problem. And that's gotta be a driver of suicide. Wouldn't you agree, Matt? Like it's gotta be.

Matt (20:35.708)
Yeah, and I actually think that this is the stuff that's actually driving the popularity of country music. It's driving the popularity of the... Not just all country music, right? But like for a long time, I remember they would say, if you want to get your wife back, you want to get your job back, just play a country music song backwards and then everything...

Sam (20:55.702)
You don't listen to country music. You can't bag on country music. It's great. Yeah.

shawn (20:57.394)
What? What are you talking about, Matt?

Matt (21:00.416)
I'm saying this particular country music song, but this isn't the only one. There's a lot of country music that's about a rural urban divide. Like it's a, those city folks don't understand us and we have a higher way of life. And I think there's something.

Sam (21:14.036)
This opinion does not necessarily reflect the other hosts of the show as it relates to country music, beatnik music, or other various fringe types of pop rock. Go ahead.

shawn (21:16.35)
Hehehehehehe

Matt (21:19.34)
hahahaha

shawn (21:25.023)
So.

Matt (21:25.648)
I recently created a playlist on Spotify called Mountain Music that I started listening to because it's like this old 90s country that anyhow, yeah, John Denver and it's got this, it's just some really classic country stuff and my daughter got home from her mission and she's like, what happened to you? Why are you listening to this trash? And I was like, I don't know, I felt like I listened to everything else out there. But don't you think there's something, isn't there something happening in these rural communities that's making them feel...

Sam (21:33.666)
John Denver.

shawn (21:41.886)
Hahaha

Sam (21:44.724)
Oh no!

Matt (21:54.421)
left behind that they're trying to

shawn (21:55.534)
Matt on some.

Sam (21:55.734)
Yes, yes, aside from your comments about country, like I think where you want us to go, Matt, is you want to talk about Trump and you want to blame this on Trump. And I'll tell you, Trump is touching a nerve that people relate with. So if you want to go there, let's go there. But country music is not the problem. Country music is the solution. It's a great type of music, right?

Matt (22:04.996)
No, no, I don't think that Trump...

shawn (22:08.19)
Sam.

Matt (22:10.318)
Yeah!

shawn (22:16.472)
Sam's feisty today.

shawn (22:23.299)
Oh, what?

Matt (22:24.46)
I was in a rural city in Oklahoma and I was talking to this guy who runs a gas station there. And it's the oldest continuous running gas station in Oklahoma. So I don't know, since 1935 they've been running this. And so he was telling me the history of his town and his gas station. And he was telling me that in the 1970s that they had to get these new gas pumps, like to pump the gas. And he's like, the government did it, but really it was the Democrats that did it. Right?

Sam (22:52.537)
Ha ha ha!

Matt (22:53.596)
in these rural communities, like all the bad that happens to them is just the Democrats causing all of the bad, like in their view, right? They've got this worldview where it's like the Democrats are... Yeah. And I think that Trump just capitalizes on that. When they say they like Trump, I feel like what they're saying is Trump fights for our way of life. Like, I think that some of these rural Americans feel like the big city America is trying to change them and make them something they're not.

Sam (23:03.782)
Us versus them.

Matt (23:22.916)
Trump tells them, you're just fine the way you are. You don't have to change. And so I think that for them is the appeal of Trump, but I'm not saying that Trump has anything to do with what's actually happening there.

shawn (23:32.51)
So Matt, I like when you send studies that the questions are based in. And my habit now is to find other studies to see if people agree or disagree. So I found a number of studies. Here's one statement. Some studies observe significantly higher suicide rates in urban compared to rural areas. Some report the opposite, while others found no difference at all. Now, if we're just gonna work on your assumption that there are higher suicide rates in smaller cities.

Matt (23:39.992)
Yeah.

shawn (23:58.678)
One of the conclusions that your report said, your study, and then these other studies said was, social isolation, easier access to lethal means, stigmatization towards people with mental health problems, and reduced supply of mental health services. So those are some of the reasonings. But I would go further. I think Galatians and Mosiah explain it best. Galatians...

Matt (24:16.228)
Huh.

Matt (24:22.357)
Okay, I like this.

shawn (24:23.582)
Galatians says we are to bear one another's burdens and Mosiah 15 9 talks about how when Christ ascended Being filled with compassion towards all men That's what we should try and be like so to me the answer is big town or little town When we don't love each other when we don't bear each other's burdens like isn't the church actually quite good at? Uniting people getting people involved in each other's lives like this social the social structure of

of church kind of gets us nosy into each other's lives. And I see a lot of people bearing each other's burdens and a lot of helping each other.

Sam (25:01.454)
except for in the 60s and the 50s.

shawn (25:04.595)
Hahaha

Sam (25:06.05)
Yeah

Matt (25:06.232)
I think that Sean, maybe that's more true in places outside of Utah and Idaho. I think in places where the church has large boundaries for their wards, you'll get a really good mix of like urban and rural, and you'll maybe cross these divides. But I think that, and I've been in plenty of wards where there's not a lot of bearing each other's burdens because people are just private and don't wanna let people into their lives.

shawn (25:27.55)
Really?

You too, Sam?

Sam (25:32.334)
I think that's true. I think in places outside of California, Utah and Idaho, the congregations are actually so diverse that it does, there is this us versus them mentality in the world and it's pervasive still in religion. I think the more diverse, the more of a challenge what you're talking about is. Yeah, especially in the 50s and 60s.

shawn (25:33.459)
Really?

shawn (25:53.202)
Really? That surprises me. Because what I've seen... Wow. Because...

Matt (26:01.653)
Sam's time traveling. He's remembering.

Sam (26:03.312)
I'm so bothered by this whole country music thing. I can't believe I feel like we're going to change the theme song to our intro to our thing.

shawn (26:10.756)
Oh, no.

Matt (26:11.384)
It'll be mamas don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys.

shawn (26:16.838)
I didn't know you're such a country music fan, Sam. I didn't know that.

Sam (26:16.918)
or when the thunder rolls. No, I'm a lover of all music. I'm a lover, not a hater.

Matt (26:26.896)
Well, let's move to another topic. Unless, Sean, it looked like you wanted to go to the scriptures again. But if not, let's move on.

shawn (26:34.186)
Well, I'm just surprised that you guys are suggesting that there's not a lot of bearing of each other's burdens and that we as in the true church, believing we're in the true church, following Christ, have compassion upon one another. Sounds like you guys are like, nope, not happening.

Matt (26:53.228)
I mean, I want to believe that it's true, Sean, but I just go to places and I, it depends on the congregation. There's some places that are super welcoming and super warm and you can tell the ward's a family. And then there's some places where it's kind of like, don't bother us, we got stuff we got to worry about.

shawn (27:09.674)
Man, that surprises me. I could tell you story after story after story of just people helping each other, lifting each other's burdens, showing up for no reason just to love and help. I'm surprised at you both.

Sam (27:21.802)
It, Sean, what you're showing is you choose to look for the good. And I think that's a life lesson. We see what we want to see. And, and so I tie it back to country music and I tie it back to the very first topic. If you want to see racism, uh, gender inequality in the past, you're going to see it. If you choose to see opportunity and you choose to see a world where we all come together to do great things, you're going to see that too.

Matt (27:27.097)
Yeah.

shawn (27:34.398)
Oh.

shawn (27:45.79)
because it existed.

Sam (27:51.134)
And it's fair to see both. You can't go to Nauvoo and see the Nauvoo pageant and see it apologize for all the racism of the past because it doesn't, even though it.

shawn (28:00.49)
But Sam, that's Matt, you just made Matt's only point, which is when the country singer guy says, ah, the bygone days were so great back then, you just said, we need to see both. That's all Matt's point is, right, Matt?

Sam (28:04.13)
Go ahead.

Matt (28:14.732)
I'm afraid that if I say anything related to racism again, I will make people upset. So I'm not going to answer that question. And we're going to move to a topic far, far removed from the past and from racism and from words that would target individuals and make them feel sad because I don't want to.

shawn (28:22.705)
Okay.

shawn (28:28.158)
Hahaha!

Sam (28:34.351)
Let's talk guns and crime.

shawn (28:35.867)
We now know that if we want to strike a chord with Sam, it's the space program and it's country music in the past.

Sam (28:41.538)
Well you can't attack country music and I love Iowa, I love Kansas, Matt loves Kansas.

shawn (28:46.195)
Hey, if we're-

Matt (28:47.427)
I love all of the Midwest. I think some of the best people in the world Right, but let's move. I like I want us to be forward-looking not looking to the past What makes a Midwest great is the people that are there right now and not the people that were there 50 years ago Because I don't know those people Okay, so moving on true crime. I think Sean you hate true crime as a genre

Sam (28:49.794)
God bless America!

Sam (28:58.037)
You just...

Sam (29:04.726)
Yeah, that's fair.

shawn (29:11.594)
I do. Yeah, I don't like it.

Matt (29:12.512)
Yeah, well you're weird because the survey data that I showed says that half of Americans say that they enjoy true crime content. Half of Americans, Sean.

shawn (29:23.866)
Now, okay, you've just convinced me. I can see a loving couple warming up a good blanket and a good hot coffee one evening and watching murder and destruction and betrayal and blood and guts. I see it now. That's a good point.

Matt (29:31.504)
Hahaha

Matt (29:41.66)
One third of Americans consumes true crime content at least once a week. The most, I've got links to these studies in the show notes. The most popular true crime content deals with murder, serial killing and kidnapping. People don't really know why people are fascinated with this genre. Some say it's because we try to imagine how we would cope in the same situation. Maybe we're grateful that it has happened to someone else and not to us. And maybe we've learned some valuable lesson.

Some people think true crime gives us a better understanding of the criminal justice system, false. That it makes people maybe more vigilant and safety conscious. So I wanna know is true crime content bad for us spiritually? Do we have a moral obligation to avoid this kind of content?

Sam (30:16.674)
Ha ha!

shawn (30:30.588)
Do you both listen to it?

Matt (30:33.494)
I love true crime stuff. I love it.

shawn (30:36.094)
Sam, you were showing a podcast you listened to. You listened to it quite a bit?

Sam (30:40.438)
I listen to it a lot, yeah. And I, so I'll take you back to a quote from Brigham Young and I have to guess at the quote. So, yeah, I might as well. And by the way, as I bring this quote up from Brigham Young, I'd like to acknowledge that he was a racist and he was a misogynist and he was also a polygamist. But, but.

shawn (30:42.042)
What's the appeal? Explain to me, both of you.

Matt (30:42.403)
un- uh

Matt (30:49.36)
Paraphrase.

shawn (30:50.266)
This is the moment you choose to bring in religion?

shawn (31:04.001)
Oh my gosh.

Matt (31:07.868)
But what did he say about true crime?

shawn (31:09.918)
Yeah, what'd he say about serial murderers?

Sam (31:11.684)
So people back in those good old days, as freaked out as they were about everything else, they were concerned about, that's right, they were concerned about, hey, is it okay to read novels? Like, is it okay to read novels? Novels back then were considered to be scandalous, right? Because right, right. They portrayed life in a way that seemed...

Matt (31:13.508)
Hahaha

Matt (31:22.639)
They turn on Netflix.

Matt (31:32.08)
Fiction, just any fiction at all?

Sam (31:38.566)
uh, not natural, right? So they portrayed, uh, scandal. They portrayed people having, uh, affairs and Brigham Young made a quote and I'm, I need to try to find it. If you can find it. He talked about, Hey, novels are important because they see the con they show the consequence of sin. They, they show the consequence of bad decision-making. And I think people are fascinated by these true crime podcasts because a lot of this behavior is shocking.

And it's interesting, how does someone, Matt Rexburg, Idaho, how does someone who claims to be a good member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints go so completely off the rails as to murder two kids, elope to Hawaii, and claim to be receiving crazy revelations? I mean, it's fascinating.

shawn (32:28.361)
So you believe it's educational.

Matt (32:31.437)
It's fascinating.

Sam (32:31.615)
I think it's sensational education. Yeah, it's sensational.

Matt (32:36.172)
So I really enjoy Law and Order, the fictional TV show. And I know that it's not educational, right? I know that I'm not learning anything, but I also really enjoy watching court TV. When there's a trial happening on court TV, I literally spend hours and hours watching the whole thing. And I don't know that it's, I don't like, it's not about like I wanna see blood and guts and all that stuff. I'd rather see that in fiction. I think there's an element of mystery involved that you wanna solve a mystery.

Sam (32:40.578)
us doing.

Sam (32:51.782)
Yeah, OJ Simpson, that was awesome. I watched that.

Matt (33:06.466)
and just a fascination with the human behavior.

shawn (33:09.394)
Yeah, but if that, if, but if those were the reasons, Matt, you'd be listening to blue collar crimes. I mean, white collar crimes, you'd be listening, right? There's something about, that's what I'm saying. But that's what I'm saying. The murder element for some reason is so appealing to everybody. I don't get it. It's dark, it's ungodly.

Sam (33:09.634)
Yes, and it's shocking.

Matt (33:16.668)
It's not so fascinating. I can understand why somebody cheats like a corporation.

Sam (33:17.046)
I listen to those.

Matt (33:26.096)
Did you guys watch the Tiger King? Did you watch the Tiger King?

shawn (33:30.346)
Uh, no. I say that with judgment in my voice.

Sam (33:34.187)
I don't have time for that. I'm too busy reading in the Book of Mormon where they chop Laban's head off. So that's what, that was the first true crime episode was chopping Laban's head off. Can you imagine how many podcasts, can you imagine how many podcast episodes they could have done about the Book of Mormon and chopping his head off from Laban's own perspective, from the forensic analysis?

shawn (33:38.954)
Hahaha!

Matt (33:41.072)
Ha ha!

It's the Book of Mormon.

Matt (33:50.472)
Am I am I chopping off the arms?

shawn (33:51.39)
Sam, you have... Sam, this is...

Matt (33:55.213)
I'm going to go to bed.

shawn (33:56.99)
Sam, you've brought in more scriptural references and quotes from prophets in this topic than in any other time. What is going on?

Matt (34:01.104)
Ha ha!

Sam (34:03.295)
I don't know. I just... Yeah, I am. Yep.

Matt (34:03.768)
He's very into true crime. It's his genre. So the Tiger King, a lot of what fascinated people about the Tiger King was the story of Carol, who was like his nemesis in the show, and she had allegedly killed her husband and got away with it. And Sean, I joined a Facebook group dedicated to finding, to solving the mystery of Carol who killed her husband from the Tiger King. And every so often people would post on Facebook and say, I found a new clue. And I'd be like,

We'd all read the clues and comment on the clues.

Sam (34:36.074)
And you want a universal income for people who are obsessed with this sort of garbage? Like, can you imagine? Listen, we all have our own definition of garbage. I wouldn't watch what you just listened to watching, but I do, and I'm mowing the lawn. I listen to all these podcasts and they're a heck of a lot of fun. I don't think it's harmful. I think it teaches you the consequence of terrible behavior. It's fascinating that people would do those things and probably in a gently self-righteous way.

Matt (34:38.937)
Hahaha!

Matt (34:42.744)
Well, so is it harm?

Sam (35:04.862)
It makes us feel better about our own situation when we can look at that and go, that's insane. Like, why would people ever do that, right? So, yeah.

shawn (35:09.962)
Well, I can be open-minded to that, Sam. I can be open-minded.

Matt (35:12.452)
But Sam, there's not a single one of those things you listed that is actually a good thing. Cause the consequence, cause the consequence of behavior, we're supposed to focus on the eternal consequences, not if I get caught or don't get caught, right? So a lot of people hear the consequences and say, how do I plan the perfect crime so that I avoid the consequences? Oh, for sure. For sure they do.

Sam (35:18.391)
Ha ha!

Sam (35:28.739)
Yeah.

Sam (35:33.678)
They do not. No, they do not. You think there's people listening to true crime saying, I just want to come up with the perfect crime. I'm going to go out. No, that's, I, it's, it's gotta be, it's gotta be a percent that is exactly the same as the percent of the general population that would commit that type of crime. I have a tough time believing that people who are predisposed to terrible crimes would be more.

shawn (35:36.839)
Yeah, people do.

Matt (35:42.348)
Yes, I know for a fact that this happens. Yeah.

Sam (36:01.982)
likely to listen to that and seek that out and therefore make it popular. I think it's got to be relative to the general.

Matt (36:04.215)
Like

Matt (36:07.628)
like the criminology student in Washington State University who murdered people in Idaho for fun. He wasn't into that.

Sam (36:10.106)
Idaho yeah, but he's insane. He's insane I love you Matt, but you're insane Sean take us to scripture, please we need a we need a Okay It's awesome. Yes, the mania of new mania New mania new mania me too

shawn (36:15.306)
So, so, hey, have you guys, have you, have you guys seen the, almost, have you seen Chernobyl, the HBO series Chernobyl? So the, so that's one of my favorites and I'm wondering if you guys think that I maybe like that for the same reasons that you guys like this true crime stuff. Was it dark?

Matt (36:19.588)
Hahaha!

Matt (36:27.961)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

shawn (36:45.57)
watching the process of them discovering what happened, why it happened, coming to the truth. Is that the part you like, just with a bunch of murder?

Matt (36:50.552)
Yeah. Yeah, the mystery. No, no, it doesn't have to be murder. I'll watch anything. I watched the Johnny Depp trial. It's the mystery of it all. And I'm trying to solve-

shawn (36:56.1)
Okay.

Okay. Well, I can go with that.

Sam (37:03.917)
Sean, you knew how Chernobyl would end. It's not the ending that got you. You knew how it would end.

shawn (37:10.003)
Yeah, that's true.

Matt (37:10.968)
Well, but on true crime, you don't always know, right? So that's why I like the court TV stuff, cause I wanna see, will the jury actually convict? Like I watched Kyle Rittenhouse cry his eyes out in front of a jury, begging them to please let him go, not guilty. And I saw them say, not guilty in the end. And I watched the trial of the George Floyd police officers. I watched how they, I watched the Ahmaud Arbery trial. So for me, the true crime stuff is cause you don't know the outcome. You don't know what's gonna happen. There's a mystery.

Sam (37:29.251)
Yeah.

Matt (37:39.376)
There's this human behavior stuff and I just want to know like, does it actually work?

Sam (37:42.818)
Hey Sean, watch this. I think Matt, I think it's not good for Matt to watch all this stuff because it exposes a voyeuristic tendency he has. Because what I'm hearing him say is he's just more curious to see kind of the raw, like he just doesn't know what's gonna happen. For me, I side with Brigham Young, for me and my house, I wanna see what the natural consequences of sin and evil.

Matt (38:12.944)
Sam, you're the best.

shawn (38:14.875)
Sam, did you take some caffeine right before that? Are you drinking caffeine over there?

Sam (38:15.122)
Off the rails!

Matt (38:18.044)
haha

Sam (38:18.57)
No, it's 10 o'clock where I am right now. No. Oh, I love you guys.

shawn (38:21.722)
Oh, okay.

Matt (38:23.3)
Well, this moves very easily into the big question of the week. So I sent you guys this story earlier in the week. So there's this dispute between Stephen A. Smith and Dan Levitard all about, like, is ESPN good for sports? Is ESPN bad for sports? And the argument that Dan Levitard makes is that ESPN rose in popularity because it appealed to the dumb, like the least intelligent, like, instincts among all of us.

Sam (38:29.786)
Yeah.

Matt (38:53.484)
And that as it did that, it crowded out all of this other, like more intelligent, good content. And so if your sport doesn't happen to be on ESPN, nobody watches your sport. And so you have to make your sport, you have to like kind of dumb it down for the masses and things like that. But I actually think this kind of thing happens in every genre. As my teenagers start to consume more and more YouTube shorts and TikTok and Instagram reels.

I watch the stuff that they're consuming and I'm like, this is the dumbest content in the world. And even like Mr. Beast, right? Isn't he the most popular streamer in the world? Mr. Beast. And it's all just dumb content. So I don't think it's a, I don't think it's a genre specific thing. So what happens then is like the dumb brainless stuff gets the most clicks that creates a market incentive to create the dumb content that appeals to our base instincts. So I'm going to contrast this with what

shawn (39:32.554)
dumb.

Matt (39:50.22)
Russell M. Nelson said as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles a decade ago, he said that we have a religious responsibility to get an education. So if education is a religious obligation that we have, does this apply to the kind of media we consume? Do we have some kind of a religious obligation to consume media that will make us smarter and not just consume this sort of dumb stuff that's a lot of fun?

shawn (40:17.386)
Uh, yeah, I think Matt, I think to answer that best, I think scripture does, we have to go to scripture because there are lots of references. For example, D&C 13632, let him that is ignorant learn wisdom. And there's a lot of references to read the right books and get wisdom. But it is always prefaced by one thing. When the Lord says, yeah, be learned and do that work, cognitive work, it's always prefaced by one thing. It says...

call upon the name of the Lord, that his eyes may be open, they may see and his ear may hear that the Spirit will send forth and enlighten the humble and contrite. And another one in like what, Second Nephi, it talks about if you seek out the Lord first and the wisdom of the Lord, then seek out the worldly wisdom, you will go right. So I think like echoing what the latter day lens is trying to do, which is basically seek out the perspective that Jesus Christ teaches us.

when we have the wisdoms of truth, like we have the eternal truths, that's going to give us the principles that will help us to discern what is right and what is wrong in the mortal world. I don't know.

Matt (41:27.349)
But isn't it okay to just sometimes consume dumb content because it's fun?

shawn (41:32.415)
Like what? Give me an example.

Matt (41:34.375)
Mr. Beast

Sam (41:34.506)
this podcast sometimes. I'm just kidding. So.

Matt (41:38.148)
Like, isn't it fun to just, like, you can't be...

shawn (41:40.411)
That's entertainment though, that's not seeking wisdom, you're not learning when you watch Mr. Beast. Your question is, are we obligated morally to learn and to understand the world and to be educated in the world? Mr. Beast is not teaching anything, that's just entertainment.

Matt (41:52.864)
Right, so in our entertainment, should we be trying to like promote this better stuff that's out there? Because if nobody consumes the good stuff, then it's going to go away. Right, so don't we have some kind of a religious obligation to say, you know what, I'm not just going to be amused and entertained all the time. I'm going to look for content that informs me, inspires me, educates me.

shawn (42:13.598)
Well, you turned to me on a long time ago, Matt, you said, hey, go check out these really nonpartisan, very Nina Totenberg, for example. And man, I have tried, Matt, she is so boring. It is so boring.

Matt (42:20.464)
Nina Totenberg. Yeah.

Matt (42:29.897)
so informative at the same time.

shawn (42:31.494)
Yeah, but I think there's some value in some it is informative, I guess, but you even said yourself it's boring and you tune out. I think there's value in a balance, entertaining journalism or, you know, that's where the value is, I think.

Matt (42:37.953)
It is, it's so boring, yeah.

Matt (42:48.252)
But Sean, you pointed me to this Netflix series, Ancient Apocalypse. Yeah. But the guy is like wrong, right? It's not like he's wrong, but he's like, he makes it so entertaining that he's misinforming people about stuff.

shawn (42:52.702)
Did you watch it? Yes! Okay.

shawn (43:05.454)
I love it, so you watched it, and I guess that you, the academic, right, with your paper, with your authority, might not like some of the stuff he says, yet it's true. He went to Netflix and he put this beautifully presented story together, and I don't think he claims that it's all true. He's claiming simply that he has been shut down by the authority, by the academics who run the knowledge.

Matt (43:12.844)
No.

Matt (43:21.765)
Yes.

shawn (43:32.09)
And he is simply saying, but what if look at this, they're shutting this down, let me show some evidence. And yes, he did it in an entertaining way. There's nothing wrong with that.

Matt (43:32.11)
Yeah.

Sam (43:40.938)
Have you guys gone and seen, I haven't seen this yet, but have you seen the movie on trafficking? Yeah, have you seen that? I haven't either.

Matt (43:46.556)
The Sound of Freedom? No, I can't buy tickets because it's always sold out because at the end of the movie they say, if you want to stop sex trafficking, buy tickets to this movie for all of your friends whether you're gonna watch it or not. But the guy that did the movie is the Project Underground Railroad guy, right? Yeah, but no, I can't get in. I watched Indiana Jones because Indiana Jones was more accurate, I thought.

shawn (43:49.063)
Not yet.

shawn (43:58.11)
Ha ha ha!

shawn (44:05.502)
Yeah. Did you watch it, Sam?

shawn (44:11.74)
Are you suggesting maybe?

shawn (44:16.227)
Hahaha

Matt (44:17.168)
And then the Barbie movie really just motivated me to be a better person.

shawn (44:20.594)
Are you, Sam, are you suggesting that maybe that movie is a combination of like entertaining drama with real facts?

Sam (44:27.639)
Well, I'm fascinated by the question. So it's interesting. Who's to judge what is educational and intelligent and raises the level and then dumbs it down? Like the value of entertaining content, is it to educate? Is it to connect people? Like you look at TikTok as a medium, some of the dumbest content you could possibly see, and yet there are clips of those contents.

that bring people together and connect them in a way that no other content has. You can't create a movie like the ice bucket challenge or the...

Matt (45:03.312)
There's social activism that happens through those mediums. Yeah.

Sam (45:06.23)
Yeah, there are positive, strong positives that come out of it. I thought at first when you brought up ESPN, that you were going to go towards, are we focused too much on sports? I happened to have grown up in a family where we were very politically engaged. We were interested in politics, knew nothing about sports. As I've gotten to become an adult, I've grown to love sports, and I've grown to see how sports actually make you better in business and education.

and in every field where there's a level of competition to become better. And I think having a news channel that focuses on sports allows people to bond around that as a medium. And then you can apply lessons you learn in that medium to business and to education and all these other areas. So I think we have to be careful when we judge unrighteously something as not being good when there could be elements of good in it, right?

Matt (46:01.296)
But what happened on ESPN, Sam, is the dumbest, like stupidest content on ESPN, as they recently purged and got rid of all of these people, Steve Young being one of them, they got rid of all of their good reporters and all of their good people that like go out and find information. And they kept all the people that just sit there and argue with each other and say nothing intelligent. So it's like the network is appealing to these masses of people who want to just listen to argument, listen to debate, listen to like,

Sam (46:18.295)
Yeah.

Matt (46:30.384)
just dumb content, and then you're losing all of the informed content. Like, people who are going out getting actual facts and actual information, there's no platform for them anymore because they're too boring or something like that.

Sam (46:43.33)
So don't you think that the free market will weed that out over time? Like there will, well, the free market's leading to the dumb content by making the cost increase profits. But as people turn away from that to YouTube and TikTok and other places where there are things to be learned, maybe if there are, ESPN will become less relevant if what you say is true. I haven't seen, like ESPN provides great content in games.

shawn (46:43.412)
Now that's...

Matt (46:46.94)
The free market is what's leading to the dumb content.

Matt (47:10.465)
Yeah.

Sam (47:10.55)
You know, you can watch football games and you can watch baseball games. You can, you can view content there that's not available anywhere else. The commentary may not be as good, but, uh, yeah.

Matt (47:19.44)
Well, so, but you mentioned that movie, The Sound of Freedom. I first heard about that because I'm driving down the road and my son tells me, because it's all over his social media, about this movie that, and like, but the things he was telling me about that movie were factually inaccurate, right? He's like, this movie is making more money than Indiana Jones. And so then I like look it up and it's like, well, that's not true, but it's partially true, right? It made more money than Indiana Jones on one day, right? And so,

Sam (47:28.599)
Mine too.

Matt (47:48.356)
They like take a little bit of truth and then they lead with that and then they promote that and then people just consume that and think of that as fact. And so I just wonder like, do I have an obligation to like tell my kids or something like, hey, stop looking at stupid stuff, find it like good stuff and tell me that stuff. Don't find me the easy.

shawn (48:05.202)
Matt. But Matt.

Sam (48:06.51)
But they're, but they, but they bond around the stupid stuff in a lot of ways.

shawn (48:10.794)
But Matt, also, there's some agenda to the guy trying to show that movie may have won. Right? There's some agenda, but there's also agenda from intellectuals who, like for example, it says in 2 Nephi, it says, the cunning plan of the evil and the vainness and the frailties and the foolishness of men, when they are learned, they think they are wise and they hearken not to the counsels of God. You would put in the, you know, with perfect intention, you put into our questions here

that study and that study had a message and the message was that in certain areas suicide is higher. I found other studies that had the opposite message, the exact opposite message. Yet an intellectual who's publishing that study and wanting to get citations from that study has a bias or has like their own findings that are going to push and push and push. So I think there's danger, yes, in just consuming stupid clickbait and believing what it is. There's also danger in following, there's danger in trusting all of it, isn't there?

And this is to go back to, we have to seek first the kingdom of God because then we will understand principles and know the process of learning knowledge, which is spiritual. Then those other things will be added to us. Then we will discern between what's right and wrong, no?

Matt (49:23.836)
I think that's a good point, Sean. I really don't know the answer to this. And I actually have the same struggle in my personal life. Like, I'll come home from the temple feeling really good, feeling really spiritual, or I'll have a really good scripture study feeling really spiritual, and then I'll be like, hmm, I'm done with that. And then I'll turn on like hard rock or ACDC or something like that. Or if I'm feeling really worldly country music or something like that, right? It's like, at some point I just sort of like tire of...

Sam (49:46.038)
No.

shawn (49:47.614)
Ha ha ha!

Sam (49:50.062)
Poor country.

Matt (49:52.996)
I'll turn on Garth Brooks or something like that if I really wanna get worldly. But so like at some point I tire of intellectual content. At some point I tire of spiritual content. So I don't know if it's, I don't know if.

Sam (49:55.822)
Take me home, country road.

shawn (50:07.378)
Okay, but now you, but then, but you move, you're not moving from clickbait, you're moving from intellectual content to just entertainment, relaxation. You're not moving from intellectual content to, okay, I'm gonna still learn, but I'm gonna do it in the dumbed down way, right? There's nothing wrong with entertainment.

Matt (50:21.188)
Well, so, yeah, so that's what my question is. Like when we talk about food, we say there's foods that you can, you should probably avoid sweets and fats and things like that, and you should eat more healthy content. And if somebody's just eating sweets and fats all the time, then we say, you might wanna consider changing your diet. And that's what I'm trying to get to with the media we consume. Should we like think of that in the same way and say, look, if all you're doing is this, you're doing damage to your soul spiritually. Like you're doing damage to your, to who you are.

So fine, consume that sometimes, but most of your diet should be maybe this other kind of stuff.

shawn (50:55.562)
That's a good analogy. Yeah, that's a good analogy. But also eat a salad with some sugary dressing on it. Just a little bit. Nina Totenberg. Why you gotta be Nina Totenberg and just eat raw lettuce with nothing else on it?

Matt (51:12.004)
Well, it's like, Sean, the first time you ate a salad, it probably tasted really gross and you wanted to have some sweet content on it. But now that that's all you eat, you find this fresh, rich flavor in a piece of iceberg lettuce. And then when you switch to a little bit of dark greens, you're like, wow, all that flavor. You just have to train your body to enjoy the rich flavor of bland things.

shawn (51:35.87)
That's a good point. Your body will enjoy those things. It's a good point.

Matt (51:40.688)
Your intellectual self can learn to be like, wait, Nina Totenberg's on the radio. Quiet everybody, I gotta hear this.

shawn (51:46.51)
So would you, Matt, in your perfect world, would you somehow eliminate the Mr. Beasts and just the dumb-minded entertainment that is consuming people and then they don't have time or even desire to listen to the smarter stuff, the intellectual stuff? In a perfect world, would you eliminate that?

Matt (52:03.856)
I would put content, I would put content restrictions on this stuff, right? I would limit, like I do it with my kids. They have a time limit of how much they can do that stuff in a day. And I think that like in my perfect world.

shawn (52:15.91)
Do you require them to say listen to Nina Totenberg? Do you put limits on it? I mean.

Matt (52:19.456)
No, no, that I don't do. What I've learned, Sean, with children, is if you make their life boring enough, they will choose on their own something like Nina Totenberg. It might not be her, but it'll be something like that because they're like, I am so tired of staring at my blank wall. What could I do? And I'm like, here's a book, The Discourses of Brigham Young you could read. And they'll just be like, I want to devour that. That's something so much more entertaining than what my father... Ha ha ha.

shawn (52:28.522)
Oh my gosh.

shawn (52:42.894)
You need to write a book, Matt, on all your parenting tactics. I will illustrate it.

Matt (52:52.08)
Hey guys, this has been great. Hey listener, thanks for joining us for another exciting episode of the Latter Day Lens. This was a lot of fun. Maybe you have some questions about things we talked about today. It's possible that you feel like Sam was a little too hard on me. And maybe there were times when Sam was talking, you started crying on my behalf that you were like, somebody defend that poor soul. It's all right if you send me an email that tells me that. It'll help me to feel better. Or maybe you feel like we were too hard on Sam.

shawn (53:07.552)
Hehehe

Sam (53:08.423)
Ha ha.

Matt (53:21.808)
that like, he's not really racist, just be... Hahahaha!

Sam (53:24.89)
I'm not racist and neither is country music. Hopefully my kids will write in at least and defend me. So help kids

Matt (53:32.24)
Sam's kids, why don't you ever defend your father? What is wrong with you guys? So join us again next week, it's been fun. Take care.

shawn (53:35.238)
Hahaha