Matt (00:01.518)
Hello everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. It's good to have you with us today. I'm your host, Matt. Along with me is Sean. I mean, people have been waiting for this for like months or a month, something like that. Levi. Yeah, Levi's with us today. I've been getting a lot of feedback from people I love saying, why do you ever let that liberal guy on that show anyways? And I tell him, he's not liberal. He just...

Levi (00:13.635)
Mostly me, yeah.

Shawn (00:18.098)
The world has been waiting.

Matt (00:29.326)
Levi is a libertarian like Sean, they're the same. We just haven't found the right topic yet. If we get to the right topic, you'll be like, wow, they agree about everything. Hey, so Levi, you're the only one who's ever hosted this podcast that has lived with Sam and Sean, and we were roommates in college for a little while. So you've lived with all of the...

Shawn (00:31.966)
Hahaha!

Levi (00:32.323)
We're the same.

Levi (00:36.45)
you

Shawn (00:39.663)
Hahaha

Shawn (00:51.956)
Who's your favorite? I think that's what Matt's getting to. Who is your favorite?

Levi (00:55.021)
Ouch.

Matt (00:56.194)
No, that's not what I'm getting to, because I've never lived with Sam. Compare and contrast, yeah, Pac's never been a host on this, but that's okay. He's everybody's favorite, I think. Okay, if you had to say strengths, strengths of Sean, Sam, and Matt, like how would you just, what comes to your mind is like, this is what I love about Sam, this is what I love about Sean, this is what I love about Matt.

Levi (01:00.375)
Hacks my favorite, by the way.

Shawn (01:02.408)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:07.604)
That's right.

Levi (01:21.383)
Sam and Matt. So Sam is like, he's super focused, right? Like Sam's got that energy and he's got a goal and he's gonna get that goal, right? Like that's what I think is hallmark of Sam is he's like, okay, let's get it done. Let's bulldoze all the obstacles and do it. Sam's super good at that. Something I ought have learned from Sam. I'm kind of the kind of guy that's like, shoot, it got hard. So I'll do something.

Shawn (01:44.084)
Nice.

Matt (01:48.494)
You

Levi (01:51.043)
Let's see Sean what I think about Sean is Sean always is excited about what you love right Sean meets people and and figures out what they love and He like he loves it just cuz you love it, right? That's the great thing about Sean is you can bring to Sean the craziest any idea right and he's like look if if

Matt (02:10.89)
Mm-hmm.

Levi (02:18.794)
that's what you want, then I want that for you, right? He's like, gonna lean in, Sean is always on your team.

Matt (02:22.508)
Yeah.

I wish my dad had been that way. That would have been, I would have had a different kind of childhood.

Levi (02:29.858)
I feel the same way, right? That's just the kind of dad you want. That's like, yeah, you want to be a clown? Yeah. you know what? I love, I've always admired clowns. Clowns are the best. You should be the best clown in the whole world. No offense to any clowns out there. Clowns are great. Clowns are important. But let's see. Matt stays calm under pressure, right? Things get, things get heated. Things get

Matt (02:35.884)
You

Matt (02:41.386)
Yup, yeah that's true.

Matt (02:46.924)
Nice.

Levi (02:58.974)
uncomfortable. Matt is the same guy, right? He's very consistent. He's gonna not let you know, anybody's anybody's speaking badly about him is not going to change who Matt is. I think Matt's very, he has a lot of integrity in that way. I remember one time we were in conversation and, and it was always when I was I traveled to Bulgaria and I didn't make it to Ukraine.

Matt (03:25.326)
you

Levi (03:28.162)
And I was like, kind of grumbling. was like, yeah, they have these, you know, requirements about visas and stuff. Matt like says to me, well, it is their country after all, right? You can't complain that you didn't do any of the work and then they didn't just let you in. And I was like, Hey, that's kind of mean. But then I thought, no, that's exactly, that's exactly right. And that was like consistent. He wasn't going to say the thing that made me feel good if it was the wrong thing, right? He was just going to be like, okay, all right. There you go.

Shawn (03:53.193)
Ha ha!

Matt (03:53.486)
That's something my kids don't want in their father. They don't love that about me. There's a lot of things I love about Levi, but this is a story about Levi I'll never forget. One time Levi and I were driving up to campus. I can't remember why. And we were talking to each other the whole way that we were driving to campus. And when we parked, I was like, I just realized Levi, I have no idea what you were talking about. And you have no idea what I was talking about.

Shawn (03:59.727)
Hahaha

Matt (04:20.354)
We were just talking and not even listening to each other the whole way. And we were totally content with a conversation about nothing. Yeah, that was

Levi (04:21.57)
you

You

You'd feel like that on this podcast sometimes because I've listened to a podcast before and I've thought, well, those guys probably think I didn't even listen to the question that I just like, I found one word that I wanted and I want on my own rant and they're like, did you listen? So.

Shawn (04:38.92)
Hahaha!

Matt (04:38.936)
you

Shawn (04:46.26)
You

Matt (04:46.55)
I wouldn't know because I don't really listen to people. So I've never felt that way.

Levi (04:50.338)
I didn't know what you said anyway.

Shawn (04:53.064)
Well, I love I love how broken you both are. I'm into how broken you both are. You're both broken people. And I love it so much.

Matt (04:57.289)
Ha ha.

Matt (05:00.866)
You see that? That's Sean noticing what we love about ourselves and leaning into it, telling us how it's a great thing he loves that we're into being broken. All right, well, we have a listener that wrote a treatise. Now Levi, you wrote in some things to the mail back too. And I didn't want to like say you can't say those things if you want to during mail back time. So I'll give you some time after this listener. If you want to like share your thoughts from last week's episode, you can, but this listener.

Shawn (05:05.595)
That's right.

Ha ha.

Matt (05:28.246)
says, I'm so far behind on your podcast. Listening to April 16th, you're talking about ProPublica's prophecy. Would like to give insight from a healthcare provider in the DC metro area. These government job changes really are making people miserable. For example, I had a patient with a chronic condition that makes it very challenging for them to physically commute to work. And in this area, the commute is three to four hours round trip every day. The patient has tried getting doctor notes stating they need accommodations to work from home.

most days and only commute in one to two days weekly, like they did before the executive mandate. Even their boss is supportive of this, but the boss's hands are tied and the best accommodation they could give was stay home once a week temporarily, still commute four times a week. This is making my patient's condition worse and completely unnecessary since their job can totally be done remotely. The patient is miserable, just like ProPublica prophesied.

Easy to find many such examples in the DC metro area of people miserable with all the changes forced on government workers. On another note, I'm the listener who gave Matt and Sean a hard time who quoted you on the April 16th podcast too. Just want to clarify, I think you guys are great and hardcore teasing does not come through text very well sometimes. Just wanted to make you guys think. Yeah, we like that. We like when people tease us and make us think harder.

Shawn (06:45.978)
that's nice.

Shawn (06:51.326)
Yeah.

Levi (06:51.67)
Well, and when they bring personal stories, like I'm really interested in how, you know, how government affects real people on the ground. And so I really appreciated that, you know, that comment that there's real people that suffer when we make bad government choices.

Shawn (07:06.558)
But there's no avoiding that right Levi? There's never avoiding that. Whoever's in power is going to make decisions that make someone unhappy or Yes, Matt. Yes, Matt.

Matt (07:12.366)
No, Sean, I'm at wherever I'm in charge, people flourish. They're happy. They're joyful. We could choose elected officials who would lead like that. You don't have to do that. Everywhere I go, people are joyful and they flourish. Everywhere. If I'm the leader. Just so everyone's clear, if I'm the leader, nobody will be sad ever, ever.

Levi (07:13.882)
yeah, yeah.

Shawn (07:23.358)
Wait, what did you just say?

No, you didn't say that. You said everywhere where I'm in charge, you Matt are in charge, people flourish and are happy.

Shawn (07:40.116)
Have you ever met your children?

Matt (07:43.948)
laughter

Levi (07:44.93)
The shame Melanie's not on this one, but this podcast is a great example flourishing under your hand clearly I'm happy you're happy all the listeners always happy

Shawn (07:51.976)
That is definitely true. That's true.

Matt (07:52.51)
That's right. That's right.

Sean, you can choose to elect people who are good managers. You can choose to elect people who will treat their employees well. You could make that be the one thing you care about. You could say, the President of the United States is the head of the executive branch. All I care about is somebody who's going to manage the executive branch well. You could vote based on that. And it doesn't have to be that way. It doesn't have to be bad.

Shawn (08:15.496)
It's just not reality in any situation, Matt, you're going to make some of them. I've known many people who you've made are unhappy despite your best efforts and you making many of us so happy. It's just everyone's different, right? So the one who suffers because they have to commute to work, there's someone else who suffers who whatever, right? It just depends on who's in power and management style.

Matt (08:37.25)
They suffer because they have a medical condition and the government is not responsive to that medical condition. It doesn't have to be that way.

Shawn (08:42.642)
Yeah. Yeah. That's true. I agree.

Levi (08:44.482)
But what's perplexing to me about this specific case is that, you know, I remember when conservatives were about local solutions and they were like, well, the reason we don't want big government overreach is because maybe everybody needs a different solution. And here you've got a person, a worker who clearly needs a different personalized solution. And the big conservative government has said, no, no personalized solution for you. You do what I say.

Matt (09:08.11)
you

Levi (09:11.822)
It seems like conservatives should be saying, wait, yeah, local solutions are better. Why can't we all have, you know, why can't that person's boss? Why is that person's boss's hands tied? Why can't they give them the accommodation they need?

Matt (09:11.853)
Yeah.

Matt (09:22.21)
That's true. I like that. Hey, well, listener, thanks for writing in. We always like it when you write in. Levi, what do you have to say from last week? Have you moved on? okay.

Shawn (09:24.69)
Yeah, yeah.

Levi (09:33.882)
I even forgot. didn't even know what I wrote. So it doesn't matter. Plus, I'm here. Let's give everybody else a chance to talk,

Matt (09:38.572)
You were really triggered by, yeah. Okay, I love it. All right, Levi, you're up first this week.

Shawn (09:45.023)
there's a good one Levi.

Levi (09:45.333)
Okay, well, yeah, right. So I was a little nervous about this one because a couple of reasons. it is kind of an aggressive challenge to something that is like in the manual. And so I hope people don't think of this as terrible heresy, but also it's a little bit hard for me to be like laughy-jokey about this because it kind of means a lot to me. Anyway, I decided to go to...

put this up just because I think that Latter Day Lens can be that kind of place where we talk about things that do raise some big feelings, right? We don't have to just talk about things that don't matter. That's not so great. And that maybe even if we're not always calm.

Shawn (10:22.312)
Yeah, Matt.

Matt (10:25.907)
mean, yeah, Matt.

Shawn (10:26.63)
I love this topic Levi, I totally agree. I love your approach to this.

Levi (10:30.208)
Okay.

Matt (10:30.242)
What I do is I sift through the world and I say, what's something that doesn't matter at all? Let's talk about that. Eyelashes. Let's go.

Shawn (10:34.324)
No, but it's a great point Levi. It's a great point Levi.

Levi (10:35.138)
You

Levi (10:38.612)
Well, so, but if I can't maintain my cool here, I hope that'll be okay. I hope you guys will be like, okay. So Levi has some emotions about that, but that's, that's okay. We also love him.

Shawn (10:49.724)
I'm excited to learn about this from you Levi. I really do have a lot of questions because I know that you for years have come from this paradigm. And so I've got questions, so go ahead.

Levi (10:55.97)
Hmm?

Matt (11:00.728)
I like to label and categorize, so whatever emotions I sense from you, I'll try to put a word to that emotion.

Levi (11:00.884)
Alright, so...

Shawn (11:06.004)
Put them in a box,

Levi (11:06.85)
That always helps.

Okay, good. with that was a long lead at lead time self-reliance is a Satanic doctrine. This is my belief Things to clarify

Shawn (11:21.266)
Hahaha

Matt (11:22.798)
There's no citation after there's a statement with no citation there, by the way, just everyone knows.

Levi (11:26.242)
Zero citation. And you know, I realized that maybe I stated that in a very aggressive way. And so we can come back from that. But I really do believe that our discussions of self-reliance are a serious problem and that Jesus would be disappointed in the way that we talk about self-reliance. So to clarify, I don't think that thrift is the work of Satan. We should be taking care of the things that we have and not wasting things. And I don't think that industry is as

principle from Satan, we should be working hard and striving to use our talents in ways that improve the lives of the people around us. Those are both great principles. My issue is when we do the accounting at the end and when we say, your production exceeded your consumption. And so you get a gold star, you're self-reliant. And we turn to somebody else and we say, I know you worked hard and I know you're really thrifty, but your production didn't fall, fell short of your consumption. And so

you get a Stern lecture or a demerit or whatever. And I just think that that gives really a lot of power to the market to decide how much we're worth. And I think that the scriptures teach us that the market is mostly a liar. It doesn't tell us what we're worth. It doesn't tell us what our contributions are worth. And we shouldn't let the market tell us that we're falling short. And also I think that...

Our interdependence is not a weakness. Our interdependence is strength, and it's the way God wants us to be. He wants us to rely on each other and to, you know, to help each other. So those are my thoughts. my question is, given that this is obviously from, this is obviously the philosophies of men, but you know, with a thin veneer of scripture, how can we keep this out of our doctrinal discussions? How can we...

Shawn (13:04.264)
Wow. But what's your question?

Matt (13:08.302)
You

Shawn (13:15.304)
the sulfur lines thing.

Matt (13:15.5)
mingled with scripture.

Shawn (13:21.534)
some.

Levi (13:22.043)
Hey, how can we, well let's say how can we improve our discussions of self-reliance so that they don't, so they aren't bad.

Shawn (13:28.84)
This is the Levi I love so much. You think so deeply about things and you don't settle for what is the status quo or how do we typically talk about this kind of thing. And it's so great, dude. It's always made me think so deeply. Can I start with a handful of questions first? I have to answer? I just have to answer? Okay, I'll give a quick question then I'll answer. I mean, I'll answer then I'll give a quick question. Okay.

Matt (13:33.326)
you

Levi (13:43.553)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (13:43.572)
No, no you cannot. You can answer the question, Sean. How? You praised him, now you gotta answer the question.

Levi (13:47.862)
You can name feelings, answer the questions, that's all.

Levi (13:54.498)
Yeah, questions are great.

Shawn (13:58.386)
So do you, I like that this again, attempting on the latter day lens to start with the religious point of view and how it leads us down the, it should apply to the secular point of view, the government, whatever. I like that you lead with that. Cause how can I possibly find someplace in scripture that says that self-reliance, now you're specifically speaking self-reliance economically, but you started with it's a satanic doctrine, bold statement.

Levi (14:21.985)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (14:24.82)
You

Shawn (14:26.12)
But I think you're applying this to religion, not just economics, I assume, correct? Cause cause I can't find in scripture anywhere that says you can do it on your own. Rely on yourself.

Levi (14:31.99)
Mm-mm.

Matt (14:35.896)
Well, no, but that's not self-reliance. Is that what mean by self-reliance? Self-reliance, mean do by yourself?

Shawn (14:39.7)
That's what I'm asking. That's my first question.

Levi (14:41.408)
Wha-

Yeah, well, and I was thinking about it in terms of economics, but I did also, and I'm glad you brought that up. I did also think that like, you know, Mosiah, the King Benjamin told us, look, we're all, we're all beggars, right? And, and I don't think he meant economically. think he meant that like self-reliance is not a thing that we tout in any other aspect of our lives. We're not glad to be spiritually self-reliant. We rely on each other. We rely on our, on Jesus Christ, right?

Matt (15:09.304)
Yes. No, no.

Shawn (15:12.569)
Matt's got a counter. You got a counterpoint, Matt?

Matt (15:14.156)
Yes, spiritual self-reliance. If you go to the Gospel Library under Books and Lessons, there's a whole section called Self-Reliance Resources, and there's a whole handbook about spiritual self-reliance.

Levi (15:14.346)
All the time.

Shawn (15:25.79)
But hang on, hang on though. Let's just break down, the reason I like you started with it Levi's because I'm gonna break down just the principle of self-reliance. Applying to religion, to secular life, to all of that. Matt, you tell me, go ahead and defend that there is, like I just did this whole study this week about the law and the law talks about the law of works. And whenever it talks about this law of God or the law of works, it refers to it in a really negative, like it's a law of suffering. It's a law of sin and death. It's a law of misery.

Matt (15:46.69)
you

Shawn (15:55.156)
And I was like, why would God's law be called that? Then he explains, look, if Abraham were to rely on his obedience and his perfection and to justify himself by keeping every commandment and every law, then he could justify it by himself, but he cannot. And none of us can, so that law of works is misery and death unto us. Therefore, God introduces the law of the gospel or the law of Christ, which is come to Christ, have faith, repent. That is complete reliance. We are completely dependent on

Christ for our entire existence, right? There's no such thing as spiritual self-reliance, Matt. Or you go ahead and counter that. Go ahead.

Matt (16:29.966)
Sure there is, Sean. What you're talking about is like the very, very beginning, but then after the very, very beginning, there's more that comes after that, right? So this is in the manual, personal, it's called personal finances for self-reliance. It says, my foundation principle, self-reliance is a principle of salvation. That's what the church says. Self-reliance is a principle of salvation. And then they say,

Shawn (16:51.412)
No, I know that's an Immanuel. No, hang on, man. I know that's an Immanuel, but manuals aren't doctrine or scripture. But you... Okay. Okay, sorry.

Matt (16:56.75)
Okay, well, I'm going to start with a manual and I'll explain what they're saying. I understand you. I know you don't like manuals and profits and just kidding Sean, I'm just playing with you. Okay, so that's the principle. Self-reliance is a principle of salvation and then it says...

Shawn (17:05.81)
I love profits, not manuals.

Shawn (17:12.168)
No, no, that's not a principle. You'd have to provide principles that say what you mean there.

Matt (17:16.396)
And then it says financial principles and skills. Number one, become a wise and faithful steward. Two, counsel with the Lord about your finances. Three, track your income and expenses. Right, so then that's the definition of self-reliance. So self-reliance, least according, and so we went through as a family, we went through this manual. And in the church's definition in their manual of self-reliance, is self-reliance means

Shawn (17:27.43)
All of which believe I said, Thrift industry.

That is not a definition of self.

Matt (17:45.666)
being a wise steward of the resources you have, and you pay off your debts and you save for a rainy day, and all of the things you do financially are to prepare yourself so that you can be a benefit to others or you can serve in the church. But essentially it's like the law of consecration, right? You take care of your needs so that you can consecrate everything you have to the church and the Lord and take care of other people's needs. So self-reliance I don't think really is about the self, it's about

President Hinckley would say, you have to be on solid ground before you can reach down and lift another person up. So self-reliance as they define it, and I think that it makes sense, is to say, how do I get myself on solid footing so I can reach down and lift other people up? So then is that how you think of self-reliance, Levi?

Levi (18:36.096)
Well, I think that's a lot of work to rescue, right? It has the word self in it. And then you turn around and say, well, self-reliance is not about relying on yourself. And I think, maybe that's true, but that's a lot of work to get there, right?

Matt (18:43.182)
Mm.

Matt (18:55.566)
Well, okay, so like there are people that I minister to that in their current state of life, they're on, let's just say shaky ground, right? No matter how hard they work, no matter how hard they try, they're barely gonna make ends meet. And at the end of the month, if something unexpected happens, they're gonna have to borrow or get charity or some kind of help in order to make ends meet that month. But the idea of self-reliance is, can I teach you some principles of managing money, saving for a rainy day?

Levi (19:07.852)
Yeah.

Matt (19:23.65)
maybe doing without so that you have something later on, so that you're not always in that situation. So I think self-reliance is just the word that they use to sort of say, do what you can. We're not gonna find fault with you that you need help, but you don't wanna be in that situation your entire life. Maybe you will be, by the way. Joseph Smith was in that situation his entire life. Maybe you will be, but if there are some principles we could teach you that could help you get out of that, and then that could help you change your situation, then maybe you wanna...

take advantage of that, knowing that that's not gonna work for everybody.

Shawn (19:53.918)
So can I, let me add on that just real quick, Matt. because Levi, I'd love to hear your answer to all that. Because doesn't that suggest that the opposite of what you're defining as self-reliance, which would be complete dependence, is that also not a satanic principle? You brought in the concept of interdependence, which we're going to have to define. Because when you say interdependence, I think free market. That's exactly what capitalism is, is interdependence on each other through trade, free trade. But would you also say that dependence is

Matt (20:23.318)
I love, I love that. Sean says interdependence is capitalism. We compete with you. can't, you can't compete unless you depend on them in some way. No, no, no, no, it's fine.

Shawn (20:24.104)
Yeah, it is capitalism.

Shawn (20:33.588)
No, that's interdependent. Are we going to go there? Do you want to go there first? So Levi would dependence be a satanic concept as well? The opposite of self-reliance? If interdependence is in between those two, would dependence also be evil? Like if you live your life and never provide anything to anyone and instead you are completely dependent on other people's production or charity, is that not

Levi (20:47.474)
no, I mean, I wouldn't say.

Shawn (21:02.94)
Is that a righteous or an evil life you've lived or a principle?

Levi (21:05.986)
I would say unproductivity is certainly, that's Satan's plan, right? Satan wants us to be unproductive, right? Jesus wants us to be productive. But I just don't see why, I mean, guess to responding to Matt's question, I would say, why doesn't everybody get that same lecture, right? so we should all be.

Matt (21:22.894)
you

Levi (21:30.932)
striving to produce more. We should all be striving to consume less, right? All of us, whether these two balance or not. When your productivity exceeds your consumption, I don't care, keep producing more, keep consuming less, right? Let's see if we can do even more. But we give those lectures to people whose consumption exceeds their production. And I just want everybody to get the same lecture. Could everybody just please get a Stern lecture from Matt all the time?

Matt (21:44.193)
you

Matt (21:57.07)
Yeah, I see what you're saying. And there's this element of self-righteousness, right? That comes if I have, if I'm not dependent on other people, there's this sense of self-righteousness that can creep in. But I do think it's interesting that like there comes a point in everybody's life where they need help from somebody else. Maybe not everybody, but at least in my life, there have been times when I was completely dependent on other people and it was

Shawn (21:57.438)
You

Levi (22:05.41)
Mmm.

Levi (22:19.01)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (22:25.474)
very, very good for me. So I do think that there is growth and spiritual strength that comes from being completely dependent on other people. And I agree with you, Levi, to the extent that we define self-reliance as you don't need other people, therefore you're righteous, I think that that is evil and wicked. But I think if we define it in this other way of you should try to identify principles that will allow you to be more of a benefit to your fellow man and less of a consumer of material things.

Levi (22:27.617)
Mm-hmm.

Levi (22:41.442)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (22:53.804)
I think that that can be a righteous principle.

Levi (22:56.736)
Yeah, agreed.

Shawn (22:58.836)
Oh, it's really interesting. The only reason I tie it to that spiritual first, because again, you're talking about principles, right? And I think if the principle applies to economics, could maybe apply to social life or personal lives. I, as I've been doing a lot of mission prep stuff with a lot of young kids, the bigger thing, one of the biggest thing I'm finding in so many of them is a lot of anxiety and depression that revolves around I'm not good enough. I'm, I'm not

I'm not as obedient as I should be. I'm not as righteous as I should be. I'm not as talented as I should be. I'm not producing as much as I should. And that all stems from a complete, kind of what you're saying here. They all have this idea that I have to self-rely on my own efforts and my own abilities, and it's a complete misunderstanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The atonement says you can never make it if you depend on yourself. There's no idea of self-reliance when it comes to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

you have to look in the mirror and say, humbly, I need a savior. Right? So I think when you say the principle of self-reliance is not great, I would, if I think of it that way, Levi, I'm in. And I like how you brought in interdependence because again, Matt, you sneer and snicker, but that is capitalism. Matt, Levi, if I, if I need food and you're a butcher, then I'm going to produce something that you want in exchange. And we figure out a win-win exchange.

free of any coercion or any dishonesty, and you and I have become interdependent with each other based on our production. What a beautiful, wonderful thing.

Matt (24:31.178)
all I want is for you to think about Marxism with the kind of positive ways that you think about capitalism. That's all. I know that if you tried, you could find all of these good gospel principles in Marxism, and so it just hurts that you're only going to find them in capitalism. From each according to his ability? Actually, Marx said one. That's based on, I can find that actually five times in the scriptures, in the law of consecration. Yeah.

Shawn (24:37.716)
It's unprincipled, man. It's unprincipled.

Levi (24:38.24)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Shawn (24:43.934)
Name one.

Shawn (24:47.336)
Name one.

Levi (24:48.438)
from each according to his ability to each according to his need.

Shawn (24:52.42)
What principle is that based on? They're warrants.

Levi (24:57.868)
Yeah, and that's solid Marxist principle.

Shawn (24:58.919)
show me one

Matt (25:00.334)
Doctrine and Covenants, section 42, probably verse 33, I think is where it says that.

Shawn (25:05.63)
So how about this though? I can answer real easily. The Lord says, the earth is full and there's enough and to spare and I prepared all things and have given her the children men to be agents unto themselves. Now the agents, no he does not. He doesn't believe in, he does not believe in being an agent unto yourself. He believes in the covering. No he does not, Matt, you're lying, you're lying.

Matt (25:16.878)
Karl Marx completely agrees with you. That's, that's you just, you just taught Marx. Of course he does. Sean, one day we're going to sit down and have a Karl Marx powwow book club. We're going to start a podcast called the Karl Marx book club.

Shawn (25:31.156)
I have studied the communist manifesto.

Levi (25:33.666)
Karl Marx book club. Let's cut this one right now. Let's go make the Karl Marx book club.

Matt (25:38.414)
Sean, I'm giving you the points on this one, Sean, because, because Levi said devilish, and you didn't have a visceral reaction. Like you, said self-reliance is a satanic doctrine and you just took it. Like I was really proud of you.

Shawn (25:43.38)
Why?

Shawn (25:53.384)
Well, yeah, I'll give Levi the points for bringing up such an outside the box topic in such an interesting way. Yeah. Cause why

Matt (26:00.952)
That's a backhanded compliment. Levi's points are just because he brings up a topic. It's not the essence of his argument or what he said.

Shawn (26:07.654)
I just said it, he brought it up in such an out of the box, interesting way. Don't pretend like you understand what a non backhanded compliment is. Cause you don't.

Levi (26:12.866)
I liked it. I'll take your compliment,

Matt (26:16.672)
Okay, alright Sean you're up next.

Shawn (26:19.7)
Okay. So, okay. I'm just going read it and then I'll comment. So a recent report from Gallup and JP Morgan examines how capital impacts entrepreneurship in America with 45%, 45 % of business owners in this Gallup poll. They cite lack of capital as their main barrier to starting a business. Only 10 % of existing owners sought capital in 2023. The study finds that the Gallup poll study finds that

that poor credit history correlates with poor business performance and government or nonprofit support predicts revenue growth. Though black and Hispanic owners report greater difficulty obtaining loans than white owners, these disparities largely stem from credit worthiness differences rather than lending bias. So the findings, which I'm not sure that's any, that's not the same thing as it. So the findings suggest successful entrepreneurship may depend more on maintaining good credit.

Is that? Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of the essence of

Matt (27:22.828)
Yeah, yeah, if you have good credit, then you have access to capital, right?

Shawn (27:27.416)
I mean that's what this Gallup poll study finds. slash, really?

Matt (27:30.338)
Yeah.

Shawn (27:35.878)
and JP Morgan. Okay. So the findings suggest that and utilizing support systems than an accessing external capital. So we often focus on government's role in taxes or regulations and promoting or hindering economic growth in the U S should we place a greater emphasis on how to maintain a good credit score? Like what could society do to help people manage their, their money better?

Matt (27:37.389)
Yeah.

Matt (27:54.476)
Yes.

Matt (27:59.072)
You go ahead and comment, Sean, you wanted to comment.

Shawn (28:01.682)
Well, I just wanted a little credit that over the years I have ranted and raved about the non-credibility of Gallup polls. And look, Matt, every question I ask includes a Gallup poll.

Matt (28:09.646)
I know I do it on purpose Sean because I know you hate I like that when you ask a question you like rant and rave about how gallants no good Sean I love that you cite organizations that you hate I think that's a really admirable trait

Levi (28:12.278)
Well done.

Shawn (28:14.919)
I know.

Shawn (28:18.844)
I know. just know I don't reveal that you put this question together. It's my question. Praise me for listening to you.

Shawn (28:29.076)
Good. Thank you. All right. So the question, yeah. What can society do to help people manage their money better? And should the should we as a society focus on credit score? That's the question, right?

Matt (28:41.602)
So Sean, you're the business owner among us. This is why I wanted you to ask this question, because I want to ask you this question. Is being a successful business owner more about knowing how to manage money in the business or something else, something the government or a nonprofit could do to help you out?

Shawn (28:58.996)
has nothing to do with the government or the nonprofit. It has nothing to do with outside sources like that.

Matt (29:01.742)
Well, well you say getting rid of regulation is like a helpful thing, right? So sometimes you say getting rid of regulation is going to help businesses or sometimes you say like all of these forms I have to fill out. Do you?

Shawn (29:05.972)
Sure.

Shawn (29:10.824)
Less regulation. Just less regulation. Less barriers to allowing me to do what I want, yeah.

Matt (29:17.294)
So if you had to choose, Sean, you can only give a new small business owner one thing. You can give them no regulations at all, or you can teach them how to manage money so that they understand cashflow and all of that stuff. Which do you think would be more important to being a successful business owner?

Shawn (29:34.1)
Sure, managing money and cash flow, sure. Teaching them about credit and money, sure, absolutely. I'd go for that. Yeah, of course, yes. Yeah, but I mean, that doesn't give a green light to pile on regulations, crippling regulations that don't, like, I got a million, man, I live in California. Okay, all right.

Matt (29:38.541)
You think it's not?

Levi (29:50.228)
no, you said it. We're taking it. Crippling regulations. Sean, come out in favor of crippling regulations.

Matt (29:52.174)
Right. We forced it like we forced the dichotomous choice on you, Sean. So now you have to stick with the thing that we. Well, so then this is the question that I have, Sean. If it really is about managing money, then why do we waste time in school teaching about things or why do we not teach that starting in elementary school, starting in middle school? Like, why do we have no curriculum? Why do we leave that up to just

Shawn (29:58.802)
hahahaha

Matt (30:20.362)
I hope your parents teach you how to manage money. If small business is the engine that makes American society work, and small business is the freedom from the shackles of government and all the things that small business is supposed to do, and that's the key to having a successful small business, why is that not of greater focus in society?

Shawn (30:32.893)
market.

Shawn (30:37.204)
You're not gonna like-

You're gonna hate my answer. I don't think I should give it.

Matt (30:43.702)
No, I want to hear what you have to say.

Shawn (30:45.588)
Man, because many, teachers who are great at teaching or great at the theory have never actually applied the theory. So to teach someone about this complicated concept of money and finance, a 29-year-old teacher, they don't know about money and finance. So they can't teach the principles of money and finance and credit. They've never done it. They will never do it. I'm sorry.

Matt (31:10.122)
Okay, but there are rich small business owners. They're not gonna, why don't they like volunteer their time or develop a career? Like if a teacher just needs to know what to teach, they could write textbooks and you can make lots of money writing textbooks, teaching those principles that are applied and then you sell them to all the school districts in America or whatever.

Shawn (31:29.46)
I don't think a textbook ever taught anyone anything. Textbook doesn't teach crap. So if I don't pursue it myself and learn it myself, or if I don't have a magnificent teacher who understands principles and concepts in a way that can change someone's life, which I don't know, my anecdotal experience has been 10 % of the teachers in my world were able to do that. So the 90%, they're just, it's their job, they're doing as best they can, but they don't understand the money and the finance and the credit. They've never lived it. So they can't teach me these principles.

Matt (31:59.17)
But like if we take the periodic table of the elements, right? Or I remember in seventh grade I had to dissect a frog or I remember I had to make a little diorama of a cell. Like most Americans don't need that, right? But they do need to know how to manage their money. Like, so I think what's interesting about this study, Sean, is it shows that black and Hispanic business owners have a hard time getting access to credit and it's not racism that's causing that.

is that they have lower credit scores, which suggests that people in those communities aren't being taught what a credit score is, how to protect your credit score. They're maybe not being taught save your money or don't take too much debt. seems like there are these principles that I just knew and then I went into banking and I learned them really well. To me, this stuff is just common sense, but if it's not common sense for the most of Americans, shouldn't we be doing something to figure out a way to teach that?

so we can help overcome some of these gaps.

Shawn (32:56.852)
I mean, I'd much rather have competent teachers teaching about these things as opposed to certain sports or yeah, half the classes. Like for example, Matt, this has been a miserable semester for my son who just took an AP capstone class. But I'm telling you Matt, so would you be willing to give up your AP class, the teacher's research projects in exchange for a really well done money, finance, credit class?

Matt (33:10.986)
yeah, I'm so jealous of him. That's so fun. He learned how to do a research project.

Matt (33:24.418)
Yes, 100%. So for political science students, if you want a political science degree, you're to have to take that class in college. But in high school, listen, I don't know why we're offering AP classes and college credit classes and all that stuff in high school. I think that that does a huge disservice to all of those students in high school. I think that they'd be way better off having high school focused on preparation for life and then college as preparation for specific

Shawn (33:25.951)
there you go. Then I'm with you.

Matt (33:52.174)
kinds of careers or certain sorts of things you want to do after that, but you should finish high school with all the skills you need to be successful in life. And that doesn't necessarily mean an associate's degree at the local community college.

Shawn (34:03.444)
You're getting no argument for me, Matt. I'm with you 100 % of the way. Levi, do you disagree or agree?

Levi (34:09.154)
No, yeah more financial literacy in high school 100 % I'm totally with you. I do think that there's like I Don't like credit scores. I think they're I think that's I Mean, I think that they're institutionally racist right we can talk about that but but

Shawn (34:24.276)
Knew it Matt Levi have a dollar bill here with your name on it cuz I knew you're gonna call it racism and it may be and it may be For sure

Matt (34:25.592)
Well

Matt (34:29.39)
But the evidence does suggest that, right? The evidence does show that black and Hispanic business owners have worse credit scores, and that's why they're not able to get access to capital.

Levi (34:29.785)
yeah!

Levi (34:41.163)
And I think it's a good question that listeners should write into us about why do black and Hispanic business owners have lower credit scores?

Shawn (34:49.172)
And there's gotta be one of the answers. It's not the only answer. One of the answers is that, yeah, there is racism and people judge and...

Matt (34:57.368)
Wait, now you gotta tell me Levi, how's that institutional racism? So the fact, cause you can't just say here's this outcome, therefore it's institutional racism, right? What about the institution of a credit score is racially biased?

Levi (35:11.394)
Yeah, well, so, so when this is a long way to answer this, when I went to college, my dad handed me a credit card and had my name on it. And I said, how'd you get this credit card? He says, you signed it one day and this is your credit card. It's got a low limit. He said, buy your books with this card and I'm going to pay off the balance. And I said, thanks dad for buying my books. You're terrific. But the other thing he was doing was he was building my credit, right? So he knew that that would get paid off every month, even if I was a numbskull.

Shawn (35:40.756)
What good day. What a good day.

Levi (35:40.803)
And so then I got out of you know, then when I finished right of my schooling I could get out and they said do you have a job and I said no I went to buy a house. Do you have a job? No, do you have any money? No, I mean I have this Subway club card. It's almost three-quarters full and they were like great. Congratulations You own a $300,000 house and and like but it was because you know First of all, it was because it was 2005 but second of all, was because I had some credit, right?

Shawn (36:01.96)
your credit.

Matt (36:02.232)
credit score.

Levi (36:08.106)
And so one thing that we're seeing is that when we use credit score as this measure of how good you are at managing your money, one of the things that it's not actually measuring that, it's measuring, did you have a dad who paid off your credit card for the first two years of your college career, right? well, because, yeah.

Shawn (36:28.18)
But why is that into institutional racism? I don't understand the tie.

Matt (36:31.158)
Because there are going to be poor white people Levi that have that same disadvantage.

Levi (36:35.532)
Right, right. But when you start out with this disparity, you start out with, you know, people who are Black and Hispanic are more likely to be poor than white people. And then you kind of reward people who have rich parents, you end up with a racial disparity in the next generation and then the next generation and the next generation.

Matt (36:53.378)
But all of the poor white people who grew up with financially illiterate white parents are going to say, that's not racism. That's like, I didn't have parents that were financially literate.

Levi (37:04.288)
Yeah, and then you have things like you have a feedback loop, right? So now you see, you know, in our society, we look around and we see, you know, all of the really wealthy people that I see are white. White people must be really good at managing their money, right? And so then somebody comes in and says, I'd like you to invest in my business. And they're a white person. And we say, yeah, you seem like somebody that's trustworthy with my money.

Or then somebody comes in and they speak Spanish as their first language, or they use the word acts instead of ask. And then we say, there's something just doesn't feel really trustworthy about that because it gets reinforced by our experiences in society. We do see these patterns and we sort of adopt them in racist ways.

Matt (37:53.944)
So yeah, so I think then whether or not it's institutional racism, but I appreciate you explaining that point. I do think that it is true that if you have parents that understand the credit system, you're gonna benefit from that differentially, right? When I first went to college as an 18 year old and they offered me a student credit card, my mom said, that and always buy your gas on that credit card and pay it off at the end of each month. And then after my mission, I had money saved to buy a car and she said, don't pay for it in cash.

Levi (38:17.077)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (38:22.242)
get us an auto loan and pay off the balance with the cash that you say, she's like, you're going to pay interest on it, but the it's worth it to build your credit score. So that by the time I was finishing college, I could buy a condo, right? My wife was still in, we could buy a condo and pay lower rent, owning a condo in college than we could renting at the rent prices. So there is, so that's the thing. Can't we just teach that to people Levi? Can't we just teach everybody that?

Levi (38:31.34)
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Matt (38:49.708)
And then we won't have to worry about as their institutional racism. We'd say everybody gets that same head start.

Shawn (38:54.578)
Right, because Levi, I didn't have the privileges that you two had. I didn't have parents that taught me those things. And I either had to seek them out to learn them myself, or I had to learn the hard way, or I had to get lucky. There are all kinds of other things. I would have loved for someone to teach me those things early on. I would have benefited, just like you two benefited, right?

Levi (38:55.329)
Yeah.

Matt (39:01.208)
Yeah.

Levi (39:13.783)
Yeah.

Matt (39:14.742)
And even even knowing what debt goes on the credit report and what debt doesn't right? If you have if you bills that are really you can't afford to pay both of them. I have to choose Do I pay my mortgage rent? Or do I pay this credit card bill? Or do I pay hospital doctors bill right? Just knowing which one I should prioritize that alone has a huge effect on your credit score that most or should I pay my phone bill right? People don't even know like how much it matters which one you pay.

Levi (39:20.674)
Mm-hmm.

Levi (39:29.91)
Right.

Shawn (39:40.616)
Matt.

Shawn (39:44.18)
But my real answer to this question that's really your question, not my question, is we have to teach kids and people how to be hungry to seek after their own knowledge. We live in a world today where every answer is a click away. Every answer is on the internet. It's in AI. I don't need an institution. I don't need a government. I don't need a school. I don't even need a teacher. What we need to help kids have is a hunger, a thirsting for learning. They need to learn it themselves, want to know and learn it themselves.

Levi (39:48.406)
What?

Matt (40:10.498)
No, you're wrong about that Sean. People need, you need a starting point. You need a baseline level of knowledge to know where to go. I flunked high school biology. I flunked college biology. And there's no amount of like YouTube videos that are gonna make me good at biology. If I wanna learn biology, I'm gonna have to go sit in a classroom and learn biology.

Shawn (40:12.914)
Yeah, we absolutely do.

Shawn (40:33.415)
So that's, you were right up until the, had to. Yeah. If you want to learn biology today in today's world, you just have to have the hunger to learn biology. You don't need to sit in a classroom. No, you can't know if you're a true seeker of like, you're, if you're going to really approach it in a way that you want to learn the truth, you're going to learn the truth. can find that outside of a classroom. Don't rely on government.

Matt (40:36.865)
You have to.

Matt (40:43.596)
You're going to get bad information. You'll get bad information.

Levi (40:57.154)
think there's something to be said for credentials though, right? That you can learn good and bad biology. And I think it's kind of nice to have somebody who's credentialed that says, yeah, I'm going to teach you real biology and not flat earth or biology.

Shawn (41:11.314)
It's a great option. It's a great option. Levi, it's a great option. But if I don't have the desire to learn biology, I don't care how many credentials you've got. I'm not going to learn biology or credit card strategy. We have to teach kids to want to know these things.

Matt (41:23.544)
That's true. Yeah, that's Okay, next topic. Some argue that the new Mineral Agreement signed between the US and Ukraine represents a strategic victory for Ukraine, significantly improving upon an earlier exploitative proposal. Under these terms, Ukraine maintains constitutional ownership of its resources while gaining American investment through a jointly governed reconstruction fund.

that includes no retroactive debt obligations for previous military aid. This equal partnership requires no disruptive legal changes that might impede European integration. It signals continued American commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty, promises economic modernization through technology transfers, and blocks resource access by Russia and its allies by stipulating that entities who have acted adversely towards Ukraine must not benefit from its reconstruction. So my question is, was I wrong?

When I concluded that Trump is abandoning Ukraine, will this agreement lead to greater support for Ukraine from the United States in the future?

Shawn (42:26.584)
I think you were wrong, but credit not to Trump credit to Zelensky for being able to recognize that my, what I have in president Trump is a pure, almost over the top capitalist. So what if I, if I can tie my country economically to the United States, I've got a partner that's going to help me win this war potentially. So credit to Zelensky for understanding that and negotiating what seems like a pretty good deal and earning a partnership with.

the country that can support him, not the president, but the country that can support him. I don't know that you were wrong. mean, this could have got, this was a 50 50 chance that this could have gone well, right? And it was really all on Zelinsky for agreeing to be a part of this minerals deal. Trump wanted it for selfish reasons. But I mean, don't you think Matt, that's the real benefit.

Matt (43:12.046)
But do you think that now Trump is going to support Ukraine in these negotiations?

Shawn (43:16.296)
Yeah, he's got an economic partner in Ukraine that can benefit America and he ran on everything I do is for the American people and now these minerals are going to help America. So I think he will. Don't you?

Matt (43:27.916)
I'm gonna let Levi go before me.

Levi (43:29.854)
Well, I wanted to say, Matt, you you were wrong when you wrote this question. Like, look at this thing about branding here. Matt's question says it signals continued American commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty promises economic. You just lost our audience. Mine started. Self-reliance is satanic doctrine. That's branding, you guys. Like, come on, let's write some questions with some punch. Yeah. OK, but but to the to the.

Matt (43:46.242)
Laughter

Okay, all right, I like that.

Shawn (43:51.187)
Very good Levi.

Levi (43:59.235)
Yeah, so the question at hand, I think Trump does get credit here. I think we should be saying, Mr. Trump, you did it. Good job. That was well done. And I know that it's probably more Zelinsky than Trump, but I'm like, look, when people do the right thing, I'm going to give them props. Props to Trump. Good job for signing a deal that's good for Ukraine. It was the right thing to do, and you did it.

You hardly ever do it, but you did it this time. Maybe I'll leave that middle part out. I'll just say, you did it. Good job, you did it.

Shawn (44:29.822)
Yeah.

Matt (44:30.639)
Yeah

I like this deal. When they were negotiating the deal, there were things I liked, things I didn't like. I like what they ended up with. I don't know that this actually means that Trump is going to be more supportive of Ukraine. I just don't. Trump has, I read today on the news, there's a daily briefing that the Central Intelligence Agency gives the president every single day. And in his first 112 days in office, Trump has attended a grand total of 12 of those briefings. So I just don't think that Trump

pays attention to the global stage. I don't think he's aware of what's actually happening in the world. And so I'm not confident that Putin won't be, I think Putin can look at this and say, Zelensky played Trump, I can play him as well. And so I'm not confident that Trump will actually follow through on the terms of this agreement. I'm glad that there's an agreement. I wish we would have just followed our 1991 treaty with Ukraine and not even worried about this. So I don't.

Shawn (45:28.126)
Yeah.

Levi (45:29.9)
But don't you think it's an indication that Trump isn't paying attention and isn't gonna pay attention and cooler heads who know what they're talking about are running this show? Don't you think that's maybe a good sign that we had enough deep state, in fact, to make this deal happen?

Matt (45:45.422)
If that's the case, I'm happy. If that's the case, I'm optimistic.

Shawn (45:51.316)
I mean, someone had, I mean, it does seem like a very Trump kind of thing to view the world as purely a pure capitalist. This is a very capitalist relationship with the country, right? If he didn't see how can I receive productivity from another country, then I'm not going to deal with them. And I don't care the outcome. Like if he saw a greater economic value in Russia and would have put a deal together with them, I can see this knucklehead Trump doing something like that. So this idea had to originate, I think from, it's a very Trump.

Matt (46:01.706)
Yeah.

Shawn (46:20.894)
kind of approach to the world.

Matt (46:22.466)
I'm really optimistic about what it means for post-war Ukraine. We've all been there and we've all been there I think since our missions. There's a lot of infrastructure that needs developing in Ukraine. There's a lot of modernization that needs to happen. I don't think any of the presidents prior to Zelensky would have had the political capital to do it. I think that they might now and if the United States is interested in helping build infrastructure to mine precious metals,

Shawn (46:26.259)
Yeah.

Matt (46:48.482)
then there's going to be other elements of rebuilding Ukraine that we can be a part of, which makes me really excited. I would love to see that happen.

Shawn (46:54.548)
If this does go the way that you just predicted and if Ukraine becomes a economic partner to the US and that relationship flourishes and that rebuilding is going to be in the United States interest, this is the best, like this is Trump's legacy in our minds, right? He's a great, great president for having done that.

Matt (47:09.068)
Yeah, I would love it. I'm not going to go that far, but that would be a great, thing.

Levi (47:14.754)
And I also like that it involves no debt obligation on the part of Ukraine because the United States has done this to other countries before, right? Where we came in, we said, hey, yeah, you know, we'll totally help you develop your mineral and other resources, and then we'll saddle you with tremendous debt. All through Africa, this story is told, not just by the United States, but by many countries that walked in and said, you owe us a lot of debt. And even after the leaders that signed those deals were deposed, we continue to collect debt on third world countries. And I love...

Matt (47:19.746)
Yes.

Levi (47:44.78)
that here we've decided something very different. We've said, don't have the obligation to pay it back. We're partners. We're truly partners. I love it.

Matt (47:54.026)
Okay, I'm going to try and make this question.

Shawn (47:54.772)
Very nice.

Levi (47:56.674)
Props to Trump, Trump gets points on that one.

Shawn (47:59.58)
You

Matt (48:01.26)
man, how do you do that Levi? How can you say stuff like that and not hurt a little bit on the, on the inside when you say things like that? Okay. Well on the big question, I'm going to learn from Levi's, statement on the last one. I'll try and make this more engaging. This question. Yeah. So I was, I reread the conference talks conference, general conference talks after general conference. I was reading this one from sister, right? I really enjoy her.

Levi (48:08.694)
People do the right thing, you tell them they did the right thing.

Levi (48:19.436)
Punching, do it.

Shawn (48:26.388)
bad start already.

Matt (48:29.922)
general conference talks generally. Okay, so she's telling this story about her son who's always wanted to go to law school and he's interviewing for law school and they ask him this question. They're like, who do you admire most? Or like, where do you get your moral philosophy or your moral guidance? And he decides, I'm gonna just be honest. And I'm gonna tell him Jesus Christ is my moral leader. And he talks about the Sermon on the Mount. And he calls his mom after the interview and he's like,

I tanked it, know, secular academia is never going to give a scholarship. They're never going to admit me into their law school because I'm a religious person and I said Jesus and they're going to hate me. And then he finds out that he got a scholarship to the school. He got into the school. And then when his mom's out there dropping him off at law school, she notices that on that campus, they have the sermon on the mount quotes from the sermon on the mount as part of their instruction that they give to students as part of the moral foundation of their university.

I think that this is a story that's repeated over and over in the lives of members of our church. The members of our church think that academia is a secular place that hates religious people and that if you express a pro-Jesus or pro-Christian or pro-religion view, that academia is just going to come after you because they're secular atheists who hate religion. But I actually think that their experience once they get to this secular academic world is that they're much more friendly to religion.

and expressions of faith, then they would otherwise think. I remember when I first went to graduate school at a secular school, I thought I'm going to have to hide who I am because I have advisors that are atheists. I have advisors that mock the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible in class. But I found that I could actually say what I thought in a respectful way and nobody hated me for it and nobody came after me. So the question I have is

Is this really what members of the church think? That's the first question. And do you think that everybody else would find out the same thing I found that this assumption is correct? Like, do members really think this about academia? And if they were to go to academia, would they find out they were wrong?

Shawn (50:36.724)
think statistically you're probably wrong because just quick stats show that LDS members are above average when it comes to higher education. 34 % of all members of the church have higher, have high, have degrees, college degrees. That's, that's above the national average. That's like 20, it's like 22 % everywhere.

Matt (50:50.945)
Yeah.

Yeah, but the whole lot of them go to church schools though, right? So some of them never experienced secular academia.

Shawn (51:01.586)
the question is specifically about secular academia. Is that right?

Matt (51:03.564)
Yeah, secular. I think a lot of members of the church say, I'm going to send my kid to BYU because I don't want them to get indoctrinated with all this secularism and atheism and all that stuff. And I don't want them to be hated by all of those self-righteous atheists.

Shawn (51:13.988)
I see.

Shawn (51:18.514)
I mean, I don't hear very many stories. This is anecdotal. I don't have any stories of kids going to BYU and falling away, but I hear a lot of stories about going to the U of U. Is that the one in Salt Lake? I'm just anecdotally, I just hear a lot of those stories. I'm not concluding anything. Why don't I hear any stories about it happening at BYU? Why do I hear it all the time at U of U?

Matt (51:26.734)
See? You see? You see? That's my point.

Matt (51:39.134)
Right. So is that your perception, Sean? Do you think that if you were to show up in like a graduate school or you were doing some kind of an interview and you were to be unabashedly faithful about what you believe that they would ridicule you or deny you a scholarship or say you don't belong here.

Shawn (51:55.688)
sure that's gonna happen sometimes. I don't think it's gonna happen all the time. No way. No way. It's not a I don't think there's any consistency in it. It just depends on who you're dealing with. It's gonna happen in the workplace. It's gonna happen at a university. No more or less though in in higher education. I don't I don't know. I guess that would go against a lot of what a lot of people think. A lot of people do think it's so secular and so anti-religion. That's what you're getting at right? That's the cliche.

Matt (51:59.682)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (52:21.486)
That's my question, because I live in the world of academia, so I don't know what people think. So is it true that members of the church think that about academia?

Shawn (52:29.5)
I don't think I've met a lot of people again, anecdotally who really think that. No, I don't think so.

Levi (52:35.114)
Matt, what do you think if you had a, I mean, do you ever deal with graduate school admissions or things like that? If somebody came and they were leaning into religion, is that going to be a negative in the admission discussions?

Shawn (52:49.586)
or even an atheist. Let's go against it,

Matt (52:49.601)
No.

Both of those would be illegal, right? You could never have that conversation in an admissions process. You can't discriminate on the basis of religion.

Levi (52:55.52)
Mm-hmm. Right, right.

Shawn (52:57.78)
No, but you can, you can just as long as it's not put out there, right?

Matt (53:03.628)
You can't officially. What my experience in higher ed is that higher ed is excited to have anybody right? Most of most colleges, they'll take anybody who will come. Part in part, they'll take international students from all over the place because international students will pay out of state tuition and so they get more money for international students. So my experience is that. There is an economic component now. Now let's say if you're going to talk about those elite schools.

Levi (53:03.778)
So you don't say it.

Shawn (53:13.652)
Because it's because it's a business. It's all about money.

Shawn (53:25.512)
That's right. Free market. Free market. See?

Matt (53:33.09)
where everybody applying has perfect GRE scores, LSAT scores, perfect GPA, what are they gonna discriminate on? They're gonna want diversity. Kim Clark was the Dean of Harvard Business School. And he was president here, so we had a conversation about this one time, and he was like, when I was Dean of Harvard Business School, all I wanted was diversity of thought, because you grow intellectually as an institution with the more diversity you get.

So we limited, we only allowed a certain percentage of students that had a business background. And so if you had an English background, you actually had a better chance of getting into Harvard MBA school, because we wanted that English perspective. And my experience is they do the same with race and with gender and with religion. And so in many ways, if you're a rural white person who's like evangelical Christian or like diehard Christian, sometimes you get a leg up in admissions in those places.

because those students don't often want to go to the elite schools. So I've actually seen the opposite. And to those statistics, Sean, like, members of our church were overrepresented in higher education. And I think in large part it's because we are benefited by, we stick to our beliefs and we have these values and these perspectives that aren't mainstream and that don't go with what everybody else thinks.

Shawn (54:49.47)
Hmm interesting

Levi (54:51.286)
I've found the same in my journey through academia. I also found people to be very respectful of the ways that I thought. Interested, right? I had a lot of really great conversations with my colleagues who weren't religious, but I never felt any negativity.

Shawn (55:12.02)
I think that's such an optimistic view and I would believe both of you. I really do. And I hate that the media shows the really extreme cases that would go against what you're saying. Like go to MSNBC and it shows the extreme nut conservative craziness. Go to Fox News and it shows the extreme nut Antifa on campus craziness. But those are extremes. So I believe the two of you. I believe you more than those stupid media outlets.

Matt (55:41.408)
I don't understand, like, why would a media outlet want to make it seem like religious people are not welcome on higher education campuses? Like, why would, what does that benefit anybody to make it, make religious people feel unwelcome in higher ed? Why would you want to do that?

Shawn (55:56.582)
I honestly, Matt, I think this is the negative side of a free market. This is capitalism. Fox news knows that they have MSNBC knows they have a committed audience and they know exactly what they want. They have the data to know exactly what they'll click on, what they'll spend their time on. And it's stuff like this. Same with Fox news. They know if they show a college campus who is doing anti Jewish, you know, anti Semitic things, their people will click. They will. It's money.

talk it's the negative side of capitalism.

Levi (56:28.13)
Well, and I think that there's a concerted effort on behalf of the kind of ownership super rich class to disparage anything that would limit their power. So academia is a place where your money doesn't always buy you. mean, in a lot of ways it does. But academia is the thing that challenges the power of money and government is the thing that challenges the power of money. And I think that that's why you have.

concerted effort on on behalf of rich people to disparage those things disparage education disparage government To tear him down so people don't trust him

Shawn (57:01.556)
That's interesting. I gotta think about that more.

Matt (57:02.232)
Well, just, just, just an anecdotal personal story. So when I was in graduate school, one of my advisors and he was, he was like the most well-known, the most respected scholar, right? Like I needed a letter of recommendation from him. If I wanted to get a job when I was done with my PhD program and, he got cancer when I was a graduate student and he, came to me and he's like, I don't want it to be public. I don't want people to know, but I need you, I'm going to have chemotherapy and I need you to just teach my class for a time.

while I'm away. And so we had a conversation about like teaching his class and all this stuff. And he was a committed atheist. And I said to him, I made sure that he knew that he would be in my prayers. And then I put his name on the prayer roll at the temple. And he like does not love religion, right? He told, but he was so respectful and grateful. And he's like, I know that that means a lot to you. And so it means a lot to me that you would do that for me, even though don't think it's going to help. I appreciate the sentiment and

in all situations, that was my experience in higher education. Even now as a scholar, like everywhere I go as a scholar, I wear BYU with me. And so they all know my religious affiliation everywhere I go. They're always respectful of my beliefs. They might not like our policies on some things and they might want to have conversations about like how we could have more gay or transgender students at BYU Idaho. And I say, that's not gonna happen. But they're always respectful of my perspective and my beliefs.

So it's just so foreign to me when I hear stuff like that from in general conference, no less of like, how did he have the courage to share his faith in college? Like, of course you can do that. Like it's the safest place you could.

Levi (58:40.874)
I remember feeling that same way. Don't you remember coming out of BYU and thinking, like I remember I went to, you know, I to BYU and then I went to UC San Diego and thinking, I wonder if they're not gonna respect me because they know I'm religious. And I was nervous about it. Were you not nervous about it, Matt?

Matt (58:56.814)
I probably was. I probably was nervous.

Shawn (58:59.102)
But the two of you never experienced it, not even once.

Matt (59:01.716)
not exactly the opposite of it. I felt more freedom to express my religion at a secular institution than I did at BYU. Because at BYU, you have to say the right way. You have to think the right stuff. And if you have a if you have a different perspective on the church, then there's there's a lot of like people looking down or criticizing or being like, you must love Satan or whatever you must love. Yeah, we're a secular place. They don't care.

Shawn (59:14.836)
Yeah, well said.

Shawn (59:25.906)
Now, now, now, everything what you just said is the most fascinating thing I will be thinking of. hear what he said? Levi is more of a I'm on. it's true. That's true.

Levi (59:38.474)
I never hear of mads us.

Shawn (59:43.346)
nice. It is more it is. That is what he said. That's amazing. Yeah, you have to be you have to be more guarded at BYU about what you say religiously because of the strict doctrinal like almost dogmatism than you do at a secular school. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's fascinating.

Levi (59:47.327)
There's nobody said those.

Matt (59:52.216)
Pretty much, So if I'm being honest on...

Matt (01:00:10.604)
Was that not your experience Levi? Yeah. And if I'm being, if I'm being totally honest, I think that this perspective that's pervasive among members of our church, this fear that the out, that the secular world hates us is actually a tool that Satan uses to prevent us from being good missionaries because we have this perception that they're out there to get us somehow, that they're not going to respect us somehow, that they're not going to value us somehow.

Levi (01:00:12.599)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:00:14.6)
That is really fascinating, interesting.

Shawn (01:00:31.476)
Nice.

Matt (01:00:39.158)
And almost everybody when I say, was your personal experience with that? They didn't have that experience. They shared the gospel and it was welcome.

Shawn (01:00:43.986)
Matt, I honestly, the fringes who are obedient to MSNBC Fox News, those fringes are the only ones that think that. I think the rest of us who aren't loyal to those, I don't think we think that. I think we believe you. We believe you too, who has experience in this.

Matt (01:01:00.16)
Okay, well hey, thanks you guys for joining this week. It was a lot of fun. Listener, Levi gave you some homework, some things you have to write in about. I wasn't listening, but I'm sure you were. So text us and let us know what you think. We'll talk to you again next week.