Matt (00:01.09)
Hi everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. It is so good to have you with us this week. We're so glad to have you join us. Today it's Sean and myself, I'm Matt. We have no guests with us because Cinco de Mayo maybe? I don't know.

Shawn (00:16.384)
I think it's because you pick topics, so you're like, these are the hot topics that Sean and I need to debate.

Matt (00:22.414)
Yeah, it's probably that. Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes I like to just be Sean and I with no third guess. I love, love, love when Mark joins us on the podcast, but sometimes it takes me a little bit of unwinding to do after the fact. And I'm like, I need some time with just Sean and I to kind of like decompress. Cause I don't mind when people team up on me, that part's fine. But, and I enjoyed the podcast with, with Mark last week. It's just like,

Shawn (00:38.016)
Ha

Matt (00:51.596)
Sometimes it got a little heated, which was fine with me. I think that it's good for things to get heated, but sometimes it's nice to just be Sean and I heated in a different way.

Shawn (01:01.204)
Different heated, okay, I'll try and get heated differently.

Matt (01:04.11)
Now, I mean, you're fine, Sean. So speaking of which, like there was a lot of discussion about the racism stuff from last week. So one listener wrote in and said, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was racist. And then another listener wrote in and said, a policy which is racist in effect should be remedied. Intent is irrelevant. I wish we lived in a country capable of saying, shucks, we didn't know that was going to reduce your voting power.

We're sorry, let's fix that right away. So yeah, what I've decided is there are really strong divisions on whether the Voting Rights Act was racist and what racism means and try as we might to solve that. I don't think we changed any minds, Sean.

Shawn (01:48.504)
I don't think most people are thinking about it, but maybe our audience is. Maybe they think about it deeply and you're suggesting that no minds were changed. Do they either believe that or they don't? I don't think I remember where you landed. You said that they are.

Matt (01:54.988)
Yeah.

Matt (02:00.064)
I think so.

Matt (02:04.472)
Well, I remember you said, Sean, that when I say that a policy is racist, it cheapens the word racism. And I think that a lot of listeners are sort of on my side. It doesn't matter if the policy, if the intent behind it is, I hate racial minorities, so I'm gonna enact this policy. Or if we say, hey, this policy is creating racial division in society, therefore it's racist because of its effects. So I think that's where the divide comes down, right?

Shawn (02:09.941)
Yes.

Shawn (02:31.52)
It's a good point, our beloved friend from Oregon who made that comment. It's a great point. I'm listening to you, friend, and I'm considering that for sure.

Matt (02:34.69)
Hahaha

Matt (02:40.385)
Here's my thought experiment, Sean. What if we did this? So it just turns out that it was the 1824-ish presidential election. It was about the first 20 to 30 years of our country before anyone other than a white male landowner was allowed to vote in an election. 1824 is when you had white men

Shawn (02:58.526)
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (03:05.966)
whether they own land or not being allowed to vote. So what if we just did this experiment? For the next 30 years, white male landowners are not allowed to vote. And it's not about race and it's not about the intent of our hearts. It's just saying for the first 30 years, you guys were the only ones who could vote. So for the next 30 years, you're just gonna take a timeout and no white male landowners voting. And then we just see what happens in the country in those 30 years.

Shawn (03:35.744)
You're looking for me to approve that? You're needing me to approve that or veto it?

Matt (03:41.12)
I want to know what you think about that idea.

It wouldn't be a racist-

Shawn (03:45.702)
There's one thing, Matt, there's one thing that you said to me so often on our mission. I don't know why you said it to me all the time. There must be something in there. You would often say, Sean, two wrongs don't make a right.

Matt (03:57.167)
That's because you were trying to break the rules. Now this has nothing to do with- No, it's not about wrong, right? It's just about saying like, okay, let's say-

Shawn (04:01.216)
That was not.

Shawn (04:08.958)
Whoa, it is about wrong. Right. It definitely is because during those 30 years, it was absolutely unequivocally wrong that just because the culture of the day was, was the Southern States practice slavery doesn't mean that, yeah, we need to acquiesce to them and say, okay, then the only white people can vote. That's wrong. That's against our constitution. That's just wrong. It's, it's against everything. It was.

Matt (04:30.177)
Okay.

Well, it was in the constitution, but I agree. Yeah, the constitution was built around allowing slavery. Yeah. That's the declaration of independence. Yeah. Against our founding principles, we'll say. But, but it's, isn't it okay? if, if we say, you know what, is there anybody in U S history that will deny that white male landowners had an advantage for those first 30 years? They probably had an advantage, right? Okay.

Shawn (04:40.457)
All men are created equal.

Yes, OK.

Shawn (04:58.246)
They better not that that'd that'd be dishonest to deny that.

Matt (05:01.922)
So we're just gonna say for the next 30 years, that group is just at a disadvantage, just for 30 years. And then after that, we're not gonna like pay reparations, we're not gonna like go back and try and fix everything in the past. We're just gonna say that group that...

Shawn (05:15.616)
so you're pitching this to get rid of your guilt, your liberal white guilt.

Matt (05:20.534)
Not guilt, not any of that, right? But couldn't we just say, look, we haven't been able to come up with a good solution to like make things right. So for our solution is, it's like in hockey, right? If you're in hockey and you do something wrong, you just have to take a time out for a little while and then you can come back in.

Shawn (05:32.416)
Okay.

Shawn (05:36.116)
Question, question though. And I think, I think, I don't agree with Barack Obama's politics or his leadership skills, but I do think that he was such a beautiful and positive thing for our country because to have that man in the white house changed a lot culturally. And ever since that, I'd say the ratio of like when I, don't watch much TV, but when I do see a commercial, the ratio of minority to, you know, majority.

Matt (05:53.464)
Mhm.

Shawn (06:04.168)
representation is like 90 to one now. And I love that. I love it. I love it. I think it's so cool. Matt, how could you, because of all those strides, because of the, how can you possibly say that in 2026, that this isn't the greatest time that's ever existed for minorities? And I know my friend Levi would get really upset for me, but when has it been better? Tell me when has it been better for minorities to live in America? When has it ever been?

Matt (06:11.918)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (06:25.794)
Because it's not.

Matt (06:32.302)
2012 28 when Barack Obama was president would be better than right now.

Shawn (06:36.16)
What's the difference? Tell me one difference. Just one difference.

Matt (06:39.712)
Okay, have you seen that Alabama is now trying to redraw their districts to get rid of the black representation in Alabama and Louisiana's doing it and Tennessee's doing it? This all just happened in the last week. So if I'm an African, yeah, so if I'm an African American, no, this is not better for me than when Obama was president because now I live, if I live in those states, my representatives are trying to take away my representation.

Shawn (06:47.946)
Are we talking about? So you're bringing that back to our topic.

Yeah, I did read that.

Shawn (07:06.796)
But hang on, you're suggesting that this redistricting is something novel to 2026. Redistricting has existed forever. you don't think that's existed in the past?

Matt (07:15.158)
Redistricting based on race. Redistricting based on race.

In the past, they would create districts. It was called a majority minority district to ensure that there would be black representation in the South. Right? So now they're going to divide up all of those, especially with geographic information systems. Now, let's say that the city of New Orleans has like a whole bunch of like black people living right in the middle of the city of New Orleans. You can draw up your congressional districts in such a way.

Shawn (07:49.322)
Yeah, they got it.

Matt (07:49.475)
that all of those black people get split up into a different district where they're the minority in all of those districts. That was illegal. Yeah.

Shawn (07:56.0)
Okay, and your suggest, yeah. And because of the ruling, you're saying that there's more leniency for them to actually go back to how they used to do it, which is to do that.

Matt (08:05.506)
What I'm saying is that Alabama is now trying to do that. Tennessee is now trying to do that and Louisiana is trying to do that. So it would be, it would have been so for during Obama was better for them because they.

Shawn (08:11.146)
So you're saying on the high.

So you're saying on the heart, on the hierarchy of, mean, I would wrap the last 20, 20 years to, know, has it ever been better in the last 20 years than in the last 20 years for minorities in this, in this country? There's no way.

Matt (08:28.62)
It's worse under Trump than it was under Obama, by far. Unemployment for African Americans is twice as high as for white people right now.

Shawn (08:31.367)
Okay. All right.

Shawn (08:38.078)
But that wasn't different under Obama.

Matt (08:41.298)
I think the gap was smaller under Obama. And then if we go to Latinos, Latinos in America, it's much worse for them under Trump because there are Latinos that are getting detained by ICE who are citizens, legal citizens in the United States. Now they have to worry that if they don't bring their passport with them everywhere they go, they could get arrested and put in a detention center. That didn't happen under Obama.

Shawn (08:44.104)
We'll get the

Shawn (08:51.188)
How so?

Shawn (09:08.544)
What do mean Obama? What do you mean it didn't happen under Obama? He deported more than Trump did.

Matt (09:14.392)
Deporting is not the same as an, detention in an ICE detention center, the alligator Alcatraz and all of that stuff that they're doing. That didn't happen under Obama.

Shawn (09:20.608)
Which is so you're saying Obama takes a Latino man and exports him Trump takes a Latino man and puts him into an ICE detention center and you're like, there's such a difference. There's such a

Matt (09:33.795)
Yeah, because Obama wasn't targeting Latinos. Obama was targeting people who are not citizens, undocumented immigrants. So there would be hearings, right? When you come to the United States undocumented, there's a hearing. When you come across the border, there you have to set up a date for a hearing and all of that stuff. So yeah, Obama's deporting them, but Trump is detaining them without having them go through the legal process. So Trump's not deporting them. He's detaining them and he detains lawful U.S. citizens.

Shawn (09:41.248)
Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Matt (10:03.222)
And how do they decide who's a lawful US citizen and who's not? Because you have to have probable cause. They use race to decide, look, this person's Latino. He's probably an undocumented immigrant. Let's go after them.

Shawn (10:14.494)
Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a, a talking point. don't know that there's a ton of evidence behind that. You'd have to show me the evidence. I'll believe it. Listen, I'm not saying I deny it. I just want to see evidence of that because that is, that is a talking point I hear like on MSNBC, but

Matt (10:20.3)
You haven't seen- You haven't seen-

Matt (10:29.11)
I turn on the, watch, I told you, I get my news from Inside Edition and it's regular. Like Inside Edition gives me like the pop culture news. Cause the news news sometimes is too angry. Inside Edition tells me like, they're like, look, here's Britney Spears and her DUI or whatever she's going through. They always end with some like thing from a TikTok that's going viral. There's always stories about people and their pets, but at least twice a week there's a story of here's a US citizen.

Shawn (10:33.78)
What?

Matt (10:58.978)
being detained and dragged out of their home and put into a detention center. So this isn't like left wing crazy stories. These are like, I just see it on the news that Latino.

Shawn (11:08.756)
Where's your credit? Tell everyone again what your news source is. Okay.

Matt (11:12.064)
Latino USA Inside Edition. And by the way, you should all watch it. It's so good. It's it's wonderful news and it's, and by, I also like to have something called morningsave.com once a week. They come on, they show you the deals that you can buy on morningsave.com. It's really happy. Just if you want to know like what is news for non-political people inside edition, it just tells you what's going on in the world today.

Shawn (11:21.321)
Yeah, has.

Matt (11:38.777)
They'll lead with a big story, right? Like that's like when the U S invades Iran, then you'd hear about that. But when they like drop bombs, anyhow, it's not crazy left-wing stuff. There are, are Sean hundreds of U S citizens who have been pulled out of their homes without a search warrant, without anything and put into detention centers when they've done nothing wrong. Yeah. Hundreds. Yeah.

Shawn (11:47.168)
I've got-

Shawn (11:58.26)
That's wrong. Listen, you say hundreds. That's wrong. There should be reparations. There should be litigation. should, there absolutely should be, yeah, that's wrong. Hundreds. But the general, the general quality of life for minorities in America today is so much better than has ever, ever, ever been in my opinion. Well, I've got Obama's stats right here. They rival Trump's. Like we're talking.

Matt (12:18.669)
is

No, it was better in Obama's years.

Okay. Yeah. Okay, so.

Shawn (12:28.0)
At one point, Matt, 83%, 83 % in 2013 of anyone who crossed the border was immediately detained and deported. And guess what percentage of those people were Latino.

Matt (12:37.004)
Okay? Okay.

Okay. I don't know because there's more borders than the Southern border. have no problem with deportations. That's not what I'm upset about. I'm upset about

Shawn (12:47.476)
Well, that doesn't make for quality of life for people who are in America very high if they're being deported.

Matt (12:53.846)
I'm talking about people who are US citizens or here lawfully on green cards. Trump is not, I'm not talking about what's happening at the border. I'm talking about what's happening in the United States. So if I'm a Latino in the United States, I have to be more afraid that an ICE person is going to come and arrest me without a warrant and put me in a detention center. that didn't, Obama never did that. Obama never went to people's homes.

Shawn (12:58.451)
I am too.

Shawn (13:14.344)
It's not very different from under Obama.

Shawn (13:19.509)
you-

Matt (13:21.996)
and took them out of their homes and put them in a detention center.

Shawn (13:24.992)
I'll look into that, I don't know if that's true or not.

Matt (13:27.628)
Yeah, it's true, Sean. That's the difference. it's, but yeah, this wasn't part of the, we didn't prepare this topic. So I'm coming at Sean with like all of this ammo and he's like, I'm not ready for this. We're talking about different things today. So I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to make it be like that, but you just asked me a question. I was like, I'll tell you a better time. 2019 would be a better time. Yeah. All right. All right. Let's talk about shoplifting, Sean.

Shawn (13:30.409)
Okay, but...

Shawn (13:47.744)
Yeah, that's good. Okay, that's good.

Matt (13:55.939)
We've talked about crime on this podcast in the past. Mostly it was Sam telling me how out of control things are and Chicago is just a horrible place and stuff like that. New York City, yeah.

Shawn (13:56.062)
Okay, a lot, yeah.

Shawn (14:04.736)
Chicago, San Francisco, lots of places in California. Dude, in California, for a while there under Obama, like I lived here, man. I lived here. It was nuts.

Matt (14:16.142)
Do you know how I know that? I would see the footage on Inside Edition. They would show me on Inside Edition. Yeah, what I would see on Inside Edition is like there'd be like, let's say it's a jewelry store, right? There'd be like 12 cars pull up, four people jump out of all of those cars. They bang down, they've got sledgehammers and all that stuff. They bang down the windows and then they break up all the glass and they take everything and they drive off and they're all in masks and all.

Shawn (14:21.453)
hahahaha

Shawn (14:41.586)
Matt, I can't, I can't tell you how many times I had a friend who owned this big battery store. And he said multiple times, someone would walk in, would pile up this cart just with tons and tons of stuff. They would literally walk up to the front desk and say, I'm just taking this. You can call the cops if you want, but I'm, leaving. Cause they're like, it's, I've got the, the, the amount of, of, know, the value of what I'm taking is under the limit. That would get me in more trouble and it's just a misdemeanor. So see you later.

Matt (15:01.154)
Wow.

Shawn (15:11.455)
Anyway.

Matt (15:11.852)
I wish he would have recorded that and put it on inside edition, because then I would have known about it. Well, good news, Sean. Shoplifting is down in New York City, mainly because of stronger police action and better strategies. Police are using data to find high theft areas and sending more officers there, including subway stations where thieves often escape to. They're also asking stores to report all thefts, even the small ones, which helps police make more arrests. There are new laws.

Shawn (15:15.897)
hahahaha

Matt (15:40.463)
that allow repeat shoplifters to face more serious charges, which discourages crime. So in your example, Sean, if he had done that at that one person's store and then he did it to another store, what they do now is they add those totals up. And so those added together would be a felony, because you could charge for this store plus this store, and then it's not a misdemeanor, it's a felony. So that's what they're trying to do in New York. So these actions are helping reduce shoplifting in the city. But here's the question I wanna talk about.

People often talk about crime in terms of what strategies cities should employ to discourage crime. Is this focused on the wrong thing? Rather than thinking about catching the bad guys, wouldn't it be better to focus on teaching people that stealing is wrong?

Shawn (16:25.536)
So I think I can always tell what your answer is or your opinion is on these things, but anticipating what that might be, don't you've preached a lot that punishment is an effective tool or law and the punishment to breaking a law is an effective tool to try and teach people what is right and what is wrong. Have you not preached that a lot?

Matt (16:43.278)
I say that laws teach people what is right and what is wrong. And so the fact that we have laws that say stealing is wrong is an effective tool, right?

Shawn (16:55.016)
Yeah, but wouldn't the same apply to punishments, right? Like, what good is a law if there is no punishment for it? Clearly the people go, that's not a serious law. I can just break that law and there's no punishment. So they have to be related.

Matt (17:08.29)
Well, I don't know, like think about abortion, Sean. What's the punishment if I get an abortion against the law? They're not gonna put me in jail. They're not gonna give me the death penalty. There's no real punishment for that, right? But it still tells, it still says to people, you shouldn't do this because we're gonna make it hard for you to do it.

Shawn (17:14.782)
Nothing. No, Right. But that's but isn't.

Shawn (17:25.834)
But they don't. So in other words, I don't know where you're landing on this, but my suggestion is both have to be included. You have to teach people and you also have to have punishments enforced by law in order for society to understand what's wrong. Abortion's a good example, right? So many people don't believe it's wrong because there's no punishment involved, despite the law.

Matt (17:49.367)
I think it's argument, Sean. So would you say in the case of your friend's store with batteries, if they should lower the threshold to be a felony in that case, stealing gum is a felony. And so people wouldn't even steal gum. you made it right field, John, right? John Beljan goes to jail for all that time for stealing a loaf of bread. And then he's got to carry it with him for the rest of his life. Some people would say that's too harsh of a penalty for that, but

Shawn (18:03.188)
Dish. mean, what is the right pun?

Matt (18:18.102)
The harshness of that penalty would really tell people, don't you dare steal bread even if you're

Shawn (18:23.466)
Haha, you brought on Les Mis. Well done, Matt. That was good. I don't know what the threshold should be. I think the experiment for the last 10 years didn't work. I don't know, five years or whatever. It didn't work. In fact, to show a liberal state like New York reversing what they tried, that experiment, where they were very lenient on punishments, and now they're reversing it because it clearly didn't work. It didn't work in Washington, didn't work in Oregon, didn't work in California.

Matt (18:29.024)
Well, so this is...

Shawn (18:53.3)
There's just more and more more crime when you became more lenient, right?

Matt (18:59.854)
Yeah, I think so I'm coming down on the other side of this, Sean. I'm saying that I'm not saying we shouldn't enforce laws. I'm saying that it's impossible to create laws and enforce them in a way that will stop petty theft. You really can't like in order for a democracy, a free society to thrive, you have to count on people obeying laws that are unenforceable. They call it enforcing the unenforceable like

Shawn (19:03.612)
I thought so.

Matt (19:27.042)
The reason why, cause you tell me this about what John Adams said about how important religion is in American society. The reason for that is because if you want to take your approach, at some point you might have to become like Iran or China, where you monitor everything that everybody does because there's always, you can't punish enough to keep people in line. And to me, when I see a rise in crime, I don't think, you know what? They have bad policing strategies. the.

The city council must not care about crime. say we are failing that generation to the, where they think that that's an okay thing to do. When I see vandalism and broken windows and all of that stuff, I say, this is a community that's not teaching their people values and ethics and morals of why we don't do that in our community.

Shawn (20:03.998)
Okay, so then.

Shawn (20:15.05)
So then my follow up question to you would be, whose responsibility is to teach those things? Say it.

Matt (20:20.494)
Well, we have public education. We have public education.

Shawn (20:23.902)
You gave the wrong answer. You went straight to government is meant to teach us right and wrong.

Matt (20:29.824)
I think, yeah, I think that if we, one of the reasons we pay so many tax dollars for public education is that we need to have a system that instills morals in the next generation. Cause sometimes parents don't do it. Sometimes they don't. And if a kid's in a bad situation, they need to have other adults that they can look to that will teach them the proper moral behavior.

Shawn (20:44.702)
and some.

Shawn (20:52.298)
Here's my issue with that. The definition of proper moral behavior is on a spectrum when you live in a secular society. And so if you leave it up to the government or a government education system to teach it, that broad spectrum is going to not necessarily teach right and wrong, Matt. They're gonna teach things, what does the scripture say? They're gonna teach, they're gonna call that which is good evil, and they're gonna call that which is evil good. And that happens extremely often.

Matt (21:17.344)
If we're hiring teachers that don't know the difference of right and wrong, we need to fix that system. We need to hire teachers who know what right and wrong is. So for example,

Shawn (21:22.676)
Yes, we are.

Shawn (21:28.372)
But your standard of right and wrong in a secular society, your standard of right and wrong is very different than other people's. Yes, it is.

Matt (21:34.19)
No, most religions agree on the same basic stuff of what people should and shouldn't do, right? We should be honest. We shouldn't steal.

Shawn (21:41.672)
Yeah, you're okay. you're but you didn't but you didn't say that religion should be the source of our right and wrong. You're saying the government and the public education systems would be which is full of secularism. And so they're going to have a different standard for right.

Matt (21:55.307)
Secularism just says there should be a separation of church and state, but that doesn't mean that you can't have religious values and principles taught in school. I can learn, a Muslim can teach my kids the same values as a Christian can teach them, and it doesn't hurt them because then they see, look, it's not just my parents telling me this, but even somebody of a totally different faith believes that I should do this.

Shawn (22:17.703)
Okay, so then would you revise the answer to when I ask you, okay, where's the source? How do we teach our society right and wrong? Would you revise it to say a religious influenced public education system?

Matt (22:32.172)
Yeah, I'll say that. But religion, like not Christian, right? Religion broadly defined. Everybody gets to bring their religion with them to school and practice it and say it and be open about it however they want to be. So it's not saying the 10 commandments, right? Because the 10 commandments isn't necessarily enough, but it's saying.

Shawn (22:33.672)
Okay.

Shawn (22:49.567)
Okay, so what happens, so if the platform for teaching right and wrong is the public education system, government led, and you're saying it should be religiously influenced, what happens in that scenario when you have a difference of opinion on what is right and wrong based on its religion? How do you deal with that?

Matt (23:07.672)
That's like the foundation of society, right? You and I were talking just before the podcast about differences we have about theology. That's a healthy thing. So it's okay for people to bring their religion and say, we disagree about that. Because in the end, everybody agrees about the basic things. If you don't steal, you don't hurt people, you treat people fairly and equally. And if I have a teacher, let's say that I have a teacher who happens to be gay, right? And they start telling my kid about how gay is fine and all of that stuff. I say, I don't...

Shawn (23:20.712)
Okay.

Matt (23:37.358)
I don't want you to tell my kids that gay is fine. It's okay that they do that because they're teaching your child love and acceptance even as them just being who they are. So it's not about like the tenets of the faith. It's about people being open with who they are and their faith.

Shawn (23:43.355)
I agree. Okay. Okay. I

Shawn (23:52.051)
I agree with you. fact, I'll give you the points, but you have to admit in order to get the points that that is the opposite of what happens in the majority of public schools today. There is an backlash against religion. Okay, good. You get the points.

Matt (24:01.623)
Yes!

Matt (24:05.218)
Yeah, I agree with that. That's what I think is the problem. I think the solution to crime is fixing public education. Sure. Yes, religion. But we have to allow religion because there is like agnostic atheists. There is secular forms of religion, right? So I got to allow all religion.

Shawn (24:11.198)
by getting religion involved.

Shawn (24:21.226)
That's fine. I'm fine with that, but because the opposite is happening, which is you are not allowed to talk about your religious beliefs. It is taboo. It is frowned upon. is judged. So if you're saying, yeah, let's reverse that. Okay. Points to Matt points to Matt. That's good, Matt.

Matt (24:31.852)
Yeah, we need to fix that. We need to fix that. Yeah. And when, and when somebody goes to shoplift and they, but also don't you think coaches in sports could do a better job of it, of it too? Teaching good moral. Like my nephew, played tennis back in the day and his coach would be like, tennis is a gentleman's sport. Win or lose. You will always be a good sport. You're going to shake your opponent's hand. You're never going to say mean things to your opponent.

because tennis is a gentleman's game. And like this, my nephew had that instilled in his soul and I would talk trash and it'd say, hey, Matt, tennis is a gentleman's sport. We don't do that in this. I know hard to imagine, but I feel like, I feel like sometimes my kids coaches would take this other view of things and they also would be permissive of things that.

Shawn (25:11.04)
You, you, you would talk trash? I'm shocked, shocked.

Matt (25:25.762)
Like coaches are really important in teaching kids what's right and what's wrong. And sometimes we allow them to bring these other things in that are not good for society.

Shawn (25:36.064)
Yeah, I'd say it's 50-50 in my experience that 50 % of coaches and sports parents are teaching the wrong values and 50 % are doing what your friend did, which is teach the right values. So it's not a reliable, you can't mandate it and it's just not a reliable, you know, as parents, that's why Matt.

Matt (25:46.019)
Yeah.

Matt (25:52.952)
We can say we can say we're not hiring a coach. We're not hiring a coach who acts like that.

Shawn (25:57.217)
We've done that. Like we've absolutely done that in club ball. We've said this dude is not teaching our kids morals. We got him, we removed him or we walked away from that. So yeah, but, but notice who the one, the responsible team was to make that decision. It's the parents, it's the parents of the kids. That is the responsible party. And I agree with you that agency allows for parents to not do a good job at that, but backed by religion is the right way to go.

Matt (26:06.499)
Yeah.

Matt (26:20.792)
Yeah. Well.

Okay, well thanks for the points, Sean, I'll take him. Okay, next up, Charles Don Flores is a man on death row in Texas for a 1998 murder. He was convicted mainly because a witness identified him after undergoing hypnosis. Now his lawyers are asking the US Supreme Court to review the case because they believe the evidence was unreliable. Not Sean Penn, but Penn, Penn Gillette of Penn and Teller. He wrote an op-ed recently.

Shawn (26:27.284)
Yeah, f**k you.

Matt (26:54.584)
where he said hypnosis can easily mislead people and create false memories. He said, memory is not like a video recording in the brain, even though police acted that way, the police used to act as if it was. So he believes the officer used suggestive questions that could change what the witness actually remembered. He says, as a magician, he knows how easy it is to make people believe things that are not true. And because of this, he thinks that the evidence from the hypnosis is not trustworthy.

and that guy's conviction should be overturned. So here's the question. Should courts be able to undo the convictions of people who were convicted in the past based on evidence that that past method turned out to be unreliable? Because that was 30 years ago.

Shawn (27:40.737)
I mean, again, I'm always curious that you're contrarian opinions on these things, but I think the right answer is absolutely, 100%. See, I knew it. Why would you take the opposite stance? Matt, you have to consider the fact that you put too much trust with those in power. The scriptures, Deacron and Covenants warns us that it is the common experience in most people. When they receive a little bit of power, they start to exercise unrighteous dominion. The person who decided,

Matt (27:49.784)
What?

Shawn (28:10.676)
that they could put someone in a trance and get an honest piece of evidence out, that is wrong, dude. That is unrighteous dominion.

Matt (28:22.094)
The police did the wrong thing. I agree the police did the wrong thing.

Shawn (28:25.888)
So then it should be reversed. Then you agree with me. The police did the wrong thing. This poor guy is probably convicted wrongly. And you're like, sorry, buddy.

Matt (28:27.35)
No, that's what I don't agree with.

Matt (28:37.486)
Okay, so there's two issues there.

Shawn (28:38.718)
I trust our systems too much. I trust our systems. did. They're going to do the right thing. Screw you. Not in your case.

Matt (28:44.136)
No, no, no. There's two issues. The first is if the police do something bad, what is the appropriate remedy for their bad behavior? And I don't think that the appropriate remedy for their bad behavior is to say, that evidence can't be admitted in trial. I think I have a better way you solve that. If the police do something bad,

Shawn (29:05.236)
Let's hear it. I knew it. was a, I knew it. can always tell when you have a loaded question where you just want to teach us something, which is great. I want to learn.

Matt (29:11.274)
No, because I have a different answer to this question, but if the police do something bad and you get, so this, in this case, right, they so badly want to get a conviction and have this guy convicted of murder. And so we're going to hypnotize somebody and we're going to use that evidence to get him convicted of murder. If later on we decide the police shouldn't have done that, then the appropriate solution is the police get the punishment, the same as the defendant.

So that would really motivate police to not use stupid things to get people convicted. Cause they know if in 30 years, somebody decides I did something wrong, now I'm up for the death penalty because I used bad evidence to get. So that's what, in my opinion, that's the best solution. If a lawyer or a cop does something that violates your rights, then the penalty they get is whatever penalty that defendant got for that crime that they got convicted of. Because you can't, because what happens is,

Shawn (30:02.706)
What?

Matt (30:05.888)
If you have 12 people go into a jury room to decide and they're deciding something really important, like did this man kill this woman and he should get his life taken away by the government. If they know that 30 years down the road or whatever, some judge or some other person can overturn their decision, it makes them as jurors less accountable for the decisions they made.

And then that less accountability makes it so they don't think as hard or as strongly about things, because they just trust the system is going to take care of their problem. So you can't reverse those convictions. Otherwise, it absolves the jurors of their responsibility to do the right thing.

Shawn (30:42.496)
Okay, Matt.

Shawn (30:47.184)
If you have jurors who are willing to behave in that way, you've already got a huge problem. The huge problem is relying on jurors who would not give a serious, heartfelt attempt to do the right thing because, well, in the future they could overturn this, so I'm gonna just chill and not even pay attention here. Then your jury system is flawed in a major way. I don't think that what you're saying is true. I don't think that people would treat it.

maybe they would and that makes me so sad and so scared. My biggest fear is that I would break a law someday and that I would have to submit my life and the judgment to 12 complete strangers because...

Matt (31:27.726)
There's, yeah, I would never, I would never do that. I wouldn't trust them at all. Yeah. Because they make the juries are so unreliable in the decisions they make, but it's because they have this trust in the system. Cause they're sort of like, well, you know, if there are some legal problem or some challenge, like imagine this, Sean, imagine the jury. Cause this is what I think needs to happen in death penalty cases. The jury comes in and says guilty, and then everybody walks out of the courtroom and they watch the person get hanged and they die right there.

then I know that the jury's doing their job because there's an immediate effect to their choice and they have to watch the effect of their choice and then they're gonna think a lot more about is that person really guilty? Because I'm gonna have to watch them die here in 20 minutes if I say guilty. That's the way it ought to be.

Shawn (32:14.9)
But you think without that immediate reaction, you think people are laissez faire about the way that they, you really do? Is this based on your anecdotal like personal experience or is this like a theory?

Matt (32:20.47)
I they are.

Matt (32:26.134)
Well, in part, it's based on the time when I was in a jury. think I've told, I don't know if I've said it on the podcast. I was on a jury and it was so easy to sway those people. Like I just sat in that jury room. I could have decided whatever outcome I wanted. Cause you just like look at everybody on the jury and you're like, okay, what's their motivation and like, how do I get it? So, okay, these three people, I got a joke with them. If I laugh with them, they're going to be on my side. These people I've got to show my sensitive side. And so if I show my sensitive side, then

this person was probably raped in the past based on how she's acting. So I have to act this way with her to get her on my side. And these three people are going to convict anyways. Like a jury is so susceptible to manipulation. So part of it is that, that I've been on a jury and seen how easy it is.

Shawn (33:07.37)
To our audience, if anyone ever wants to just deep dive and understand what makes Matt tick, he just revealed it. Matt is able to look at human beings and go, how do I influence that person and use what I know about them in order to persuade? Okay, these people did it differently. Like that is so revealing. So I can understand why you would come at a jury with such skepticism because you look yourself in the mirror and go,

Matt (33:26.551)
Yeah.

Matt (33:35.053)
Yeah.

Shawn (33:37.332)
Hahaha!

Matt (33:37.391)
It's, but it's not just that Sean, because I watch a lot of court TV. So I've seen cases where they spend six hours presenting evidence and not six hours, six days, sometimes 12 days presenting evidence. And the jury's out there for two hours. And I know for a fact that they're not talking about the evidence. They're not talking about, I know for a fact that what they do is they come in and they say, let's do a straw poll right away. Let's see where people are at. And then people say where they're at.

And then some people dig in their heels or don't dig in their heels. And they just, it's just like a gut reaction. They're like, let's just figure this out as fast as we can. Cause they don't feel accountable for what they're doing. No matter how much they say, we're going to pay attention. They don't. So juries need to know the weight of the decisions they're making on people's lives in order to trust them with the decisions they're making. And if they say, later on, it'll get overturned. Then they're not going to take it seriously enough.

Shawn (34:15.816)
OK, so.

Shawn (34:27.859)
Okay.

Shawn (34:31.486)
I hear your point. I'm not going to give you points because a you used a question that you didn't quite answer in order for you to teach us an important opinion that you have, but you kind of strayed. You strayed from the actual question and answer because even if I agree with you about the jury thing, which I think I do, I'm skeptical. I'm very skeptical about the juries. I don't think that has anything to do with

law enforcement using a wrong technique to create evidence to convict someone that we should have the power, judge should have the power to overturn that. I think they're unrelated. So you don't get points.

Matt (35:11.362)
You are a, you are a product of the system, Sean. What should have happened in this case is Charles Don Flores should have been killed in 1998, 20 minutes after the conviction. And then today, if Penn Gillette says, Hey, that stuff's really bad news. He shouldn't have used hypnosis. Then they should take that evidence before a judge and say, guess what? These cops use an unreliable method to get a conviction. can interview jurors from back in the day about how much that weighed on their decision. And then if the judge is like, you're right,

bad method, then you walk with the police officer and they go get hanged 20 minutes later. That's how that should work.

Shawn (35:47.307)
Wow. This is one of those discussions where if your wife was here, she'd be like, Matt, please shut up. Hey, sometimes Matt has, let's say extreme ideas about how to adjust society and solve problems. I don't think that in a real world he would ever implement these ideas, but I like that you in theory are able to.

Matt (35:54.415)
If I shut up, okay. Sean, I'm gonna give you.

Shawn (36:14.994)
Allow yourself to think of these and present these extreme ideas. It does trigger many of us and make us think. Listeners, don't get triggered, man. He's giving us a way to exercise our cognitive dissonant sides of our brain.

Matt (36:23.446)
you

Matt (36:31.022)
Sean likes federalism. He likes states as laboratories of democracy. Any of you governors out there of states, let's sit down. Let's give it a try. We'll try it in your state. We'll see how it goes. And then, then people will get used to the idea because they'll be like, wow, you know what they do in North Dakota?

Shawn (36:36.266)
Thank much.

Shawn (36:48.628)
Matt, you're such proof that political scientists make for terrible politicians. Like, you're never gonna do it. I guess it's a different role.

Matt (36:52.6)
You

I have a billboard vote mat executions in 20 minutes.

Shawn (37:01.98)
jeez.

Matt (37:04.79)
All right, so here's the last big thought provoker. So BYU sports have done a lot in recent years. They've become much better. Back in the day, when I was a BYU sports fan, people would dream of national championships and drafts and all that stuff.

And it never happened. BYU was always pretenders trying to sit at the top table, but never getting there. But now BYU attracts high level athletes. They can compete with the big programs for talent. Name, image and likeness money helps, but there's also this environment that BYU has. Joining the big 12 has made the program stronger and more respected. So because of these changes, BYU is becoming the kind of sports program it has always wanted to be. Here's the question, Sean. Is this good for the church?

Shawn (37:52.309)
I'm going have to say it is good for the church. Like just because the church is playing the game that, you know, the rules of society, I'll give you a good example. I don't think you would, you would look at the church's financial situation and go, they, are extremely successful and strategic and good financial investors and planners just because they're a church doesn't mean it's wrong for them to apply the rules of society. So

Yeah, I think it's probably decent for the church.

I'm not the guy like Sam or you maybe or my in-laws who are my brother who's just like BYU is the kingdom of God on earth and whatever it takes to win because that's my alma mater. I'm not that guy. No, I have no problem with them failing. But I do think it's okay for them to play by the rules of society in order to give good PR to a church school. And I think that's all it is. Good PR to BYU.

Matt (38:52.077)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (38:54.474)
probably it does benefit the church. It exposes lots of people to the gospel when people can look at BOU in a good light. Like for example, this past year, there were so many incidences when BOU was playing and the crowd started chanting, the Mormons, F the Mormons, F the Mormons. I think that overwhelming reply has a good effect because people look at that and go, how awful is that? Who are the Mormons and why would they get this kind of treatment? So my answer is yes, it's good for the church, I think.

Matt (39:22.092)
I think that you're right that for example, AJ DeBonsa, cause he was, he's going to be the number one pick and he was up for player of the year. Every time they mentioned his name, almost they mentioned BYU and then that sometimes at least the discussions about the church. So I understand from the marketing perspective, like why it's good for the church for their name to be out there and it's good for them to be on ESPN. Good for them to be talked about in sports place. I get that argument, but here's the question I wonder about.

Now I know that the money for all of this stuff is not coming from tithing dollars, but some of it is not all of the coaches salaries is coming from boosters. Some of that is coming from tithing dollars. And if I just joined the church in, I don't know, some poor third world country and we're meeting for church and like a building with a dirt floor or whatever. And I'm giving a lot of my time in service to the church. There has to be a part of me that looks at the church in Utah.

and says, whoa, what is happening there? And the BYU players are not always good examples. Like I agree that there can be some good, but there's also some really bad that can come when it feels like there's inequality in the church and that BYU sports players get treated so good compared to other people who don't get all of the same benefit that they get.

Shawn (40:42.301)
Yeah, that's a great. It is a great point. But are you is it ever? Is that ever going to be fair? And is mortality ever going to be fair? To everyone.

Matt (40:52.972)
No, but like, but like, okay. So as it is in the United States, if you play sports and you're good, it's not even just the U S right. If you're good at sports, society treats you better, right? You get to have better, you get free equipment and you get all kinds of other things. And, I could understand why people would say, but you're not a better person than I am. And I could understand why that would cause like some resentment and to say,

like it's church tithing. Like, okay, so for example, I saw a photo within the last month of, I don't know if it was AJ DeBonsa or Robert Wright or one of these, some BYU basketball player who is, I don't think he's a member of our church, but he's doing photo shots with members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. I could understand why people would be like, why is it like, the apostles really want to take a photo with this basketball player or whatever.

and they just don't even care about me or they haven't come to my country or my city or whatever to ever visit us. But they go be like fan out about BYU sports.

Shawn (41:56.672)
Okay, so are you saying I mean obviously there's this balance right do the goods outweigh the negative effects here? Are you saying it crosses the line?

Matt (42:02.264)
Mm-hmm.

I don't know the answer. don't... I guess I can see both sides. Yeah.

Shawn (42:06.879)
That's not what we do on the Latter-day Lens. We don't come in and ask a question and go, I don't know.

Matt (42:12.716)
I have to be, I want to be careful because I believe that these kinds of decisions are inspired because the board of trustees of BYU is the first presidency. So I don't want to be too critical and be like, the first presidency has never thought about what I'm saying. So I don't want to like go too strong and say that it's bad for the church. Cause I imagine they think about that, but I will say I'm sympathetic to the argument that says maybe this isn't the best thing for the church.

Shawn (42:39.177)
Yeah, I think the real question is does the good outweigh the bad that it does because there's no way of avoiding the bad that it does. Yeah, I mean your examples are spot on and like like they want and like a couple of months ago a good, you know, good friend of ours who has this incredible podcast series. Leading Saints shout out the leading saints.

Matt (42:43.48)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I'll give you the points, Sean.

Shawn (43:03.071)
He got up on his really passionate post and was like, listen, I'm not dogging anything, but just to see the amount of money that these coaches are getting for these sports, basketball, like putting a ball through a hoop. And then I've got to, and he's like, I'm not complaining, but to get on and to say, look, I'm doing this great, he is, he's doing great work to help Latter-day Saints know how to do better in their callings and to, and it's a nonprofit. So, you know, he has to go out and try and earn money to continue to do the good that he's doing.

And then he sees the millions and millions of dollars that goes towards a kid throwing a ball through a hoop. Yeah, it's probably there's there's negatives man. There are but do they outweigh? Yeah.

Matt (43:39.661)
Yeah.

Matt (43:44.921)
You're right, it's hard to say. Well, and that's why in the end I'll say I'll trust the board of trustees, but I'm sympathetic to the idea that maybe it's not worth it. Maybe. I do know that these sorts of discussions happen all the time, right? Where there's people in the 12th that are like, really? And there are others that are like, of course. So I don't know.

Shawn (44:02.642)
Matt can see both sides of something and takes a rare stance of, don't as opposed to, I see both sides, I'm gonna take the scariest side and like preach it, like putting a billboard up that says you execute people 20 minutes after. Okay, all right, okay.

Matt (44:19.47)
I mean, to me, yeah. Okay. We're gonna move to such a bizarre big question, but I really need to know what Sean thinks about this. Okay.

Shawn (44:22.824)
I love you Matt. I love you so much.

Shawn (44:29.394)
I love this question.

Matt (44:34.126)
So for my daughter's reception, she decided that she wanted to have a bunch of fish in the, so we put these centerpieces and there's like a flower in there and then sand and then we put water in there and then we put goldfish in there. So we had to buy like 15 goldfish. And so then there was this big debate about like, should we kill the goldfish? And just like 30 minutes, like an hour ago, we got back, I saved all the goldfish. have a pond in my front yard.

and I saved all the goldfish and I put them in my pond because we didn't want to hurt the goldfish because like the Bible says, thou shalt not kill and stuff like that. And so there was these questions about, even at the pet store, they didn't want to sell me the goldfish if they thought I was going to use them for a bad purpose. So I had to let her know I have a pond, they're going to go in my pond. Anyhow, so this is a question scientists have actually thought about. Can fish feel pain and have conscious experiences?

Many scientists now believe fish do feel pain based on studies of their behavior and brains. However, it is hard to prove because pain is a personal experience that science cannot directly measure. Some researchers still question the evidence or say it is not strong enough. Because of this uncertainty, experts suggest we should treat fish as if they can feel pain and think more carefully about how humans use them. Meanwhile, the FDA has approved Lab

grown salmon in the United States. There's a company in San Francisco, they got some stem cells from a fish and they've made, they use that same fish as stem cells to make fish meat without actually creating the fish. So the salmon is made from fish cells grown in a lab. So there's no fish that's being killed, but the salmon tastes just like salmon from a real life fish. So my question is of these two options,

having fish raised and then killing them to eat them or taking some stem cells and growing them in a lab, which is less moral. Is it worse to kill fish for food or to eat fish grown from a lab based on stem cells?

Matt (46:47.298)
By the way, no other podcast is talking about this this week. You're welcome listeners.

Shawn (46:47.825)
it's a...

Shawn (46:53.728)
Okay, well first I have to go to the latter-day lens, right? We have to look and see what scripture says about animals and I think there's three good guiding scriptures and it's I love when scripture gives us real good clarity. The first one is in D &C 89. Yea, flesh also of the beast and of the fowls of the air are ordained for the use of man. Number one. Number two, Proverbs 12 10. A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast. A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast. Luke 12.

are not five sparrows sold for two farthings and not one of them is forgotten before God.

So I think what this teaches us is God clearly commands us to respect, love, and be good stewards over the animals, the beasts that have been created. We are stewards over them. Adam and Eve were given stewardship over the animals. And then God teaches them to love and be kind and to be Christ-like. So I think that's clear principle number one. And then you've got the Doctrine of Covenant of City 9, clear principle number two, flesh also of the beast and the fowls of the air is ordained for the use of man.

with some guidance and regulations. But I think in treating like often when I see the the the representation of how Native Americans or hunters today will hunt beasts and the respect that they show and the goodness and the kindness right they they they kill a deer some venison and then they stopped and give it respect and they give thanks and they say a prayer about how grateful they are for the sacrifice. That seems to be the right approach.

So Matt, I don't know the morality of going into a lab and taking stem cells and making things out of them. I don't know yet, man. I'm agnostic on that. So I can only answer that it is okay for us to, if we treat beasts, if we treat them with love, respect and kindness and understand that because they were ordained by God for our use in that sense with some many restrictions, yeah, there's a right. You can do it in the wrong way.

Matt (48:43.342)
kill animals and eat them.

Shawn (48:56.69)
You can kill animals and eat animals in the wrong way and I think it would be a great just to God.

Matt (49:01.838)
So in a 1978 address, President Spencer W. Kimball reiterated the phrase, don't kill the little birds, emphasizing.

Shawn (49:10.496)
I'm only willing to let you read that if you read it in his voice. Do it. Do it again.

Matt (49:15.886)
Well, it would be like sacrilegious, right? Because he had like throat cancer and I have a bit a... Like he... It sounds...

Shawn (49:18.142)
Why are you?

Yeah, I just, you've triggered enough people. Yeah, you've done sketchy stuff enough on this episode. I want to do more.

Matt (49:27.672)
So President Kimball frequently quoted this refrain to encourage kindness toward animals and discourage unnecessary killing, sometimes expanding it to include other creatures. He directly challenged the practice of hunting for sport or leisure rather than necessity. And he described the killing of animals for sport as grievous sin and argued against the wanton destruction of life. So.

Shawn (49:51.53)
I'm good with that. I'm good with that. I agree.

Matt (49:52.675)
So he would say you only kill them if it's necessary. But in the United States, we don't need to kill animals for meat, especially if I can grow them as stem cells. I don't need to kill anything. So if we only kill them because we need to, then this new technology means I never need to kill a salmon ever again. I can just buy it from this lab that grew it all by itself.

Shawn (50:14.176)
Again, I'm agnostic, Matt, on the morality of taking stem cells and creating living things, or at least the byproduct of living things. We don't know if that's moral or not. I don't find, is there a latter day lens on that? You tell me, is there a latter day lens on that?

Matt (50:16.684)
you

Matt (50:22.84)
So then we-

Matt (50:28.138)
No, this is why it fascinates me. Because if I were to say, we're going to, okay, if I were to say, Sean, we're going to take the stem cells from a human and then we're going to just grow a heart for somebody. We would say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's wrong, right? For humans, we know that there's this latter day lens that says, don't take stem cells and grow human body parts for, wait, you think that that could be okay? okay. Well, like it's.

Shawn (50:35.392)
and make a human. That's right.

Shawn (50:46.597)
Where's that? What's that, Latter-day Lens?

I didn't say that, I'm asking you where's the lateral lens? Where's the scripture, where's the guidance?

Matt (50:54.954)
Okay, so this is where that would come from. As President Russell Nelson said that in the Doctrine and Covenant says, thou shalt not kill nor do anything like unto it. And he says from that scripture, that's where it tells us that abortion is wrong because abortion is like unto murder. And so by extension, you could say like unto it would be or take stem cells and grow almost human, but not quite that we're just going to use to like harvest organs or something like that.

That would be almost like killing.

Shawn (51:25.896)
Okay, but you could also argue on the other side, now to play the Matt's devil's advocate side. You could also argue that we are learning to be like there's two, there's those who act and those that act upon. And you look at the way that Joseph Smith taught that the creation of the world happened was it wasn't ex-melio, right? wasn't nothing existed and then God said, proof it exists. He took existing matter and materials and he organized them and reorganized them into something. Why is that not creation? Why is a

Matt (51:30.11)
You

Shawn (51:54.624)
a stem cell in a heart, why is that not just creation?

Matt (51:55.501)
I love it. I love the idea that our earth was like, there's this embryonic planet stuff out there in the universe. And God was like, hey, here's some planet stem cells. Let's take these planets that would grow into whatever and let's create an earth over here with those planets embryo stem cells.

Shawn (52:15.252)
Well, you've inserted a lot into that. It doesn't say that. What it says is that there are two types of materials that exist. There's chaotic materials and there's ordered materials. He's simply saying that yes, there are eternal elements that exist that are in chaos. the godlike attribute is to be able to learn how to take those chaotic elements and organize them. So you read into that a lot, man.

Matt (52:37.176)
Wow. Wow, Sean. Sean, I did not think this would be your position on this, that both are okay. It's okay to kill animals if you want for food, and it's okay to grow them from stem cells if you want for food. It could be okay.

Shawn (52:50.632)
I didn't say that. said, there's a right way, yeah, to treat animals and use them for food. And there's a wrong way. God gave us that latterly lens. I am agnostic about the whole, I'm just asking questions, Matt. Don't you think that it's part of the creation process? I don't know. I'm agnostic about the whole lab thing.

Matt (53:09.932)
We don't know yet. You're saying we don't know enough to know. There's nothing been revealed on it yet.

Shawn (53:15.54)
I mean, it sounds like a gun to your head right now. If you had to make the decision, you would say, yeah, it's probably better. Let's do it. That sounds like what you would say.

Matt (53:24.049)
No, I don't. I don't know is the answer. I don't know the answer to that. It feels like it feels like if I'm taking materials that were intended to grow into a human and I'm saying let's change that growth process and you're not going to become a human. I just need you to become an elbow. Right that that would be the argument of why we shouldn't abort fetuses. A fetus isn't a human right? But we said we don't abort a fetus because

Shawn (53:28.863)
Yeah, we're both

Shawn (53:43.616)
Ha

Matt (53:50.829)
It has the potential to become human. And if I say, well, it also has the potential to become an elbow and I want it to be an elbow right now. Like there's something about that that feels like maybe not the right thing to do. And so if it would be wrong to do that with a human, maybe it's the wrong thing to do a fish. At the same time, I see your argument of if God reveals information or we develop this understanding of materials and we can use them for the use and benefit of not just mankind, but for the world, then we should use everything.

available to us that hasn't been strictly prohibited for the benefit of the world.

Shawn (54:26.689)
I see, see, I see both ways and I think motive matters. Like what would be the motive of a pharmaceutical company or someone creating stem cell fish for food? What is the motive? You tell me what's Wrong money.

Matt (54:38.926)
So because there's overfishing and it hurts populations, right? Oh, that's right. Well, probably money too. But I would imagine, right? Is it like you've had farm, I don't know if you eat shrimp, do you eat shrimp? Yeah, so farm raised shrimp are way cheaper than shrimp caught in the wild, right? And so this idea that we're gonna take this pond and we're gonna put a bunch of shrimp out there that all they're gonna do is grow up and be food someday, or we're gonna put salmon in a farm and they're just gonna be food someday.

Shawn (54:53.727)
Uh-huh.

Matt (55:07.968)
Maybe that's also an unethical practice to say we're creating life just to eat it.

Shawn (55:10.333)
Or like, or, or like this amazing, this idea that when you eat eggs, if you buy eggs that are $5 more expensive, because we put a note on it that says that they are free range chickens, meaning these guys aren't in a cage, right? There's, is there a difference? Is there a right way and a wrong way to do it?

Matt (55:23.756)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So maybe we, I would agree with you. I can't find any revealed information on these to tell me about stem cells or the proper use. And we do eat eggs and eggs have the potential to become chicken someday. So maybe it's like, I don't know. Caviar is super delicious and expensive and that's just eggs to fish. hmm.

Shawn (55:51.935)
I don't know, but hang on, but eggs are different, right? Because you take an egg that is fertilized with the intent of becoming a chicken, and we don't eat those, we do not eat those. We do?

Matt (56:00.962)
Yeah, sure we do. We eat, not on purpose, but sometimes we do. Sure, sometimes it happens. We don't say it's morally wrong. We don't say like, how dare you, you ate that fertilized chicken.

Shawn (56:06.193)
well that's what I mean, but it's not on purpose, right?

Shawn (56:13.537)
But hang on, but how fascinating is it though that the egg from a chicken, the ones that we mostly eat or intending to eat, are those that we know are intentionally created just probably for food because they are not fertilized. They don't turn into a chicken.

Matt (56:24.994)
Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, listeners would love to hear your feedback on that. I promise you nobody else is talking about that this week. And I learned a lot from Sean. didn't know where he would come down on that. And I still have no idea where we've come down on that. But it was good to talk about. And I think this week was a little less angry, less contentious. I mean, last week was fine too. I'm not upset about last week.

Shawn (56:29.387)
Just a tough one, man.

Shawn (56:44.737)
You

Shawn (56:53.673)
It was fine. Yeah, it was fine. No, you guys were, you guys had strong opinions and I don't think you got mad at each other. I think you just, it's good to hear strong opinions. I don't think there was any anger in there.

Matt (56:54.734)
Yeah, that was good. Yeah.

No.

Yeah. There's less anger about should we eat fish or grow fish? But if I were to tell you my feelings about killing animals, then I don't know. I would probably like make a lot of people upset. So I'm not going to say my opinion about killing animals.

Shawn (57:15.391)
I'll just tell them what Matt's opinion is. It's okay as long as it happens 20 minutes after you decide that you're gonna kill that animal.

Matt (57:24.419)
make it quick and then it's fine. That's beautiful. Thanks, Sean. Hey listeners, thanks for joining us. We'll talk to you again next week.