Beer and Conversation Podcast

The boys review Patches, What if, Nightfall, and Breeds There a Man

P&C drink and review a homebrewed Black Saison, then — with special guest Longinus — continue their “shortcut to the classics” series with a review of some of Isaac Asimov’s short stories.

Asimov was an amazingly prolific and wide-ranging author. This is just a taste of his impressive body of work.

Patches — The conflict and contrast between individualistic humans and a collectivist entity that seeks to liberate humans from their quarrels and conflicts.

What if — A married couple on a train meets a man with a device that can show them what would have happened if the circumstances of their life had been different.

Nightfall — A planet with constant sunlight from six suns faces the prospect of total darkness, which is predicted to have devasting psychological effects on the population.

Breeds There a Man — The essential, genius scientist in a Manhattan Project-like venture is going insane because of a strange theory about how humanity is being regulated and controlled by mysterious forces.

Words change, but these changes come with an agenda

P&C drink and review O’Hara’s Irish Red, then find that they can’t communicate. The words they try to use have taken on new and confusing meanings.

Orientation. Diversity. Identity. Transition. Reassignment. Privilege. Trigger. Equity. Tolerance. Pronouns. Even the rainbow.

The new definitions of these words are intended to force you to think in a different way — to adopt a particular view of the world, and of your neighbor.

The boys don’t like it.

A brief history, plus some fun Irish facts and humor

The boys drink and review O’Hara’s Irish Stout, then celebrate March 17th.

They do a quick review of Irish history, starting back in pre-history, through the Celts, Caesar, St. Patrick, the Vikings, Brian Boru and the English occupation, and up to modern times. They ask why is Ireland divided north and south, and wonder about the demise of the IRA.

They also discuss the two spellings of whiskey, the potato famine, St. Patrick’s Day customs, Irish beer, and how much Irish blood Pigweed and Crowhill have in them.

What is suffering, and why does God allow it?

The boys drink and review Cigar City’s White Oak Jai Alai IPA, then discuss suffering.

Does suffering disprove the existence of an all-powerful, perfectly good God? What is the nature of suffering, and why does it exist? What is the proper response to suffering? Why do Catholics “offer it up” when they experience suffering?

Would humans be capable of enjoying a world without suffering? Don’t we need obstacles to overcome?

Finally, the boys discuss transhumanism, and how there might be a future in which men have been altered to eliminate all suffering.

Companies pretend to care to distract us from their misdeeds

P&C drink and review Pilsner Urquell, then discuss how businesses are using wokeness as a smokescreen to pretend to be virtuous.

The boys discuss what “woke” means, then review some of the work of Vivek Ramaswami.

Corporate wokeness is all a magic trick. They keep our eyes on woke BS to keep our attention away from their misdeeds. “Never mind that we use Chinese slave labor. Look at the rainbow flag on our LinkedIn profile!”

Wokeness has become a substitute for religion and traditional morality for many companies. It’s filling a gap created by the secularization of society.

Does this ancient Chinese text have any relevance today?

P&C drink and review Pigweed’s latest IPA, then discuss Sun Tzu’s classic.

It’s an ancient book that might date back to the 6th century BC. It came out of a time when Chinese intellectuals were classifying and organizing things — including warfare.

While it’s explicitly about war, it’s often re-interpreted and re-applied as a general commentary on strategic thinking.

The Art of War is relevant to things in the news right now, like the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Are we living in a simulation? What does that have to do with God?

The boys drink and review another Pastryarchy offering from DuClaw, Irish Cream Dessert Stout, then wonder whether we’re living in a simulation, and whether it matters.

From Descartes’s skepticism to Nick Bostrom’s famous paper, P&C review some of the top arguments for why our world might not be what we think it is.

If simulated humans can have first-person experience, we are almost certainly in a simulation. Or are we? There are interesting arguments both ways.

Then the boys discuss how the simulation question relates to the God question. Does the possibility that we are in a simulated universe shed any light on God’s existence?

Is this a good heuristic for questions about God’s existence? That is, if you ask such and so question about God in the real world, how does that compare to an analogous question in a simulated world?

If the alarmists are right and we have to act, what should we do?

The boys drink and review Still Holidazed and Confused from Hysteria Brewing, then discuss how to save the planet.

P&C decide to buy in to climate alarmism (for purposes of the show) and discuss what we’d have to do to save the planet. What would have to change? If radical change is necessary, what would it look like?

Most of the normal suggestions are simply window dressing — polishing the brass on a sinking ship.

If you really wanted to make a significant change, P&C give you some ideas.

Food science is notoriously unreliable, and food fads are even worse

The boys drink and review a “lazy beer,” then discuss food fads.

Is it better to “eat local”? Are farmed fish less healthy than wild caught? Are “free range” chickens happier and healthier than others?

Unfortunately, many of these things are so imprecisely defined that they’re meaningless.

Pigweed and Crowhill both agree with many of the goals of the people who promote some of these food fads, but when you look into them, they tend to fall apart under scrutiny.

The decline of masculinity and family formation is a bad thing for society

P&C drink and review a homebrewed red ale, then discuss families.

Men are not as manly as they used to be. Testosterone has been dropping at 1% per year for decades. Men are withering away. At the same time, they have easy access to porn, and masculinity is regularly dissed.

The result is that men are less interested in women and families.

Families model future relationships, they provide a sense of security, they sacrifice for and nurture children, they civilize men. Getting married causes both men and women to grow up, and it affects their vision of the future in a positive way.

Society needs rules to rein in the behavior of men. It was chivalry for knights. What is it today?

P&C drink and review Pigweed’s Texas Brown Ale, then discuss the history and modern application of chivalry.

The word comes from “horsemanship,” and originally applied to knights.

Society needs hard men who are willing to fight, but they also need these men to be decent and courteous off the battlefield. Medieval Europeans developed expectations for knightly conduct, and this turned into a code.

Some knights were almost like fighting monks, and formed religious orders that regulated their conduct in war and in peace. Chivalry also regulated courtly love.

How does this apply to a modern man? P&C list several ways men should be expected to behave in modern society.

Is it real, or a lot of coached play acting?

P&C drink and review one of Crowhill’s recent homebrews, then discuss multiple personality syndrome, or, the way it’s known these days, dissociative identity disorder (DID).

The boys review some popular treatments of the subject, including The Three Faces of Eve, Sybil, the Billy Milligan story, and Split.

Is DID real, or are people being coached (even hypnotized or drugged) into a diagnosis by their therapists? P&C have their doubts.

Cases of DID always increase after a popular movie or book covers the subject. Today, there’s a whole community of DID sufferers on TikTok.

We have prolonged adolescence and forgetten to expect people to grow up.

The boys sip and review 1623 Brewing’s Lil Sips Scottish Imperial Stout, then wonder why our society has lost the idea that people should grow up.

Educated grown-ups are claiming that words are violence. That’s the way a child views the world.

Our culture has become so infantilized that we think we should “listen to the children.”

The popularity of superhero movies are an example of this attempt to freeze life in a perpetual adolescence.

P&C review a list of areas in which society seems to refuse to grown up. We’ve come to accept arrested emotional development.

Russia and China are laughing.

Does everything need to be a diagnosis? Do we all need therapy?

P&C drink and review Mosaic Single Hop Hazy IPA from Sweetwater, then discuss therapy culture.

Are we addicted to therapy? Have we redefined ourselves around our emotions? Are we all vulnerable, broken, “at risk,” scarred for life?

There’s been an erosion of the boundary between the private and the public. Now we have TV shows where people disclose their personal issues. There’s nothing more virtuous today than seeking treatment.

We’ve demonized silence, stoicism and a stiff upper lip. Do healthy people really have to talk about themselves? Publicly?

JWST will usher in a new age in space exploration

The boys drink and review a sake, then discuss the James Webb Space Telescope.

This magnificent feat of engineering launched on Christmas Day, 2021, and recently deployed flawlessly at Lagrange Point 2. From there it will scan the heavens on the infrared part of the spectrum and send back astonishing pictures.

P&C review the history of the development of this marvel, discuss all the things that had to go right for it to be a success, and wonder about what humanity might learn from this new look into the cosmic past.