Walsh & Knowles ANSWER Your Posts: Trolls, Flat Earthers, & Fake Rabbis
37 min
•May 2, 2026about 1 month agoSummary
Michael Knowles and Matt Walsh answer audience questions from social media, discussing topics ranging from aliens and flat earth conspiracy theories to parenting, moon landing skepticism, and the nature of knowledge. The episode features casual banter between the two hosts interspersed with sponsored segments.
Insights
- Conspiracy theories often thrive not from evidence but from the psychological appeal of contrarianism and the illusion of being informed through scattered information without foundational knowledge
- The 'moderate' or centrist position on factually settled questions (like Earth's shape) can be more irrational than either extreme, as it lacks epistemic grounding
- Modern parenting challenges are heavily front-loaded in the first 4 years of life; once children age out of infancy, many perceived parenting burdens become manageable
- Social media enables low-effort criticism and bad-faith engagement, making it difficult to distinguish genuine inquiry from trolling
Trends
Rise of conspiracy theory adoption among otherwise educated audiences due to information abundance without knowledge depthFlat earth and moon landing denial as modern phenomena despite historical consensus, suggesting contrarianism as cultural trendAI-generated content becoming ubiquitous and difficult to distinguish from human-written material on social platformsCentrist positioning on factual questions as a rhetorical strategy to avoid commitment while maintaining appearance of open-mindednessGenerational shift in parenting norms toward larger family sizes among conservative media personalities and religious communities
Topics
Conspiracy Theories and EpistemologyFlat Earth MovementMoon Landing SkepticismAlien Existence and AbiogenesisAI-Generated Content DetectionFamily Planning and ParentingFree Speech and Social Media ModerationReligious Cosmology (Dante)Van Allen Radiation BeltsCentrist Political PositioningKnowledge vs. InformationTwitter/X Platform DynamicsConservative Media LandscapeParenting Challenges by Age GroupLinguistic Trends (M-dash usage)
Companies
The Daily Wire
Referenced as employer of Michael Knowles; jokingly called 'the Israeli wire' by critics
People
Michael Knowles
Co-host of the episode discussing conspiracy theories, parenting, and social media questions
Matt Walsh
Co-host engaging in debate about aliens, moon landing, and flat earth conspiracy theories
Ben Shapiro
Father of David Shapiro; mentioned as teaching Knowles about M-dash punctuation usage
David Shapiro
Ben Shapiro's father; taught Michael Knowles about proper M-dash usage in writing
Joe Rogan
Referenced as having spent an hour discussing moon landing conspiracy theories with Knowles
Stanley Kubrick
Jokingly referenced as having directed the moon landing based on conspiracy theory arguments
Quotes
"We know nothing about how life arises. Nothing. We know how life develops. We don't know how life arises."
Michael Knowles•Abiogenesis discussion
"It's absurd to think that they don't. So, okay. I'm glad you have granted. They probably haven't been to Earth."
Matt Walsh•Alien existence debate
"If there's no camera, it's not real. It's not real. If it's not content, it's not real. That's what I've learned."
Matt Walsh•Content creation discussion
"You're not just rejecting the so-called official narrative. You are proposing an entirely new narrative."
Michael Knowles•Conspiracy theory analysis
"Once you get past the 48 hour mark, it's too late. So now I have no choice, but just ignore forever."
Michael Knowles•Text message etiquette
Full Transcript
Tocovis is the go-to for premium, handcrafted Western boots. Stop by any store location for a warm welcome, a cold drink in hand, and a truly one-of-a-kind shopping experience. Let our friendly staff help you find your new go-to boots, whether you're first-bear or your 50th. Finish things off with a complimentary boot brand to make them extra special. Come for the boots, stay for the good times. Tocovis, forever West. Selling your car can be super simple. If you choose We Buy Any Car instead of a confusing part exchange, because with We Buy Any Car, you'll have cash in the bank for more bargaining power on your next car. If only they could get into that countryside wedding simpler. Make a U-turn, make a U-turn. Oh no. We Buy Any Car, selling made simple. To get a quote in 30 seconds, enter your register number now at webuyanycar.com. Why U2 is both some BITCH as white boys that don't know no mother effing gang signs? I mean, this is the kind of thing you get. I mean, this is why it's a great idea to surrender the programming of your show over to X. Commentary we're going to get from them. Oh, is that what you're doing? That's like gangstaing. Modern McCarthy says, I need to hear you guys debate. No, I'm looking at it. You got to say it. I'm looking at it right now. Hey everybody, welcome to Matt and I having a cigar after our TPUSA speech. We're still workshopping the title. I don't, we got a few options. This episode of Whatever It Is is brought to you by Helix. Try the most awarded mattress brand reviewed by real experts like Forbes and Wired today. Go to helixsleep.com slash off the clock. Is that the name of the show? That's what they named it. Helixsleep.com slash off the clock for 27% off site wide. That is, I think I'll get it right this time, helixsleep.com slash off the clock for 27% off site wide. Special thanks by the way. Especially special thanks to the Refuge Cigar Lounge in Moscow, Idaho for hosting tonight. I would have been happy just at this beautiful lounge, but the fact that they stock a lot of Mayflower cigars here means it's just the creme de la creme of lounges. Matt, remember when we used to just do this without cameras? If there's no camera, it's not real. It's not real. If it's not content, it's not real. That's what I've learned. No, this is good content. So what I did, I tweeted out, I said, I'll let you all in on it. I tweeted out, I said, for the next 45 minutes, we're having a cigar. Ask us anything. That's us. Yeah, can I just, I didn't fully connect that that picture was going to be, that specific picture was going to be tweeted. Yeah, we looked terrible. Yeah, I look really bad. Yeah. I look drunk in this picture. You look drunk and hunched over. Yeah. I'm also hunched over. I like to think I'm not a terrible looking guy, but then I see any picture of me ever. And I think I'm, this is. Because they're all the wrong angle. They're just all the lighting. Yeah, all the angles are wrong. The right lighting for me is like directly thrown into the sun, I guess. Yeah. So look, this is a great first question from RP McMurphy. Why you two is both some BITCH as white boys that don't know no mother effing gang signs? I mean, this is the kind of thing you get. I mean, this is why it's a great idea to surrender the programming of your show over to X, because this is the level of commentary we're going to get from them. Oh, is that so you don't, that's a gang sign? Spell blood. Is that a gang sign or is that you do, is that like a swan? Isn't that a shadow puppet swan? I learned that when in high school, when I grew up on the rough streets in your AOC, you put Cs down, that's like Crips are down, and then you do blood. If a gangster actually comes after me, because I did that, that'd be so annoying, but it'd be great content. That would be good content. The next one, this is from James. James with a Ukraine flag, a gay flag and a trans flag. He says he's a progressive liberal and Walmart plus admin, BLM power, four times boosted, LGBTQIA plus supporter, proud husband and stepdad of a six-year-old biracial autistic trans son. He, him, he says- Is that his comment? No, that was his profile. That was his profile. The question is, how much money do you dorks take from APAC? How much do you get? Everyone is getting paid off by everybody. I'm not getting paid off by anybody. No. No one is ever offered. You know, they were- I'm not important enough to pay off. They talk about APAC as if like sort of the top of the heap is getting money from the Jews. That's like the top of the heap, right? And I think, all right, well, maybe I can't, maybe I'm not going to get that direct APAC payment. You know, I know it's the daily wire, they call it the Israeli wire, but there's like- I've never heard that. I know, I've heard that. Do people say that? I have the Israeli wire, but the problem is that there's like one Jew who works at the whole company, and the rest are Catholics and some Protestants who become Catholics. I never, so you're saying there's criticisms of- So occasionally people suggest- I've never heard this. I don't know where you- No, it's weird, but I've never gotten any of the- So I'm going to set my sights lower. If I can't get the good Israeli APAC money, what about Yemeni money? How hard is it to get Yemeni? Somalian money? Who's asking for Somalian money? That's a good opportunity. You got to open a daycare center in the- That- In Minneapolis for that. That's good, yes. Your hands are perfectly manicured, Michael. Does Matt Walsh keep the same standards? Are your hands actually manicured? No, they're not. You know why? No, all I do is I take my- I actually only use a toe clipper, because they're big and strong, and I just click the clip. The reason they look nice is because I never do any manual labor. That's the reason. Are yours- I clip my nails. Is this kind of content you were looking for? This is great content. This is great content. Let's go over how we- Our strategy for clipping our nails. Well, this is what you get when you try to record content. Well, it's 10 o'clock at night, West Coast time, after we just did two hours on stage. Yeah, it's quarter of midnight, central time. Yeah. Let's not even talk. Let's just have this conversation on Twitter. Here's one. Should fathers be thrown in prison for leaving their children, released only if they agree to come home? Says O.F. Corris. Um, thrown in prison if they leave their children. I like- I mean, there's a lot about that idea that I like. Yeah. The problem is- I mean, you run into a lot of practical problems, and also, how do you differentiate between the father left the children and- Or- He just needed a pack of cigarettes. Or that. Down in the milk. When he gets some milk and he got lost. Yeah. Or the mother is taking the kids, but then accusing the father of leaving. That's a pretty common thing. Yeah. And in that case, should the mom go to prison? So that's a hard one. Plus, what if you got really bad kids? That there's that too. You know. I mean- Hmm. Yeah, I guess I'm four- you know what I mean? I would be four legal punishments if you get divorced or something, if you break a marriage contract. Or adultery? Which is related, or adultery. I mean, obviously, criminalizing adultery Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's something. Modern McCarthy says, I need to hear you guys debate- No, I'm looking at it. You gotta say it. I'm looking at it right now. I need to hear you guys debate whether aliens are real. They are, by the way. Guys just say, no, we finally got to something interesting. We can get the 45 minutes out of this. Yeah. Oh, yeah. At least. You- So, you try to wiggle your way out of this question, if I could say it kind of, frankly, a cowardly way, Yeah. by wanting to focus on have aliens visited Earth, which puts you on a much stronger footing. Yes. Because obviously, I have no evidence that they've visited Earth. Yeah. Of course, you have no evidence that they haven't. So, it's sort of a wash. But the much more interesting question, and the one where I'm- I feel in a much better, stronger position is, do aliens exist at all in the universe? And to that, I would say- No. It's- No. Almost certainly. Why? It's absurd to think that they don't. So, okay. I'm glad you have granted. They probably haven't been to Earth. Probably, at least maybe they haven't been to Earth. But let's say- Yeah, I didn't say probably. Maybe they haven't been. Yeah, okay. Let's say- On the off chance, they've never been here. Let's- Just say, 10 trillion light years away on an Earth-like planet, you say it is very likely, almost certain, that aliens exist there. And I would say in response to that, that in order to ascertain the probability that aliens would exist there, you would have to know something about the natural mechanism by which life arises. Which we don't. The term would be abiogenesis. I think we know a fair amount. We don't know anything about it. We don't know anything about how life arises. No. No idea. Nothing at all. No. What you were taught in seventh grade was that there was some kind of primordial soup, and a bunch of molecules got really hot and banged into each other and eventually- That was like step A. Really hot soup, molecules banged into each other. Step B, question mark. Step three, prokaryotic cells. Yeah. And that is your third grade biology teacher, whoever trying to get around the reality of God. I get that. Yes. I don't have that problem. So I have no problem filling in the step- Well, it's not even step two. I have no problem filling in the question marks with, well, God, that's God. God makes that happen. God has a process that he uses to create life, and it's a gradual process. No, but what's the start of it? For good, I don't know. I don't know. It is- I couldn't tell you. But to say we know nothing about how life arises, I mean- We know how life develops. We don't know how life arises. I mean, the way life arises is God takes clay and breeds into its nostrils. But is it more- Is it more- So take a hypothetical two planets, alien planets. One is like Jupiter, a gas giant with a hurricane of 500 mile power winds that's been going on over half the planet, whatever, for centuries. And the other one is an Earth-like planet. Yes. Which one is it more likely that if there is life at all that it's on one- Yes. Which of those planets is more likely to have life? If the non-Earth planets, they're equally likely to have life, which is not likely at all. But if we have to assume that there is life on one of the planets or the other, then yes, life would more likely be on the planet more like Earth. Because the Earth is perfectly finely tuned to support life. So we do know something about where life, how life arises. We know how life is sustained. We know a lot about that, but we don't know how life arises. And what- But you said no, we don't know anything about it. We don't know anything about it. We know nothing about it. Nothing. We know something about the conditions that are probably necessary for life to arise. Yes, we know what supports life. Yes. But we don't know how to arise. So we know what is necessary for life to arise. No. No. We know what is necessary to support life. We know something about the conditions that are likely necessary for life to arise. Yes. We know something about the conditions without which life probably cannot arise. Yes. Okay. So then I would say that counts as something that we know about how life arises. No. We just know- But you just said something. That's not nothing. No, no, we know what there has to be in order for the thing that gives life. It's arousal. So is that something? No. No. But what you just said is nothing? What I said is something about something else. But- Yes. You are talking- Yes. I'm saying things. No, no, hold on. You're saying things about a subject. And the subject is how life arises. And you're saying things about it. In fact, you're saying something rather definitive about it. So I would say that we can say something about how life arises. We can say- We can say the thing that you just said about it. No. I'm saying something about the nonsense things that people say in response to the question, how does life arise? But you just said that those are the conditions that are probably necessary for life to arise. I said those are the conditions that are certainly necessary for life to be sustained, for life to be sustained. You said arise. No. But why in the tape? That can you- He did say arise. They don't exist. They don't exist. They don't exist is what I'm saying. You're saying gas like- They don't- At 10 o'clock in the night. You were talking about a big, a big giant ball of gas, a big giant ball of hot air. That's what I'm hearing right now. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm seeing right now. That's what I'm seeing. Folks, you and I both know you can't go out and save Western civilization if you spent the whole night losing a wrestling match with your mattress. Now, I've had bad mattresses. Okay. I'll tell some tales out of the boudoir. I've had some mattresses that weren't so great. But you know what I've had for six years? Not only a helix mattress, multiple helix mattresses, because I'm a good father and I have given the gift of a helix mattress even to my beautiful children. If you want to sleep like me on a mattress that is tailor-made for you, you need to go to helixsleep.com. Head on over to helixsleep.com slash off the clock. Free shipping. You will get the mattress right to your door. You will get a 120-night sleep trial. Head on over right now to helixsleep.com slash off the clock. 27% off-site white. helixsleep.com slash off the clock. Okay. Did you have you find a question? There's some AI stuff. The AI stuff is out of control. It's unbearable. Once you learn how to read AI, it's like everywhere. Yeah. I don't know if real people exist anymore. Yeah. It's all just AI. AI isn't just a problem. It's a pandemic. You know, they always, they always do that at the end. It's not this, it's that. Yeah. Or asking yourself a question rhetorically than answering it. It's an AI thing. Yeah. Of course, the M-dash. The other thing about it is that there are a few things AI does with writing that I also like. Like, I love the M-dash. Yeah. But I can't use it anymore. No, I know. They tell you, someone did, I responded to a tweet. I don't know, and they said, you didn't write that. I said, first of all, I guess they thought my tweet was smart or accurate. But I said, what do you mean I didn't write that? They said, because you used an M-dash. Do you know who taught me the M-dash? Well. Ben Shapiro's father, David. This was 10 years ago. What made you talk? You didn't know what it was. I didn't know what it was. I used, I turned in some writing to David. I don't remember what it was even. And I did two hyphens, like an idiot, like a rube, like a dumb dolt. And he looked at me and he said, Michael, do you not? Are you, are you, and then I said, what's wrong? And he said. Preach the gospel of the M-dash. He did. And I, and I've never gone back. I've never looked back. Well, there was one here that I thought, well, someone brought up flat earth. Do you think that's real? Obviously, flat earth isn't real. Flat earth, flat earth or ism. Is that a real phenomenon? Or is it like a meta thing? Oh, yeah. Is it all just a troll? Or do people really believe that? And if they do, how is that possible? How is it possible that? In a, in a, in a world now where we have all the knowledge of the universe at our fingertips, how is it possible that people are more ignorant about the basic shape of the earth than they were 500 years ago? Yeah, you probably got a lot of COVID shots too, didn't you? You believe all these people down. It's all very conspiracy. I one time was sitting with an interesting guy, but I was sitting with a buddy of mine, we were having a cigar, and a guy who I didn't know very well, but he's very interesting, a little quirky though. And he says to me, Michael, you love Dante. I do. He said, so do you believe in Dante's cosmology? I said, what do you, what do you mean by that? He said, you know, do you believe the earth is flat surrounded by a solid firmament? And I said, oh, I don't. And also more important to your question, Dante didn't believe that either. In fact, it's actually crucial to Dante's cosmology that the world is round because the, the devil's like hell's in the middle and you crawl back up out of amount of purgatory. Anyway, I just thought you don't even, the, the thing you think is leading you to that. Even that is not saying what you think it does. Yeah. Is it, is it just. So, so what is that? I think it's just being a hipster, right? It's just being. I don't know. I remember, man, like seven years, six, seven years ago, when I was still doing my show, the show in my car. And that's when I first came across flat earth as a modern phenomenon. Well, it's really only a modern phenomenon. That's the irony. That's the idea. There is. And, and I did like a show about it for some reason. And I just got annihilated in the comments. And it was a very, and the thing that blew my mind, it's not even the people who were adamant that the earth is flat. That's pretty mind blowing. It's more the, all these other people in the middle. Yeah. Who, who they're. They have the moderate position. Yes. That's, that's very common now. They take the moderate position and they, they say, well, look, I'm not saying the earth is flat, but, but you know, I'm open to the evidence. Yeah. What? So you're sane enough to not be totally convinced, but you're open. Like. Do they think it's a rhombus? Is that, is the moderate position that it's like a cube or a cone or something? Octagon, I don't know. Look, I don't want to be an extremist. All right. I just, wow. Yeah. I wonder if that's, that is like one of the real flaws of the centrists or the moderates is because they don't actually believe in anything. They just want to take the middle position between it. Like, they, you could make them believe any, you could, you could make them believe the, the least plausible view. It is much more plausible that the earth is flat than that it is somewhere in between flat and a sphere. Just fluctuates like a. Like an accordion. Yeah. Yeah. It's an accord. The earth is an accordion. Or the moon landing is fake. I mean, you, the moon landing thing. I mean, I'm open to the evidence. Like, you're not really open to the evidence. No, I mean. Is that a real, is that a real thing? No, I'm not. No, I, we landed on the moon, but I tell you, I went through once. It was like six hours where I was completely convinced we did not land on the moon. Completely. It was. Because I watched a documentary on like 4chan or something. I don't know. It was like on some weird website. I don't, I guess they don't have documentaries on 4chan, but I, it was like some weirdo link and I clicked it and it was a two hour schizo documentary and I watched it at the office when I was pretending to do work and I texted Alisa from the office and I said, girl, we did not land on the moon. We did not land on the moon. She's like, uh, and then I almost finished this two or three hour doc. I get home that night and I said, girl, you gotta just watch it. We gotta finish watching it. So we watched the last 10% of it or whatever. And I was like, no, no, you don't, because it started to get pretty off the rails at the end. And I said, no, no, you gotta watch, you gotta go back and watch the whole thing. So we watched it again. And by the end of the second time, I realized, I said, oh, we went to the moon. I know it took two times. Did you ever go through, uh, we didn't go to the moon phase? No, never went through a tranny phase either. Like what else do you want to tell us? Yeah, I mean, the pictures in the videos look pretty crazy. Which, which pictures and videos? Like they were golfing on the moon. That's silly. They had the little dune buggies, the moon buggies. This was in the later Apollo mission. It's looks weird. Yeah, they're on the moon. Like, of course it looks weird. It looks weird on the moon. And that is, that, that is the entirety of the evidence. As people look at the pictures like, that looks weird. Yeah. It's the moon. Maybe it looks what, that's not what it looks like when I take pictures in my backyard. Yeah, you don't live on the moon. So. And we, so by the way, we, we would to fake it. We faked it multiple times. Like that's the part they leave out a lot of stuff. The first time we tried to fake it, a bunch of people died because it exploded. Right. And then. But then what, but once you've, let's say we faked it. So you faked it. Then why would we fake it multiple more, like more times after that? And fail one of the times we faked it. Right. But the people didn't die, but they almost died. And we're supposed to believe that every other government on the globe to include the Soviets. Well, this is the most compelling evidence. They are in on it. I mean, because they wouldn't know that it was fake. And they decided to just be cool about it and not tell anybody. I spoke to a famous mutual friend of ours who doesn't think we went to the moon. And I brought up the Soviet thing. And this person had no response to it. And this person has really bought in on we didn't go to the moon. And there was no response. I said, okay, well, that's it. That decides it. A famous friend? Yes. Not famous for being our friend, like a famous person who is a mutual friend of ours. Who thinks the moon lady didn't have him? Yeah. I don't want to like, it was a private conversation. I don't, but. Okay. It's a conservative media person or something. Yeah. We're narrowing it down to like four people. I don't. Okay. Well, I'll think about it. I mean, this is, I spent the last time I did Joe Rogan. We spent an hour on this. We spent an hour on the moon landing. And I got, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't break. I had no breakthrough. I tried. You did not. Yeah. Well, because Joe's taking more of a, of the in-between position. Yeah. It's like Apollo eight was fake, but Apollo 10 was real. And Apollo 13 was fake again, but kind of that was like a reverse uno card. And then Apollo 16 was real. Well, the point, one of the points I tried to make to him, maybe unsuccessfully, this actually applies to a lot of conspiracy theories. The ones that are, that are irrational is that you're not just rejecting the so-called official narrative. You are proposing an entirely new narrative. Yeah. And so my point is that what you should have evidence for your, like you're not just denying that a thing happened. You're actually proposing that a whole other thing did in fact happen. Right. Which in this case is that they set up, they did a moon landing on a movie studio somewhere. Yeah. So where's your evidence for that? Like where is your evidence, your positive evidence that this other thing? Stanley Cooper, don't you know that? Where's the evidence of that? I mean, I was a filmmaker who did a movie about space. Right. So I think that. And he directed the moon landing. The defense rests. Yeah. He directed, you know, one time I was talking to someone who was talking about the moon and this person said, not the famous person, this person said, well, yeah, but give me a break. I mean, what about the Van Allen radiation belts? I don't know. Madison Joe was big on that. So I was arrested by this because I thought, look at this person. I said, you don't, you didn't pay any attention in, forget physics. You didn't pay any attention in any science class in high school. You have no idea what the Van Allen radiation belts are. You don't know how radiation works or what radiation is. And I don't really either. But I don't go around. It's like, it'd be like saying, guys, it's like, actually, people do this a lot. People who don't know anything, not a single thing about science. And they'll say, well, actually, you know, because of quantum physics, here's why my random fever dream is totally right. And just say, like, well, you don't know anything about quantum physics. And you just, that's just a phrase you learn. You heard, you either read that in a popular science journal or more likely heard it in a YouTube video. And now you're just saying it. This is why being informed is so overrated, I think. It's so overrated because people, we just have all this information bouncing around in their heads, but they don't have any real depth of knowledge to ground that or any wisdom. No. So you just end up with like little bits of information you've picked up. But no way of directing it. And so you just end up concocting all these bizarre ideas based on this scatter shot. Yeah. And then it would be better for most people to just be totally uninformed. Yeah. But and the thing is, then, our theory of government in America is that you just get everybody's like that. Right. And they can vote. And then they vote. Okay. This question is from Champainless, who says, my question is, how can I convince my wife to have four kiddos? We have three, but she only wants two. First of all, don't call them kiddos. I can't stand that. And this is a man who wrote this. Is this a man? Kiddos? That's 35 year old female talk. Are you a 35 year old woman kiddos? You call them doggos too? Just call them kids. What is this kiddo bull? I can't stand it. Now, when women do it, I can put up with it like fine. Yeah. And my wife does a little bit with the kiddo thing. Yeah, look, we put up with a lot. It's a woman thing. Right. Yes. But when men do that, that's embarrassing. I mean, talk about you shouldn't be allowed to vote. Like that's that should exclude you. Should he be allowed to have four of them for kiddos? Well, if you want your wife to have kids with you, don't speak like a woman to her. She's not going to respect you. You know, you want her to get in bed with you and create kids. Like say wife, let's have let's make some kiddos. You totally kills the mood. That's my pillow talk. Can I finish his question? Oh, sorry. Can I finish? We have three, but she only wanted two. I was able to talk her into three, but four seems like a better number. Also, congrats on your fourth, Michael. Thank you very much. So yes, I have four, three and a half now because one's cooking. Matt has 150, I think it's over 150 children. Yeah. So my answer and I think this is kind of the way you did it. I don't know if you're Catholic or Protestant or Jewish or Buddhist or whatever. But for the Catholics, you just basically have to pop them out. So it's very easy to say, well, God demands it. So let's go, lady. Or the lady sometimes has to convince the man. You're just like, well, you got to do it. There's just a rule that's outside of you. You had four kids. In fact, I don't want to tell tales out of school. I think you viewed that as sort of your ideal number. And then you had more. Yeah. Well, actually, I'd always thought six. And my wife and I first got married. And we talked about this. I mean, you know, we're open to God's design. So it's like, your ideal number doesn't really matter. Doesn't really mean anything. Well, we talked about it. I was like, six sounds like a good number to me. I'm one of six. That's probably why I thought that. But then we ended up with four. We had four for a while. And I thought like, this is, we had two boys and two girls and you're good. It's like, this is, this is kind of, kind of good. And then the youngest kind of got out of the baby phase and was out of the, sort of getting out of the toddler phase. And it was getting really easy. Yeah. Because that's the thing, you know, when we think about the challenges of parenting, and you hear people talk about it, there are certainly challenges that come and the kids get older, teenage years, but most of the, the challenges that you hear about are really concentrated on like the first four years of life. Yeah. You're not sleeping. You can't go anywhere. Right. It's like when you see all these videos of someone who's quote unquote child free, and they're trying to saying all the benefits, oh, I can sleep in and I can do this and that. It's like, yeah, so those are arguably benefits you have over someone who has a kid in the first couple of few years of life. Yeah. But once your kids are older, all that stuff, yeah, you could do that. You could sleep in with older kids, whatever, any of that stuff you can do. So we had gotten to that stage and it was kind of, we're kind of getting settled into it. It was kind of nice and it was getting easier. And then, and then we found out the, well, first we thought, okay, we're going to have the fifth. It's like, all right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, fine. Let's, let's great. Let's, let's do it. And then we, and then we get the, the ultrasound. So it was going to be two as we're doing the twins again. Yeah. And that was, that was, that was kind of daunting at first because the thing is we had twins to start with our first were twins. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into at all. We had nothing to compare it to. We were totally ignorant, ignorance is bliss. But twin babies, like the first two years of life with twins is that's parenting on hard, hard mode. It's really difficult. To do it twice. Yeah. And then, and then so we'd already been through that and we knew we were, we knew it was going to happen. And now we're, now we're facing that again. It was daunting, but, but it's a rewarding challenge and it's a beautiful thing. You're just covering your bases in case the youngest kids watch this someday in like 20 years. You're like, no, it's actually always one of the other set of twins. Let's see. No, you sent me one? No, I don't check my texts. One thing, this is really great. You know, in the right wing media, when they all are stabbing each other in the back and they're always, and the way they do it is they're always posting texts. Well, I got this text from you and you text whatever, but no one's going to ever do that to me because I don't text anybody back ever. You are worse about that than I am. And I'm really bad. It's, it is, this story, some of these are so humiliating and irresponsible that I like can't say them publicly, but it, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty, but, but when someone is trying to plant me with some scandal, good luck. But you know what it is? I assume this is what happens with you. Yeah. Because I'm also really bad at texting back. It's not intentional. I'm not trying to be important or whatever, but I see the text when it comes in. I almost always see it when it comes in. And I think to myself like, oh, I'll get back to them. You know, because I'm in the middle of something. Yeah. And also, I don't need to text you back 30 seconds after you text me. No. That's like, that's weird. That looks desperate. Yeah. And then, and then I'm in a conversation. Right. By the way, that, that, it's not just a three second text. That's like 15 minutes. Exactly. So then you think I'll text back. And then seven days later, you think, oh, I never text that person back. Now it's too late. I've gone too far. Way too late. I can't, you know, it's, it's, it's, once you get past the 48 hour mark, it's too late. So now I have no choice, but just ignore forever. You know what I do now? I've, I've embraced this later on. I, I do this with good friends of mine or family members or whatever. Two months later. Two months later, I'll just, it'll be like, hey buddy, checking in on you. I want to let you know I'm having a kid. I wanted to reach out about this thing, whatever. And I'll have forgotten about it. I was going to say two months later, I was going to be like, oh, hey, sorry, sorry. Happy Easter, whatever. It's like, it's Halloween. Two months later. It's Halloween. Happy Easter. That's what I do. You can't do it two months later. Why not? It's, it's too late. It's gone. It just let it go. So let that relationship go. You're just, just let that person go. I was waiting for this. You know how Twitter is just basically a bunch of people hating the Jews? So I, our producer, Mr. Davies, text me this response from a rabbi, Goldstein Schickelberg, handle the holy Talmud, says we should discuss ideas on how to combat rising Nazism and anti-Semitism. And what we can do further as a country for Israel and Israel first, the holy land with three Israeli flags. I don't think this is a real rabbi. You don't think so? I'm, I'm starting to think that. That's you with the conspiracies again. I know. I don't, something tells me this person might not even be Jewish. That's pretty offensive to them. Yeah. I know on Twitter it's hard to believe. Hold on. Did I get any, why is Davies is only posting? Oh, he texted me the kiddos one too. Hold on. See, this is what happens. Then I get, I'm just in my phone. I don't want to be in my phone. But now I lost the spread. He's texting you stuff and he's putting it up on the prompter. And he's sitting right there. You can just say it. Well, as long as you're right here. Here's one from Cap and Caveman, tone check sir. Well, as long as you shut down free speech, then you boys have a good time. What is that in response to? As long as we shut down free speech, we'll have a good time. I actually do kind of want to shut down free speech, but that's kind of a hobby first. Yeah. But I don't, what is that in response to anything in particular? I don't know. All right. Well, we got a lot of, man, we got a lot of comments on this. Which of you is most likely to become a Protestant? It's not me. No, you have six kids. You can't, it's not. Speaking of this way to a friend. That'd be crazy if I became not even just a Protestant. Like, because if I were Calvinist, I guess I'd be a Presbyterian. You'd become like a mega church, non-denominational. Yeah, like Joel Osteen style. Yeah. Just like, hey, you know, big smiles. I don't know if I have that in me. P is stored in the, I'm not reading. What? I'm not, I'm not. It was, I'm not. Hey, you can't dress like that in Idaho? Yes, I can. In response to, hey, they were hanging out having cigars. Ask us anything. The guy just posts this picture from dinosaurs is, take out your gun and blow my brains out. All right. Well, on that note, thanks for tuning into Matt and I Have a Cigar. After our talk at Idaho, we'll see you on the next episode.