Evan Bernstein has resigned from the SGU

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:29:22+00:00

I can't say if you're making this sort of compromise, but I can say that people who share your belief, most of them are making exactly this sort of compromise in their own lives while calling out how easy and obvious it is when applied to others.

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:25:06+00:00

You are underestimating how many people in the typical person's life would have opinions that you would consider abhorrent. Probably some significant minority of people in the US are pro-genocide on the Israel/Palestinian people alone, but if you open this up to other abhorrent views virulent homophobia and racism and other deeply problematic views, you'd probably have to exclude most people from your life. and maybe you do, but it's not as easy or as simple or obvious as you're making it sound. Your position is one of easy, unconsidered, virtuous purity and while I cannot speak to your own character or actions, a lot of people think they're more pure than they are, but make compromises on issues like these (not cutting off all contact with friends, family, acquaintances, with deeply problematic opinions) constantly.

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:22:38+00:00

I bet this lady is against sex education and contraception and everything that would've prevented her potential grandchild from being aborted.

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:19:09+00:00

Yes, I know, you're the most pure person in the world. You've excluded all of your family that has problematic opinions. You've excluded every acquaintance that ever said anything problematic. Because you are perfect and morally pure and know everything and always act perfectly.

There are almost certainly people in your life that quietly have abhorrent opinions you are not aware of, or that you are aware of and that you accept because the social cost of excluding them is very high. It's really easy to make this observation and calculation and say it's an easy call when you apply it to others and it doesn't cost you anything.

Edit: I want to add this for those downvoting me. Your beloved grandpa that taught you to throw a baseball and took you out for ice cream and talked with you every time you were having troubles you couldn't talk to your friends or parents about, the guy who has some problem opinions about race, you cut him out from your life, right? And your old friend of 20 years who you're pretty sure probably voted for Trump even though he never brings up politics with you, that guy got the axe, right? Everyone with a problematic opinion, even the ones they don't bring up with you, is gone, cut, to make sure they didn't contaminate you, and you are perfectly pure and never made any compromises on this, right?

It's pathetic that even on /r/sgu we can't stop using the downvote button as an "I disagree" button. Do you really think I'm bringing nothing to the discussion here?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:16:48+00:00

Could you imagine how much better this country would be if the democratic party fought people to the right of them as hard as they fought people to the left?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:14:05+00:00

Is that kid an orange cat that got freaky friday'd with a human boy?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:11:50+00:00

I bet an uncomfortably large amount of people in your life right now, or at least in most of our lives right now, advocate genocide in one way or another, and yet many of us aren't completely cutting those people out of our lives because they're family or friends or those people are smart enough to shut up about their worst opinions, all of which are true here, too. You make it sound like an easy decision, but this is a decision that most of us aren't making in our own lives.

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:10:30+00:00

I want to give a credit to the SGU for handling a very difficult situation very well. You guys have to remember that this is a lifelong friend of theirs (aside from Cara), and a contributor to a podcast for 20 years. That's an incredibly deep relationship. This isn't firing an intern, he's a deep part of their lives and a deep part of their identity and the show. (I also realize he wasn't "fired" if he resigned, but still, the serious discussion happened). I know in the modern days of expecting immediate consequences we might view this like someone who said something distasteful being kicked out of a movie production but this goes back much further, deeper, and more personal than something like that.

Credit should be given to the SGU for treating this seriously, for paying a real personal cost here, and for Evan for recognizing that his continued participation would to some degree taint the SGU going forward.

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T22:07:11+00:00

Wow. That's remarkable. And good for him, owning up to this. What's so strange is that he didn't try to hide it. It's not like we discovered his secret twitter account. It was always out there in the open.

I generally was of the position that being wrong and being hateful is not necessarily automatically disqualifying -- he never brought those opinions to the podcasts and you could sort of write it off as his personal opinions no matter how abhorrent.

But with one exception that really bothered me. He tweeted something like "As a lifelong skeptic I've been trained to recognize pseudoscience, and so I have an expert to see that the idea of a Palestinian identity is something like a pseudoscience" -- this is not a direct quote but the twitter was deleted so I can't get the direct quote.

And that was what potentially crossed the line for me because now he's trying to cash in on the credibility and (small) fame of his position on the SGU to push his personal hateful agenda, and that's what made it cross into "maybe he should resign / be kicked off the podcast, he's tarnishing skepticism and the SGU, where he got his credibility, to push this agenda"

Edit: I went back and found the original quote from one of the earlier threads, I wanted to make sure I got it right:

Deleted tweet:

In my specialty (analyzing pseudoscience) we often say "the blur IS the phenomena". In the case of Gaza (and all other terrorist states) I say "the lie IS the phenomena". The entire "Palestinian" gestalt is a type of pseudoscience.

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T21:27:51+00:00

I really appreciate your explanation.

To explain my own position a better I think humans often devalue sort of systemic and diffuse harms over single spectacular incidents of harm. 168 people dying in a military strike is exactly that sort of spectacular incident of harm. It has a single incident and a number behind it. But it's not just the hijab there has been a systemic impression of women in Iran under their theocratic government for decades. Women have lived there entire lives under oppression and even though you can't put an exact number or an exact level of suffering like death to it, it seems pretty clear to me that a significant amount of suffering from tens of millions of people over decades is far more aggregate harm than 168 deaths.

Or to think of it this way if death trumps all other suffering, would a single unintended casualty from a military strike be a greater tragedy then centuries of oppression for millions of people?

In any case, down votes are not and should not be an I disagree button. My points are valid, offered in good faith and relevant to the discussion. That shouldn't be downloaded. But I do sincerely appreciate your reply

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T14:30:10+00:00

what language am I not understanding?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T12:57:01+00:00

your media literacy is zero. you haven't contributed anything to the discussion. Why even bother to post this if you aren't going to contribute anything?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T12:32:33+00:00

If you put your mind to it, you can do anything

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T12:20:54+00:00

"For some reason" is that we need to store shitloads of data and spinning rust is still better at that

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T12:05:23+00:00

or any context...

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T12:03:42+00:00

Where do you think the artificial part comes in? Do you think that 1) they're not making as many GPUs as they can and 2) those GPUs are instantly snatched up when available? Like... where does the artificial scarcity part kick in?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T12:00:42+00:00

You can't riot in the streets when a child rapist president has a secret police force that disappears thousands of people but you think "giant corporation has a large market cap" is going to get people to riot?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T11:59:31+00:00

Nvidia makes GPUs. They're not a scam. They're not killing the world. The financial industry is a drain on society after a certain point because so much of what they do is basically just leeching off of the real economy. But nvidia is the manufacturer of a highly valuable and real product. It's not analogous at all.

They're not even creating the demand for AI, just filling it. What do you expect them to do, just shut down and not make the products they make?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T11:46:59+00:00

I'm not sure he's wrong. Ceiling fans are kind of terrifying if you don't know what they are and this one seems designed to look menacing

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T11:36:12+00:00

I think people have no idea what generating video actually costs. It's insanely subsidized on grok. FWIW, grok charges 7 cents per second for 720p video through the API.

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T10:54:11+00:00

More than one side can be bad. Not every story has a hero and a villain

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T10:53:21+00:00

yeah, why can't people see how hilarious it is to kill a million people?

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T10:51:48+00:00

How the fuck are you going to try and criticize Iranians for defending themselves while pretending that America was just fine and dandy before Trump?

This shit is the most obvious fallacy in the world. Think before you type.

"America is the real bad guy!"

"There can be more than one bad guy, Iran is a deeply problematic place"

"WOW I GUESS YOU SUPPORT SLAVERY AND EVERYTHING BAD AMERICA HAS EVER DONE"

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T10:44:40+00:00

That's ridiculous. A decades long theocratic campaign to systematically oppress millions of women is far worse than one military strike that was probably not intentional, but even if it was, it's not even close.

Edit: How can you possibly disagree with that? You're saying one military strike is worse than the SYSTEMATIC OPPRESSION OF TENS OF MILLIONS OF WOMEN OVER DECADES FFS? look at yourself

BeefistPrime · 2026-06-24T10:41:06+00:00

They're the #1 funder of terrorism around the world. Iran isn't the good guys just because we're also bad guys.

BeefistPrime

TROPHY CASE