He's actually quite wrong about the pyramids being built by slave labor.
http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4191 Also Foxconn's suicide rate, even during the workers strikes, was lower then what is typical for China... and is also lower then the suicide rates in all 50 states. http://articles.businessinsider.com/2010-05-26/tech/30097107... http://www.economist.com/node/16231588 There are multiple points of error in what he uses to establish his assertion here, and this idea that slavery built everything worth building is a house of cards that tumbles once you look at his errant examples. The man is an entertainer out for a laugh from a crowd, and what he said is riddled with errors and is far from wise or factual. I'm saddened that people think the idea 'slavery built everything worth while' is something people are just afraid to admit, or that they lacked the astute observational skills to realize... It's something he said for a laugh, and it's far from a enlightened historical perspective. Very far.
Oh, I get it, the only reason I would care about this is because I'm one of the people he said we should let die so we don't have to deal with it anymore. Funny! :) No, not only do I not have a nut allergy, but I don't even know anyone who does, even in passing. One of my ex-girlfriends had a metal allergy. For instance if she got the wrong kind of metal belt buckle or if the button on her pants was the wrong kind of metal... it would cause a rash, but it was far from fatal. On that point though, I'm not so convinced as he is that if we stopped worrying about nut allergies they would go away in a generation or two as all the people with nut allergies died. For instance, the medicine used to treat serious nut allergies, EpiPen, Twinject, essentially epinephrine autoinjectors didn't always exist. As a matter of fact for most of human history we didn't even know why exactly anaphylactic shock happened, much less have an emergency treatment for it. To me this directly points to an obvious reality, it's likely just not treating nut allergies would only succeed in making us horrifying and inhuman, and food allergies would still manifest in the next generation. http://genetics.thetech.org/ask/ask224 This source seems to establish that sometimes you have identical twins, one with a peanut allergy and one without.... so while it may be hereditary, not everyone who is going to carry the genes will develop the allergy. It might be a simple as one twin getting diaper rash cream made with penut oil as a baby and the other not... or the mother eating penuts while breast feeding... (If that article is to be believed.) So really I think he's just about wrong for every point of this. Funny as it may actually be, (It got a chuckle out of me as well) it's far from being true or wise. In fact the only way to truly do what he is talking about might be to screen and kill everyone who carries genes for food allergies, regardless if they have the allergy themselves or not. Die Endlösung der foodenfrage if you will. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution) Straight up horrifying naziish eugenics which is, in every way, objectively worse then worrying about food allergies. (Which still might not even work)
Yeah, I get all that but I don't think most people would ever consider this "comedy bit" true or wise? I think when we start over analyzing fiction for fact, it takes some of the fun out of it, don't you?
I sorta agree. "The best standup performers have the ability to point out the things we all know but are either afraid to admit or have never realized we knew." The problem I have is that there are a lot of modern myths. Things like 'the jews built the pyramids in Giza' or 'sugar makes you hyper' or 'you need to drink 8 glasses of water a day.' People have been found to believe things more when they hear them more often. http://sitemaker.umich.edu/norbert.schwarz/files/lewandowsky... So I think it's important to point out its factual inaccuracy. More importantly, I think it's fine for him to say it, but also fine for me to point out he's mostly wrong on all accounts. I wouldn't be so quick to discount performances like this as perpetuating these myths. As some of them he got from entertainers himself. For instance I'm pretty sure if Louis CK thinks hard about where he got the idea that ancient Jews built the pyramids it will look something like this...
Thanks for the fact-checking and for the links, I appreciate it. But of course he's out for a laugh, he's a comedian. Anyone that goes to see Louis CK to get their facts or to gather their knowledge of history is an idiot. That said, he's one hell of a performer and I think he does a great job of poking fun at our human condition.