In the Field with Michael Kosta - podcast episode cover

In the Field with Michael Kosta

Apr 06, 202526 min
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Episode description

Get out of the office and into the field with the best of Michael Kosta on assignment. 

Michael visits Switzerland in a two part special on gun control. Visits Lake Erie to meet the people trying to turn the lake into a person. Finds out why the Proud Boys are so, so frustrated. And finally, learns if he's got what it takes to be a pro gamer. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

You're listening to Comedy Central.

Speaker 2

America loves guns. Hell, I love guns, but I also hate guns.

Speaker 3

Another mass shooting in America.

Speaker 4

Shooting, Yet another mass shooting.

Speaker 2

So I was wondering, what if there was a world where people could keep their guns and have no mass shootings. Welcome to Switzerland, a neutral country most known for its cobblestone streets perfect for skipping, its clocks, sophisticated pocket knives, and guns. Turns out, peaceful Switzerland is one of the most heavily armed nations in the world, and like America, they love their guns. Yet they have almost zero gun violence. How the fuck is that possible? Luckily I ran into an expert.

Speaker 3

Is that a gun in your pocket? Or are you just oh no, that's a gun?

Speaker 2

Meet Miko for plus years he's been a firearms instructor for law enforcement, personnel, military and special forces. He also happens to be one hunk of a man.

Speaker 3

So thor tell me about Swiss gun culture.

Speaker 5

We respect the guns because we have a mandatory service. Every man goes to the army. They get a training in the rifle in case of the invasion.

Speaker 2

Which, to be fair, is a real threat since the last time Switzerland was invaded, was in seventeen ninety eight, before color was invented, so of course they have a militia.

Speaker 5

The culture is a little bit different compared to some other country.

Speaker 2

You're familiar that I'm American, right, you can just say these things to my face. You don't have to say other countries.

Speaker 5

I think the gun culture in America, eyes is getting out of hands is a joke. That should be common Sen's.

Speaker 3

Gun lost common sense. That's not our strength. Yeah, NEA's that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well I can say that, but I don't like it when you say that. Okay, but what we do have is that good old American gun freedom. You know how easy it is to get a gun in the US. I just go to Walmart, give him the money gun. I know my uncle Paul out of his truck. He's got a bunch of guns. My brother Todd is a gun. You want to use it, borrow for the weekend. That's nice.

Speaker 5

Not really. In Switzerland, you can get a gun from your grandparents or from your father, but you still.

Speaker 3

Have to do the paperwork.

Speaker 2

Even if I get a gun from my grandpa, I still got to tell the cops about it. Yeah, that's crazy because in most states in America you can buy a gun almost immediately without any background check, but not in Switzerland.

Speaker 5

You applied the permit for the police, you provide clearance of your criminal record that you don't have any convictions.

Speaker 3

Wait for two weeks.

Speaker 2

What if it's a small crime. What if you got caught urinating in public? You got caught for sleeping with your cousin because you didn't know it was a cousin because it was at your family reunion and she.

Speaker 3

Looked like she worked at catering.

Speaker 2

What if it's like assaulting a police officer, but really you were just tickling.

Speaker 5

If you can't be responsible of following some other simple rules in society to behave why should you have a gun?

Speaker 3

You need to raise your voice over this.

Speaker 2

Was there even a payoff to all these rules?

Speaker 3

How many school shootings have there been?

Speaker 1

No?

Speaker 3

What about malls? People should know? What about like major holidays? People get shot up at major holidays here?

Speaker 2

Probably nothing come on with all those guns. They had to have at least one mass shooting somewhere. After weeks of research, I discovered there was in fact one mass shooting in the Swiss parliament in two thousand and one. But they haven't had one since you say, ab you had a mass shooting seventeen years ago, we have won every seventeen minutes. Yeah, yeah, for example Le Munis.

Speaker 3

Lisarma.

Speaker 2

This is something that I'm having a hard time comprehending. You learned from a mistake and you made an improvement in the law. That's so Europe. And while Switzerland's last mass shooting was in two thousand and one, America is at no keep going nope, more more.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 2

There you go, over nineteen hundred mass shooting since twenty twelve, averaging to about one a day, which is why Miko felt I needed to be properly trained before I headed back to the States.

Speaker 5

We have to talk about safety first, Can I like, like with this one, Yeah, just leave it alone, don't touch it.

Speaker 3

How are we gonna shoot it if I can't touch it? Let me explain you the rules first.

Speaker 5

So number one thing that you have to remember is that you always treat the guns. Ask if they're loaded, because probably most of the accidents that happens happens with empty guns.

Speaker 3

All right, so this this one here, this, don't touch it. Don't touch it.

Speaker 5

I think you don't pay enough, you know, attention to what I'm saying.

Speaker 3

Okay, I'm listening. So you just have to.

Speaker 5

Follow four simple rules. Number One, you treat the guns. Number You got a feeling that you're not paying attention?

Speaker 3

What no, I am do it. Let's blow some shit up, Miko. When you load these things. You ever get a little bit of a direction, do you exactly what I say? Okay?

Speaker 5

Okay, all right, pay attention to attention okay, and slowly press back until the gun goes off.

Speaker 3

Jesus, this scares the shit out of me. I'm glad we had that safety instruction.

Speaker 2

This is the dream, shooting guns without the fear of getting shot. This is where America should be. All we need to do is keep AMMO separate and have universal criminal and mental background checks, have extremely strict open carry laws, justification for ownership, send written request to authorities, and basically just change our entire gun culture. We can do that, right, It's not really that fun. When you keep shitting yourself, you get used to it.

Speaker 3

Now.

Speaker 2

This isn't a green screen, this is real disgusting. Switzerland a neutral country full of non combative, chocolate eating yodelers, and they're also full of guns in my previous report, I trained with firearms expert Miko Mikah. Look, I shot some holes in the Swiss cheese.

Speaker 3

I put them.

Speaker 2

I learned that when it comes to gun culture, Switzerland has a few more regulations than America. And thanks to these gun regulations and strict ammunition control, Switzerland has a murder rate of nearly zero. Sure, that's a great statistic, but how safe can it really be. To learn more about their gun culture, I attended Chiosom, the world's largest annual shooting festival right here, and holy that's a lot

of guns. Even that baby has a gun. There's not enough training in the world to prepare me for this. So I brought my two secret weapons, my translator Pierre and my supermanly rock hard American vest.

Speaker 3

Why are you wearing a pussy West? What did you say? Pussy best?

Speaker 2

Oh that's that's funny, pussy best. Why aren't you wearing a pussy best? People are walking around with guns.

Speaker 3

Because it's safe.

Speaker 6

What is that?

Speaker 3

What is that? Not shooting?

Speaker 2

No worries they're shooting, Yah, shooting over there? How many accidents have happened here? Nine nine accidents accident.

Speaker 3

No zero zero zero zero. I thought, you said nine nine. Okay, it's a German language, the German language.

Speaker 6

I know in the United American this is dangerous. But in the Switzerland we have we have rules and this we haven't rules.

Speaker 2

Rules? What kind of rules? Let little kids participate in this October fest?

Speaker 3

You love shooting?

Speaker 2

Why so it's like yoga? Yes, they also throw booze into the mix, because poor Kapa.

Speaker 3

It's a it's a national party. Oh, here comes the beer, everybody. Let's let the beer walk through. We've got rifles and the beers.

Speaker 6

We come in here to peepers with the friends. And la la la la the beer, La la la la la beer.

Speaker 2

We make the Yeah, it's finished, well said guns and beers. This was an American wet dream. But something was different in this country.

Speaker 7

We respect arms, and if you respect it, it's not the problem.

Speaker 2

Why should I listen to this drunk Swiss role?

Speaker 3

I was president for five years.

Speaker 2

You're telling me I'm having beer with the former president of Switzerland.

Speaker 3

Yes, cheers.

Speaker 2

Nowhere else could a former president be surrounded by thousands of firearms with no security. How can we get America to feel this safe?

Speaker 3

That's your problem, that's my problem.

Speaker 2

Well, that's as neutral as it gets. But he's right, it is our problem. I mean, here they can shoot guns, drink beer and no one gets hurt. In America, something like this could never happen. I decided to embrace this culture and hang with the only group that would let me in.

Speaker 3

Wow. Yeah, you guys got air fifteens here Huh.

Speaker 2

Meet the Shooting Society of Press. It was time to show these Swiss fondues how Americans shoot guns.

Speaker 3

I missed, You're missed. Oh I miss What do you know? You're ten years old.

Speaker 2

You probably never even kissed the girl.

Speaker 3

Did you ever take your gun to school?

Speaker 8

No?

Speaker 3

No, we don't. You're not American. No.

Speaker 2

Okay, well I can say that, but he.

Speaker 3

Can't Swiss kids.

Speaker 2

Huh, even if it is true, because the fact is, for Swiss kids, life with guns is very different.

Speaker 9

It's nothing happens.

Speaker 2

It's not like like in the US, where you have too shootings to your science.

Speaker 3

When he goes to school, he just has to worry about school.

Speaker 2

Yeah, catching the pas sometime. Unlike America, Switzerland has found a way to peacefully coexist with firearms. Shot shot, shot whoa, whoa. And one of the main reasons is that while these gun owners may be loaded, it's actually illegal for their guns to be loaded when not in use. We got beer, we got guns, we got food. I feel like I brought another testicle down here. So America, if we're going to insist on being a nation of the gun nuts, we could at least try and swiss things up. Right now,

I'm standing on top of Lake Erie. Well, I'm actually on a boat that's on Let you know how that works. Recently, the residents of Toledo, Ohio, voted to make Lake Erie a person.

Speaker 3

What does that even mean?

Speaker 4

All right?

Speaker 3

Can we go back? I think I'm gonnap pew.

Speaker 2

Local activist Marky Miller is one of the human people responsible for getting the Lake Erie personhood initiative past.

Speaker 7

Our premise was to change the notion that nature is merely property and that if you own the permit that you get to destroy it to harm it. So by giving Lake Erie its own set of rights, we have a better way of enforcing protections.

Speaker 3

How far can this go?

Speaker 8

A lake is a person, what's next, it's a swimming pool.

Speaker 3

A person is a dog, A person is a child, a person. Do you see how slippery the slope is well.

Speaker 7

Much like you know a child, we often have someone else speak on their behalf. And I think that tends to be our relationship with Lake Erie, that we become trustees of this lake.

Speaker 3

You can be honest here. I'm from Michigan.

Speaker 2

Anyone that's been down here knows that people here they kind of march to their own drummer.

Speaker 3

Sure, is this a sex thing?

Speaker 7

Definitely not at all.

Speaker 2

So making a lake into a person is clearly a weird sex thing. But and her fellow conservationists have even more selfish motivations.

Speaker 1

The toxic water situation in Ohio that prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency.

Speaker 2

Lake Erie, a major source of drinking water, serves four hundred thousand people.

Speaker 7

We lost access to our drinking water for three days. It impacted five hundred thousand people.

Speaker 3

They couldn't bathe.

Speaker 7

They couldn't touch the water, couldn't do your laundry, wash your dishes. Water became a really scarce commodity. It wasn't available.

Speaker 3

Oh god, damn, that's good.

Speaker 7

We realized how vulnerable we were and how precious the resource was. That it could be taken away just like that.

Speaker 3

It is something that we enjoy. Isn't its humans?

Speaker 2

Monif I just but as turning your lake into a person really the best way to protect it. Apparently so according to the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, which has successfully turned nature into persons in places as exotic as Ecuador, New Zealand and Sylvania.

Speaker 10

Well, we describe it more as the right to live, to flourish, exist, be healthy. But yeah, in our legal world we use personhood rights.

Speaker 2

I mean, what what is a personish?

Speaker 3

Is this lake a person?

Speaker 4

It's living, it's living.

Speaker 2

Okay, let's what about what about that river?

Speaker 10

Yeah, it's living and there's life all around it and in it, and it's living.

Speaker 3

Is this a person?

Speaker 2

Oh my god, Jesus sorry that was Why was that there?

Speaker 3

Why was that in there?

Speaker 2

What do you say to your critics that say this is absolutely batshit crazy?

Speaker 10

I don't find this crazy at all, because corporations have had personhood rights, so they're not even a living entity. And yet nature that we depend on is not considered having the same rights that we do or the corporations do.

Speaker 2

And there's tons of opposition to giving lake ear you the rights of a person, from farms, the state government, fishermen with ibs basically anyone else trying to get rid of their toxic dumps.

Speaker 7

We found out that BP was is basically the sole funder of the campaign against the Lakery Bill of Rights.

Speaker 4

They spent mep B, p.

Speaker 3

Yeap black people. You know I always knew.

Speaker 4

Is that British Petroleum.

Speaker 3

British petroleum. Can we cut that? Can we put that part out? British Petroleum.

Speaker 7

They do have a refinery not far off from Toledo. But I think that it was more about, you know, not wanting this idea of rights of nature to take off. But you know, we do live here and we're not going to sit back and be poisoned.

Speaker 2

You know, Marquie, I have to admit, when I came here, I thought I thought it was bullshit.

Speaker 3

Marquie.

Speaker 2

I kind of thought you were this crazy woman who decided to make Laky.

Speaker 3

Or a person.

Speaker 8

But here you are on the battlegrounds every day, fighting against big agriculture, fighting against the state of Ohio, fighting for this beautiful body of what the real hero here, Yeah, you a little bit, but even more so than that, I'm the one who's showcasing you. So if anything, I'm the hero, and that's why I love this story.

Speaker 2

So maybe a person can make a difference, and maybe a lake can become a person, and maybe you can even get married to the handsome, sensitive correspondent who saved her. Because true love is pure, it is deep, it is clear, it's perfect, and it tastes sweet.

Speaker 4

Ah ah.

Speaker 1

Lah.

Speaker 2

Why didn't you tell me there's something wrong with this water?

Speaker 3

Meet the alt right?

Speaker 2

Why a loosely connected group of right wing white nationalists known for chanting confusing conspiracy theories like all wild dressed like kids whose divorced dads made their Halloween costumes in These World War two inactive in rejects have one other thing in common. They are angry.

Speaker 11

But what do they have to be so angry about.

Speaker 3

I'm a white guy.

Speaker 4

Things are great.

Speaker 3

Cops don't pull me over.

Speaker 2

I pull them over.

Speaker 3

To ask for a bottle opener. Thanks, officer, No, you have a great day.

Speaker 2

There's no logical reason why the altright should be so angry. They're kind of winning. But what if there was a deeper reason for their frustration.

Speaker 4

Across the alt right movement, leaders are telling young men not to masturbate.

Speaker 3

It is.

Speaker 2

What clinical psychologist doctor David Laye has a theory about why these young men are so angry. They're not strangling. They're pepees.

Speaker 3

They know how to masturbate.

Speaker 2

They're not going side to side, right, they know it's up and down.

Speaker 4

I don't think this is a technique issue. They are actually trying not to masturbate.

Speaker 3

You should take me hours now outside. Yeah, you know what I mean.

Speaker 4

Well, I have one hand, so you know it gets lots of practice.

Speaker 2

This guy masturbates. Doctor Lay explained that the main proponents of this no wank philosophy were the Proud Boys. Masturbation is lack of impulse control. The Proud Boys believe that not masturbating increases their testosterone and makes them more desirable to women, which brings up one question.

Speaker 3

Is it working for the proud boys?

Speaker 4

Research actually finds that less masturbation reduces testosterone.

Speaker 2

So there's evidence that masturbating makes you a more masculine man.

Speaker 4

A lot of really good things happen in your body and your brain. But also research is finding that people who watch more pornography they are more feminist, and interestingly, they've develop more egalitarian values over time.

Speaker 2

You're right, I watch a lot of gangbangs and one day I thought, oh my god, women have it so hard.

Speaker 3

This isn't fair. Ninety five guys and one girl. We need some better representation.

Speaker 2

Here, and the proud Boys are just the tip. There are stroke shamers all over the alt right.

Speaker 4

So Canadian psychologist doctor Jordan Peterson, he's leader in the alt right movement in Canada, and he tells young men there's nothing noble about masturbating to pornography.

Speaker 3

That's terrible.

Speaker 2

I mean, what else are they going to do up there in between periods of hockey?

Speaker 4

That's noble, that's healthy, that's healthy. David Duke, who's a former Grand Wizard of the KKK, he believes that pornography is a Jewish conspiracy to get young white men to masturbate instead of procreating, and so the white race dies out.

Speaker 2

What is it about the Jews with these guys? And speaking of which, this far right moratorium on salami wrestling has been going on longer than you think.

Speaker 4

The Nazis taught young men not to masturbate.

Speaker 2

Nazis.

Speaker 4

Nazis used sexual suppression as a way to increase malleability in people. If we can get people to give up master, we can get them to do anything.

Speaker 3

First, they came for our flesh lights and I said nothing.

Speaker 2

So it's not just the insidious beliefs, mob violence and haircuts. The alt right jack this off. The Nazis too.

Speaker 4

They're teaching these kids to hate themselves, to be ashamed of themselves, and then they can exploit them. Wow, they go down this rabbit hole of these extreme dangerous beliefs and become radicalized.

Speaker 2

So what you're saying is masturbation can save lives, definitely.

Speaker 3

You know what, Let's do it right now. Let's show them all. Let's go.

Speaker 2

I love talking to you, man, Come on, take out your dad. We can't show you the rest of that interview, but I will say when I think about these young people being manipulated into joining hate groups.

Speaker 11

It makes me very angry and frustrated. And excuse me for one second. M anyway, if you or.

Speaker 2

Anyone you know seems to be getting drawn into the alt Right, before buying that tiki torch, try lighting the one inside your khakis first. I'm Michael Costa telling all you young angry men to stop Hayton and start baiton.

Speaker 3

Hi.

Speaker 2

I'm Michael Costa, And before I started covering the news, on cable TV. I was a successful professional athlete.

Speaker 3

What sport tennis? Duh?

Speaker 2

I was ranked eight hundred and sixty four in the world, So I was a natural to investigate the newest sport sweeping the nation, video games. Competitive video gaming known as esports is booming. There's even a training center with five training rooms and six locker rooms. The Olympics are considering adding esports. I went to California to a so called training center in someone's garage to talk with these athletes about why video games isn't a sport.

Speaker 3

What the hell is this?

Speaker 2

This was the Alienware training facility for esports Team Liquid, complete with scrimmage stations, a war room, pr department, a team coach, and even an in house chef. The team star, whose name is Taco, was acquired from Brazil's top team.

Speaker 7

This is a real sport.

Speaker 3

You call yourself an athlete?

Speaker 7

Yes, of course, to compete, we go to tournaments, we travel a lot, we got some money.

Speaker 2

What does an eest sport athlete, mister Taco do every day?

Speaker 3

Just practice?

Speaker 4

Yeah, I have.

Speaker 2

A former professional tennis player. That's what I would call a real sport. There was an opponent and you would relish the opportunity to defeat them with your racket. What do you actually have to show for what you're doing?

Speaker 5

And come on, I have a real strong finger a finger, yes, this finger. I were killed at least one million people.

Speaker 2

That fingers killed one million people at least. Taco was referring to his kills and counter strike, a game where guys shoot other guys before a bomb goes off. Apparently, how is this a sport? I won the ann Arbor Junior Open at eleven years old. How hard going to be to pound on these dorks?

Speaker 3

What are you staring at?

Speaker 8

Huh?

Speaker 3

I'm go'na whoop your ass?

Speaker 2

Next to the left, to the left, to the left, you think, Oh Jesus Christ, I shot him four times, he shoots me once and I die. These games were clearly rigged against more muscular athletes.

Speaker 11

Oh Jesus, how if I keep dying?

Speaker 3

Taco?

Speaker 2

But who's paying for these cuts to sit around all day and mash buttons? Apparently guys like three time NBA champion Rick Fox, owner of esports franchise Echo Fox.

Speaker 3

What are you doing with these nerds? Man? You're a real athlete and so are they? What the shit are you talking about me and you.

Speaker 2

We played real sports. You know, you can see our balls in our pants when we played.

Speaker 1

Were you an athlete?

Speaker 3

Oh?

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, I played professional tennis. I was rank eight hundred and sixty four in the world.

Speaker 1

Okay, you win, you win a couple of tournaments.

Speaker 2

No, I didn't win the tournaments.

Speaker 1

But how much money did you make in your career?

Speaker 3

You made eleven thousand dollars?

Speaker 2

About But there's a whole system, and I was right in there playing as a pro athlete.

Speaker 1

Okay, in our era, I think there was no shame around pursuing a career in professional sports because you could get a scholarship to college, which, by the way, you can get as an esport player. Now there's a number of colleges that are building esports arenas on their campuses.

Speaker 2

This is all great, but let's get down to brass tacks here.

Speaker 3

How much do these athletes make.

Speaker 1

Probably the best top layer in the world in one of our games, he makes probably eight hundred thousand.

Speaker 2

What and while players like Taco made over eight hundred k last year, other top gamers earned upwards of four million dollars, and thanks to advertising and sponsorships, revenues will top one point four billion dollars this year. One point four billion? Are you kidding me? But what really makes it legit is Vegas sports books take bets on it. So I did what anyone would do, sold my dog for three thousand bucks and put it all on Team Liquid at the Barkley Center. I'll buy them back after

I win Amsterdam, London, Cologne, Montreal. I don't gave a shit.

Speaker 1

You're in Brooklyn now, baby.

Speaker 3

This is the Barclay Center.

Speaker 2

This is where champions play and the Brooklyn Nets. We're gonna heal as a team or we're gonna die as individuals.

Speaker 3

Did I make myself Claire?

Speaker 2

Yeah?

Speaker 3

Come on, all right, ignore all that and we just follow the game. Pun Let's go, guys.

Speaker 2

It was time for Team Liquid to win in the semifinals and make me some money.

Speaker 3

Liqu go, baby, Let's go.

Speaker 2

It definitely felt like a real sport. These gaming gladiators were ready for bout ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 9

The moment you've are any waiting, fourteen Liquid bucks, says combat, click your mouth.

Speaker 2

They fletched their fingers, they clicked their buttons, they adjusted their headsets.

Speaker 9

Come on, click right click, d hey, let's talk the waves starting over here?

Speaker 2

Whoa rots u? Stairs?

Speaker 3

What all?

Speaker 2

They fought to out maneuver, evade, and shoot their opponents heads off, And just when it looked like Team Liquid was on the ropes, they.

Speaker 9

Rowed their next ground final said fifteen like quicks until I talk, until I talk?

Speaker 1

Who come?

Speaker 2

Why they liked our video games of sport? Who cares? I'm rich? Time to try to buy my dog back.

Speaker 4

Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2

Watch The Daily Show weeknights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount

Speaker 4

Plus Paramount Podcasts

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