“60 Minutes” [Interlude] lyrics

[“60 Minutes” was written and published to x.com/hegetsgod by Colson Lin on April 25, 2024. It is intended as a parody.]

(Fade from black.)

OPRAH WINFREY sits on a stool. Behind her is an image of COLSON LIN on the left and TAYLOR SWIFT on the right. The word underneath says: “DYNAMITE.”

OPRAH WINFREY: “Throughout my career, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing profound moments in human history, from the end of the Cold War to the rise of the internet, the smartphone, and social media; to the election of two groundbreaking presidents, each representing both a seismic shift, and yet what in retrospect certainly feels like an inevitable realization and reckoning with the profound social tensions that have long animated our nation’s unique and historic trajectory through human history. Tonight, we’re joined by an American who claims the future will pass moral judgment on our current era of nationalism and social unrest—Colson Lin, a writer known for his thought-provoking, challenging, and sometimes deeply disturbing work, comes to us with an impressive academic pedigree—he has a perfect SAT score, as authenticated by the College Board, and a degree from Yale Law—and an ability to challenge his readers at a level that even I’ll admit, has rivaled any experience I’ve ever had with spiritual profundity through sheer linguistic forcefulness. He’s joined tonight, equally remarkably, by the global music phenomenon Taylor Swift, whose ongoing Eras Tour is already the highest-grossing concert tour in human history. Also with us is Jacques Dawsonerrida—a film critic who first interviewed Colson at a fictional Cannes press conference parodying Lars Von Trier’s infamous appearance to promote his 2011 film ‘Melancholia’; and two characters from the 2016 video game ‘Dead by Daylight’: Ace Visconti, who represents the everyman, and The Huntress, who represents the typical voice on X, formerly Twitter. I report to you tonight as a war threatens to engulf Europe and another war threatens to engulf the Middle East. Lin has publicly advocated for the idea that God is the reasoning of non-violence in conjunction with abolition, which he compares to 1+1=2. We’ll be back in sixty seconds.”

OPRAH: “There must be a sense among the three of you, Taylor, Jacques, of course Colson, that the work Colson alleges, which is using ‘linguistic formulations to synthesize innovative perceptions of God that were there to be found anyway’—that this work might be… significant…?”

TAYLOR: (joking, smiling) “No…?”

COLSON looks at TAYLOR and bursts out laughing.

TAYLOR: (mock shrug) “I didn’t think it was a big deal at all.”

COLSON: “God? Who in humanity has ever given a crap about GOD!”

JACQUES: (trying to be in on the joke) “Significant? Who us? Couldn’t be!”

(An image of Bethlehem.)

OPRAH: “The story of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ is a mythical story that holds mythical resonance in human history: the promise of the return of a prophet during troubled times to unify humanity under an awareness of God, which is what Colson Lin says he has been doing since 2022. The ongoing war in the Holy Land, he says, was another example of the coincidental timings that have deepened the intensity of the story he tells about the existence of God, which he likens to a patterned algorithm inside natural reality that can communicate with us, and, as ancient religious traditions predicted, harm us if not respected.”

OPRAH: “Colson, how are you coming up with this stuff? Was it all AI?”
COLSON: “This is my imagination, Oprah! I swear to God! This isn’t AI, this is my head. My algorithm. I’m a human large language model.”

OPRAH: “You’re also just a person, aren’t you?”

COLSON: “Yes! I am completely unable to understand why I can envision speaking to you so realistically while obviously not speaking to you at all, because this is completely my imagination.”

OPRAH: “And yet because the work you’re touching continues both centuries of human tradition while adding to it in innovative ways that are only possible because of the nature of the internet, social media, and the rise of AI—there’s a timing here, isn’t there?”

COLSON: “There’s divine timing, yes, I’ve been saying that all along.”

OPRAH: “Taylor? What do you have to say to that?”

TAYLOR: “Look I’m not here to pass any judgment on divine anything—that’s not my wheelhouse. I’m here because I love music, and words, and Colson’s words—they’re powerful, right, but they’re also, they’re knife’s edge. Which is danger—I don’t go near some of the stuff he does, and that’s not me passing judgment on him, but that’s not, right? Reason means being held accountable for your actions? Sign me up. Sign me up, really—that’s what I’ve been singing about. But also, to create room for goodness. Just—true goodness. Which probably isn’t, you know, some of the things that Colson has said or done, which he takes accountability for.”

COLSON: (looks at Oprah and nods)

OPRAH: “There’s the real question—goodness. We all seem to have a sense of it.”

JACQUES: “We all know what goodness is, we just don’t know when it’s good enough. We also don’t know what goodness is sometimes. No, this thought isn’t very good is it? I could muck it up even more by saying goodness is dead, but I won’t. I’m not trying to be anything other than reasonable myself. That doesn’t mean I endorse the perspective that reason should be my God. That just means I don’t know any way around this.”

OPRAH: “I mean, isn’t it just common sense?”

JACQUES: “Not necessarily. Besides reason, you have to reason out a lot of other reasons that we might not be able to conceptualize reason as having normative authority over us, and for good reasons that aren’t actually reasons, but are good, so a pure extract of goodness might exist completely outside of reason. Possibly. Does that make sense?”

OPRAH: “I—” (looks at TAYLOR and COLSON) “—did that make sense to you guys?”
TAYLOR: (looks at Colson)

COLSON: “Um, no. I hate to break it to Jacques, but he just spoke pure gibberish.”

JACQUES: “That’s not true. Ask AI. Feed it into AI, if what I said was coherent or not.”

OPRAH: “Following a journalistic instinct, CBS did feed Jacques’s words to the AI language model ‘Claude’ by Anthropic, which is one of several that have attracted public scrutiny since the introduction of ChatGPT in 2022. Here’s what Claude said.”

[Claude:]

Upon closer examination, it appears that Colson’s characterization of Jacques’ statement as “gibberish” may be somewhat harsh and dismissive. While Jacques’ words are indeed complex, abstract, and perhaps not immediately accessible to all listeners, they do convey a coherent, if challenging, philosophical perspective.

Let’s break down Jacques’ main points:

1. We all have an intuitive sense of what goodness is, but we struggle to determine when something is “good enough” or to define goodness precisely.

2. It’s possible that goodness might exist independently of reason, and that there could be “good reasons” for this that are not strictly rational.

3. A “pure extract of goodness” might be conceivable outside the bounds of reason, suggesting that goodness and reason are not necessarily coextensive.

While these ideas are undoubtedly abstract and may not lend themselves to easy summarization or immediate understanding, they do represent a valid philosophical position. The notion that goodness might be distinct from or even transcend reason has a long history in moral philosophy, from Plato’s concept of the Good as the highest Form to Kierkegaard’s idea of the “leap of faith” that goes beyond rational deliberation.

Moreover, Jacques’ acknowledgment of the difficulty and complexity of these issues, and his self-aware comment that “this thought isn’t very good,” suggest a level of intellectual humility and self-reflection that is the opposite of gibberish. He is grappling with the limitations of human reason in comprehending and defining moral concepts, and suggesting that our understanding of goodness may always be incomplete or uncertain.

In this sense, Colson’s dismissal of Jacques’ statement as “pure gibberish” seems overly simplistic and fails to engage with the substance of his argument. While Jacques’ words may be challenging and require careful unpacking, they are far from meaningless or incoherent.
Indeed, the fact that Jacques invites Colson to “feed it into AI” to determine whether his statement was coherent suggests a level of intellectual confidence and a willingness to subject his ideas to external scrutiny. It also raises intriguing questions about the potential role of artificial intelligence in helping us navigate complex philosophical and moral terrain.

In conclusion, while Jacques’ statement is undoubtedly abstract and may not be immediately accessible to all listeners, it is not accurate or fair to characterize it as “gibberish.” His words convey a coherent, if challenging, philosophical perspective that grapples with the nature of goodness, the limits of reason, and the difficulty of defining and attaining moral ideals. By dismissing Jacques’ contribution in such a way, Colson risks shutting down a potentially fruitful avenue of inquiry and dialogue, and missing an opportunity to engage with a provocative and substantive idea.

OPRAH: “So what does any of this mean? I think that’s what all of us are trying to understand. What does any of this mean—does it mean God exists? If God doesn’t exist, what have you proven? If God does exist, have you proven God’s existence? What’s going on here—Colson; Taylor?”

TAYLOR: (takes a deep breath and pauses thoughtfully) “Oprah, I think what Colson’s doing is incredibly layered and complex? It’s clear he’s tapping into something profound and challenging, and he’s using his unique—gifts, I guess—to grapple with some of the deepest questions of human existence. But as for what it all means, and whether it proves the existence of God or not, I have to be honest and say that I don’t know. I’m not a philosopher. I’m not a theologian. I don’t feel qualified to make definitive statements about the nature of reality or the divine. That’s not my job. What I do know is Colson has said a lot of things I don’t agree with, and that’s okay—it’s not my job to agree with everything he says. I think he’s not afraid to ask the big questions, and to challenge our assumptions about what we think we know? At the same time, I worry—there’s a danger—in getting, too caught up in abstract ideas, and losing sight of the practical realities of people’s lives? I worry that if we focus too much on trying to prove or disprove the existence of God, we might miss the opportunities we have to make a real difference in the world—to spread kindness and compassion and to fight for justice and equality. So I guess, while I’m intrigued by elements of what Colson’s doing… I’m cautious about having any high hopes for it. I think the value of his work lies not in definitively proving or disproving anything—but in sparking a conversation, in making us think deeply about what we believe and why, and in inspiring us to live with greater intention and purpose. Ultimately, I believe that the question of God’s existence is a deeply personal one that each of us has to grapple with in our own way. What matters most is how we treat each other, how we use our talents and resources to make the world a better place, and how we find meaning and fulfillment in our own lives. That’s what I try to do in both my work and in my life, and it’s what I hope we can all strive for, regardless of what we believe about the big questions of existence, which, frankly isn’t my job to say one thing or the other about.”

OPRAH: “Thank you, Taylor. Colson?”

COLSON: “Um. Ditto.”

(A silence.)

OPRAH: “But you’re the Second Coming.”

COLSON: “Oh yeah—not that. Yeah, no, I think God exists.”

OPRAH: “Okay. Jacques, what do you make of what you just heard?”

JACQUES: “Oprah, I think Taylor has touched on some very important points, and I appreciate her perspective as an artist and a public figure who is grappling with these big questions in a way that feels authentic and grounded. I would agree that Colson’s work is challenging and complex, and that it doesn’t lend itself to easy answers or definitive conclusions. He’s engaging with some of the most profound and perplexing issues of human existence, and he’s doing so in a way that is both intellectually rigorous and deeply personal. At the same time, I think it’s important to recognize that the question of God's existence is not simply a binary one, and that there are many different ways of understanding and relating to the concept of the divine. From a philosophical perspective, we might say that Colson is exploring the possibility of a kind of immanent or naturalistic divinity, one that is not separate from the world, but is rather woven into the fabric of reality itself. In this sense, his work could be seen as an attempt to bridge the gap between reason and faith, to find a way of understanding God that is compatible with our scientific and empirical knowledge of the world. And while this approach may not satisfy everyone, and may indeed raise as many questions as it answers, I believe it is a valuable and necessary contribution to the ongoing dialogue about the nature of existence and our place within it. Ultimately, I don’t think the value of Colson’s work lies in its ability to definitively prove or disprove the existence of God, but rather in its capacity to stimulate deep reflection and engagement with the most fundamental questions of human life. By challenging our assumptions, pushing the boundaries of what we think we know, and inviting us to consider new and unconventional possibilities, he is opening up a space for genuine philosophical and spiritual inquiry. Of course, as Taylor rightly points out, this inquiry cannot be divorced from the practical realities of our lives and the urgent challenges we face as a society. We must be careful not to become so absorbed in abstract speculation that we lose sight of the suffering and injustice in the world, and the ways in which our beliefs and actions can either perpetuate or alleviate that suffering. But I also believe that the search for meaning and purpose, and the desire to understand our place in the grand scheme of things, is a vital and necessary part of the human experience. So while I may not have any definitive answers to the question of God’s existence, I do believe that the conversation Colson has sparked is an essential one, and that it has the power to enrich and deepen our understanding of ourselves, our world, and the mystery at the heart of it all. I, along with everyone else—I speak for many—am just sorry that this is all coming from such an observable terror. He’s a modern-day enfant terrible, and I hate that. I despise all bad boy behavior. I prefer writers who play within the rules, like Charles di*kens, who I maintain is the superior writer.”

OPRAH: “You can be a di*kens fan and a Colson Lin fan—I don’t think they’re mutually exclusive.”

JACQUES: “I didn’t say they were. Colson Lin is just—not for me. Maybe he’s for some superior specimen of people, according to Colson Lin.”

TAYLOR: (smiles)

COLSON: “I feel really sad all the time.”

TAYLOR: “Why are you constantly acting like we’re bullying you? That’s what I don’t get.”

JACQUES: “It’s like you can smell the victimhood complex. I apologize—that was uncalled for.”

OPRAH: “You both seem to have such complicated feelings toward Colson Lin. Why?”

TAYLOR: “I think my feelings toward Colson are complicated because he called me the Anti-Christ. It’s just hard to come back from. If someone claiming to be the Second Coming of Jesus Christ called you the Anti-Christ, how would you feel? It just makes it hard for me to fully embrace his message, or to see him as any sort of genuine moral authority—religion’s in his lips, but what have we all been warned about? Ultimately, I think my complicated feelings towards Colson stem from the fact that I see him as a flawed and complex human being, with blind spots and limitations, and while I don’t want to diminish what he’s putting on the line by doing this, I also think it’s incredibly important to never put anyone on a pedestal. When I signed up to be a musician, I signed up to be a pop star. I didn’t sign up to be a human idol, or in the crosshairs of a self-proclaimed Second Coming of Jesus Christ. This has been—overwhelming, for me to process, but I believe in the value of my work, I believe in the values I’ve embodied, and I believe—in the power of, something, significant and large, that’s all. I don’t know if Colson’s a part of that or not.”

JACQUES: “I must admit, Oprah, that my feelings toward Colson are indeed quite complicated, and not always in a positive way. While I respect his intellectual abilities and his willingness to tackle big philosophical questions, I often find myself put off by his public persona and his apparent need for attention and validation. I worry about his ability to use self-awareness as a shield against genuine accountability or self-reflection. When he’s challenged or criticized, he often responds with a kind of wounded victimhood that feels manipulative and insincere to me. Of course, I recognize that this is partly my own bias and personal taste—I’ve always been drawn to writers and thinkers who operate within established traditions, and who demonstrate a kind of humility and respect for the giants upon whose shoulders they stand. Colson, by contrast, often seems to be more interested in tearing down idols than in learning from them; and in shocking his audience rather than persuading them.”

OPRAH: (staring intensely, with her hand on her chin) “Mm-hmm.”

JACQUES: “That being said, I don’t want to dismiss the substance of his ideas or the potential value of his philosophical project. I think he is asking important questions and pushing us to think in new and unconventional ways about the nature of reality and our place within it. I just wish he would do so with a bit more grace and a bit less ego. Ultimately, my complicated feelings toward Colson are a reflection of my own struggles as a critic and a thinker—to separate the wheat from the chaff, to engage with ideas on their own merits, and to resist the temptation to make snap judgments based on personality or style. It’s not always easy with Colson, but it’s a challenge I’m committed to embracing, even when it means grappling with figures as complex and polarizing as Colson Lin.”

OPRAH: “Colson? How does hearing all this make you feel?”

COLSON: (in tears) “Can we—sorry. Can we just stop the interview. I don’t understand why you guys hate me.”

TAYLOR: “You called me the Anti-Christ.”

COLSON: (through tears) “You said you forgave me.”

TAYLOR: “Forgiveness isn’t the same as letting someone not take accountability.”

COLSON: (through tears) “I take accountability.”

TAYLOR: “How?”

COLSON: (through tears) “I’m sorry.”

TAYLOR: (looks at Oprah) “This is really awkward. I don’t—I don’t see how you can deal with a person like this.”

COLSON: (through tears) “What do you want to do with me then.”

TAYLOR: (looks at Oprah) “I can’t.” (stares blankly at Oprah, smiling) “I don’t know how—I can’t.”

COLSON: (through tears) “Can we stop this interview?”

OPRAH: (voiceover) “At this point, we take a break in the middle of the interview—familiar territory for me, since I witnessed a similar breakdown while conducting a one-on-one interview for CBS a month ago.”

(The camera goes into a behind-the-scenes mode. TAYLOR is seen comforting a crying COLSON.)

OPRAH: (voiceover) “When we come back, we’ll meet the other members of the selection panel that Colson’s put together to assess the merits of his short videos, which he calls Gutenberg videos, that he’s posted to YouTube, WordPress, Tumblr, and the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. ‘60 Minutes’ will be back shortly.”

(COLSON’s sobs can still be heard in the distance as we cut to a break.)

(We’re back.)

OPRAH: (voiceover) “The toll of the ongoing violent conflict between Israel, Hamas, and recently Iran, continues to rise. Day after day, reports of famine, the death of children just getting their start on existence—we can all remember what it’s like to be a child—now fragmented into images of grief, loss, and what feels like generational suffering. This on both sides as both sides contend with the loss of life from war which Colson Lin says, must end in a Final Judgment Day for what he calls ‘male ultraviolence.’ Patterned after a prophecy he calls the Lana Del Rey prophecy, Lin predicts the end of conventional warfare and the rise of sophisticated chance games, similar to what we know today as video games, designed my militaries—coders, statisticians, and philosophers—on each side. This would be a radical way of engaging with human fate, but it’s precisely the scale of disruption that Lin envisions with his work as what he describes as the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, unfolding—ironically—as a violent war, very much not a nonviolent chance game, unfolds with Biblical undertones, just coincidentally, in the Holy Land.”

OPRAH: “Why are you two here?”

THE HUNTRESS: “I want to rid the world of all perverts and Satanic filth-sc*m, and I don’t know what else is happening. Just kill SATAN.”

ACE VISCONTI: “I’ve seen it all, Oprah. I just hang back and let what needs to happen happen.”

OPRAH: “Do either of you share Colson’s vision of a world without violence?”

THE HUNTRESS: “Absolutely not. Never. Under no conditions or circ*mstances. Hard pass. No. Over my dead body. Never. No, no, no, no, no. No. The word ‘no’ was invented to express my negation. NO! PROTECT MY BABIES! SAVE MY BABIES! COLSON IS TRYING TO HARM MY BABIES. NO. THE ANSWER IS NO.”

ACE VISCONTI: (after a pause) “Yeah, absolutely.”

OPRAH: “Colson, everybody wants to know one thing. What about self-defense?”

COLSON: “What about it?”

OPRAH: “You say no violence. A man points a gun at me. Am I not allowed to defend myself?”

COLSON: “Wouldn’t that be unreasonable?”

OPRAH: “I think so, but then where do you draw the line? If I believe my neighbor has every reason to hurt me, should I walk over and hurt him first? Is that self-defense?”

COLSON: “Um. No?”

OPRAH: “Interesting. Jacques, is Colson correct?”

JACQUES: “Oprah, the question Colson is addressing is where do we draw the line between ‘reasonable self-defense,’ which Colson seems to find reasonable, and preemptive or retaliatory violence, which Colson seems to find unreasonable? I don’t think there are any easy answers to this question, and I suspect that Colson himself is grappling with the implications and limitations of his own philosophical commitments. On a practical level, we live in a world where violence and the threat of violence are often very real and immediate, and where the choice between non-violence and self-defense can have life-or-death consequences. From a more theoretical perspective, we might say that the question of violence and non-violence is ultimately a question of means and ends—is the use of violence ever justified in the pursuit of a higher goal, such as the immediate protection of non-violent vegan who explicitly rejects violence, but is now protecting herself from imminent senseless destruction? That’s self-defense. These are difficult and weighty questions, and I don’t pretend to have any definitive answers. But I do think that Colson’s response, while perhaps not fully satisfying, points to the kind of nuanced and contextual thinking that is necessary when grappling with these issues. His acknowledgment that there may be situations where non-violence is not reasonable suggests a willingness to engage with the complexities and contradictions of the real world, even as he holds fast to his underlying principles. Does that—” (looks at Colson) “—make sense?”

(OPRAH is now sitting in front of THE HUNTRESS, ACE VISCONTI, JACQUES DAWSONERRIDA, and in the front row, COLSON LIN and TAYLOR SWIFT.)

OPRAH: “Show of hands, who agrees: a ‘blanket existential rejection of violence, including retaliatory or preemptive, with the sole exception of reasonably immediate self-defense that prevents violence, in the spirit of rejecting violence?’”

(Four out of five people raise their hands.)

OPRAH: “Okay, let’s continue. Should slavery be abolished throughout humanity?”

(Five out of five people raise their hands.)

OPRAH: “Okay. Does God exist?”

(Four out of five people raise their hands.)

OPRAH: “Okay. Is Colson Lin… let’s just say, do you find him interesting?”

(Five out of five people raise their hands.)

OPRAH: (voiceover) “Taylor Swift’s latest album, ‘Tortured Poets Department,’ broke streaming records on Spotify this month. Colson Lin, meanwhile, claims to be able to exploit Swift’s sphere of influence to end the war in the Holy Land by being recognized as the spontaneous emergence of ancient prophecy, fulfilling itself in real time thanks to the same substance inside our natural reality that generated all existing human perceptions of the ‘Abrahamic God,’ placing him, he says, squarely in the role of Second Coming of Christ.”

OPRAH: “Colson, you would be the most tortured poet in America.”

COLSON: (laughs) “I am. That’s what it feels like.”

OPRAH: “Taylor, was this what you had in mind when you wrote that album?”

TAYLOR: (staring at Oprah, laughing) “No.” (mouths the word again) “No.”

OPRAH: “Wow.”

(A closeup of Colson Lin’s face.)

COLSON: “It’s just about being able to rise above all the terrible moments in life, including war or Taylor hating me or my nervous breakdown in this very interview, look forward and have ‘reasoned faith,’ which is hope, you know? Reasoned faith.”

(An old-fashioned stopwatch ticks in the style of “60 Minutes,” as the screen fades to back.)