September 5, 2026 • 52 mins
In the second part of this Classic two-part episode, Ben, Matt and Noel explore the Great Reset. While it's sometimes called a conspiracy theory, the allegations and speculation circling the WEF and Davos are more like a mix of multiple, at-times contradictory ideas. Listen in to learn more about the criticisms, concerns, and bizarre accusations around Davos and the Great Reset.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Folks, we are back with a classic episode here. We
mentioned Davos and the Great Reset, Chapter 1. This is
the Great Reset, Chapter 2, where we dive into what
makes something a conspiracy theory versus an actual conspiracy and
why the speculation about Davos and the World Economic Forum is–
(00:25):
it's a lot more plausible, honestly, than many of us
believed going in.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It's like so much more plausible. Now more than ever.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And Dylan says Davos sounds a lot like a yogurt
brand to him.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
If only it were.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But they do have branded merch if you go.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Davos Shmavos. I think you get a lot of free merch, right?
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
If you are one of the chosen that has paid
to be there.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's like the swag bags you get at the Oscars,
but like way cooler.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, and maybe one day we'll have swag bags as well.
In the meantime, we proudly present Davos and the Great Reset,
Chapter 2.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Hello. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Paul Mission Control Deccant.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
You are here. And that makes this Stuff They Don't
Want You To Know. This is part two of our
dive into Davos and the Great Reset. If you haven't
listened to part one, by all means, you can still
listen to this episode. But it'll make a lot more
sense if you if you go back to Wednesday's episode
(02:02):
and and see the background that we laid out. And,
you know, I think that we did an OK job
outlining some of the basics of this initiative, an organization.
And then I think we did an OK job giving
giving the background here, because, as we said in part one,
you know, even the here are the facts part was crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Like, there's crazy stuff. Yeah, there was a whole section
where I was like, we haven't even gotten crazy yet,
and it's already crazy. We got pre-crazy. But I do
believe that this part, too, picks up where it really
starts to pop off.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So here's a quick recap previously on stuff they don't
want you to know.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Here are the facts.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
The World Economic Forum, or Davos, it's a great place
for great, big ideas where the public sphere and private
sphere can come together and work in harmony for the
greater good.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And our compatriot, Paul Mission Control, Deccant, said something very
interesting off air. Paul, you described, you said, so Davos
is kind of like South by Southwest on steroids. And
it's true. One thing we didn't talk about was the
abundance of wild after-hours parties, like the guys in charge
(03:20):
of Salesforce parties. flew out fresh flower lei from Hawaii
for all the attendees of his party. He also flew
out a live, well, I guess all human bands are
live bands, but he flew out a band that survived
and performed.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Was it like a steel drum band of some variety?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I think more traditional Hawaiian music, but I'm not sure because,
like many people in the audience today, I did not
attend the 2020 Davos.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
You know, I had the odd, I guess... honor or
whatever of attending a similar type of event that is
clearly influenced by Davos, since this is like sort of
the granddaddy of these type of events. And it's called Summit.
And it took place, it takes place in Los Angeles.
And the guy that started it literally owns a mountain
(04:08):
in like Colorado. I can't remember his name, but it's this,
you know, really, I was there as press. I was
like working on a podcast and was going to like
record an interview with like the founder of Cirque du Soleil,
but like it didn't pan out, but I had a
pass to go. And so I saw some of the
panels and this is the kind of place where you
see stuff like this only at these kinds of things.
I saw Jaden Smith interview Al Gore about climate change, uh,
(04:32):
in this weird old theater in downtown LA. And then
I saw the, I really enjoyed this. It was this, um,
interesting kind of mindfulness guru named Eckhart Tolle, who is
like a, uh, Yeah, he's kind of this like meditative
kind of mindfulness, you know, guy who is obviously beloved
by a lot of these high powered people who brought
him in and he does speaking engagements. But it was very,
(04:55):
very adaptable. And I'm glad I got to go. But
just being there and seeing the opulence and the types
of people that actually paid for their badges was definitely
a bit of a culture shock for me.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, I've been invited to things like that in a
similar vein. Probably one of my Still, one of my
favorite things to go to, even though I know they're
not perfect, are TED Talks and TEDx stuff. It's always inspiring,
even if there are things there that I don't agree with.
(05:27):
I love the conversations. I don't ever regret skipping out
on those things. For a while, I did try to
skip out on a lot of them. But my one
big regret is missing um any of the speeches about
corvid intelligence for you know obvious reasons right uh the science.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
Is amazing yeah i know man i'm sorry i feel
you you just need a fleet of corvids is that
what you'd call it well i mean it'd be a
murder technically which honestly seems unfairly sinister even though i
know it kind of tracks with my view of.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Birds but uh for you ben i don't think a
murder seems right i like.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
A fleet Uh, yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Uh, murder of crows.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Uh, check this out. If you haven't heard this one, folks,
an unkindness of Ravens.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Also incredibly, uh, unpleasant connotations there.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So emo.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Hey, do you guys remember when I went to the
Bilderberg meeting in 2011? Do you guys remember?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I remember when you went to the build a bear conference.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
You're right.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Well, they have a lot in common. You know, I
think they're the subsidiaries of the.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Same organization, right?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Clearly.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I have time outside. We're keeping it in.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
We're keeping it in. We have Matt's son, by far
the best part of the show, live in effect. Is
he going to make some remarks?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I mean, that's really important stuff. He needed a PlayStation
4 controller because he has things to do. Important stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
What's he gaming on these days?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Rayman, right? Nope.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
This time he's going for cuphead, which, uh, that.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Game is punishingly difficult.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
It's incredibly difficult.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Like father, like son.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Is he?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Can he move things with his mind yet?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Anyway, so moving on, moving on.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So all of us have experienced things that are kind
of at a lower level of this sort of, this
sort of event. But, uh, not near as exclusive as this.
Here's where it gets crazy. The theme of last year's
meeting at Davos, the Great Reset Initiative, was to use
(07:40):
chaos in a little finger way, to treat chaos as
a ladder, as a window of opportunity, to say that
when whatever secular issues God, or a series of circumstances
you believe in, closes a door that force inevitably opens
a window through which you may crawl into a new world.
(08:01):
They wanted to use the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic
as an opportunity to rebuild society and the global economy
at large in a more sustainable way. Prince Charles, yes,
that Prince Charles, who may have recently asked about his
relative's future skin tone. kicked off Davos with a speech
(08:27):
at the launch ceremony that described key focus areas that
were built on an earlier initiative that he had, a
pre-existing idea. So he wasn't just like up there freestyling,
here are the things I think are important, which also
would have been cool, especially if his freestyle rhymed. But
not there yet, maybe 2022. Here's what he wanted to fix.
(08:49):
The reinvigoration of science, technology, and innovation. a move toward
net zero transitions globally, the introduction of carbon pricing, reinventing
longstanding incentive structures, rebalancing investments to include more green investments,
and encouraging green public infrastructure projects. So using financial tools
(09:12):
that already exist or that have been proposed to maybe
not so much push the world at large, toward more
alternative energy or to less waste, but to incentivize it.
It's very different. To alter the rules of the playing
field such that it is more profitable in the long
(09:36):
term to engage in these new technologies, these green technologies,
and so on. And yes, we are well aware of...
concept called greenwashing which is when a an organization be
it a company or a country purports to do things
along this level but really it's kind of lip service
(09:58):
this stuff does seem sincere. There is solid science that
says these things can help the world, but again, nobody
agrees on how they should be rolled out, who pays
the tab, and who gets the immediate benefits. So, of course,
imagine you've got this elite meeting of some of the
(10:19):
world's most important people. The city is locked down. You
can't go. The journalists who do report there tell stories
of extensive security, of metal detectors, of literal snipers posted
on buildings because there are forces that would be antagonistic
to a lot of the A-listers here. So obviously, oh,
(10:41):
and Prince Charles kicks off the speech. Obviously, conspiracy theories
emerge very quickly in full force. And they already existed
for decades regarding this organization and other places like the
World Economic Forum. But this time it was different. because
of COVID and because of some other conspiracies that existed
(11:03):
before the Davos meeting or coalesced shortly thereafter, including 5G,
including the idea of microchipping and so on. Some of
these conspiracies here in the West, in the U.S. in particular,
were spread by what have been described as far-right groups.
So it's like there is a great reset conspiracy here.
(11:26):
That I have a terrible analogy for, and I hope
it's not too, too cringeworthy. But please, of course, as always,
forward any complaints to our complaint department, Jonathan Strickland at iHeartRadio.com.
If you're on like a QAnon forum or something, you
would probably see this, and it would be something that
a lot of people would agree with this article. Theory
(11:48):
called the Great Reset has the somewhat dubious honor of
becoming the first widely circulated conspiracy theory of the Biden administration.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, and it's a bit strange. You'll see a lot
written about this on social media and forums. And in
this theory.
You know, we've we've kind of described to you how
the wide view of the Davos man is different from
maybe the people who actually go there and how there
are misconceptions about some, you know, of the ongoings there.
(12:21):
But also, there's just not a lot of transparency about
what goes on in after hours, you know, stuff that's
not officially posted on the Davos site or posted on
social media there. But in this theory. It describes those
who attend and those who run the whole thing there
at Davos as essentially a coven of technocratic witches, really.
(12:43):
You know, doing, in some ways, telling the future and
casting spells to affect the future.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, exactly. Techno-financial witchcraft. Oligarchs or occultists. Current President Biden
had a slogan called Build Back Better. And this was
red meat to folks who believe in some of these theories.
They said that Build Back Better is actually a cover phrase.
It's a euphemism for a plan to enslave humanity. and
(13:13):
end capitalism, to abolish private property, to imprison everybody who
dissents in any way, meaning particularly that if you refuse
to accept the implant of a thought-reading microchip, off to
the gulag with you. And this is interesting to me
because if you look at the structure of this, maybe
(13:33):
there's a little meta, but this conspiracy is kind of
like if you go to Chipotle and someone's building a
burrito for you, you can take the base theory here globalism,
one world governance, and that's kind of like your tortilla.
And then you can add some other conspiratorial toppings as
the mood strikes you.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Ben, where do I go to invest in thought reading
microchip technology?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Noel just wants the hot investment. True.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah. It's weird because you would think that if the
science were that far along, there would be a lot
of things to invest in. But medtech, biotech, whatever you
want to call it, is a huge market. This is
not financial advice, as they say on WallStreetBets.com. But from
(14:22):
what I understand, all you have to do is call
up Billy G. Just text Bill Gates.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Billy G.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
Williams?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
No, that's Billy D.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Williams.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Sorry. Yeah, got it. BG. What's Billy D.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Doing, too?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, he was in The Mandalorian for a hot minute,
wasn't he? No, no, he was in the most recent
Star Wars big screen reboot. Would love to see him
in The Mandalorian.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, I'd love to see him on the show. It's
been a while since we caught up. I do wonder
what he would have to say about this. So if
we're back in our conspiratorial Chipotle, here are the options
you can get as toppings. Banning religion. It's a good
old standby. It always stands the test of time and
(15:01):
comes back up. Here in the U.S., some small version
of the powers that be banning religion pops up right
before Christmas, right? They're making a war on Christmas because
of the way they're writing things or saying happy holidays.
Another ingredient you could add would be crushing all small business.
This means that any private entity that's not affiliated with
(15:24):
the big Davos players will be driven to insolvency or
acquired by the in-group of global corporations.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Another thing here is something very common and something we've
been watching occur for a long time, which is replacing
workforces of humanity, human workforces, the bees, the drones that
do everything, with automation, with technology, with self-checkout lanes. Sorry,
that ship has sailed.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I love self-checkout lanes. I don't know if that makes
me a bad person, but I'm all about it.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I hate them.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You hate them?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I want to talk to somebody.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Oh, man.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Matt, are you lonely? You talk to us every day, bud.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
I just mean that one-on-one, even if we're masked up
and stuff. Just whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Also, you know, I mean, it's a nice touch to
have someone, you know, bag your groceries who has experience
bagging groceries because I'm very bad at it. I smush
my bread every time.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, there's a Tetris to it, right?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
But this goes further, by the way, because it's not
just replacing– you know the workforce in that way it's
in some way altering the humans in order to make
them either unable to work in that way or just
unnecessary in some form or fashion.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah for cybernetics force wetware kind of stuff and then
also you know going back to our earlier chapter one
episode imagine you know you see somebody who doesn't hit
Dunbar's number for you and you're just like that is
not really a person to me that's that's the function
That's the thing that moves the garbage on Tuesday. Then psychologically,
(17:07):
you are not particularly affected by a change in the
thing that is doing that function for you. So that's
where that conspiracy comes from. And then there's this other,
I guess this would be more right wing idea that
this will result in a forced redistribution of wealth. but
not for the high-level players at Davos. Instead, it'll be
(17:32):
forced redistribution of wealth for the average middle-class household, the
average lower working-class household, that they're out to take your stuff.
And when you hear pundits or critics talking about the
Great Reset conspiracies, they're generally talking about some combination of
(17:53):
these ideas we just mentioned. Lots of different possible flavor combinations.
You know what I mean? You can add all sorts
of stuff. And then, of course, the avocado of anti-Semitism
pops up, right, in this Chipotle. Because it often does, sadly, still,
when we're talking about globalist conspiracies. But no matter what
(18:14):
you add to the tortilla here, it is still a burrito.
It's still kind of the same thing. And if there
is an employee of the month, I promise I'm about
to let this analogy go. Thank you guys for humoring me.
In this conspiratorial Chipotle, it would probably be, at least
here in the U.S., a guy named Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's right. And he actually wrote an open letter to
Donald Trump that was later promoted on the Fox TV network.
And this was in October of 2020. In this letter, Vigano,
there's a little accent over there. Maybe it's a no.
Who knows? He alleged that the Great Reset was, in fact,
(18:57):
a cover for a scheme built by none other than
Billy G himself. Bill Gates centered on the, quote, renunciation
of private property and adherence to a program of vaccination
against COVID-19. Probably some of where the idea of microchip
implants being part of the vaccination process maybe came from.
Speaker 6 (19:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Um, but Vigano claimed people who refused a global digital
ID from a quote health dictatorship would be imprisoned in
detention camps and lose all of their possessions. Um, so yeah,
I mean, folks, you well may, uh, recognize this. Um,
having a lot in common of this idea of Agenda 21.
(19:39):
Just a bit more vaccination-centric, right? And Ben, could we
do a quick refresher on Agenda 21?
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, so it's a program for sustainable development. that comes
to us from the United Nations. But the conspiracy, of course,
is that it is a further step toward one world government,
that it would create a not just a global government,
but a global military and then a global currency. Right.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And of course, all of the neo-Nazis and anti-Semites out
there did their best to pin this on, ding, ding, ding,
Jewish people with absolutely zero evidence to back that up.
And then you've got the most outlandish, far out idea
of them all, the idea that Grover and Elmo, that's right,
(20:29):
of Sesame Street, puppet fame, are part of this scheme,
or a scheme. Breitbart columnist James Dellingpole argued that a
WEF podcast called The Great Reset, Resetting Education with Sesame Street,
is propaganda meant to brainwash children, along with videos demonstrating
(20:50):
how to wear a mask and to practice social distancing.
Things that, as we know, were very much demonized and
politicized by folks in this set. So, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
So you can find this podcast that we're mentioning here,
The Great Reset, Resetting Education with Sesame Street. You can
find it on SoundCloud and you can find it in
a couple other places. If you go to SoundCloud, you
can read some of the comments that are placed within
(21:24):
that file. Because, you know, when you're playing a SoundCloud file,
you can comment at a specific section and it shows up.
I'm going to read a couple of these really quickly
and I will edit myself. Alexander says, Death to the
New World Order. Jesus is Lord. Another one says, Resetting
the entire world is a very big job. Dangerously Close says,
(21:48):
Go f * * * yourselves. The people will rise
against you. You better hide.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Are they talking directly to Elmo and Grover?
Speaker 3 (21:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
I greatly appreciate this stuff because it's funny. It's public
education if it's something you agree with, but it's propaganda
if it's something with which you disagree. I think all
of us, I think all people who were watching Sesame
Street at some point Have one or two characters you
(22:23):
didn't trust.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Like Big Bird always seemed a little sus to me.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Really?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
He was always kind of, I thought he was the
voice of reason. Elmo always rubbed me the wrong way.
A weird little yappy voice. And he just seemed like
a speed freak or something. I don't know what his
deal is.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I'm sorry. I don't have a nemesis.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
What about Snuffleupagus?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Snuffleupagus.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
How come only Big Bird can see him?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
He's special that way, you know?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
What about the count?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
The count is my dude.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You like the count.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I like his vibe.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
What you see is what you get.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
They never really go into the mythology of the count.
Is he a proper vampire? Does he feed on numbers?
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
And I always wondered why he counts in threes. Whenever
they're doing number of the day, he always counts up one, two, three, four, five, six.
You know, he's all about the rhythm and the cadence.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I thought you meant he only counts in threes, like one, three, nine,
you know, that's not, because he teaches you how to
count by twos. He's all about all the different ways
of counting because he's the count.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And then, you know, I think for many people growing
up and especially in these current troubled times, Oscar the
Grouch is kind of a spirit animal. Like a lot
of people get, there's that, he's got a cool hand
Luke energy thing. of existential ennui about him. Shout out
(23:52):
to Illumination Global Unlimited. And speaking of sponsors, let's say
we pause to hear a little bit from them and
return with even more controversy, conspiracy, and criticism of The
Great Reset.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Okay, and we're back now. We just talked about a
lot of the claims against Davos and the World Economic Forum,
and they seem to be pretty out there, some of them,
if you're really thinking about them pretty hard. But we
do know that we've already discussed the real mundane criticisms
that exist of this group.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, right, which is just the idea that this is
an absolutely elite closed-door session where real decisions are potentially made.
being made, whether you can call them handed down or
just influencing people with massive amounts of economic and political power.
I mean, you know, you can't really say this is
(24:57):
depriving us of democracy in terms of like the way
Congress works and the way laws are passed. But there's
a lot of closed door stuff that goes on behind
that stuff that we don't see. So This is almost
like an extra level of closed-door-ness behind an already pretty
obscure process that we are not always in on.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
That's right. And we mentioned before– at least we briefly
mentioned the whole Green New Deal kind of thing, the
moving to more sustainable energy, different forms of energy. And
it is a real threat for– corporations and individuals who
(25:37):
make their money off of the older energy gathering techniques, right?
I mean, we know that's a real threat to some people.
But we also know that is a potential planet-saving thing, potentially,
if you believe it. And I believe it.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, I mean, what good is it? One way to
look at this is to ask yourself honestly. We have
to ask ourselves, what good is it To have a
very successful corporation when there's not a planet for it
to operate on, you know, and that sounds hyperbolic, but
it's it's unfortunately it's in the cards of a very
(26:16):
large and terrifying deck called the future. We have to
we have to point out, you know, first off, neither
the domestic political left or the domestic political right are
100 percent on board. with the stated aims of Davos.
And often you'll see various groups say that these aims
(26:37):
or these goals do not feel sincere. The domestic right
will sometimes argue this is a cover for the imposition
of communism and the dismantling of what they see as
traditional society. And the domestic left is pretty skeptical that
these global emperors of capitalism are either going to be A,
truly capable, or B, truly willing to to address problems
(27:01):
that they have, to a great degree or to some degree, created,
especially when they continue to benefit, to one degree or another,
from that system. Why would I logically destroy or endanger
the thing that continues to ensure my financial existence, right?
(27:21):
It's a good question. But then there's secondly, there's that perspective.
We keep going back to it. Who is Davos really
helping beyond the theory in practice? Who is this helping?
Is it helping the environment? Is it helping the crushing
mass of people struggling amid poverty? Or is it, as
some critics allege, more a matter of helping the world's
(27:45):
wealthy feel a little bit better? about all the power
that they possess. This is something that I didn't really
think about, but it does bear exploration.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I think it does, and it's something we have to
take into account because we talk about motivation on this
show all the time, and you wonder what motivates each
individual person, right? And when you look at some of
the criticism that continues to come out, then you start
(28:15):
to get a picture of at least how some people
People are thinking about it. And let's jump to Forbes,
a man named John Maldon over there who has a
summation of this big problem. He calls Davos, quote, another
example of wealthy power elites salving their consciences with faux
efforts to help the masses and in the process make
(28:37):
themselves even wealthier and more powerful. Yikes, man. I would
say that's a very... That's a bleak way to look
at it, but.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Is it cynical, though, or is it, like, realistic, you know?
I mean, I don't know. Maybe those things can work
hand in hand. But, like, I saw a thing pop
up on a Facebook story the other day or an
Instagram story the other day where it was just talking about, like,
the poverty industry. Uh, like things like check cashing companies,
overdraft fees, um, you know, uh, payday loans or whatever,
(29:13):
you know what I mean? Um, like all of this stuff,
these are billion dollar industries. Uh, and not to say
that any of this is discussed at Davos. I mean,
cause it's all kind of behind this, you know, you
could call it a guise, I guess, of like making
everyone's lives better. But the question is like, who is everyone?
And are these just kind of like virtue signaling attempts
to like, you know, help third world countries and help
(29:38):
like the quote unquote like global poor rather than like,
you know, the poor right here in our country that
are largely suffering under this kind of system of economic oppression,
in my opinion?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
It's expensive to be poor. And I wish more people
would talk about that. More often, you know what I mean?
The associated cost of living toward the bottom of any
socioeconomic system can be tremendously difficult. It is, in a
very real way, kind of playing life on hard mode
(30:12):
in many aspects. And it is a good question. Who
is everyone, right? Who counts as a person here and
to what degree? Before we continue with this, I do
want to say it is important, everyone, to know that
when you're talking about an organization of this size, you
are very rarely going to be talking about a uniform
(30:33):
mass of opinions. The Davos and the World Economic Forum
are rife with people who are sincerely making their best
good faith efforts to improve the world while we still
have something around to improve. But maybe not everybody. And
maybe even those good faith efforts are at times misplaced.
(30:55):
That's what a lot of the journalists criticizing this and
a lot of the experts and the researchers criticizing this
are saying. I was surprised that Forbes was dunking on
them so hard. You haven't seen the rest of it yet, folks,
but we'll get there. To put it in perspective, so
there are a lot of talks, right? But there are
(31:15):
also a lot of attractions and a lot of after parties.
One of the most popular attractions in Davos is a
reenactment of where you experience, to a degree, the life
of a refugee on the run. Attendees crawl on their
hands and knees pretending to escape gunfire. It is year
(31:36):
over year one of the most popular attractions.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
I totally see that. And that sounds, I don't know,
maybe an effort to– change your perspective a little bit,
but it does sound performative. I guess what I'm feeling
right now and thinking about all of this stuff and
then hearing the criticism of it and then even examining
my own inner criticisms of it and my skepticism that
(32:00):
there's anything actually good being done here. I've got this
competing thing where even going to Davos and in an
attempt to discuss some of these big problems and seek solutions,
even if it is super flawed, feels like that, that
individual person is doing way more than I personally to
(32:23):
push forward humanity to the future, right? Or in an attempt.
So I'm, I'm just having problem. I'm having a problem,
like viewing it as this big negative thing, but I,
I agree with a lot of the criticism put forward too.
So I think there's just a, there's a push pull
that I'm experiencing right here. And I wonder if anybody
else listening is having that.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Like, is it, um, I think we're there with you.
Is it in absolute terms, right. In total terms, uh,
then these individuals can do much, much more than the
average person, right. Through any number of avenues. Uh, but
also the question is that, um, I'd like everybody to ask, uh,
(33:05):
ask ourselves is, um, what do you have in common?
With the people at Davos, because, you know, not all
countries have equal quality of life. So there are some
countries where someone would be considered very poor in comparison
to their neighbors is living an amazing life or what
people in other countries or other parts of the world
(33:26):
would consider an amazing life. You know, so it's a
question we have to turn on ourselves to like, what
what have I done? What am I doing? What will
I do? And I think it's an appropriate and sincere
question to ask. And for the work that's being done
at Davos, I think there's a lot of it that's
(33:48):
worthy of applause. But this is about the dark side
and the problems. So the third point of criticism here,
I want to go back to that phrase mentioned earlier.
Stakeholder capitalism. Boy, that sounds so good, right? We're stakeholders.
(34:09):
We're all stakeholders now.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
You're a CEO. I am a farmer.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And here's the person that repairs the tractor. And here's
the person that takes out the garbage on Tuesday. All
of us are equal in that we are stakeholders in
this new form of capitalism. It's a slick phrase, but
dangerously vague.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, because, I mean, there's no parity, right, between these
different stakeholders at all. I mean, they're the stakeholders at
the top. who you could probably change a few letters
and call them stockholders, and then you've got your lower-tier
workers who absolutely keep the trains running on time and
(34:48):
keep the manufacturing process running correctly or whatever, but they're
not on an equal footing as the folks at the top.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
No way.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
So you're right. It's sort of like a feel-goodery kind
of way of referring to these things that implies we're
all in this together, except not really.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
My assistant told me not everybody goes to college.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Think about that, folks. Think about it.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
All right, guys. I love what we're doing here. I
learn a lot better when we're working in Is there
any chance we could jump back to Chipotle, Ben?
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Let's go.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
What do you got?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
What's on the menu?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I don't know. I'm going to you, man. How about
a quesadilla? I just know those chips are on point.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
They're salty, though, man. They're a little too salty. Can
we do a quesadilla analogy this time? Yeah, sure. It's
not their go-to menu item, but they'll do one for you.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
They'll do it.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You just have to exercise. You just have to have
good charisma stats.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
It's off-menu.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
You got to roll.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
At least a six to get them to make you
a quesadilla.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yeah, quesadilla, by far, one of my favorite foods, unrecognized. God,
I'm going to make one right after this. Okay, so
if we're going back with our Chipotle analogy, then we
would say to Schwab, to Professor Schwab, if he is
ordering a burrito, sorry, a quesadilla, if he's ordering a quesadilla,
(36:23):
and that quesadilla is stakeholder capitalism, then he's not really
being helpful to the people who are supposed to create
this quesadilla because they say, okay, they got the tortilla
of globalism, and then they say, well, what is stakeholder capitalism?
(36:44):
What goes in this quesadilla, professor? How about steak? The
professor goes, you know, what really goes into this quesadilla
is the idea of responsibility and accountability. And they're like,
we don't have that kind of cheese.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Schwab, are you talking about corporate personhood?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Right. That's right.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
As this become a weird off-menu item, there's a guy
named Ben Sixsmith, which has a great name for any
fans of Cloud Atlas, especially. He argues that this is
not a bug. That this is a feature. It is
vague by design because then it allows these gigantic companies
to kind of interpret what stakeholder capitalism is as they wish.
(37:30):
And this leads us to ask ourselves, you know, is
this really a new innovative attempt at something different?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
This quesadilla?
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Or is it really just kind of a burrito that
we rolled differently to look like it was a new
menu item when it's the same stuff with the same ingredients?
Speaker 3 (37:51):
You just flattened it.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
You just flattened it. You just flattened it to make
it look different at the time. So there's an author
named Naomi Klein who was writing for The Intercept, and
she claims The Great Reset is just this. She calls
it a COVID-branded reiteration of all the stuff Davos already does.
She says, quote, in short, the Great Reset encompasses some
(38:14):
good stuff that won't happen and some bad stuff that
certainly will. And frankly, nothing out of the ordinary in
our era of green billionaires readying rockets from Mars.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Oh, man.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
No, she continues.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
So basically all the bad stuff is going to happen anyway.
These are these are lovely ideas. They're never going to happen.
And everybody else, everybody that can is getting the hell
out of here.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, she goes further, too, because she says, furthermore, the
WEF has historically been against a lot of the solutions
or a lot of the things, rather, that could have
the potential to address or solve the issues it claims
to champion. It's like, well, why aren't they bigger fans
(39:01):
of more robust regulation or protection for local industries, progressive taxation?
And I think she prefaces this with like, and God forbid, nationalization,
which is, you know, a hugely hot topic in oil
wars of years gone by. And she calls it some,
she coined a phrase that I think we'll all enjoy
(39:23):
called shock doctrine.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
I'm always a fan of smashing things together a little
more closely. I always go, shocktron. It's too obvious. I
like shock doctrine. It's fun to say, which is an
attempt by the elite to leverage things like COVID-19 or
catastrophic weather, infrastructure collapse, and all that as a way
(39:47):
of kind of ramming through these policies that, quote, further
enrich the already wealthy and restrict democratic liberties. Interesting. That's
according to Klein.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Reminds me a bit of the Patriot Act, guys.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, and she goes on to point out, Ben, what
I believe is your very favorite headline of this entire article,
probably because it's food-based, but she titled her article, The
Great Reset Conspiracy Smoothie, to keep in line with all
of these food metaphors.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah, she went with smoothies. We went with Chipotle, you know,
but I respect the craft. I respect the work.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
For sure. And whether or not, you know, you personally
are a fan of capitalism writ large, you know, capital
C capitalism, or whether you are of the echelon of
society that would attend Davos, it's pretty clear that the
idea of philanthropy, and we've talked about this In the past,
(40:45):
there's an episode in particular, I think it's called The
Dark Side of Philanthropy or something along those lines. It, yeah,
can have just that, a dark side. And Ben, you
came up with a great term for this. We've already
talked about greenwashing. So what would be a term to
describe the kind of optics of benevolence that all of
(41:07):
this stuff kind of has?
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Oh, boy.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Okay, still workshopping this one, so everybody go easy on me. Goodwashing. Goodwashing.
What is goodwashing? Maybe the mic drop moment comes from
Steve Dunning, also of Forbes. I'm still kind of surprised
they wrote about Davos this way. Dunning says, firms can
go on privately shoveling money to their shareholders and executives
(41:30):
while maintaining a public front of exquisite social sensitivity and
exemplary altruism. And then Sixsmith comes in, you know, like
dropping a cameo in the verse there and says, Amazon
can proclaim that Black Lives Matter, for example, while its
employees piss in bottles for fear of being fired for
taking toilet breaks.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
That's the mic drop moment right there.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
But it's good washing, isn't it? Look what we are
doing for society, just not for our employees.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Speaking of piss breaks, guys, I'm going to need to
do that really quickly, but we will be right back
with a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
And we're back. So this is maybe the most important part.
How much sand do these conspiracies and these criticisms actually hold?
I think we can all agree that if this is
a vast communist conspiracy to turn all the governments of
the world, democratic, authoritarian, what have you, into one big
(42:39):
communist government, Or socialist, at the very least, right? Or socialist,
at the very least. Yeah, good point. They're two different things,
but they're trending in the same direction. Well, if that
were the case, the only thing we can say for
sure is this would be one hell of a plot
twist for Professor Schwab and pretty much all the companies
that are participating in Davos. I mean, think about it. Apple, Pfizer, Lockheed,
(43:05):
are they really known for their radical left-wing ideologies? Is
it like, Pfizer, down with the neoliberals or something. I
don't really think so.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Not so much.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
They're still getting paid for vaccines. Remember, they're making money.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
That's a good point, Ben. And it's the pandemic that
really kind of brings all of this into focus because
every single country, every one of these companies is in
a pretty difficult position in that if you move too
far along in a solution, kind of in your own wheelhouse,
you've got no way of making these other organizations do
(43:41):
the same, meaning that there has to be some level
of cooperation for the system to hold, for everything to
kind of hold together. If you're out completely in left
field or right field or whichever direction of field you
find yourself in, you're not going to be as successful
than if these big businesses were working in concert, right?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Yeah, absolutely. And think about it. You know, if you're
a big business and you are and you have competitors
in the market, and you say, I'm going to make
these radical changes on my home turf, and nobody else does,
then your stuff might get more and more expensive. It
might be more and more difficult to run your day-to-day business.
You might end up being bankrupt because you were not
(44:23):
able to move as a unit with these larger industry players.
It's a thing that we can't miss. Regardless of how
you feel about Davos or globalism, Professor Schwab, not for nothing,
he's right. Capitalism as it stands today has these massive, dangerous,
(44:43):
possibly fatal structural problems. And these problems really are too
big to tackle through conventional means. The stuff that worked
in the past is probably not going to work now.
And that brings us to a weird spot, right? Because
the erosion of the short-lived age of privacy is very real, right?
We are in a surveillance state and we have been.
(45:06):
The long-term prospects of life for this species, spoiler alert,
not looking particularly swell at the moment. And unfortunately, we
don't need some wild animals. easily disproven story about bill
gates and covid microchips to come to either of those
conclusions they are inarguable and they are fact uh and
(45:30):
and stepping stepping down off the uh off the what
what do you call it soapbox here um i was
wondering do people really used to stand on soapboxes.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yes yeah for sure and even like on film sets
they use apple boxes They still call them that anyway.
They're basically just expensive hollow pieces of wooden frame to
make shorter actors look taller.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I just want to say, guys, before we finish up here,
you guys know this, and I've mentioned this before in
a couple shows. I personally lost my religious faith a
long time ago. And when I lost it, I put
that faith, that need to believe in something, it still existed.
I put it in Groups of intelligent people getting together
(46:17):
and trying to solve problems. And that's really where I
put my faith. Like, OK, if this isn't going to
help me, my belief and my belief now is this
religion isn't going to help me. At least humanity is
going to help. me and, you know, all of us
get through these things. So this episode has been really
difficult personally for me to square, just to square some of,
(46:38):
because I agree with the realities that we've outlined here
with the problems, the criticisms. I agree with that stuff.
It's just tough thinking that our best option is so flawed.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Secular humanism.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
That's what I should call it. I just, it's tough
knowing that the elite secular human, movement is.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah, but they're called the elite because there's their small percentage,
you know, of humanity. And sure, they have a lot
of control over the course of humanity, but they are
not humanity. And I would argue that in general, I've
seen a lot of outpouring of wonderful qualities of humanity
(47:21):
during this pandemic of like, you know, being there for
your fellow human and just kind of like, having each
other's backs and all of that stuff. And now I'm
kumbaya-ing a little bit. But I have not lost faith
in humanity at large. But, yeah, it's a bummer when
so few very, very, very powerful stakeholders kind of set
(47:42):
the course, you know, for so many others.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
I mean, it's all beautiful, Nolan. I agree with you.
It's just how do we solve the water crisis problem, right?
Speaker 2 (47:52):
I mean, there's just– Well– We can leave that conversation
for another day. But in the meantime, before we wrap,
I think we have a little bit of a special surprise,
don't we?
Speaker 4 (48:03):
Hey, guys. This is Alex Jones speaking. Big fan of
the show. Big fan. Just want to let you know
that you guys are my favorite source of fake news.
Sorry about that. I just snorted a big rail of Coke. Shit,
but you're not. Sorry. Just tell you what. Anyways, I
(48:24):
just listened to your episode on the Nestle water conspiracy.
And I thought, geez, what a great idea to, like
you and your listeners, you know, a great opportunity. It's
just a great opportunity. I'm proud to announce the InfoWars
brand of bottled water. I know, I know. You guys
(48:46):
are thinking, Alex, how did you get past the globalists
that run Nestle? and get your own water bottle water line.
The Globus, they cashed out on me. And by the Globus,
I definitely don't mean the Jews. Just to make that clear. Anyways, anyways.
This water, it's great. It's great. It's totally gluten-free. It's
(49:11):
only got a little bit of mercury in it. but
it didn't like i said it's it's good stuff it's
less mercury than that's probably less mercury for the well
i mean it's it's probably got less mercury than uh
than flood michigan but you know it's good for you
to build character anyways anyways um i just want to
(49:33):
let you guys know and on that um You can
get a super good deal on alex-jones.bs. Yeah. And also, Ben,
you are my spirit animal. I'm serious about that. You
are my spirit animal. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Well, well, well. That was something.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
What do you think? Have we made it?
Speaker 2 (49:59):
I mean, you're fake Alex Jones' spirit animal, Ben. That's
pretty insane.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
Hey.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
Hey, we can't confirm if that was fake Alex Jones.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
Or the real thing.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I don't think real Alex Jones would narrate himself doing
a giant rail of Coke. I think he would just
do it and let you decide for yourself.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
You're saying you guys heard that too? I thought that
was just in my head. Okay.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
All right. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
I didn't go to the website. He did maybe try
to sell this bottle of water. At the very least,
it's a very good impression. Someone was channeling. Alex Jones, maybe, right?
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah. Somebody printed out one of those Alex Jones sigils and.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
Got to us.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Now that he's been pulled from all the popular platforms,
I guess the only place you can really get him
is out in the ether, just channeling him, just from
the zeitgeist at large. Where is he on now? He's
on Parler or something?
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Gab?
Speaker 2 (50:56):
I think Gab is where he is. I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I have no idea. Maybe he's just lonely and calling us.
But if you want to take a page from Alex Jones' book,
you can contact us directly. We try to be easy
to find online.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter, where we
are Conspiracy Stuff. We're Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram. You
can also join our Facebook group, Here's Where It Gets Crazy.
A lot of fun to be had there.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
Yeah, that's right. You can also give us a call.
Our number is 1-833-STDWYTK. Please leave your name, whatever you
want us to call you. Doesn't have to be your
real name. Tell us your message. Try and keep it succinct,
if you can, a little short.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, like Alex, his message was blissfully short. Still felt
a little long, but clock time-wise, it was only about
a minute 30. And that's 1-833-STDWYTK. Yes, and if there
is a.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Special message you just want to leave for us. You
don't want to share with the Internet. That's fine, too.
Just tell us at the end. Most importantly, do not
feel as though you need to censor yourself. That is
antithetical to a lot of the to this show. Like
we could totally do cursing, by the way, folks. We
just think it's way funnier when we bleep things. So
(52:09):
so so do feel free. If you have a story
that wouldn't fit in three minutes, those three minutes are yours.
then just write to us. Send us a direct email.
Make it as long as you want. We read every one.
You can send it to us 24-7.
Speaker 4 (52:25):
We are....
Speaker 3 (52:49):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Folks, we are back with a classic episode here. We
mentioned Davos and the Great Reset, Chapter 1. This is
the Great Reset, Chapter 2, where we dive into what
makes something a conspiracy theory versus an actual conspiracy and
why the speculation about Davos and the World Economic Forum is–
(00:25):
it's a lot more plausible, honestly, than many of us
believed going in.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It's like so much more plausible. Now more than ever.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
And Dylan says Davos sounds a lot like a yogurt
brand to him.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
If only it were.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But they do have branded merch if you go.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Davos Shmavos. I think you get a lot of free merch, right?
Speaker 4 (00:47):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
If you are one of the chosen that has paid
to be there.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
It's like the swag bags you get at the Oscars,
but like way cooler.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah, and maybe one day we'll have swag bags as well.
In the meantime, we proudly present Davos and the Great Reset,
Chapter 2.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Hello. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Paul Mission Control Deccant.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
You are here. And that makes this Stuff They Don't
Want You To Know. This is part two of our
dive into Davos and the Great Reset. If you haven't
listened to part one, by all means, you can still
listen to this episode. But it'll make a lot more
sense if you if you go back to Wednesday's episode
(02:02):
and and see the background that we laid out. And,
you know, I think that we did an OK job
outlining some of the basics of this initiative, an organization.
And then I think we did an OK job giving
giving the background here, because, as we said in part one,
you know, even the here are the facts part was crazy.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Like, there's crazy stuff. Yeah, there was a whole section
where I was like, we haven't even gotten crazy yet,
and it's already crazy. We got pre-crazy. But I do
believe that this part, too, picks up where it really
starts to pop off.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
So here's a quick recap previously on stuff they don't
want you to know.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Here are the facts.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
The World Economic Forum, or Davos, it's a great place
for great, big ideas where the public sphere and private
sphere can come together and work in harmony for the
greater good.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
And our compatriot, Paul Mission Control, Deccant, said something very
interesting off air. Paul, you described, you said, so Davos
is kind of like South by Southwest on steroids. And
it's true. One thing we didn't talk about was the
abundance of wild after-hours parties, like the guys in charge
(03:20):
of Salesforce parties. flew out fresh flower lei from Hawaii
for all the attendees of his party. He also flew
out a live, well, I guess all human bands are
live bands, but he flew out a band that survived
and performed.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
Was it like a steel drum band of some variety?
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I think more traditional Hawaiian music, but I'm not sure because,
like many people in the audience today, I did not
attend the 2020 Davos.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
You know, I had the odd, I guess... honor or
whatever of attending a similar type of event that is
clearly influenced by Davos, since this is like sort of
the granddaddy of these type of events. And it's called Summit.
And it took place, it takes place in Los Angeles.
And the guy that started it literally owns a mountain
(04:08):
in like Colorado. I can't remember his name, but it's this,
you know, really, I was there as press. I was
like working on a podcast and was going to like
record an interview with like the founder of Cirque du Soleil,
but like it didn't pan out, but I had a
pass to go. And so I saw some of the
panels and this is the kind of place where you
see stuff like this only at these kinds of things.
I saw Jaden Smith interview Al Gore about climate change, uh,
(04:32):
in this weird old theater in downtown LA. And then
I saw the, I really enjoyed this. It was this, um,
interesting kind of mindfulness guru named Eckhart Tolle, who is
like a, uh, Yeah, he's kind of this like meditative
kind of mindfulness, you know, guy who is obviously beloved
by a lot of these high powered people who brought
him in and he does speaking engagements. But it was very,
(04:55):
very adaptable. And I'm glad I got to go. But
just being there and seeing the opulence and the types
of people that actually paid for their badges was definitely
a bit of a culture shock for me.
Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah, I've been invited to things like that in a
similar vein. Probably one of my Still, one of my
favorite things to go to, even though I know they're
not perfect, are TED Talks and TEDx stuff. It's always inspiring,
even if there are things there that I don't agree with.
(05:27):
I love the conversations. I don't ever regret skipping out
on those things. For a while, I did try to
skip out on a lot of them. But my one
big regret is missing um any of the speeches about
corvid intelligence for you know obvious reasons right uh the science.
Speaker 6 (05:45):
Is amazing yeah i know man i'm sorry i feel
you you just need a fleet of corvids is that
what you'd call it well i mean it'd be a
murder technically which honestly seems unfairly sinister even though i
know it kind of tracks with my view of.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Birds but uh for you ben i don't think a
murder seems right i like.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
A fleet Uh, yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
Uh, murder of crows.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Uh, check this out. If you haven't heard this one, folks,
an unkindness of Ravens.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Also incredibly, uh, unpleasant connotations there.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
So emo.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
Hey, do you guys remember when I went to the
Bilderberg meeting in 2011? Do you guys remember?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
I remember when you went to the build a bear conference.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
That was it.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
You're right.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
That was it.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
Well, they have a lot in common. You know, I
think they're the subsidiaries of the.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Same organization, right?
Speaker 4 (06:31):
Clearly.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
I have time outside. We're keeping it in.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
We're keeping it in. We have Matt's son, by far
the best part of the show, live in effect. Is
he going to make some remarks?
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
I mean, that's really important stuff. He needed a PlayStation
4 controller because he has things to do. Important stuff.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
What's he gaming on these days?
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Rayman, right? Nope.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Nope.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
This time he's going for cuphead, which, uh, that.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Game is punishingly difficult.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
It's incredibly difficult.
Speaker 5 (07:02):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
Like father, like son.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Is he?
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Can he move things with his mind yet?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Anyway, so moving on, moving on.
Speaker 5 (07:15):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
So all of us have experienced things that are kind
of at a lower level of this sort of, this
sort of event. But, uh, not near as exclusive as this.
Here's where it gets crazy. The theme of last year's
meeting at Davos, the Great Reset Initiative, was to use
(07:40):
chaos in a little finger way, to treat chaos as
a ladder, as a window of opportunity, to say that
when whatever secular issues God, or a series of circumstances
you believe in, closes a door that force inevitably opens
a window through which you may crawl into a new world.
(08:01):
They wanted to use the chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic
as an opportunity to rebuild society and the global economy
at large in a more sustainable way. Prince Charles, yes,
that Prince Charles, who may have recently asked about his
relative's future skin tone. kicked off Davos with a speech
(08:27):
at the launch ceremony that described key focus areas that
were built on an earlier initiative that he had, a
pre-existing idea. So he wasn't just like up there freestyling,
here are the things I think are important, which also
would have been cool, especially if his freestyle rhymed. But
not there yet, maybe 2022. Here's what he wanted to fix.
(08:49):
The reinvigoration of science, technology, and innovation. a move toward
net zero transitions globally, the introduction of carbon pricing, reinventing
longstanding incentive structures, rebalancing investments to include more green investments,
and encouraging green public infrastructure projects. So using financial tools
(09:12):
that already exist or that have been proposed to maybe
not so much push the world at large, toward more
alternative energy or to less waste, but to incentivize it.
It's very different. To alter the rules of the playing
field such that it is more profitable in the long
(09:36):
term to engage in these new technologies, these green technologies,
and so on. And yes, we are well aware of...
concept called greenwashing which is when a an organization be
it a company or a country purports to do things
along this level but really it's kind of lip service
(09:58):
this stuff does seem sincere. There is solid science that
says these things can help the world, but again, nobody
agrees on how they should be rolled out, who pays
the tab, and who gets the immediate benefits. So, of course,
imagine you've got this elite meeting of some of the
(10:19):
world's most important people. The city is locked down. You
can't go. The journalists who do report there tell stories
of extensive security, of metal detectors, of literal snipers posted
on buildings because there are forces that would be antagonistic
to a lot of the A-listers here. So obviously, oh,
(10:41):
and Prince Charles kicks off the speech. Obviously, conspiracy theories
emerge very quickly in full force. And they already existed
for decades regarding this organization and other places like the
World Economic Forum. But this time it was different. because
of COVID and because of some other conspiracies that existed
(11:03):
before the Davos meeting or coalesced shortly thereafter, including 5G,
including the idea of microchipping and so on. Some of
these conspiracies here in the West, in the U.S. in particular,
were spread by what have been described as far-right groups.
So it's like there is a great reset conspiracy here.
(11:26):
That I have a terrible analogy for, and I hope
it's not too, too cringeworthy. But please, of course, as always,
forward any complaints to our complaint department, Jonathan Strickland at iHeartRadio.com.
If you're on like a QAnon forum or something, you
would probably see this, and it would be something that
a lot of people would agree with this article. Theory
(11:48):
called the Great Reset has the somewhat dubious honor of
becoming the first widely circulated conspiracy theory of the Biden administration.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, and it's a bit strange. You'll see a lot
written about this on social media and forums. And in
this theory.
You know, we've we've kind of described to you how
the wide view of the Davos man is different from
maybe the people who actually go there and how there
are misconceptions about some, you know, of the ongoings there.
(12:21):
But also, there's just not a lot of transparency about
what goes on in after hours, you know, stuff that's
not officially posted on the Davos site or posted on
social media there. But in this theory. It describes those
who attend and those who run the whole thing there
at Davos as essentially a coven of technocratic witches, really.
(12:43):
You know, doing, in some ways, telling the future and
casting spells to affect the future.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yeah, exactly. Techno-financial witchcraft. Oligarchs or occultists. Current President Biden
had a slogan called Build Back Better. And this was
red meat to folks who believe in some of these theories.
They said that Build Back Better is actually a cover phrase.
It's a euphemism for a plan to enslave humanity. and
(13:13):
end capitalism, to abolish private property, to imprison everybody who
dissents in any way, meaning particularly that if you refuse
to accept the implant of a thought-reading microchip, off to
the gulag with you. And this is interesting to me
because if you look at the structure of this, maybe
(13:33):
there's a little meta, but this conspiracy is kind of
like if you go to Chipotle and someone's building a
burrito for you, you can take the base theory here globalism,
one world governance, and that's kind of like your tortilla.
And then you can add some other conspiratorial toppings as
the mood strikes you.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Ben, where do I go to invest in thought reading
microchip technology?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Noel just wants the hot investment. True.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
Yeah. It's weird because you would think that if the
science were that far along, there would be a lot
of things to invest in. But medtech, biotech, whatever you
want to call it, is a huge market. This is
not financial advice, as they say on WallStreetBets.com. But from
(14:22):
what I understand, all you have to do is call
up Billy G. Just text Bill Gates.
Speaker 3 (14:26):
Billy G.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
Williams?
Speaker 2 (14:27):
No, that's Billy D.
Speaker 4 (14:28):
Williams.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
Sorry. Yeah, got it. BG. What's Billy D.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Doing, too?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah, he was in The Mandalorian for a hot minute,
wasn't he? No, no, he was in the most recent
Star Wars big screen reboot. Would love to see him
in The Mandalorian.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, I'd love to see him on the show. It's
been a while since we caught up. I do wonder
what he would have to say about this. So if
we're back in our conspiratorial Chipotle, here are the options
you can get as toppings. Banning religion. It's a good
old standby. It always stands the test of time and
(15:01):
comes back up. Here in the U.S., some small version
of the powers that be banning religion pops up right
before Christmas, right? They're making a war on Christmas because
of the way they're writing things or saying happy holidays.
Another ingredient you could add would be crushing all small business.
This means that any private entity that's not affiliated with
(15:24):
the big Davos players will be driven to insolvency or
acquired by the in-group of global corporations.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
Another thing here is something very common and something we've
been watching occur for a long time, which is replacing
workforces of humanity, human workforces, the bees, the drones that
do everything, with automation, with technology, with self-checkout lanes. Sorry,
that ship has sailed.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
I love self-checkout lanes. I don't know if that makes
me a bad person, but I'm all about it.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
I hate them.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
You hate them?
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I want to talk to somebody.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Oh, man.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Matt, are you lonely? You talk to us every day, bud.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
I just mean that one-on-one, even if we're masked up
and stuff. Just whatever.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Also, you know, I mean, it's a nice touch to
have someone, you know, bag your groceries who has experience
bagging groceries because I'm very bad at it. I smush
my bread every time.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah, there's a Tetris to it, right?
Speaker 3 (16:28):
But this goes further, by the way, because it's not
just replacing– you know the workforce in that way it's
in some way altering the humans in order to make
them either unable to work in that way or just
unnecessary in some form or fashion.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Yeah for cybernetics force wetware kind of stuff and then
also you know going back to our earlier chapter one
episode imagine you know you see somebody who doesn't hit
Dunbar's number for you and you're just like that is
not really a person to me that's that's the function
That's the thing that moves the garbage on Tuesday. Then psychologically,
(17:07):
you are not particularly affected by a change in the
thing that is doing that function for you. So that's
where that conspiracy comes from. And then there's this other,
I guess this would be more right wing idea that
this will result in a forced redistribution of wealth. but
not for the high-level players at Davos. Instead, it'll be
(17:32):
forced redistribution of wealth for the average middle-class household, the
average lower working-class household, that they're out to take your stuff.
And when you hear pundits or critics talking about the
Great Reset conspiracies, they're generally talking about some combination of
(17:53):
these ideas we just mentioned. Lots of different possible flavor combinations.
You know what I mean? You can add all sorts
of stuff. And then, of course, the avocado of anti-Semitism
pops up, right, in this Chipotle. Because it often does, sadly, still,
when we're talking about globalist conspiracies. But no matter what
(18:14):
you add to the tortilla here, it is still a burrito.
It's still kind of the same thing. And if there
is an employee of the month, I promise I'm about
to let this analogy go. Thank you guys for humoring me.
In this conspiratorial Chipotle, it would probably be, at least
here in the U.S., a guy named Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
That's right. And he actually wrote an open letter to
Donald Trump that was later promoted on the Fox TV network.
And this was in October of 2020. In this letter, Vigano,
there's a little accent over there. Maybe it's a no.
Who knows? He alleged that the Great Reset was, in fact,
(18:57):
a cover for a scheme built by none other than
Billy G himself. Bill Gates centered on the, quote, renunciation
of private property and adherence to a program of vaccination
against COVID-19. Probably some of where the idea of microchip
implants being part of the vaccination process maybe came from.
Speaker 6 (19:18):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
Um, but Vigano claimed people who refused a global digital
ID from a quote health dictatorship would be imprisoned in
detention camps and lose all of their possessions. Um, so yeah,
I mean, folks, you well may, uh, recognize this. Um,
having a lot in common of this idea of Agenda 21.
(19:39):
Just a bit more vaccination-centric, right? And Ben, could we
do a quick refresher on Agenda 21?
Speaker 1 (19:45):
Yeah, so it's a program for sustainable development. that comes
to us from the United Nations. But the conspiracy, of course,
is that it is a further step toward one world government,
that it would create a not just a global government,
but a global military and then a global currency. Right.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
And of course, all of the neo-Nazis and anti-Semites out
there did their best to pin this on, ding, ding, ding,
Jewish people with absolutely zero evidence to back that up.
And then you've got the most outlandish, far out idea
of them all, the idea that Grover and Elmo, that's right,
(20:29):
of Sesame Street, puppet fame, are part of this scheme,
or a scheme. Breitbart columnist James Dellingpole argued that a
WEF podcast called The Great Reset, Resetting Education with Sesame Street,
is propaganda meant to brainwash children, along with videos demonstrating
(20:50):
how to wear a mask and to practice social distancing.
Things that, as we know, were very much demonized and
politicized by folks in this set. So, yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
So you can find this podcast that we're mentioning here,
The Great Reset, Resetting Education with Sesame Street. You can
find it on SoundCloud and you can find it in
a couple other places. If you go to SoundCloud, you
can read some of the comments that are placed within
(21:24):
that file. Because, you know, when you're playing a SoundCloud file,
you can comment at a specific section and it shows up.
I'm going to read a couple of these really quickly
and I will edit myself. Alexander says, Death to the
New World Order. Jesus is Lord. Another one says, Resetting
the entire world is a very big job. Dangerously Close says,
(21:48):
Go f * * * yourselves. The people will rise
against you. You better hide.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Are they talking directly to Elmo and Grover?
Speaker 3 (21:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
I greatly appreciate this stuff because it's funny. It's public
education if it's something you agree with, but it's propaganda
if it's something with which you disagree. I think all
of us, I think all people who were watching Sesame
Street at some point Have one or two characters you
(22:23):
didn't trust.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Like Big Bird always seemed a little sus to me.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Really?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
He was always kind of, I thought he was the
voice of reason. Elmo always rubbed me the wrong way.
A weird little yappy voice. And he just seemed like
a speed freak or something. I don't know what his
deal is.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
I'm sorry. I don't have a nemesis.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
What about Snuffleupagus?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Snuffleupagus.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
How come only Big Bird can see him?
Speaker 3 (22:47):
He's special that way, you know?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
What about the count?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
The count is my dude.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
You like the count.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I like his vibe.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
What you see is what you get.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
They never really go into the mythology of the count.
Is he a proper vampire? Does he feed on numbers?
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (23:08):
And I always wondered why he counts in threes. Whenever
they're doing number of the day, he always counts up one, two, three, four, five, six.
You know, he's all about the rhythm and the cadence.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
I thought you meant he only counts in threes, like one, three, nine,
you know, that's not, because he teaches you how to
count by twos. He's all about all the different ways
of counting because he's the count.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And then, you know, I think for many people growing
up and especially in these current troubled times, Oscar the
Grouch is kind of a spirit animal. Like a lot
of people get, there's that, he's got a cool hand
Luke energy thing. of existential ennui about him. Shout out
(23:52):
to Illumination Global Unlimited. And speaking of sponsors, let's say
we pause to hear a little bit from them and
return with even more controversy, conspiracy, and criticism of The
Great Reset.
Speaker 3 (24:14):
Okay, and we're back now. We just talked about a
lot of the claims against Davos and the World Economic Forum,
and they seem to be pretty out there, some of them,
if you're really thinking about them pretty hard. But we
do know that we've already discussed the real mundane criticisms
that exist of this group.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Yeah, right, which is just the idea that this is
an absolutely elite closed-door session where real decisions are potentially made.
being made, whether you can call them handed down or
just influencing people with massive amounts of economic and political power.
I mean, you know, you can't really say this is
(24:57):
depriving us of democracy in terms of like the way
Congress works and the way laws are passed. But there's
a lot of closed door stuff that goes on behind
that stuff that we don't see. So This is almost
like an extra level of closed-door-ness behind an already pretty
obscure process that we are not always in on.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
That's right. And we mentioned before– at least we briefly
mentioned the whole Green New Deal kind of thing, the
moving to more sustainable energy, different forms of energy. And
it is a real threat for– corporations and individuals who
(25:37):
make their money off of the older energy gathering techniques, right?
I mean, we know that's a real threat to some people.
But we also know that is a potential planet-saving thing, potentially,
if you believe it. And I believe it.
Speaker 1 (25:55):
Yeah, I mean, what good is it? One way to
look at this is to ask yourself honestly. We have
to ask ourselves, what good is it To have a
very successful corporation when there's not a planet for it
to operate on, you know, and that sounds hyperbolic, but
it's it's unfortunately it's in the cards of a very
(26:16):
large and terrifying deck called the future. We have to
we have to point out, you know, first off, neither
the domestic political left or the domestic political right are
100 percent on board. with the stated aims of Davos.
And often you'll see various groups say that these aims
(26:37):
or these goals do not feel sincere. The domestic right
will sometimes argue this is a cover for the imposition
of communism and the dismantling of what they see as
traditional society. And the domestic left is pretty skeptical that
these global emperors of capitalism are either going to be A,
truly capable, or B, truly willing to to address problems
(27:01):
that they have, to a great degree or to some degree, created,
especially when they continue to benefit, to one degree or another,
from that system. Why would I logically destroy or endanger
the thing that continues to ensure my financial existence, right?
(27:21):
It's a good question. But then there's secondly, there's that perspective.
We keep going back to it. Who is Davos really
helping beyond the theory in practice? Who is this helping?
Is it helping the environment? Is it helping the crushing
mass of people struggling amid poverty? Or is it, as
some critics allege, more a matter of helping the world's
(27:45):
wealthy feel a little bit better? about all the power
that they possess. This is something that I didn't really
think about, but it does bear exploration.
Speaker 3 (27:55):
I think it does, and it's something we have to
take into account because we talk about motivation on this
show all the time, and you wonder what motivates each
individual person, right? And when you look at some of
the criticism that continues to come out, then you start
(28:15):
to get a picture of at least how some people
People are thinking about it. And let's jump to Forbes,
a man named John Maldon over there who has a
summation of this big problem. He calls Davos, quote, another
example of wealthy power elites salving their consciences with faux
efforts to help the masses and in the process make
(28:37):
themselves even wealthier and more powerful. Yikes, man. I would
say that's a very... That's a bleak way to look
at it, but.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Is it cynical, though, or is it, like, realistic, you know?
I mean, I don't know. Maybe those things can work
hand in hand. But, like, I saw a thing pop
up on a Facebook story the other day or an
Instagram story the other day where it was just talking about, like,
the poverty industry. Uh, like things like check cashing companies,
overdraft fees, um, you know, uh, payday loans or whatever,
(29:13):
you know what I mean? Um, like all of this stuff,
these are billion dollar industries. Uh, and not to say
that any of this is discussed at Davos. I mean,
cause it's all kind of behind this, you know, you
could call it a guise, I guess, of like making
everyone's lives better. But the question is like, who is everyone?
And are these just kind of like virtue signaling attempts
to like, you know, help third world countries and help
(29:38):
like the quote unquote like global poor rather than like,
you know, the poor right here in our country that
are largely suffering under this kind of system of economic oppression,
in my opinion?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
It's expensive to be poor. And I wish more people
would talk about that. More often, you know what I mean?
The associated cost of living toward the bottom of any
socioeconomic system can be tremendously difficult. It is, in a
very real way, kind of playing life on hard mode
(30:12):
in many aspects. And it is a good question. Who
is everyone, right? Who counts as a person here and
to what degree? Before we continue with this, I do
want to say it is important, everyone, to know that
when you're talking about an organization of this size, you
are very rarely going to be talking about a uniform
(30:33):
mass of opinions. The Davos and the World Economic Forum
are rife with people who are sincerely making their best
good faith efforts to improve the world while we still
have something around to improve. But maybe not everybody. And
maybe even those good faith efforts are at times misplaced.
(30:55):
That's what a lot of the journalists criticizing this and
a lot of the experts and the researchers criticizing this
are saying. I was surprised that Forbes was dunking on
them so hard. You haven't seen the rest of it yet, folks,
but we'll get there. To put it in perspective, so
there are a lot of talks, right? But there are
(31:15):
also a lot of attractions and a lot of after parties.
One of the most popular attractions in Davos is a
reenactment of where you experience, to a degree, the life
of a refugee on the run. Attendees crawl on their
hands and knees pretending to escape gunfire. It is year
(31:36):
over year one of the most popular attractions.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
I totally see that. And that sounds, I don't know,
maybe an effort to– change your perspective a little bit,
but it does sound performative. I guess what I'm feeling
right now and thinking about all of this stuff and
then hearing the criticism of it and then even examining
my own inner criticisms of it and my skepticism that
(32:00):
there's anything actually good being done here. I've got this
competing thing where even going to Davos and in an
attempt to discuss some of these big problems and seek solutions,
even if it is super flawed, feels like that, that
individual person is doing way more than I personally to
(32:23):
push forward humanity to the future, right? Or in an attempt.
So I'm, I'm just having problem. I'm having a problem,
like viewing it as this big negative thing, but I,
I agree with a lot of the criticism put forward too.
So I think there's just a, there's a push pull
that I'm experiencing right here. And I wonder if anybody
else listening is having that.
Speaker 4 (32:44):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Like, is it, um, I think we're there with you.
Is it in absolute terms, right. In total terms, uh,
then these individuals can do much, much more than the
average person, right. Through any number of avenues. Uh, but
also the question is that, um, I'd like everybody to ask, uh,
(33:05):
ask ourselves is, um, what do you have in common?
With the people at Davos, because, you know, not all
countries have equal quality of life. So there are some
countries where someone would be considered very poor in comparison
to their neighbors is living an amazing life or what
people in other countries or other parts of the world
(33:26):
would consider an amazing life. You know, so it's a
question we have to turn on ourselves to like, what
what have I done? What am I doing? What will
I do? And I think it's an appropriate and sincere
question to ask. And for the work that's being done
at Davos, I think there's a lot of it that's
(33:48):
worthy of applause. But this is about the dark side
and the problems. So the third point of criticism here,
I want to go back to that phrase mentioned earlier.
Stakeholder capitalism. Boy, that sounds so good, right? We're stakeholders.
(34:09):
We're all stakeholders now.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
You're a CEO. I am a farmer.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
And here's the person that repairs the tractor. And here's
the person that takes out the garbage on Tuesday. All
of us are equal in that we are stakeholders in
this new form of capitalism. It's a slick phrase, but
dangerously vague.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
Yeah, because, I mean, there's no parity, right, between these
different stakeholders at all. I mean, they're the stakeholders at
the top. who you could probably change a few letters
and call them stockholders, and then you've got your lower-tier
workers who absolutely keep the trains running on time and
(34:48):
keep the manufacturing process running correctly or whatever, but they're
not on an equal footing as the folks at the top.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
No way.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
So you're right. It's sort of like a feel-goodery kind
of way of referring to these things that implies we're
all in this together, except not really.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
My assistant told me not everybody goes to college.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
Think about that, folks. Think about it.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
All right, guys. I love what we're doing here. I
learn a lot better when we're working in Is there
any chance we could jump back to Chipotle, Ben?
Speaker 4 (35:28):
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Let's go.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (35:31):
What do you got?
Speaker 1 (35:32):
What's on the menu?
Speaker 3 (35:33):
I don't know. I'm going to you, man. How about
a quesadilla? I just know those chips are on point.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
They're salty, though, man. They're a little too salty. Can
we do a quesadilla analogy this time? Yeah, sure. It's
not their go-to menu item, but they'll do one for you.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
They'll do it.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
You just have to exercise. You just have to have
good charisma stats.
Speaker 5 (35:54):
It's off-menu.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
You got to roll.
Speaker 2 (35:56):
At least a six to get them to make you
a quesadilla.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Yeah, quesadilla, by far, one of my favorite foods, unrecognized. God,
I'm going to make one right after this. Okay, so
if we're going back with our Chipotle analogy, then we
would say to Schwab, to Professor Schwab, if he is
ordering a burrito, sorry, a quesadilla, if he's ordering a quesadilla,
(36:23):
and that quesadilla is stakeholder capitalism, then he's not really
being helpful to the people who are supposed to create
this quesadilla because they say, okay, they got the tortilla
of globalism, and then they say, well, what is stakeholder capitalism?
(36:44):
What goes in this quesadilla, professor? How about steak? The
professor goes, you know, what really goes into this quesadilla
is the idea of responsibility and accountability. And they're like,
we don't have that kind of cheese.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Schwab, are you talking about corporate personhood?
Speaker 4 (37:03):
Right. That's right.
Speaker 1 (37:05):
As this become a weird off-menu item, there's a guy
named Ben Sixsmith, which has a great name for any
fans of Cloud Atlas, especially. He argues that this is
not a bug. That this is a feature. It is
vague by design because then it allows these gigantic companies
to kind of interpret what stakeholder capitalism is as they wish.
(37:30):
And this leads us to ask ourselves, you know, is
this really a new innovative attempt at something different?
Speaker 2 (37:38):
This quesadilla?
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Or is it really just kind of a burrito that
we rolled differently to look like it was a new
menu item when it's the same stuff with the same ingredients?
Speaker 3 (37:51):
You just flattened it.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
You just flattened it. You just flattened it to make
it look different at the time. So there's an author
named Naomi Klein who was writing for The Intercept, and
she claims The Great Reset is just this. She calls
it a COVID-branded reiteration of all the stuff Davos already does.
She says, quote, in short, the Great Reset encompasses some
(38:14):
good stuff that won't happen and some bad stuff that
certainly will. And frankly, nothing out of the ordinary in
our era of green billionaires readying rockets from Mars.
Speaker 3 (38:25):
Oh, man.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
No, she continues.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
So basically all the bad stuff is going to happen anyway.
These are these are lovely ideas. They're never going to happen.
And everybody else, everybody that can is getting the hell
out of here.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
Yeah, she goes further, too, because she says, furthermore, the
WEF has historically been against a lot of the solutions
or a lot of the things, rather, that could have
the potential to address or solve the issues it claims
to champion. It's like, well, why aren't they bigger fans
(39:01):
of more robust regulation or protection for local industries, progressive taxation?
And I think she prefaces this with like, and God forbid, nationalization,
which is, you know, a hugely hot topic in oil
wars of years gone by. And she calls it some,
she coined a phrase that I think we'll all enjoy
(39:23):
called shock doctrine.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
I'm always a fan of smashing things together a little
more closely. I always go, shocktron. It's too obvious. I
like shock doctrine. It's fun to say, which is an
attempt by the elite to leverage things like COVID-19 or
catastrophic weather, infrastructure collapse, and all that as a way
(39:47):
of kind of ramming through these policies that, quote, further
enrich the already wealthy and restrict democratic liberties. Interesting. That's
according to Klein.
Speaker 3 (39:59):
Reminds me a bit of the Patriot Act, guys.
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Yeah, and she goes on to point out, Ben, what
I believe is your very favorite headline of this entire article,
probably because it's food-based, but she titled her article, The
Great Reset Conspiracy Smoothie, to keep in line with all
of these food metaphors.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Yeah, she went with smoothies. We went with Chipotle, you know,
but I respect the craft. I respect the work.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
For sure. And whether or not, you know, you personally
are a fan of capitalism writ large, you know, capital
C capitalism, or whether you are of the echelon of
society that would attend Davos, it's pretty clear that the
idea of philanthropy, and we've talked about this In the past,
(40:45):
there's an episode in particular, I think it's called The
Dark Side of Philanthropy or something along those lines. It, yeah,
can have just that, a dark side. And Ben, you
came up with a great term for this. We've already
talked about greenwashing. So what would be a term to
describe the kind of optics of benevolence that all of
(41:07):
this stuff kind of has?
Speaker 4 (41:08):
Oh, boy.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Okay, still workshopping this one, so everybody go easy on me. Goodwashing. Goodwashing.
What is goodwashing? Maybe the mic drop moment comes from
Steve Dunning, also of Forbes. I'm still kind of surprised
they wrote about Davos this way. Dunning says, firms can
go on privately shoveling money to their shareholders and executives
(41:30):
while maintaining a public front of exquisite social sensitivity and
exemplary altruism. And then Sixsmith comes in, you know, like
dropping a cameo in the verse there and says, Amazon
can proclaim that Black Lives Matter, for example, while its
employees piss in bottles for fear of being fired for
taking toilet breaks.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
That's the mic drop moment right there.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
Right, right.
Speaker 1 (41:52):
But it's good washing, isn't it? Look what we are
doing for society, just not for our employees.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Speaking of piss breaks, guys, I'm going to need to
do that really quickly, but we will be right back
with a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
And we're back. So this is maybe the most important part.
How much sand do these conspiracies and these criticisms actually hold?
I think we can all agree that if this is
a vast communist conspiracy to turn all the governments of
the world, democratic, authoritarian, what have you, into one big
(42:39):
communist government, Or socialist, at the very least, right? Or socialist,
at the very least. Yeah, good point. They're two different things,
but they're trending in the same direction. Well, if that
were the case, the only thing we can say for
sure is this would be one hell of a plot
twist for Professor Schwab and pretty much all the companies
that are participating in Davos. I mean, think about it. Apple, Pfizer, Lockheed,
(43:05):
are they really known for their radical left-wing ideologies? Is
it like, Pfizer, down with the neoliberals or something. I
don't really think so.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Not so much.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
They're still getting paid for vaccines. Remember, they're making money.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
That's a good point, Ben. And it's the pandemic that
really kind of brings all of this into focus because
every single country, every one of these companies is in
a pretty difficult position in that if you move too
far along in a solution, kind of in your own wheelhouse,
you've got no way of making these other organizations do
(43:41):
the same, meaning that there has to be some level
of cooperation for the system to hold, for everything to
kind of hold together. If you're out completely in left
field or right field or whichever direction of field you
find yourself in, you're not going to be as successful
than if these big businesses were working in concert, right?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
Yeah, absolutely. And think about it. You know, if you're
a big business and you are and you have competitors
in the market, and you say, I'm going to make
these radical changes on my home turf, and nobody else does,
then your stuff might get more and more expensive. It
might be more and more difficult to run your day-to-day business.
You might end up being bankrupt because you were not
(44:23):
able to move as a unit with these larger industry players.
It's a thing that we can't miss. Regardless of how
you feel about Davos or globalism, Professor Schwab, not for nothing,
he's right. Capitalism as it stands today has these massive, dangerous,
(44:43):
possibly fatal structural problems. And these problems really are too
big to tackle through conventional means. The stuff that worked
in the past is probably not going to work now.
And that brings us to a weird spot, right? Because
the erosion of the short-lived age of privacy is very real, right?
We are in a surveillance state and we have been.
(45:06):
The long-term prospects of life for this species, spoiler alert,
not looking particularly swell at the moment. And unfortunately, we
don't need some wild animals. easily disproven story about bill
gates and covid microchips to come to either of those
conclusions they are inarguable and they are fact uh and
(45:30):
and stepping stepping down off the uh off the what
what do you call it soapbox here um i was
wondering do people really used to stand on soapboxes.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Yes yeah for sure and even like on film sets
they use apple boxes They still call them that anyway.
They're basically just expensive hollow pieces of wooden frame to
make shorter actors look taller.
Speaker 3 (45:52):
I just want to say, guys, before we finish up here,
you guys know this, and I've mentioned this before in
a couple shows. I personally lost my religious faith a
long time ago. And when I lost it, I put
that faith, that need to believe in something, it still existed.
I put it in Groups of intelligent people getting together
(46:17):
and trying to solve problems. And that's really where I
put my faith. Like, OK, if this isn't going to
help me, my belief and my belief now is this
religion isn't going to help me. At least humanity is
going to help. me and, you know, all of us
get through these things. So this episode has been really
difficult personally for me to square, just to square some of,
(46:38):
because I agree with the realities that we've outlined here
with the problems, the criticisms. I agree with that stuff.
It's just tough thinking that our best option is so flawed.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Secular humanism.
Speaker 3 (46:51):
That's what I should call it. I just, it's tough
knowing that the elite secular human, movement is.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
Yeah, but they're called the elite because there's their small percentage,
you know, of humanity. And sure, they have a lot
of control over the course of humanity, but they are
not humanity. And I would argue that in general, I've
seen a lot of outpouring of wonderful qualities of humanity
(47:21):
during this pandemic of like, you know, being there for
your fellow human and just kind of like, having each
other's backs and all of that stuff. And now I'm
kumbaya-ing a little bit. But I have not lost faith
in humanity at large. But, yeah, it's a bummer when
so few very, very, very powerful stakeholders kind of set
(47:42):
the course, you know, for so many others.
Speaker 3 (47:44):
I mean, it's all beautiful, Nolan. I agree with you.
It's just how do we solve the water crisis problem, right?
Speaker 2 (47:52):
I mean, there's just– Well– We can leave that conversation
for another day. But in the meantime, before we wrap,
I think we have a little bit of a special surprise,
don't we?
Speaker 4 (48:03):
Hey, guys. This is Alex Jones speaking. Big fan of
the show. Big fan. Just want to let you know
that you guys are my favorite source of fake news.
Sorry about that. I just snorted a big rail of Coke. Shit,
but you're not. Sorry. Just tell you what. Anyways, I
(48:24):
just listened to your episode on the Nestle water conspiracy.
And I thought, geez, what a great idea to, like
you and your listeners, you know, a great opportunity. It's
just a great opportunity. I'm proud to announce the InfoWars
brand of bottled water. I know, I know. You guys
(48:46):
are thinking, Alex, how did you get past the globalists
that run Nestle? and get your own water bottle water line.
The Globus, they cashed out on me. And by the Globus,
I definitely don't mean the Jews. Just to make that clear. Anyways, anyways.
This water, it's great. It's great. It's totally gluten-free. It's
(49:11):
only got a little bit of mercury in it. but
it didn't like i said it's it's good stuff it's
less mercury than that's probably less mercury for the well
i mean it's it's probably got less mercury than uh
than flood michigan but you know it's good for you
to build character anyways anyways um i just want to
(49:33):
let you guys know and on that um You can
get a super good deal on alex-jones.bs. Yeah. And also, Ben,
you are my spirit animal. I'm serious about that. You
are my spirit animal. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Well, well, well. That was something.
Speaker 1 (49:54):
What do you think? Have we made it?
Speaker 2 (49:59):
I mean, you're fake Alex Jones' spirit animal, Ben. That's
pretty insane.
Speaker 4 (50:04):
Hey.
Speaker 3 (50:05):
Hey, we can't confirm if that was fake Alex Jones.
Speaker 4 (50:09):
Or the real thing.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I don't think real Alex Jones would narrate himself doing
a giant rail of Coke. I think he would just
do it and let you decide for yourself.
Speaker 3 (50:17):
You're saying you guys heard that too? I thought that
was just in my head. Okay.
Speaker 4 (50:20):
All right. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
I didn't go to the website. He did maybe try
to sell this bottle of water. At the very least,
it's a very good impression. Someone was channeling. Alex Jones, maybe, right?
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah. Somebody printed out one of those Alex Jones sigils and.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
Got to us.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Now that he's been pulled from all the popular platforms,
I guess the only place you can really get him
is out in the ether, just channeling him, just from
the zeitgeist at large. Where is he on now? He's
on Parler or something?
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Gab?
Speaker 2 (50:56):
I think Gab is where he is. I don't remember.
Speaker 1 (50:58):
I have no idea. Maybe he's just lonely and calling us.
But if you want to take a page from Alex Jones' book,
you can contact us directly. We try to be easy
to find online.
Speaker 4 (51:10):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
You can find us on Facebook and Twitter, where we
are Conspiracy Stuff. We're Conspiracy Stuff Show on Instagram. You
can also join our Facebook group, Here's Where It Gets Crazy.
A lot of fun to be had there.
Speaker 3 (51:21):
Yeah, that's right. You can also give us a call.
Our number is 1-833-STDWYTK. Please leave your name, whatever you
want us to call you. Doesn't have to be your
real name. Tell us your message. Try and keep it succinct,
if you can, a little short.
Speaker 2 (51:37):
Yeah, like Alex, his message was blissfully short. Still felt
a little long, but clock time-wise, it was only about
a minute 30. And that's 1-833-STDWYTK. Yes, and if there
is a.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Special message you just want to leave for us. You
don't want to share with the Internet. That's fine, too.
Just tell us at the end. Most importantly, do not
feel as though you need to censor yourself. That is
antithetical to a lot of the to this show. Like
we could totally do cursing, by the way, folks. We
just think it's way funnier when we bleep things. So
(52:09):
so so do feel free. If you have a story
that wouldn't fit in three minutes, those three minutes are yours.
then just write to us. Send us a direct email.
Make it as long as you want. We read every one.
You can send it to us 24-7.
Speaker 4 (52:25):
We are....
Speaker 3 (52:49):
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