February 26, 2026 • 62 mins
The history of human civilization is, in many ways, a history of conflict. Empires rise and fall, countries come and go, and humanity soldiers on. Yet multiple investigations have found a troubling correlation -- it seems not all revolutions are the result of social instability or external rivals. In fact, the natural world itself may be one of history's most powerful (and dangerous) revolutionaries. Listen in to learn more about natural disaster and revolution -- and what this may mean for a world where natural disasters continue to increase.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realist. Back in twenty twenty,
towards the very end of the year, guys, as we
were gearing up for as we were gearing up for
what they call Thanksgiving in the United States, we had
a really deep conversation about natural disasters and revolution.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, when empires deal with something like a major flood
and it destroys infrastructure, right, But then we've got historians, anthropologists,
all these folks coming through trying to understand what happened
to an ancient civilization, And often it's thought that it
was a rival civilization, somebody that tried to just take
(00:45):
over and raise a city.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Let's say, but what if it was just the weather slash,
the climate slash, some disaster.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
I was just saying to a really interesting interview with
a famous production designer named Jack Fisk, who worked on
on the recent Marty Supreme and a lot of Terrence
Malick movies. And he's just a really fascinating dude and
a great historian because a big part of what he
does as a production designer is look into historical references
and photos and just understanding how to create the world
of very specific times and history and he pointed out
(01:17):
that at the end of the day, what makes the
most perfect storm no pun intended circumstances for a revolution
is when people can no longer feed their children, is
when people can no longer have the things they need
to survive. Not ideology that's almost like a luxury. We
are talking about situations, circumstances that lead people to revolt
(01:40):
because they are not able to live.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And as we find in tonight's classic episode, multiple investigations
with the benefit of retrospect have found a troubling correlation
that not all revelations are falls or rises of empires
are necessarily the fault of the humans involved. That's so nuts.
(02:09):
Like the natural world, you might be one hurricane away
from living in a different country. That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Whoa's roll it.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
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 iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
They call me Ben. We're joyed as always with our
super producer Paul Mission Control. Decades most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. We've got a real optimistic one today,
my friends. We're talking about the hazard of natural disaster.
(03:10):
And this was inspired in part by some earlier conversations
we had on and off air, but most recently it
was inspired by a moment in our episode on the
Bronze Age collapse where we found that several different scientists
propose a volcanic eruption in Iceland, of all places, may
(03:34):
have played a direct role in that that collapse that
went across multiple large civilizations. And one of the questions
we asked is how could this have such a tremendous
impact on these civilizations?
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Yeah, it's a real Who done it? It turns out
it was people?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, well, well people were the ones in the end
who you know well to who would hold a weapon
and attack right someone? But where we're looking at the
root causes of what what made those people decide that
it was the correct time to attack a city, to
revolt to a good point, and it has all you know,
(04:17):
it kind of harkens back to a couple other episodes
ben that we did in the past, so specifically thinking
about the solar activity and mass excitability and humans how
we react to solar changes, as well as the episode
Can Weather Make You Crazy, where we looked at how
weather itself can affect our minds and our moods and
(04:38):
our decision making. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Here and that's one of that's still one of my
favorite titles of a show we've done. I think it
was we called the Solar Excitability one Slaves to the Sun,
which sounds like a nineteen seventies band or maybe.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Like a.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Oh what's what's that Australia.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Group Anti Donna?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, oh no, Silver Empire of the Sun. Yes, their
album would be Slaves to the Sun. But you guys
are right, and there are other examples of this. But
first we need to examine what we mean when we
say natural disaster. So here are the facts.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Really quickly, just as a caveat. This isn't a leaf
blower today, folks. But there is a small screaming child
in my house. So if you hear that, just know
knowing it's okay, everything's fine. My daughter is babysitting for
her little sister in the other room, and I don't
have the heart to go down there and tell them
to keep it to pipe down. I'm gonna text them shush,
see what happens. But just wanted to put that out there.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Speaking of natural disasters, I'm just kidding. Your child is
just natural disaster.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
She is an unnatural abomination. That is what she is.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Okay, So back to natural disasters. We all use this
phrase all the time, and we have a pretty good
sense of what it means. It's a catastrophic event that
comes from the natural processes of planet Earth. Earth was
doing this stuff all the time. We only call it
a disaster because it's bad for humanity. It's still you know,
(06:19):
we're a very small piece of this. This includes all
the stuff you've heard before, all the biblical fire and
brimstone things, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and
so on.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, even wildfires can be put in there, especially if
they are caused by lightning and drought conditions. And in
previous episodes, we've explored humanity's ongoing conflict with these things
that we consider natural disasters, including the question of whether
or not in the past, at some point we have
found a way to harness these things to send them
(06:54):
out against a country with which we are having conflict, right,
or whether or not we can to harness the weather
in some other way for a good purpose. And you know,
you may remember cloud seeding as something we explored, even
how something that doesn't seem connected to this topic, like
fracking can actually cause things like earthquakes, and you know
(07:17):
that's some creepy stuff.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Well, and I was being a smart alec at the
top of the show and I said, it's a who
done It turns out it was people. I was just,
you know, winking and nodding at climate change. I mean,
you can call it a natural disaster all day long,
but the activities of humans, to a varying degree depending
on which scientist you ask, probably has something to do
with the frequency of these natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's all frequency and severity, right, Yes, so it goes.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
I would be careful with the word harness, however, because
harness could mean a couple of things. It could mean
opportunism after a disaster strikes, and it could mean to
the extreme degree, which I think we've proven fairly conclusively,
manufacturing of disaster. I would point to cloud seeding operations
(08:04):
on the US side in the Vietnam War as a
weaponized weather. That's an example of creating natural disasters in
that case, specifically flooding. And to the point about fracking
that you make mat which I greatly appreciate. We don't
have evidence that someone purposefully created earthquakes with fracking, but
(08:25):
we do have evidence that fracking has an unforeseen side effect,
which is increasing the likelihood of earthquakes by a measurable amount.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, I think. I think by using hardness, I was
going back to some of the allegations about Tesla and
building a machine that could actually create an earthquake that
we looked at a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, Wordcliff Tower is related to that, I believe. And
you know, the thing about Tesla that still bugs me
is what happened to his notes after he passed away.
You know, that's the big, big piece of that conspiracy.
So here's something that a lot of people throughout history
(09:06):
have had a big problem with in the world of
natural disasters. It's this, natural disasters are non discriminatory. A
hurricane doesn't just hit the poor zip codes, you know
what I mean. An earthquake doesn't not shake a church
or a mansion. It shakes everything that it hits, so
(09:28):
we as humans just simply try to survive when these
things strike, get ourselves back together and sol draw on.
It reminds me of something. I can't remember which show
I talked about this honor or whether it was just
us hanging out off air, but it reminds me of
how humbling birds are for humanity. Think about it. We
(09:52):
have so much technology. We can take people to the Moon.
For Pete's sake, we are gone to as a spe
ses accomplish our first round trip to an asteroid, which
started in twenty sixteen. Just landed took a sample of
an asteroid. It'll be back in twenty twenty three. But
there's one thing we can't do. We can't stop birds
(10:12):
from crapping on things. We haven't figured it out. The
closest technology we have for that is either eradicating birds,
which I know you're on board with NOL, or building roofs.
So the natural.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Umbrellas you know, the umbrella is a second, A strong second.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I feel like an umbrella is a portable roof.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Absolutely. Do you know what when you put it like that,
you got me well, and there are there are specific
things you can put on let's say, railings in other
places that will prevent birds from landing there, or will
discourage birds from landing in certain areas.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, you see them in like subway stations or signage
for storefronts and strip malls and things like that. They're
like little.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Spikes, but that can't stop from the poop from coming out.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Oh streets our example too, because when we think about
that building, those deterrents on benches or statues, or the
eaves of roofs and buildings, it's a lot like the
way we would try to build levees, right, we try
to shore up a coastline. We can't stop a hurricane
(11:17):
anymore than we can stop birds from pooping everywhere. We
can only try to mitigate the disaster and the potential aftermath.
So that's why the bulk of scientific research into natural
disaster it doesn't really it doesn't really hinge on how
we can stop these historically, It hinges on how we
(11:38):
can predict when these unavoidable events will occur. You know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, no, absolutely, Yeah, there's no way to stop that
volcano from erupting currently, unless you know, you toss a
nuke down there and just classify the whole situation, which
you know is an option I guess at some point.
And every time it happens, we're seeing especially this year,
my goodness, we are seeing it in the United States
(12:07):
happen time and time again. A terrible natural disaster occurs.
We have somewhat of an outlook on it. We know
it's coming for at least a week, few days, maybe,
especially with the hurricanes that have been just pummeling the
Gulf Coast in other areas, and it rolls through, power
goes out for a lot of people, People lose their
(12:29):
homes to terrible tragedies on a personal human level. And
then as a whole, society picks itself up as much
as it can, allocates disaster funds as much as it can,
and as much as the governments of various states and
other places localities will allow, and then we just keep
going until another one.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Hits yep, and we hope that we can use our
previous experience to better handle these once again unavoidable could catastrophees.
It's it sounds pretty fatalistic, right. It's an existential crisis
of some sort. We're always as humans dealing with natural disaster.
(13:12):
We have a lot in common with the story of Sisyphus.
We just keep rolling that great stone we call civilization
to the top of a hill to watch it fall
back down again and start from square one, pick ourselves up,
stumble along, and we still, you know, try to build
(13:32):
things that will last. There's something beautiful about that when
we consider that all of civilization is a lot more
like one of those meditative Buddhist sand paintings than we
would like to suppose. It gets wiped away so easily,
you know.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I recently rewatched the anime film Akira, which is all
about the destruction of Tokyo and rebuilding of Neo Tokyo,
and it's really fair. Thing is I watched a little
mini documentary about how Japanese culture and their attitude toward
technology and their pop culture and in anime and their
(14:10):
film world is very much driven by the fact that
they were in large places blown up, you know, by
the United States with the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
And what an interesting cultural benchmark to affect the way
you think about technology, especially having to completely kind of
rebuild society and rely very heavily on technology, but also
(14:34):
kind of fear it in a weird way. I thought
that was a really interesting point in the documentary.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that line of reasoning before.
I think it's I think it's a really compelling theory
that has a lot of sand to it. We see
in there a microcosm of a larger historical trend, you know,
and it's one that continues today. It's one that is
not going to stop. Every single year, natural disasters wreak
(15:03):
billions upon billions of dollars worth of damage across this planet.
The wealthy, the poor alike, any religion, any any set
of values doesn't matter when the hurricane or the tsunami
comes calling. In fact, they have brought so much damage
that it's difficult to estimate the exact cost. There's one
(15:26):
stat that's interesting and still just a ballpark. From nineteen
eighty five to nineteen ninety four, studies show that natural
disasters cost about thirty six billion dollars a year. Now,
from two thousand and five to twenty fourteen, the damage
(15:46):
inflicted is around one hundred and forty two billion dollars.
So that means a couple of things. If we want
to unpack it. First, it means that we have more
stuff to wreck, right. We also have more inflation in general,
that's a trend, So we just have more potential or
(16:09):
more I guess liability or risk people might call it.
But secondly, it means that things are increasing. Inflation alone
cannot explain this cost, and studies indicate the damage wrought
by natural disasters may go much much further than a
financial bottom line.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
But what if revolutions are caused not just by human factors,
but somehow guided by the planet itself. Well, we're going
to talk about that very thing after a quick word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Here's where it gets crazy. So are we accusing Earth
itself of conspiring defoement revolution? Yes, it sounds I mean, yeah,
we are. It might sound preposterous, But the scary thing
is this does seem to be the case. There's a
fascinating paper about this very thing. It's called Natural Disasters
(17:19):
and the Risk of Violent Civil Conflict by researchers Philip
Nell and Margaline Righarts.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yes, and in this study they argue that the occurrences
of natural disasters such as an earthquake maybe or a
volcanic eruption, maybe a flood, let's say a hurricane, anything
really anything at all, a heat wave, an epidemic, massive
forest fires, a plague, all of this stuff. Whenever there's
something like that occurring, it is going to increase the
(17:52):
possibility of some kind of violent conflict within society, or
at least the the risk of something like that occurring.
And at first you think, no, there's no way those
things could be connected, but then you start going down
just go, just go down the pathways of your mind
a little bit and imagine how much tension something like
(18:12):
that causes within a society and everything from any kind
of government, religious, whatever, whatever the controlling powers are, and
the people as well as the people with each other,
the inner conflicts. It's it makes so much sense when
you if you allow yourself to really to think about it.
(18:34):
I don't know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Bah wait, but wait, guys, aren't we in the middle
of a disaster and uh uprising or fine?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Everything's fine, everything's fine.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
It feels like you just describe what's going on in
our world literally right now. I'm just okay, all right,
I'm gonna let it go.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Arguably, humans are the disaster, uh if you look at
the planet overall, which I know sounds sanctimonious. So let's
say the disasters that are humans. I like where you're
going though, Matt, Could you trace this out because are
you saying there's some sort of pattern?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Perhaps I'm saying there's definitely a pattern, you guys, if
you take a look at the study, or at least
what they did for this study. They took data from
one hundred and eighty seven political units from the year
nineteen fifty to two thousand, and they were just going
through and systematically exploring the relationship between natural disasters, occurrences
(19:33):
of any natural disaster, and violent uprisings or civil civil
conflict within a society. Right, how do these things work together?
And they found something pretty terrifying. We've actually got a
quote from it right here.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yes, it says natural disasters significantly increase the risk of
violent civil conflict both in the short and medium term,
specifically in low and middle end countries that have intermediate
to high levels of inequality jeez. Okay, mixed political regimes jeez,
and sluggish economic growth. Rapid onset disasters related to geology
(20:14):
and climate seem to pose the highest overall risk, but
different dynamics apply it to what they call minor and
major conflicts.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
So let me let me walk us back here for
a second. There are some important things political units. That's
an umbrella term, or I guess for this show, it's
a portable roof term. It describes everything from a local
tribe or a community to something like the British Empire,
you know what I mean. And that is where we
(20:47):
see the different dynamics they're sketching out to what they
would call minor and major conflicts, so like a regional,
short lived conflict between two tribes or a major multi
party conflict like World War two or something. And of course, yes,
(21:07):
their study only goes back to nineteen fifty, so this
is post World War two. But we know from previous
episodes and from a wealth of other research that this
is at best a cover version of a very old
original song of terror and heartbreak. We looked at earlier civilizations,
(21:33):
ancient civilizations that mysteriously disappeared for centuries. People thought, well,
maybe this group of highly advanced people just left this
metropolis they worked so hard on because they got tired
of it. Maybe they just said, you know what, it's
time for a new chapter. But later studies have shown
(21:55):
that disaster plays a huge role in this. Like what's
the example of Khmer Empire in modern day Cambodia. There's
this beautiful former metropolis called Angkor Watts, which you can
visit today. For a very long time, people didn't know
(22:17):
exactly why ankor Watt went into decline, but now we're
pretty sure that it collapsed due to prolonged drought. The
weather changed, and when the weather changed, the people had
to change their routine and their lives and the rules
(22:38):
of the governing system at that time, those rules no
longer applied because they were not able to address the
problems people were having, and so the empire collapsed.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yes, yeah, no, that's that's a really great point. Well,
and you know, we talked about this. We keep mentioning
of the Bronze Age collapse something like that, where we
we thought, or the belief was that somehow this volcanic
eruption way over in Iceland had something to do with it.
And as we explored it, we realized that it's not
(23:14):
just because a volcano exploded, Like the volcano exploding it
in itself is not what caused the revolutions and the
uprisings to occur. It was almost like dominoes were set
up for collapse to occur. They're all just sitting there
waiting for something to knock them all down. And that
(23:37):
volcano just went up boot And we're gonna get into
more details about that here in just a moment. But
the the you know, one of the first things we
need to talk about is the limited lifespan over you know,
the past several millennia of a civilization, of a large civilis,
(24:00):
especially of an empire, something large and unwieldy, and we've
seen some things in the past, We've looked at it,
but it's, uh, there's this tendency for empires, for big ones,
the collapse a bit of a bit of a schedule. There,
(24:21):
a bit of a cycle that happens.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Some people would argue that's the case. Yeah, you can.
You can read studies that attempt to treat empires like
natural disasters in the following ways. They assume that empires
are unavoidable and that the collapse of empires is also
likewise unavoidable. And so if these two assumptions hold true,
(24:49):
then researchers find themselves attempting to do the same thing
that scientists concerned with disaster do. They ask themselves, how
can we predict this, how can we model it? How
can we mitigate the collapse of a civilization. That's where
we come into the varying theories that civilizations may have
(25:12):
some sort of expiration date. You know, one of the
numbers that we hear thrown around pretty often is something
like two hundred, two hundred and fifty years. That should
really bother every US resident in the audience today, because
the US celebrated its bicentennial in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Hey, but we're not an empire, right, It's not like
we've got troops stationed all over the planet and control
a bunch of other territories. Wait a second, I want.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
To really quickly the idea of empires being inevitable.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Is that sort of just a.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Product of like human nature and never having enough and
just the idea that someone's eventually gonna slide into an
empire building role just out of here, you know, megalomania?
Or is it a matter of like organization of society
and making sure everyone has everything they need. Because I
feel like civilization and empires aren't the same thing true.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
There have been a lot of very uncivilized empires. Kidding
with that one. Yeah, it's an excellent question, Noel. So
you will find the argument that empires do not exist
in the modern day, that instead we are a somewhat
conflicted global group of one hundred and ninety something countries, right,
(26:33):
and that those countries maybe nations, They may be civilizations,
they are not empires. We were talking about this off air. However,
I would argue that empires haven't gone away, they have evolved.
A corporation can function the way that an empire does, right.
A financial institution of a large enough size also functions
(26:56):
as an empire, so we.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Could almost call them like shadow empire is in some
way interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
And this goes into what we would define as an empire.
And I know that there are a lot of pr
departments in various corporations, maybe not in iHeart that would
object to being defined as an empire. An empire is
technically a large group of states or countries under a
(27:25):
single authority. So the UN is not an empire because
it doesn't have the powers of action and oversight that
a single a single ruling force would have. But the
British empire was an empire because technically speaking, if the
monarch said I want to destroy this nation in the Commonwealth,
(27:49):
or i've you know, I've never been to India, but
they should do what I say, then that's an empire.
And banks can do that.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And there is a great article you can read on
this specific subject. It's on foreign policy. It's called Empires
with Expiration Dates. Fantastic, creepy article from two thousand and nine.
We'd recommend it. But there's a quote from that article
that I want to read right now, which I think
applies to all of this quote. An empire sick will
(28:25):
come into existence and endure so long as the benefits
of exerting power over foreign peoples exceed the cost of
doing so in the eyes of the imperialists, and so
long as the benefits of accepting dominance by a foreign
people exceed the costs of resistance in the eyes of
the subjects. So it no mystery there. But just think
(28:48):
about it, and again it makes so much sense. But
maybe when we're in the midst of struggling for the
every day, we forget this concept that if the system
that's set in place of control and power, it doesn't
work for everybody at least to an extent, you're going
to have problems with the subjugated.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Essentially true, and that applies, I mean, that's a macro
level view. I would argue it applies to the micro
level of individual human psychology. We are programmed, arguably hardwired
to avoid change until the pain of change becomes less
(29:30):
than the pain of the status quo.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
That's honestly, that's where rock bottom is described as sometimes
And now the question is do empires hit a rock bottom?
And I love that you bring up this quote, Matt,
because it clearly, it clearly points to that cost benefit
analysis that happens for every individual on any given date,
and ultimately for every nation, every civilization, every what do
(29:58):
we call it? Political unit? Here we go, that's the umbrella.
So now that we have this, we know that historically
there is a correlation, a dark butterfly effect, right of
an eruption and a country people have never visited leading
to the collapse of their day to day lives of civilization.
(30:21):
We have to ask ourselves where are we in media
arrests here because we're part of this story, and that
means that it's on us to figure out what happens
as disasters accelerate? What are we talking about. We'll tell
you after a word from our sponsor. So back to
(30:48):
natural disaster's fall of civilization. There's a huge elephant, an
enormous badger in the global bag or the room, and
it's simply this. If we have compelling evidence that natural
disasters can lead to violent revolution, then what can we
extrapolate from this information in a world where the frequency
(31:10):
of some natural disasters is provably inarguably accelerating.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
So just to kind of break it down a little bit,
if floods and famine lead to violence and instability, and
floods and famine both seem set to happen, then we
can assume violence and instability in turn will accompany it.
That is the hypothesis here, and it would seem it
(31:38):
is a correct hypothesis at least based on these patterns
that we've been looking at. So a topical paper from
the Independent Evaluation of Asian Development Bank. Then I believe
you gave this one high marks for its awkward name,
but high levels of rigor and its research. This paper
(31:58):
showed that climate related disasters are indeed on the rise,
specifically as such and here's a quote from the paper
Intense climate related disasters. Floods, storms, droughts, and heat waves
have been on the rise worldwide. At the same time
and coupled with an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in
(32:21):
the atmosphere, temperature on average has been rising, have been
Temperatures have been rising and are becoming this yes, enmeshed,
and are becoming more variable and more extreme. I think
even just observationally, we've all seen that here in Georgia,
summers are hotter, winters feel colder from year to year.
(32:43):
I don't think there's any question about that. Just from
like going outside, Temperatures on average have been rising and
are becoming more variable and more extreme. Rainfall has also
been more variable and more extreme. And it goes on
to consider some main risk factors behind these these observable features.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah, one of the biggest problems is so many people
live near a coast, and when you've got natural disasters,
many of them being generated you know, out in the
ocean and then making their way in, that's a problem
when there's so many people concentrated along the shores of
that ocean. That is a especially in the especially in
(33:26):
the case of hurricanes. You've got a hurricane generator. It's
just out there a little bit and you're right next
to it.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Oh yeah, and then and then consider So there's important
point in this examination this paper the phrase more variable
and more extreme. Right, having too much water can be
as dangerous as not having enough. We we're seeing ongoing
(33:57):
transformation of ecosystems, right, desertification of some areas. But then
we're also seeing areas transform in terms of monsoon frequency
and cadence, which is enormously dangerous because these are, to
your point, Matt, heavily populated areas historically in the span
(34:19):
of human civilization in the first few seasons. Of course,
you want your characters to live by a coast. There
are immense resources there, and now that's coming back to
bite us. So there is rising population exposure. There's also
greater population vulnerability with If you are listening to this
(34:42):
the year that we recorded in twenty twenty, then the
odds are that you are going to be alive when
regions of Earth become uninhabitable without technology, and we're going
to see a rise of a new kind of inequality.
Climate change will not really be an argument. It will
(35:05):
be something that people all acknowledge, and people who deny
it will be seeing the way that folks look at
flat earthers today. People will be talking more about climate
in equality because think about this, all right, So the
Middle East big, like the empty quarter of Saudi Arabia, inhospitable,
(35:26):
already very very hot, very arid. It's tough to live
there without technology. Right, It's tough to live in a
lot of places in the Middle East without technology. Now,
consider that the temperature increases that we're reaching, like the
what's called the wet bulb temperature increases. That means that
(35:46):
the temperature is so hot that your insides are essentially
cooking and will and you will be dead within hours
if you are outside. What does this mean for the
people who can afford air conditioning versus the people who cannot.
It is literally a matter of life and death. And
(36:09):
it will happen within your lifetime, hopefully not to you,
hopefully not to any of your loved ones. But the
math is there, and the math is frightening. The next question,
what does this mean for everybody? Because you might think,
just like the people back during the Late Bronze Age,
even if they were aware of iceland, which I don't
(36:30):
think they were. But you may think, well, I live
in I live in Chicago or something. I live in
the interior of Canada, so I don't have to really
worry about rising coastlines, and if the temperature rises, it'll
still be livable because the area where I live is
seasonally very cold. The problem still exists because if these
(36:57):
predictions are correct, then the next several decades may well
be defined by periods of widespread, violent conflict. You know
what I mean. You don't have to be in an
uninhabitable part of Florida for your for your day to
day life to be affected by the collapse of the
(37:18):
United States. I'm being very dystopian. I'm not saying that'll happen.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Well, you you are being dystopian, but it's also almost
it's almost the cold hard facts of what will happen
if we can we continue to see a rise in
the variability and extreme nature of the natural disasters that
are headed our way. Because we're not just talking about flooding,
(37:43):
We're not just talking about drought. We're talking about not
being able to grow crops and not being able to
feed everyone. And it doesn't matter if there's a Kroger
or a what uh piggly wiggly down the street from you,
if there are no suppliers of food getting food to
that pigley wiggly.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
But why the the aversion to accepting climate science, Like
if this literally means the downfall of civilization as we
know it. Even people in power and giant corporations that
seem to be the ones that are pushing for these
kinds of deregulations to sell more you know, oil or whatever,
(38:28):
even that seems short sighted because if there's no people
that are alive to drive cars, you know, who's going
to buy their product? Like the whole focusing on today
rather than tomorrow just seems obviously it's unsustainable, but just
seems shortsighted, even in a greed way, like don't you
want to make more money off people? Shouldn't we figure
(38:49):
out how to sustain this crazy thing we call the
human race so that we can keep selling them.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
It's a cost benefit analysis for sure, because there are
several conspiracies here. First, many multinational conglomerations knew about this,
They knew it was coming right, They even funded some
of the studies that proved it to be the case.
And then they just didn't talk about it. Instead, they
quietly began working on new revenue streams.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
We it's tough because we're asking about self interest, and
whenever we ask about self interest, we have to remember
that every human being is capable of very dangerous things.
And one of the biggest, most dangerous things that every
human being is capable of is phenomenal rationalization. It's a
(39:41):
mental Parker, Right. No one thinks they're the bad guy.
I'm the you know, like I'm one of those Captain
Planet Villain CEOs and I'm saying, well, really, what I'm
doing is helping everybody, if you think about it, right,
And that's exactly That's exactly what happens. And it only
(40:02):
works as long as those institutions are considered effective. Right, So,
in terms of a corporation or company, the institution is
considered effective if it remains profitable. So once it becomes
less profitable for these kind of like mad cap adventures
(40:24):
to continue, then of course they're going to turn their
sales and head to a different direction. What's happening now
To answer your question directly, in my opinion, this is
just my opinion. It's happening now as far as denial
of climate science is a conspiracy because the people who
funded the studies that revealed a lot of these problems
(40:45):
went on to fund Burnet's level PR campaigns to denigrate
anybody who was pointing out the facts or to shift
the blame at the very least, when we talked about
plastics and the idea ever cycling, this all PR to
shift the blame and the responsibility to consumers.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah, and shout out to our episode with Amy Westervelt
where we went into depth on on this very subject.
Check that oen out if you want to learn more
about that. What Ben was speaking about the companies knowing
and willingly uh forgetting that those studies exist, their own
studies that they were funding.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Wait, what's that?
Speaker 1 (41:27):
It reminds you there's a quote I saw online recently.
It was pretty great. It was just a fake headline
where it said, h you can leave the door open
a little bit according to new study by mosquitoes. We
didn't write that, but that's like, you know, cats can
have a little slammy according to new study.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
Bys just for a treat, just for a tree.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yes, yeah, that's where we're at, you know, and these
conspiracies are there are conspiracies that we can then logically
assume are occurring because the powers that be or the
forces that we're aware of this before the average Jane
or John or Joe or whatever. Those forces are planning
(42:14):
in self interest. There are plans to make sure that
these folks or their institutions, or their loved ones or
what have you, are able to find a livable place
that they do always have clean water and ac And
I don't think we should have a problem with that.
I just think it should apply to everybody. And maybe
(42:34):
that's Pollyanna or whatever. But the truth of the matter is,
we are going to see, we are already seen. We
are going to see a massive rise in migration. People
like the ones you mentioned, Matt, the populations living in
the equator, living on coastlines, are going to desperately search
for an escape from increasingly uninhabitable regions of the world.
(42:55):
And the governments in place, and you know what, let's
throw in, throw in the the corporations, let's throw in
whatever kind of governing structure you want. The ones that
are in place, many will be rendered either powerless, corrupt,
or ineffective in combating this. And when those institutions erode,
(43:20):
We're going to lose faith in authority. Why why should I?
Why should I pay taxes? The world's burning down.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
I already got to feel that way. I don't feel
like I get much benefit from the tax that I pay,
you know, in terms of direct impact in my day
to day life. You know, I still have garbage healthcare,
you know. I mean, I don't want to sound like
some kind of bleeding heart liberal comedy or something like that,
but I honestly don't know where my tax money goes,
and it certainly doesn't seem to go anywhere that actually
(43:46):
helps me or my family.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
That's interesting that you say that and old because what
we we have seen historically through some really interesting studies
and an article that was published in Ours Technica about
some studies that we're looking at that correlation that we've
been talking about this whole episode natural disasters and how
(44:08):
violence erupts because of or as a partial effect of
that natural disaster. We've seen that the way a government
or a governing institution responds to a natural disaster and
the effects of it can have a may It can
play a major role in the outcome. Even if there
(44:29):
is a violent conflict that begins that response can temper it,
stop it, or full nent it.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
Can we just address the elephant in the room real quick.
I mean, is a virus a natural disaster? So sure
we're in this and and and the way the government
is or is not handling this, and the people's positions
on how it was or was not handled is going
to have an impact.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Well, yeah, Matt, Matt brought this up at the top
with that definition of what is a natural disaster, It's
always been an epidemic or a pandemic. And again, the
only option that human beings have is generally going to
be to respond an attempt to mitigate. Matt, your note
(45:22):
brings up two examples. I think we talked a little
bit about this off air. There's an example in ancient Egypt.
There's an example in a relatively recent US history. Well,
you know, all US history is relatively recent so far.
FDR attempting to mitigate the Great Depression unquestionably did some
(45:46):
dictator stuff. It's just true. It doesn't matter if you
love him or hate him. He did a lot of
good things, and he did a lot of things that
were governmentally speaking illegal. If we look at older examples.
Then we see a really compelling one in Egypt during
(46:06):
the forties and the thirties BCE. We see a government
response to mass starvation, to plague, to run away inflation
which people have always hated apparently, and Cleopatra queen like, yes,
that Cleopatra was instrumental in quelling a revolt. She quelled
(46:30):
this revolt that was, you know, inarguably caused in part
by natural disaster. She quelled it not by killing all
the protesters or something like that. She quelled it by
going I guess, I guess we would say she went protectionist.
I guess we could say, by our modern framework, which
(46:50):
doesn't really apply, we could say that she took actions
that would be described as socialists. So she was both
with authoritarian and socialists at the same You see what
I'm saying, Like it's it's weird to put those boxes in.
But she offered grain relief, like gave people free food.
And then she banned all exports of food, which is cute.
(47:11):
Like imagine someone saying that. Imagine someone saying, like the
US or China or any country, guatemalaut baton, whatever, people
wouldn't ban food exports.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Well, yeah, absolutely, not, because again you're talking about money
coming in, and what's the difference between money and grain, right,
you can eat grain, you got to trade that money
for something. And if everybody that you have direct connection
to is dealing with drought conditions or in their in
their case, it was natural disasters that caused the Nile
(47:46):
River to not flood as much, so so that those
floodwaters generally would be used to make the ground fertile
for growing things. And when those floodwaters weren't coming in,
it's very difficult to grow things, almost impossible in a
lot of places. And if you've got a stack of
cash and no grain and nobody's got grain, then you're
(48:09):
out of luck. So it was actually a really smart
thing to do. And I love what you're talking about there, Ben,
just how interesting it is to consider it a socialist move,
but how smart it was and how it was really
the only thing you could do. We've got grains here,
it's just we the state essentially controls them. And do
we hold those for future need or power or do
(48:31):
we begin doling them out and helping everyone.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
Well, full dystopian scenario like the coasts of the country,
like fall into the sea, or become uninhabitable, and those
people start going inland, but we can't sustain them. We
don't have enough supplies to sustain them or enough infrastructure
sustain them. Do we like wall them out?
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Like?
Speaker 4 (48:57):
What, what's the worst case scenario in that situation?
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Well, how how far down the barrel do you want
to go?
Speaker 4 (49:07):
Man, it's it's a medium dystopia. But this is a
thing like, we can't there isn't another California to put
California in, you know, And if you can't live there,
where do you go?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Well, it would in the case of the US, it
would require a dramatic fundamental change in the policy of
the country, and maybe not maybe not a good one
because I want to be clear with that Egyptian example
from thousands of years ago. I'm not coming out and
(49:43):
saying like socialism would be the answer, because God knows,
there were a lot of a lot of countries that
did go full socialist and it did not work out.
We still haven't found the best solution for managing large
groups of people. The medium dystopian would be something like, Okay,
(50:04):
let's say parts of the southwest, parts of the southeast
become uninhabitable without the constant implementation of technology. You always
have to have the ac or you will die something
like that. So those people have to move somewhere. Let's
make it medium high dystopia and say that also the
(50:29):
San Andreas fault goes, and so we have one of
the most populous states in the country turned into a
chaotic disaster zone. All of those people from those three
areas we just name, they have to go somewhere. The
good news for the US is that it has a huge,
(50:49):
relatively sparsely populated interior. So if we're just thinking like
rules and red tape aside, where those people go. They
go inland and they begin to populate places like South
Dakota or North Dakota, you know, which only have a
population in the hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
Right now, that's a really good point, Ben, I was
thinking of that in the back of my mind. But okay,
well that's I like that that. I mean, obviously we
don't want the fault to erupt or whatever, but I
like the at least people aren't gonna just drown or
be walled out in no man's lands.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
But the migration is only half the battle. I mean,
I hate going back to this all the time. But
then food and water are your priorities. And you know,
if you're talking about problems with water. We've discussed before
the water wars that are inevitable that are headed our way.
If you look at something as recent as the past
(51:45):
I think month in a couple parts of Mexico where
there are disputes between water trade. Essentially that's happening between
the United States and Mexico where certain areas of Texas
and water to Mexico, certain areas of Mexico send water
to Texas. And very recently we're gonna hopefully talk about
(52:06):
this in an upcoming episode, but a group a group
of farmers went to a dam in Mexico and took
over the dam and they prevented water in the river
from flowing to Texas so that they could keep it
because they were experiencing drought they needed water.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
Wellack, we have that with in Georgia, with the tri
state water wars with Alabama and Florida. We've been seeing
those conflicts for years. Well yeah, only one river.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, but in this case, we're talking about farmers who
armed themselves to go take over a dam, right, yeah, Well,
that's what we're talking about here though, violent conflict, where
where on the individual level the decision is made if
I do not act, myself or my family is in jeopardy.
That's really what we're getting to here. That's when if
(52:57):
the individual is deciding that, and there are enough individuals,
it becomes an uprising of a sort, or a revolt
or a revolution, or you know, fighting back against something
that is seen as deciding to wield control over a group. Right,
(53:18):
it's just it's scary.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
We also we also, in this medium spicy dystopian scenario,
would inevitably see regardless of which country this occurred in,
we would inevitably see a rise in militarism. Maybe not
for the reasons you think. First yes, obviously to protect
against adjacent countries invading for increasingly sparse resources. But secondly,
(53:48):
because it's a solid job for people to get. It
provides shelter, it provides food, it provides a degree of
safety from whatever crazy social programs will be instituted.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
And then the next thing we'll see, of course, which
we're already seeing, is dehumanization of people based on their location. Right,
So like it has happened, It's not some nuts theory
and it's not left wing or right wing. Like. Think
about I'm sure I'm sure many of us listening you
(54:26):
had to read the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
based on real events, right think about how dehumanized the
people from Oklahoma were. The whole reason they were treated
is less than human was because they were from Oklahoma
at a time when being from Oklahoma sucked. They were
called okie's not people.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
It's hard to wrap my head around that.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
It is.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
Indeed, hey, shut out to all you okies out there.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Oh gosh, well, Oklahoma is a is a beautiful state. Honestly,
I would I don't know, guys, I'm mistraveling. Should we
try to get back on the road before the collapse
of civilization? This is such an optimistic episode. We're past
the tipping point. Disasters are on the rise. The only
(55:13):
question now is the same questions as the talking heads
would say, same as it ever was, how will humanity respond?
Speaker 3 (55:25):
What should we do?
Speaker 1 (55:25):
We've seen a bunch of different We seen a bunch
of different good faith attempts to preserve empires, civilizations, community
units during times of natural disaster, which we are in.
We have not seen anything that's one hundred percent successfully reproducible.
And that counts the far left stuff, the far right stuff,
(55:48):
the crazy absolute power monarch just doing weird things. We
don't have an answer, and we are standing on the
train tracks, arguing often semantic in public discourse, while the
train is coming for us and not slowing down. Okay,
we need a positive note to end this.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
On Oh, Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping the.
Speaker 4 (56:12):
Place, bens and the way, and then when the rain.
Speaker 3 (56:19):
No droughts not.
Speaker 4 (56:23):
That's okay, y'all went fine, Oklahoma, Oklahoma.
Speaker 5 (56:28):
Okay, that's a perfect actually perfect thank you guys made
my day. First, if you're listening, if you enjoyed that
half as much as I did, then I think I
think this may be a high point of your day.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
We want to know what you think. By the way,
are you someone who has figured out a response to
these things? Again, people too often get mired down in
misleading labels and discourse. Natural disasters do not care really
(57:08):
about any your personal information and your beliefs. They do
not matter.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
Really.
Speaker 1 (57:13):
The only thing it matters immediately is your location. But
then as we see past a certain threshold, your location
doesn't super matter either. You'll still be affected. So what
are the answers? We're asking for help?
Speaker 3 (57:27):
Yeah, help us save you know, humanity. Okay, you can
find us and write to us and give us your
thoughts in many a place across the internet. Firstly, we
are on Facebook and Twitter at Conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram,
we are at Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 4 (57:49):
Yes, and you also could find us on our favorite
place on the internet, the Here's where it gets Crazy
Facebook group, where all you have to do is answer
a simple question, which is the naming one or two
or three or anybody associated with the show. Ben always says,
you can also just make us laugh, and I say,
you can make a reference to something, let us know
you're not a Russian bot. Whenever we approve people coming
(58:09):
into the group, these go away, and occasionally we'll all
screenshot the ones that we think are noteworthy. This one here,
Matt Ben nole, security should be fixed. I was using
Spanish knowing that Matt's wife is Cuban and that it
might be indecipherable to a hacker or bot.
Speaker 3 (58:26):
Wow. Nice, How did you know that? Have I talked
about that?
Speaker 4 (58:31):
This is actually?
Speaker 3 (58:32):
How much do people know about my life?
Speaker 4 (58:34):
Too much?
Speaker 3 (58:35):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Are you not on the blog. Do you not read
the blog anymore?
Speaker 3 (58:39):
I see it sometimes. I try to stay off of Facebook,
as I hope you do. But if you don't and
you do like Facebook, then go there. That's the right
place to go.
Speaker 1 (58:51):
The blog is watchmatt Sleeping dot org. It is a nonprofit.
Speaker 4 (58:56):
Brought to you by simply Safe Home Security.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
I mean, I knew there were cameras all over the house.
Uh my phone was bugged.
Speaker 4 (59:04):
But geez, you didn't know about this one, did you?
Speaker 3 (59:06):
Baby? Thanks You guys really means a lot.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
Yeah, man, Yeah, we just want to keep an eye
on you. The NSA intern Steve gave us that idea. Uh,
so shout out to him. Uh And if you don't
want to uh interact on social media, as Matt said,
we one percent get it. You can give us a
call toll free. I remember when people used to say
(59:31):
toll free, back when there were tools like that. Anyway,
we're in totll free. We're one eight three three st
d wytk uh speak your piece, speak your mind, give
us suggestions for topics. React to this topic. Uh, you
know the time is yours, conspiracy realist. The only thing
(59:52):
we ask is that you let us know whether or
not you are comfortable with us using your name or
your voice on the air.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
That's right, hey, And guess what I have the best
news for you all. The YouTube channel is going strong
right now. You will see new videos posted there all
the time. And by the way, this weekend, as we're
recording this, we realized that our documentary short, one called
etchten Secret the Georgia Guidestones, was just hanging out on
(01:00:20):
the old YouTube channel, and guess what, we published it.
And if you want to watch that, you can head
over to YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff right now.
You can watch Nol's face talk about the Georgia guidestones
and you can hear Ben's sweet voiceover that you've been missing.
You can hear it right now. Just go to YouTube
(01:00:41):
dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
Dare we say, bearded face and dulcet tones.
Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
And while you're there, I tell you what's been making
my day on that in particular, is the all the
crow comments, all the corvid not COVID stories from ore
a weird news piece which was really just an excuse
for me to talk about crows. But cherry crow stories.
Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
You guys, I speaking of crow stories I dropped my
son off at school this morning. Yeah, and as I'm leaving,
I'm going through a little neighborhood to get out of
the school area, a massive group of crows corvids. They
were hanging out in the middle of the street a
ton I'm gonna estimate three dozen, four dozen, and they
(01:01:29):
were all I looked to be gathering food of some
sort on the street. Because you know, we talked about
this before, but there's an awareness that when a car's
tires drive over nuts or certain things, they can get
that meat out of there, so they'll drop it onto
a street so that the cars can do their thing
and they can get their food. They were doing that
(01:01:52):
this morning.
Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Amazing, amazing, you found a crow convention. You went to
cro con accidentally?
Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
You know you sent them, Ben, don't be boy well.
Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Speaking of speaking of sending things, if you don't care
for phones, if you don't care for social media, and
your wija board is broken or whatever, never fear. There
is one way that you can always contact us twenty
four to seven. Send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
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.
Friends and neighbors, fellow conspiracy realist. Back in twenty twenty,
towards the very end of the year, guys, as we
were gearing up for as we were gearing up for
what they call Thanksgiving in the United States, we had
a really deep conversation about natural disasters and revolution.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Yeah, when empires deal with something like a major flood
and it destroys infrastructure, right, But then we've got historians, anthropologists,
all these folks coming through trying to understand what happened
to an ancient civilization, And often it's thought that it
was a rival civilization, somebody that tried to just take
(00:45):
over and raise a city.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Let's say, but what if it was just the weather slash,
the climate slash, some disaster.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
I was just saying to a really interesting interview with
a famous production designer named Jack Fisk, who worked on
on the recent Marty Supreme and a lot of Terrence
Malick movies. And he's just a really fascinating dude and
a great historian because a big part of what he
does as a production designer is look into historical references
and photos and just understanding how to create the world
of very specific times and history and he pointed out
(01:17):
that at the end of the day, what makes the
most perfect storm no pun intended circumstances for a revolution
is when people can no longer feed their children, is
when people can no longer have the things they need
to survive. Not ideology that's almost like a luxury. We
are talking about situations, circumstances that lead people to revolt
(01:40):
because they are not able to live.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And as we find in tonight's classic episode, multiple investigations
with the benefit of retrospect have found a troubling correlation
that not all revelations are falls or rises of empires
are necessarily the fault of the humans involved. That's so nuts.
(02:09):
Like the natural world, you might be one hurricane away
from living in a different country. That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Whoa's roll it.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
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 iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
They call me Ben. We're joyed as always with our
super producer Paul Mission Control. Decades most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. We've got a real optimistic one today,
my friends. We're talking about the hazard of natural disaster.
(03:10):
And this was inspired in part by some earlier conversations
we had on and off air, but most recently it
was inspired by a moment in our episode on the
Bronze Age collapse where we found that several different scientists
propose a volcanic eruption in Iceland, of all places, may
(03:34):
have played a direct role in that that collapse that
went across multiple large civilizations. And one of the questions
we asked is how could this have such a tremendous
impact on these civilizations?
Speaker 4 (03:51):
Yeah, it's a real Who done it? It turns out
it was people?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah, well, well people were the ones in the end
who you know well to who would hold a weapon
and attack right someone? But where we're looking at the
root causes of what what made those people decide that
it was the correct time to attack a city, to
revolt to a good point, and it has all you know,
(04:17):
it kind of harkens back to a couple other episodes
ben that we did in the past, so specifically thinking
about the solar activity and mass excitability and humans how
we react to solar changes, as well as the episode
Can Weather Make You Crazy, where we looked at how
weather itself can affect our minds and our moods and
(04:38):
our decision making. There's a lot of interesting stuff going on.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Here and that's one of that's still one of my
favorite titles of a show we've done. I think it
was we called the Solar Excitability one Slaves to the Sun,
which sounds like a nineteen seventies band or maybe.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Like a.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Oh what's what's that Australia.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Group Anti Donna?
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Yeah, oh no, Silver Empire of the Sun. Yes, their
album would be Slaves to the Sun. But you guys
are right, and there are other examples of this. But
first we need to examine what we mean when we
say natural disaster. So here are the facts.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Really quickly, just as a caveat. This isn't a leaf
blower today, folks. But there is a small screaming child
in my house. So if you hear that, just know
knowing it's okay, everything's fine. My daughter is babysitting for
her little sister in the other room, and I don't
have the heart to go down there and tell them
to keep it to pipe down. I'm gonna text them shush,
see what happens. But just wanted to put that out there.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Speaking of natural disasters, I'm just kidding. Your child is
just natural disaster.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
She is an unnatural abomination. That is what she is.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Okay, So back to natural disasters. We all use this
phrase all the time, and we have a pretty good
sense of what it means. It's a catastrophic event that
comes from the natural processes of planet Earth. Earth was
doing this stuff all the time. We only call it
a disaster because it's bad for humanity. It's still you know,
(06:19):
we're a very small piece of this. This includes all
the stuff you've heard before, all the biblical fire and
brimstone things, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and
so on.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Yeah, even wildfires can be put in there, especially if
they are caused by lightning and drought conditions. And in
previous episodes, we've explored humanity's ongoing conflict with these things
that we consider natural disasters, including the question of whether
or not in the past, at some point we have
found a way to harness these things to send them
(06:54):
out against a country with which we are having conflict, right,
or whether or not we can to harness the weather
in some other way for a good purpose. And you know,
you may remember cloud seeding as something we explored, even
how something that doesn't seem connected to this topic, like
fracking can actually cause things like earthquakes, and you know
(07:17):
that's some creepy stuff.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Well, and I was being a smart alec at the
top of the show and I said, it's a who
done It turns out it was people. I was just,
you know, winking and nodding at climate change. I mean,
you can call it a natural disaster all day long,
but the activities of humans, to a varying degree depending
on which scientist you ask, probably has something to do
with the frequency of these natural disasters.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
That's all frequency and severity, right, Yes, so it goes.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
I would be careful with the word harness, however, because
harness could mean a couple of things. It could mean
opportunism after a disaster strikes, and it could mean to
the extreme degree, which I think we've proven fairly conclusively,
manufacturing of disaster. I would point to cloud seeding operations
(08:04):
on the US side in the Vietnam War as a
weaponized weather. That's an example of creating natural disasters in
that case, specifically flooding. And to the point about fracking
that you make mat which I greatly appreciate. We don't
have evidence that someone purposefully created earthquakes with fracking, but
(08:25):
we do have evidence that fracking has an unforeseen side effect,
which is increasing the likelihood of earthquakes by a measurable amount.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
Yeah, I think. I think by using hardness, I was
going back to some of the allegations about Tesla and
building a machine that could actually create an earthquake that
we looked at a long time ago.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Yeah, Wordcliff Tower is related to that, I believe. And
you know, the thing about Tesla that still bugs me
is what happened to his notes after he passed away.
You know, that's the big, big piece of that conspiracy.
So here's something that a lot of people throughout history
(09:06):
have had a big problem with in the world of
natural disasters. It's this, natural disasters are non discriminatory. A
hurricane doesn't just hit the poor zip codes, you know
what I mean. An earthquake doesn't not shake a church
or a mansion. It shakes everything that it hits, so
(09:28):
we as humans just simply try to survive when these
things strike, get ourselves back together and sol draw on.
It reminds me of something. I can't remember which show
I talked about this honor or whether it was just
us hanging out off air, but it reminds me of
how humbling birds are for humanity. Think about it. We
(09:52):
have so much technology. We can take people to the Moon.
For Pete's sake, we are gone to as a spe
ses accomplish our first round trip to an asteroid, which
started in twenty sixteen. Just landed took a sample of
an asteroid. It'll be back in twenty twenty three. But
there's one thing we can't do. We can't stop birds
(10:12):
from crapping on things. We haven't figured it out. The
closest technology we have for that is either eradicating birds,
which I know you're on board with NOL, or building roofs.
So the natural.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
Umbrellas you know, the umbrella is a second, A strong second.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I feel like an umbrella is a portable roof.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
Absolutely. Do you know what when you put it like that,
you got me well, and there are there are specific
things you can put on let's say, railings in other
places that will prevent birds from landing there, or will
discourage birds from landing in certain areas.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Yeah, you see them in like subway stations or signage
for storefronts and strip malls and things like that. They're
like little.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
Spikes, but that can't stop from the poop from coming out.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Oh streets our example too, because when we think about
that building, those deterrents on benches or statues, or the
eaves of roofs and buildings, it's a lot like the
way we would try to build levees, right, we try
to shore up a coastline. We can't stop a hurricane
(11:17):
anymore than we can stop birds from pooping everywhere. We
can only try to mitigate the disaster and the potential aftermath.
So that's why the bulk of scientific research into natural
disaster it doesn't really it doesn't really hinge on how
we can stop these historically, It hinges on how we
(11:38):
can predict when these unavoidable events will occur. You know
what I mean?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, no, absolutely, Yeah, there's no way to stop that
volcano from erupting currently, unless you know, you toss a
nuke down there and just classify the whole situation, which
you know is an option I guess at some point.
And every time it happens, we're seeing especially this year,
my goodness, we are seeing it in the United States
(12:07):
happen time and time again. A terrible natural disaster occurs.
We have somewhat of an outlook on it. We know
it's coming for at least a week, few days, maybe,
especially with the hurricanes that have been just pummeling the
Gulf Coast in other areas, and it rolls through, power
goes out for a lot of people, People lose their
(12:29):
homes to terrible tragedies on a personal human level. And
then as a whole, society picks itself up as much
as it can, allocates disaster funds as much as it can,
and as much as the governments of various states and
other places localities will allow, and then we just keep
going until another one.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Hits yep, and we hope that we can use our
previous experience to better handle these once again unavoidable could catastrophees.
It's it sounds pretty fatalistic, right. It's an existential crisis
of some sort. We're always as humans dealing with natural disaster.
(13:12):
We have a lot in common with the story of Sisyphus.
We just keep rolling that great stone we call civilization
to the top of a hill to watch it fall
back down again and start from square one, pick ourselves up,
stumble along, and we still, you know, try to build
(13:32):
things that will last. There's something beautiful about that when
we consider that all of civilization is a lot more
like one of those meditative Buddhist sand paintings than we
would like to suppose. It gets wiped away so easily,
you know.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I recently rewatched the anime film Akira, which is all
about the destruction of Tokyo and rebuilding of Neo Tokyo,
and it's really fair. Thing is I watched a little
mini documentary about how Japanese culture and their attitude toward
technology and their pop culture and in anime and their
(14:10):
film world is very much driven by the fact that
they were in large places blown up, you know, by
the United States with the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
And what an interesting cultural benchmark to affect the way
you think about technology, especially having to completely kind of
rebuild society and rely very heavily on technology, but also
(14:34):
kind of fear it in a weird way. I thought
that was a really interesting point in the documentary.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Yeah, I've heard that. I've heard that line of reasoning before.
I think it's I think it's a really compelling theory
that has a lot of sand to it. We see
in there a microcosm of a larger historical trend, you know,
and it's one that continues today. It's one that is
not going to stop. Every single year, natural disasters wreak
(15:03):
billions upon billions of dollars worth of damage across this planet.
The wealthy, the poor alike, any religion, any any set
of values doesn't matter when the hurricane or the tsunami
comes calling. In fact, they have brought so much damage
that it's difficult to estimate the exact cost. There's one
(15:26):
stat that's interesting and still just a ballpark. From nineteen
eighty five to nineteen ninety four, studies show that natural
disasters cost about thirty six billion dollars a year. Now,
from two thousand and five to twenty fourteen, the damage
(15:46):
inflicted is around one hundred and forty two billion dollars.
So that means a couple of things. If we want
to unpack it. First, it means that we have more
stuff to wreck, right. We also have more inflation in general,
that's a trend, So we just have more potential or
(16:09):
more I guess liability or risk people might call it.
But secondly, it means that things are increasing. Inflation alone
cannot explain this cost, and studies indicate the damage wrought
by natural disasters may go much much further than a
financial bottom line.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
But what if revolutions are caused not just by human factors,
but somehow guided by the planet itself. Well, we're going
to talk about that very thing after a quick word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Here's where it gets crazy. So are we accusing Earth
itself of conspiring defoement revolution? Yes, it sounds I mean, yeah,
we are. It might sound preposterous, But the scary thing
is this does seem to be the case. There's a
fascinating paper about this very thing. It's called Natural Disasters
(17:19):
and the Risk of Violent Civil Conflict by researchers Philip
Nell and Margaline Righarts.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Yes, and in this study they argue that the occurrences
of natural disasters such as an earthquake maybe or a
volcanic eruption, maybe a flood, let's say a hurricane, anything
really anything at all, a heat wave, an epidemic, massive
forest fires, a plague, all of this stuff. Whenever there's
something like that occurring, it is going to increase the
(17:52):
possibility of some kind of violent conflict within society, or
at least the the risk of something like that occurring.
And at first you think, no, there's no way those
things could be connected, but then you start going down
just go, just go down the pathways of your mind
a little bit and imagine how much tension something like
(18:12):
that causes within a society and everything from any kind
of government, religious, whatever, whatever the controlling powers are, and
the people as well as the people with each other,
the inner conflicts. It's it makes so much sense when
you if you allow yourself to really to think about it.
(18:34):
I don't know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
Bah wait, but wait, guys, aren't we in the middle
of a disaster and uh uprising or fine?
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Everything's fine, everything's fine.
Speaker 4 (18:45):
It feels like you just describe what's going on in
our world literally right now. I'm just okay, all right,
I'm gonna let it go.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
Arguably, humans are the disaster, uh if you look at
the planet overall, which I know sounds sanctimonious. So let's
say the disasters that are humans. I like where you're
going though, Matt, Could you trace this out because are
you saying there's some sort of pattern?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Perhaps I'm saying there's definitely a pattern, you guys, if
you take a look at the study, or at least
what they did for this study. They took data from
one hundred and eighty seven political units from the year
nineteen fifty to two thousand, and they were just going
through and systematically exploring the relationship between natural disasters, occurrences
(19:33):
of any natural disaster, and violent uprisings or civil civil
conflict within a society. Right, how do these things work together?
And they found something pretty terrifying. We've actually got a
quote from it right here.
Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yes, it says natural disasters significantly increase the risk of
violent civil conflict both in the short and medium term,
specifically in low and middle end countries that have intermediate
to high levels of inequality jeez. Okay, mixed political regimes jeez,
and sluggish economic growth. Rapid onset disasters related to geology
(20:14):
and climate seem to pose the highest overall risk, but
different dynamics apply it to what they call minor and
major conflicts.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
So let me let me walk us back here for
a second. There are some important things political units. That's
an umbrella term, or I guess for this show, it's
a portable roof term. It describes everything from a local
tribe or a community to something like the British Empire,
you know what I mean. And that is where we
(20:47):
see the different dynamics they're sketching out to what they
would call minor and major conflicts, so like a regional,
short lived conflict between two tribes or a major multi
party conflict like World War two or something. And of course, yes,
(21:07):
their study only goes back to nineteen fifty, so this
is post World War two. But we know from previous
episodes and from a wealth of other research that this
is at best a cover version of a very old
original song of terror and heartbreak. We looked at earlier civilizations,
(21:33):
ancient civilizations that mysteriously disappeared for centuries. People thought, well,
maybe this group of highly advanced people just left this
metropolis they worked so hard on because they got tired
of it. Maybe they just said, you know what, it's
time for a new chapter. But later studies have shown
(21:55):
that disaster plays a huge role in this. Like what's
the example of Khmer Empire in modern day Cambodia. There's
this beautiful former metropolis called Angkor Watts, which you can
visit today. For a very long time, people didn't know
(22:17):
exactly why ankor Watt went into decline, but now we're
pretty sure that it collapsed due to prolonged drought. The
weather changed, and when the weather changed, the people had
to change their routine and their lives and the rules
(22:38):
of the governing system at that time, those rules no
longer applied because they were not able to address the
problems people were having, and so the empire collapsed.
Speaker 3 (22:51):
Yes, yeah, no, that's that's a really great point. Well,
and you know, we talked about this. We keep mentioning
of the Bronze Age collapse something like that, where we
we thought, or the belief was that somehow this volcanic
eruption way over in Iceland had something to do with it.
And as we explored it, we realized that it's not
(23:14):
just because a volcano exploded, Like the volcano exploding it
in itself is not what caused the revolutions and the
uprisings to occur. It was almost like dominoes were set
up for collapse to occur. They're all just sitting there
waiting for something to knock them all down. And that
(23:37):
volcano just went up boot And we're gonna get into
more details about that here in just a moment. But
the the you know, one of the first things we
need to talk about is the limited lifespan over you know,
the past several millennia of a civilization, of a large civilis,
(24:00):
especially of an empire, something large and unwieldy, and we've
seen some things in the past, We've looked at it,
but it's, uh, there's this tendency for empires, for big ones,
the collapse a bit of a bit of a schedule. There,
(24:21):
a bit of a cycle that happens.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Some people would argue that's the case. Yeah, you can.
You can read studies that attempt to treat empires like
natural disasters in the following ways. They assume that empires
are unavoidable and that the collapse of empires is also
likewise unavoidable. And so if these two assumptions hold true,
(24:49):
then researchers find themselves attempting to do the same thing
that scientists concerned with disaster do. They ask themselves, how
can we predict this, how can we model it? How
can we mitigate the collapse of a civilization. That's where
we come into the varying theories that civilizations may have
(25:12):
some sort of expiration date. You know, one of the
numbers that we hear thrown around pretty often is something
like two hundred, two hundred and fifty years. That should
really bother every US resident in the audience today, because
the US celebrated its bicentennial in nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Hey, but we're not an empire, right, It's not like
we've got troops stationed all over the planet and control
a bunch of other territories. Wait a second, I want.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
To really quickly the idea of empires being inevitable.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
Is that sort of just a.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
Product of like human nature and never having enough and
just the idea that someone's eventually gonna slide into an
empire building role just out of here, you know, megalomania?
Or is it a matter of like organization of society
and making sure everyone has everything they need. Because I
feel like civilization and empires aren't the same thing true.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
There have been a lot of very uncivilized empires. Kidding
with that one. Yeah, it's an excellent question, Noel. So
you will find the argument that empires do not exist
in the modern day, that instead we are a somewhat
conflicted global group of one hundred and ninety something countries, right,
(26:33):
and that those countries maybe nations, They may be civilizations,
they are not empires. We were talking about this off air. However,
I would argue that empires haven't gone away, they have evolved.
A corporation can function the way that an empire does, right.
A financial institution of a large enough size also functions
(26:56):
as an empire, so we.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Could almost call them like shadow empire is in some
way interesting.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
And this goes into what we would define as an empire.
And I know that there are a lot of pr
departments in various corporations, maybe not in iHeart that would
object to being defined as an empire. An empire is
technically a large group of states or countries under a
(27:25):
single authority. So the UN is not an empire because
it doesn't have the powers of action and oversight that
a single a single ruling force would have. But the
British empire was an empire because technically speaking, if the
monarch said I want to destroy this nation in the Commonwealth,
(27:49):
or i've you know, I've never been to India, but
they should do what I say, then that's an empire.
And banks can do that.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
And there is a great article you can read on
this specific subject. It's on foreign policy. It's called Empires
with Expiration Dates. Fantastic, creepy article from two thousand and nine.
We'd recommend it. But there's a quote from that article
that I want to read right now, which I think
applies to all of this quote. An empire sick will
(28:25):
come into existence and endure so long as the benefits
of exerting power over foreign peoples exceed the cost of
doing so in the eyes of the imperialists, and so
long as the benefits of accepting dominance by a foreign
people exceed the costs of resistance in the eyes of
the subjects. So it no mystery there. But just think
(28:48):
about it, and again it makes so much sense. But
maybe when we're in the midst of struggling for the
every day, we forget this concept that if the system
that's set in place of control and power, it doesn't
work for everybody at least to an extent, you're going
to have problems with the subjugated.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Essentially true, and that applies, I mean, that's a macro
level view. I would argue it applies to the micro
level of individual human psychology. We are programmed, arguably hardwired
to avoid change until the pain of change becomes less
(29:30):
than the pain of the status quo.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
Right.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
That's honestly, that's where rock bottom is described as sometimes
And now the question is do empires hit a rock bottom?
And I love that you bring up this quote, Matt,
because it clearly, it clearly points to that cost benefit
analysis that happens for every individual on any given date,
and ultimately for every nation, every civilization, every what do
(29:58):
we call it? Political unit? Here we go, that's the umbrella.
So now that we have this, we know that historically
there is a correlation, a dark butterfly effect, right of
an eruption and a country people have never visited leading
to the collapse of their day to day lives of civilization.
(30:21):
We have to ask ourselves where are we in media
arrests here because we're part of this story, and that
means that it's on us to figure out what happens
as disasters accelerate? What are we talking about. We'll tell
you after a word from our sponsor. So back to
(30:48):
natural disaster's fall of civilization. There's a huge elephant, an
enormous badger in the global bag or the room, and
it's simply this. If we have compelling evidence that natural
disasters can lead to violent revolution, then what can we
extrapolate from this information in a world where the frequency
(31:10):
of some natural disasters is provably inarguably accelerating.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
So just to kind of break it down a little bit,
if floods and famine lead to violence and instability, and
floods and famine both seem set to happen, then we
can assume violence and instability in turn will accompany it.
That is the hypothesis here, and it would seem it
(31:38):
is a correct hypothesis at least based on these patterns
that we've been looking at. So a topical paper from
the Independent Evaluation of Asian Development Bank. Then I believe
you gave this one high marks for its awkward name,
but high levels of rigor and its research. This paper
(31:58):
showed that climate related disasters are indeed on the rise,
specifically as such and here's a quote from the paper
Intense climate related disasters. Floods, storms, droughts, and heat waves
have been on the rise worldwide. At the same time
and coupled with an increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in
(32:21):
the atmosphere, temperature on average has been rising, have been
Temperatures have been rising and are becoming this yes, enmeshed,
and are becoming more variable and more extreme. I think
even just observationally, we've all seen that here in Georgia,
summers are hotter, winters feel colder from year to year.
(32:43):
I don't think there's any question about that. Just from
like going outside, Temperatures on average have been rising and
are becoming more variable and more extreme. Rainfall has also
been more variable and more extreme. And it goes on
to consider some main risk factors behind these these observable features.
Speaker 3 (33:02):
Yeah, one of the biggest problems is so many people
live near a coast, and when you've got natural disasters,
many of them being generated you know, out in the
ocean and then making their way in, that's a problem
when there's so many people concentrated along the shores of
that ocean. That is a especially in the especially in
(33:26):
the case of hurricanes. You've got a hurricane generator. It's
just out there a little bit and you're right next
to it.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Oh yeah, and then and then consider So there's important
point in this examination this paper the phrase more variable
and more extreme. Right, having too much water can be
as dangerous as not having enough. We we're seeing ongoing
(33:57):
transformation of ecosystems, right, desertification of some areas. But then
we're also seeing areas transform in terms of monsoon frequency
and cadence, which is enormously dangerous because these are, to
your point, Matt, heavily populated areas historically in the span
(34:19):
of human civilization in the first few seasons. Of course,
you want your characters to live by a coast. There
are immense resources there, and now that's coming back to
bite us. So there is rising population exposure. There's also
greater population vulnerability with If you are listening to this
(34:42):
the year that we recorded in twenty twenty, then the
odds are that you are going to be alive when
regions of Earth become uninhabitable without technology, and we're going
to see a rise of a new kind of inequality.
Climate change will not really be an argument. It will
(35:05):
be something that people all acknowledge, and people who deny
it will be seeing the way that folks look at
flat earthers today. People will be talking more about climate
in equality because think about this, all right, So the
Middle East big, like the empty quarter of Saudi Arabia, inhospitable,
(35:26):
already very very hot, very arid. It's tough to live
there without technology. Right, It's tough to live in a
lot of places in the Middle East without technology. Now,
consider that the temperature increases that we're reaching, like the
what's called the wet bulb temperature increases. That means that
(35:46):
the temperature is so hot that your insides are essentially
cooking and will and you will be dead within hours
if you are outside. What does this mean for the
people who can afford air conditioning versus the people who cannot.
It is literally a matter of life and death. And
(36:09):
it will happen within your lifetime, hopefully not to you,
hopefully not to any of your loved ones. But the
math is there, and the math is frightening. The next question,
what does this mean for everybody? Because you might think,
just like the people back during the Late Bronze Age,
even if they were aware of iceland, which I don't
(36:30):
think they were. But you may think, well, I live
in I live in Chicago or something. I live in
the interior of Canada, so I don't have to really
worry about rising coastlines, and if the temperature rises, it'll
still be livable because the area where I live is
seasonally very cold. The problem still exists because if these
(36:57):
predictions are correct, then the next several decades may well
be defined by periods of widespread, violent conflict. You know
what I mean. You don't have to be in an
uninhabitable part of Florida for your for your day to
day life to be affected by the collapse of the
(37:18):
United States. I'm being very dystopian. I'm not saying that'll happen.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
Well, you you are being dystopian, but it's also almost
it's almost the cold hard facts of what will happen
if we can we continue to see a rise in
the variability and extreme nature of the natural disasters that
are headed our way. Because we're not just talking about flooding,
(37:43):
We're not just talking about drought. We're talking about not
being able to grow crops and not being able to
feed everyone. And it doesn't matter if there's a Kroger
or a what uh piggly wiggly down the street from you,
if there are no suppliers of food getting food to
that pigley wiggly.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
But why the the aversion to accepting climate science, Like
if this literally means the downfall of civilization as we
know it. Even people in power and giant corporations that
seem to be the ones that are pushing for these
kinds of deregulations to sell more you know, oil or whatever,
(38:28):
even that seems short sighted because if there's no people
that are alive to drive cars, you know, who's going
to buy their product? Like the whole focusing on today
rather than tomorrow just seems obviously it's unsustainable, but just
seems shortsighted, even in a greed way, like don't you
want to make more money off people? Shouldn't we figure
(38:49):
out how to sustain this crazy thing we call the
human race so that we can keep selling them.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
It's a cost benefit analysis for sure, because there are
several conspiracies here. First, many multinational conglomerations knew about this,
They knew it was coming right, They even funded some
of the studies that proved it to be the case.
And then they just didn't talk about it. Instead, they
quietly began working on new revenue streams.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
We it's tough because we're asking about self interest, and
whenever we ask about self interest, we have to remember
that every human being is capable of very dangerous things.
And one of the biggest, most dangerous things that every
human being is capable of is phenomenal rationalization. It's a
(39:41):
mental Parker, Right. No one thinks they're the bad guy.
I'm the you know, like I'm one of those Captain
Planet Villain CEOs and I'm saying, well, really, what I'm
doing is helping everybody, if you think about it, right,
And that's exactly That's exactly what happens. And it only
(40:02):
works as long as those institutions are considered effective. Right, So,
in terms of a corporation or company, the institution is
considered effective if it remains profitable. So once it becomes
less profitable for these kind of like mad cap adventures
(40:24):
to continue, then of course they're going to turn their
sales and head to a different direction. What's happening now
To answer your question directly, in my opinion, this is
just my opinion. It's happening now as far as denial
of climate science is a conspiracy because the people who
funded the studies that revealed a lot of these problems
(40:45):
went on to fund Burnet's level PR campaigns to denigrate
anybody who was pointing out the facts or to shift
the blame at the very least, when we talked about
plastics and the idea ever cycling, this all PR to
shift the blame and the responsibility to consumers.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Yeah, and shout out to our episode with Amy Westervelt
where we went into depth on on this very subject.
Check that oen out if you want to learn more
about that. What Ben was speaking about the companies knowing
and willingly uh forgetting that those studies exist, their own
studies that they were funding.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
Wait, what's that?
Speaker 1 (41:27):
It reminds you there's a quote I saw online recently.
It was pretty great. It was just a fake headline
where it said, h you can leave the door open
a little bit according to new study by mosquitoes. We
didn't write that, but that's like, you know, cats can
have a little slammy according to new study.
Speaker 4 (41:47):
Bys just for a treat, just for a tree.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Yes, yeah, that's where we're at, you know, and these
conspiracies are there are conspiracies that we can then logically
assume are occurring because the powers that be or the
forces that we're aware of this before the average Jane
or John or Joe or whatever. Those forces are planning
(42:14):
in self interest. There are plans to make sure that
these folks or their institutions, or their loved ones or
what have you, are able to find a livable place
that they do always have clean water and ac And
I don't think we should have a problem with that.
I just think it should apply to everybody. And maybe
(42:34):
that's Pollyanna or whatever. But the truth of the matter is,
we are going to see, we are already seen. We
are going to see a massive rise in migration. People
like the ones you mentioned, Matt, the populations living in
the equator, living on coastlines, are going to desperately search
for an escape from increasingly uninhabitable regions of the world.
(42:55):
And the governments in place, and you know what, let's
throw in, throw in the the corporations, let's throw in
whatever kind of governing structure you want. The ones that
are in place, many will be rendered either powerless, corrupt,
or ineffective in combating this. And when those institutions erode,
(43:20):
We're going to lose faith in authority. Why why should I?
Why should I pay taxes? The world's burning down.
Speaker 4 (43:26):
I already got to feel that way. I don't feel
like I get much benefit from the tax that I pay,
you know, in terms of direct impact in my day
to day life. You know, I still have garbage healthcare,
you know. I mean, I don't want to sound like
some kind of bleeding heart liberal comedy or something like that,
but I honestly don't know where my tax money goes,
and it certainly doesn't seem to go anywhere that actually
(43:46):
helps me or my family.
Speaker 3 (43:48):
That's interesting that you say that and old because what
we we have seen historically through some really interesting studies
and an article that was published in Ours Technica about
some studies that we're looking at that correlation that we've
been talking about this whole episode natural disasters and how
(44:08):
violence erupts because of or as a partial effect of
that natural disaster. We've seen that the way a government
or a governing institution responds to a natural disaster and
the effects of it can have a may It can
play a major role in the outcome. Even if there
(44:29):
is a violent conflict that begins that response can temper it,
stop it, or full nent it.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
Can we just address the elephant in the room real quick.
I mean, is a virus a natural disaster? So sure
we're in this and and and the way the government
is or is not handling this, and the people's positions
on how it was or was not handled is going
to have an impact.
Speaker 1 (44:57):
Well, yeah, Matt, Matt brought this up at the top
with that definition of what is a natural disaster, It's
always been an epidemic or a pandemic. And again, the
only option that human beings have is generally going to
be to respond an attempt to mitigate. Matt, your note
(45:22):
brings up two examples. I think we talked a little
bit about this off air. There's an example in ancient Egypt.
There's an example in a relatively recent US history. Well,
you know, all US history is relatively recent so far.
FDR attempting to mitigate the Great Depression unquestionably did some
(45:46):
dictator stuff. It's just true. It doesn't matter if you
love him or hate him. He did a lot of
good things, and he did a lot of things that
were governmentally speaking illegal. If we look at older examples.
Then we see a really compelling one in Egypt during
(46:06):
the forties and the thirties BCE. We see a government
response to mass starvation, to plague, to run away inflation
which people have always hated apparently, and Cleopatra queen like, yes,
that Cleopatra was instrumental in quelling a revolt. She quelled
(46:30):
this revolt that was, you know, inarguably caused in part
by natural disaster. She quelled it not by killing all
the protesters or something like that. She quelled it by
going I guess, I guess we would say she went protectionist.
I guess we could say, by our modern framework, which
(46:50):
doesn't really apply, we could say that she took actions
that would be described as socialists. So she was both
with authoritarian and socialists at the same You see what
I'm saying, Like it's it's weird to put those boxes in.
But she offered grain relief, like gave people free food.
And then she banned all exports of food, which is cute.
(47:11):
Like imagine someone saying that. Imagine someone saying, like the
US or China or any country, guatemalaut baton, whatever, people
wouldn't ban food exports.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Well, yeah, absolutely, not, because again you're talking about money
coming in, and what's the difference between money and grain, right,
you can eat grain, you got to trade that money
for something. And if everybody that you have direct connection
to is dealing with drought conditions or in their in
their case, it was natural disasters that caused the Nile
(47:46):
River to not flood as much, so so that those
floodwaters generally would be used to make the ground fertile
for growing things. And when those floodwaters weren't coming in,
it's very difficult to grow things, almost impossible in a
lot of places. And if you've got a stack of
cash and no grain and nobody's got grain, then you're
(48:09):
out of luck. So it was actually a really smart
thing to do. And I love what you're talking about there, Ben,
just how interesting it is to consider it a socialist move,
but how smart it was and how it was really
the only thing you could do. We've got grains here,
it's just we the state essentially controls them. And do
we hold those for future need or power or do
(48:31):
we begin doling them out and helping everyone.
Speaker 4 (48:35):
Well, full dystopian scenario like the coasts of the country,
like fall into the sea, or become uninhabitable, and those
people start going inland, but we can't sustain them. We
don't have enough supplies to sustain them or enough infrastructure
sustain them. Do we like wall them out?
Speaker 3 (48:57):
Like?
Speaker 4 (48:57):
What, what's the worst case scenario in that situation?
Speaker 1 (49:02):
Well, how how far down the barrel do you want
to go?
Speaker 4 (49:07):
Man, it's it's a medium dystopia. But this is a
thing like, we can't there isn't another California to put
California in, you know, And if you can't live there,
where do you go?
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Well, it would in the case of the US, it
would require a dramatic fundamental change in the policy of
the country, and maybe not maybe not a good one
because I want to be clear with that Egyptian example
from thousands of years ago. I'm not coming out and
(49:43):
saying like socialism would be the answer, because God knows,
there were a lot of a lot of countries that
did go full socialist and it did not work out.
We still haven't found the best solution for managing large
groups of people. The medium dystopian would be something like, Okay,
(50:04):
let's say parts of the southwest, parts of the southeast
become uninhabitable without the constant implementation of technology. You always
have to have the ac or you will die something
like that. So those people have to move somewhere. Let's
make it medium high dystopia and say that also the
(50:29):
San Andreas fault goes, and so we have one of
the most populous states in the country turned into a
chaotic disaster zone. All of those people from those three
areas we just name, they have to go somewhere. The
good news for the US is that it has a huge,
(50:49):
relatively sparsely populated interior. So if we're just thinking like
rules and red tape aside, where those people go. They
go inland and they begin to populate places like South
Dakota or North Dakota, you know, which only have a
population in the hundreds of thousands.
Speaker 4 (51:09):
Right now, that's a really good point, Ben, I was
thinking of that in the back of my mind. But okay,
well that's I like that that. I mean, obviously we
don't want the fault to erupt or whatever, but I
like the at least people aren't gonna just drown or
be walled out in no man's lands.
Speaker 3 (51:25):
But the migration is only half the battle. I mean,
I hate going back to this all the time. But
then food and water are your priorities. And you know,
if you're talking about problems with water. We've discussed before
the water wars that are inevitable that are headed our way.
If you look at something as recent as the past
(51:45):
I think month in a couple parts of Mexico where
there are disputes between water trade. Essentially that's happening between
the United States and Mexico where certain areas of Texas
and water to Mexico, certain areas of Mexico send water
to Texas. And very recently we're gonna hopefully talk about
(52:06):
this in an upcoming episode, but a group a group
of farmers went to a dam in Mexico and took
over the dam and they prevented water in the river
from flowing to Texas so that they could keep it
because they were experiencing drought they needed water.
Speaker 4 (52:28):
Wellack, we have that with in Georgia, with the tri
state water wars with Alabama and Florida. We've been seeing
those conflicts for years. Well yeah, only one river.
Speaker 3 (52:36):
Yeah, but in this case, we're talking about farmers who
armed themselves to go take over a dam, right, yeah, Well,
that's what we're talking about here though, violent conflict, where
where on the individual level the decision is made if
I do not act, myself or my family is in jeopardy.
That's really what we're getting to here. That's when if
(52:57):
the individual is deciding that, and there are enough individuals,
it becomes an uprising of a sort, or a revolt
or a revolution, or you know, fighting back against something
that is seen as deciding to wield control over a group. Right,
(53:18):
it's just it's scary.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
We also we also, in this medium spicy dystopian scenario,
would inevitably see regardless of which country this occurred in,
we would inevitably see a rise in militarism. Maybe not
for the reasons you think. First yes, obviously to protect
against adjacent countries invading for increasingly sparse resources. But secondly,
(53:48):
because it's a solid job for people to get. It
provides shelter, it provides food, it provides a degree of
safety from whatever crazy social programs will be instituted.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
Right.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
And then the next thing we'll see, of course, which
we're already seeing, is dehumanization of people based on their location. Right,
So like it has happened, It's not some nuts theory
and it's not left wing or right wing. Like. Think
about I'm sure I'm sure many of us listening you
(54:26):
had to read the Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
based on real events, right think about how dehumanized the
people from Oklahoma were. The whole reason they were treated
is less than human was because they were from Oklahoma
at a time when being from Oklahoma sucked. They were
called okie's not people.
Speaker 3 (54:46):
It's hard to wrap my head around that.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
It is.
Speaker 3 (54:49):
Indeed, hey, shut out to all you okies out there.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Oh gosh, well, Oklahoma is a is a beautiful state. Honestly,
I would I don't know, guys, I'm mistraveling. Should we
try to get back on the road before the collapse
of civilization? This is such an optimistic episode. We're past
the tipping point. Disasters are on the rise. The only
(55:13):
question now is the same questions as the talking heads
would say, same as it ever was, how will humanity respond?
Speaker 3 (55:25):
What should we do?
Speaker 1 (55:25):
We've seen a bunch of different We seen a bunch
of different good faith attempts to preserve empires, civilizations, community
units during times of natural disaster, which we are in.
We have not seen anything that's one hundred percent successfully reproducible.
And that counts the far left stuff, the far right stuff,
(55:48):
the crazy absolute power monarch just doing weird things. We
don't have an answer, and we are standing on the
train tracks, arguing often semantic in public discourse, while the
train is coming for us and not slowing down. Okay,
we need a positive note to end this.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
On Oh, Oklahoma, where the wind comes sweeping the.
Speaker 4 (56:12):
Place, bens and the way, and then when the rain.
Speaker 3 (56:19):
No droughts not.
Speaker 4 (56:23):
That's okay, y'all went fine, Oklahoma, Oklahoma.
Speaker 5 (56:28):
Okay, that's a perfect actually perfect thank you guys made
my day. First, if you're listening, if you enjoyed that
half as much as I did, then I think I
think this may be a high point of your day.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
We want to know what you think. By the way,
are you someone who has figured out a response to
these things? Again, people too often get mired down in
misleading labels and discourse. Natural disasters do not care really
(57:08):
about any your personal information and your beliefs. They do
not matter.
Speaker 4 (57:13):
Really.
Speaker 1 (57:13):
The only thing it matters immediately is your location. But
then as we see past a certain threshold, your location
doesn't super matter either. You'll still be affected. So what
are the answers? We're asking for help?
Speaker 3 (57:27):
Yeah, help us save you know, humanity. Okay, you can
find us and write to us and give us your
thoughts in many a place across the internet. Firstly, we
are on Facebook and Twitter at Conspiracy Stuff. On Instagram,
we are at Conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 4 (57:49):
Yes, and you also could find us on our favorite
place on the internet, the Here's where it gets Crazy
Facebook group, where all you have to do is answer
a simple question, which is the naming one or two
or three or anybody associated with the show. Ben always says,
you can also just make us laugh, and I say,
you can make a reference to something, let us know
you're not a Russian bot. Whenever we approve people coming
(58:09):
into the group, these go away, and occasionally we'll all
screenshot the ones that we think are noteworthy. This one here,
Matt Ben nole, security should be fixed. I was using
Spanish knowing that Matt's wife is Cuban and that it
might be indecipherable to a hacker or bot.
Speaker 3 (58:26):
Wow. Nice, How did you know that? Have I talked
about that?
Speaker 4 (58:31):
This is actually?
Speaker 3 (58:32):
How much do people know about my life?
Speaker 4 (58:34):
Too much?
Speaker 3 (58:35):
Oh?
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Are you not on the blog. Do you not read
the blog anymore?
Speaker 3 (58:39):
I see it sometimes. I try to stay off of Facebook,
as I hope you do. But if you don't and
you do like Facebook, then go there. That's the right
place to go.
Speaker 1 (58:51):
The blog is watchmatt Sleeping dot org. It is a nonprofit.
Speaker 4 (58:56):
Brought to you by simply Safe Home Security.
Speaker 3 (58:59):
I mean, I knew there were cameras all over the house.
Uh my phone was bugged.
Speaker 4 (59:04):
But geez, you didn't know about this one, did you?
Speaker 3 (59:06):
Baby? Thanks You guys really means a lot.
Speaker 1 (59:09):
Yeah, man, Yeah, we just want to keep an eye
on you. The NSA intern Steve gave us that idea. Uh,
so shout out to him. Uh And if you don't
want to uh interact on social media, as Matt said,
we one percent get it. You can give us a
call toll free. I remember when people used to say
(59:31):
toll free, back when there were tools like that. Anyway,
we're in totll free. We're one eight three three st
d wytk uh speak your piece, speak your mind, give
us suggestions for topics. React to this topic. Uh, you
know the time is yours, conspiracy realist. The only thing
(59:52):
we ask is that you let us know whether or
not you are comfortable with us using your name or
your voice on the air.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
That's right, hey, And guess what I have the best
news for you all. The YouTube channel is going strong
right now. You will see new videos posted there all
the time. And by the way, this weekend, as we're
recording this, we realized that our documentary short, one called
etchten Secret the Georgia Guidestones, was just hanging out on
(01:00:20):
the old YouTube channel, and guess what, we published it.
And if you want to watch that, you can head
over to YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff right now.
You can watch Nol's face talk about the Georgia guidestones
and you can hear Ben's sweet voiceover that you've been missing.
You can hear it right now. Just go to YouTube
(01:00:41):
dot com slash conspiracy stuff.
Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
Dare we say, bearded face and dulcet tones.
Speaker 1 (01:00:47):
And while you're there, I tell you what's been making
my day on that in particular, is the all the
crow comments, all the corvid not COVID stories from ore
a weird news piece which was really just an excuse
for me to talk about crows. But cherry crow stories.
Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
You guys, I speaking of crow stories I dropped my
son off at school this morning. Yeah, and as I'm leaving,
I'm going through a little neighborhood to get out of
the school area, a massive group of crows corvids. They
were hanging out in the middle of the street a
ton I'm gonna estimate three dozen, four dozen, and they
(01:01:29):
were all I looked to be gathering food of some
sort on the street. Because you know, we talked about
this before, but there's an awareness that when a car's
tires drive over nuts or certain things, they can get
that meat out of there, so they'll drop it onto
a street so that the cars can do their thing
and they can get their food. They were doing that
(01:01:52):
this morning.
Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
Amazing, amazing, you found a crow convention. You went to
cro con accidentally?
Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
You know you sent them, Ben, don't be boy well.
Speaker 1 (01:02:05):
Speaking of speaking of sending things, if you don't care
for phones, if you don't care for social media, and
your wija board is broken or whatever, never fear. There
is one way that you can always contact us twenty
four to seven. Send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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