September 5, 2023 • 49 mins
What if everything you encounter in your day-to-day interactions is somehow prescient? Are the games you play and the films you watch meant to normalize genres of experience -- and, if so, to what end? Ben and Matt explore the idea of weaponized mass media from the early days of deification to a startling story by Edgar Allan Poe and beyond.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, fellow conspiracy realists, have you ever thought about this?
Have things ever seemed a little too purposeful, a little
too organized in your day to day life. What if
everything you encounter, all your interactions are somehow part of
a larger orchestrated scheme or plan.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We're all inside episodes of The Simpsons.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
More stuff that I want you to know. Which is
more terrifying. I'll let you be the judge. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
They called me Ben. We were joining with our super producer,
Paul the Paul the Predictor Decand okay, we got a shrug.
We're joining with Paul the Predictor Decand most importantly, you
are you, and you are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. We predict you
will find this episode fascinating.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Oh yeah, we can already tell this is going to
be your favorite episode that's come out in a long time.
We've already read some of your emails. Thank you for those.
It's really kind what you said about this episode. You know,
we look forward to your next ones.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Right, both represented in fiction and in real life. I
don't know if we can continue this this trope for
the whole show man, What do you think. No, we're
just being silly, We're just we're just having a goof.
Do people still say that having a goof?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Great, because if not, we're bringing it back. This episode
is about somewhat of a meta conspiracy, a conspiracy about conspiracies,
for lack of a better term, or a technique that
is attributed to a lot of specific theories. And oddly enough,
(02:13):
there's a very strong basis in truth in this, which
I think surprised both of us.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
There is a little bit of truth in a way,
but it's Yeah, it's one of those things where it's
so prevalent. This what we're speaking about today, and let's
just say what it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Is a predictive programming.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And it's so prevalent on the Internet when anything occurs.
There is so much media that exists and so many
things happening that when you find the little connective tissues,
there's always that eureka moment and it just happens all
the time.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Now maybe yeah, maybe we get into this too with
an anecdote. Several years ago, you and I made a
video about the Illuminati card game. Yes, yes, And in
the Illuminati Card Game there are certain cards that people
(03:11):
who believe in predictive programming have pointed to as evidence
of this practice. I think specifically the Twin Towers is correct.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The Twin Towers was one about a terrorist attack. There
were so many though, Deepwater Horizon from twenty ten was one,
and again in that video, I guess do we want
to spoil any of that right now? About kind of
what we found out about the card game?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, yeah, go ahead, laid up.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Okay. So there have been so many versions of that
card game over the years. The cards have shifted and
changed a little bit, the artwork has been altered. Exactly
what stated on the cards has been altered. And then
when you're online and you have people posting images about
you know, here, look at this card from this game
that came out in ninety something. You know it predicted
(04:00):
the World Trade Center because of this card, when in actuality,
that card was referring to the original World Trade Center bombing,
which occurred in the nineties, right, and then, and or
it was changed now because of other you know, circumstances,
things that actually occurred in the real world after it
was put out. It's just interesting how things shift over time,
(04:23):
and when it's posted on the internet, it could be
from any time throughout the span of the card's history.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Oh, we should also point out that it's a fun game.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
It is a really fun game.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I was so happy because you introduced me to it.
I'm going to owe you for that one. Also, I
was thinking, should we play that game with with with
you friends and neighbors if we ever run into each
other in real life, or Matt, should you and Paul
and Nola and I make a game of our own?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
We could. We should make a game of our own.
We could live stream it.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Stuff they don't want you to play. I don't know.
I don't know. We'll put a pin in that, okay,
But but yeah, So that's a great example of an
allegation of predictive programming. Here's what we mean specifically when
we say there's a basis in truth. In decades past,
the US government would assemble groups of people to help
(05:18):
them predict the direction of future technological breakthroughs, and they
consulted scientists and technocrats, but they also asked science fiction
writers to join in this think tankery, and several of
these writers, it turns out, had already successfully predicted the
broad strokes of a certain aspect of technological progress or
(05:41):
social changes, and they had depicted these events in works
of fiction.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, and for a lot of people, this is just
it speaks to the human imagination. What can what images
and ideas can we conjure in our heads before it
becomes reality? And it's really, honestly, it's inspiring and our
species ability to dream beyond the limits of this moment
of what's occurring right now, things that I can possibly
(06:08):
do today to what I could do in the future
because of X. I mean, that's incredible. That's what separates us. Well,
there are a lot of things that separate us, but
that's one of the major things that separates us from
other mammals.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
You're giving me chills. That is inspiring, especially the way
you put it there. It is it is one of
the primary separations. But it's not all like angel farts
and trumpets in the sky. You know, there's a dark
side that people see here because for others, this story
of sci fi collaboration is only scratching the surface. It's
(06:42):
a relatively benign example of a much more widespread and,
according to them, sinister practice. Fringe researchers across the US
and the globe believe that nefarious, hidden groups are guiding
the public through the use of this predictive programming. So
let's look at the facts. When you look at the
(07:02):
idea of fiction, whether an Illuminati game or a film
depicting actual events in the future, we see two fundamental
factors at play immediately.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah. The first is what the creators are trying to do.
It's not a secret that people who write screenplays and
write books, directors of television and movie, they often are
attempting to depict what they think the future is going
to look like, what might happen in the future. If
you think about nineteen eighty four the novel or Brave
(07:38):
New World, these are two cautionary tales, very different from
each other and also quite similar. They're meant to educate
as much as they're meant to warn and entertain. They
function on a whole lot of levels.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, Yeah, nineteen eighty four is one of those books that,
even after having read it multiple times. I still don't
know if I would say I'm entertained by it, you
know what I mean. Sure, it definitely airs more on
the cautionary tale side, but you're absolutely right. I think
that's such a great point. These authors and these creators
(08:16):
are not working in a vacuum. They are attempting to
enact some sort of change in the world, whether it's
just making the world one story better or one story richer,
or whatever we want to say about it.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Or as in the case of a Brave New World,
it's the question of dothtaw entertain too much?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yes? Yes, And these authors could also depict something more aspirational,
like what the future of humanity could be if we
ever get our collective business together.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
You're talking about Star Trek.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
I'm talking about Star Trek, Matt Man.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Star Trek tng was the thing they like made me go, okay,
we're gonna be okay. The future is going to be
an amazing place. I can't wait to get there.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Right. It's a post scarcity economy, right, there's not income inequality,
and the species spends its time exploring strange new worlds
and attempting to enrich their knowledge of the galaxy and
the beautiful universe in which we live. Also having more
(09:25):
or less constant war or uneasy truces with various alien empires.
Probably a story for a different episode, but yeah, Star
Trek aspirational. Imagine what we could be.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Exactly, and then you could even have a Holid Deck.
I mean, come on, that's what it was for your
No it it was the big picture stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I hated the Holid Deck episodes.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, I always felt like I was getting tricked.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I felt, you know, this is just my opinion, one
person's opinion, and I would love to hear everybody else's
opinion on this. I thought I felt as if the
actors were pushing this on the writers and the producers
and saying, well, you know, I've I've done some Shakespeare before.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You're talking specifically about El Capitan.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Right, I don't know, I don't you know, I don't
know who it was. I feel like I have suspicions,
but I can't pin it on any single actor. Okay,
And maybe it was just maybe it just felt like
a bait and switch.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Well, yeah, it's a I think it's a writing device
that the people in the writer's room can go, Wow,
we've been stuck on this enterprise for a long time
in all these episodes. Let's let's do a Western.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, it could be that. It could also be something,
As you know, these are big machines. Every television show
is a huge machine of its own. So it could
have been something behind the scenes where they said, Okay,
look we have this leftover set for a show that
didn't get used. We have to use it. And sorry,
(11:02):
Star trek TNG, you drew the short straw this time.
So writer's room, chop chop something something with the hollow deck.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Or maybe this set's about to get torn down. Hey, writers,
let's find a way to use it quick.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We have We have spent a lot of time thinking
about thinking about this. You know, I bet someone out
there has a has the real scoop, the straight poop,
as we might say, on the origin of those hollow
Deck episodes. But there is another thing that comes into
play when we consider this idea of fiction purposefully predicting
(11:41):
actual events in the future, usually bad ones, and that
is the dangerous deceptive traits of the human mind.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, it's not just the people creating the fiction and
the entertainment. It's the people who are consuming it, actively,
watching and hearing it right.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
And there's this assumption that is so prevalent in the
past and today that goes like this. Someone watching a
film or reading a book, even to a lesser degree,
is passively experiencing the vision or the creation that the
author made, or the director made, or whomever. But in actuality,
(12:24):
all audience members are collaborators. Whether it's a piece of
art like a sculpture, whether it's a television show, whether
it's a book, we are helping to create the story
by the mere act of observing and interpreting it. What
(12:45):
this all means is that people are really self obsessed pathologically.
And don't beat yourself up if you feel like this
is an unfair characterization, or if you feel bad and
you think, oh, I'm a little bit narcissistic, because everybody is.
Everybody is, and we're all the main characters of our
(13:06):
own stories, the center of our individual universes, the protagonist
around which this great world swings. In addition to this,
we're also fantastically talented analyzers and pattern recognizers. It's one
of the reasons our species runs so much of the
planet rather than say an octopus race or a super
(13:27):
intelligent empire of corvids.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
You know, I want to see those.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I would be super in the crows that run the world.
I don't know why that's supposed to be a caca
in the distance.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Oh yeah, no, it worked, I heard it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Are we predictively programming the cor the corvids?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
So this is this is dangerous because with this perspective
right as a starting point, we can make two assumptions.
We will say a pattern exists because we perceive it
to exist, and because we are the most important thing
in our experience, every pattern we perceive inherently in some
way applies to us. One thing that people don't like
(14:09):
to hear in general is that there's something big going
on and it has nothing to.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Do with you.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, you know what I mean. I mean that's why
so much scientific literature became so controversial. Charles Darwin when
he releases The Origin on the Origin Species in eighteen
fifty nine, he's saying, Oh, no, humans, you're not special,
You're just you're part of a thing. We're part of
a pattern, part of a pattern that has existed long
(14:37):
before you and will continue long after you are dust.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, and then you're like Yeah, whatever, Darwin, get out
of here, right, go back to looking at islands.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, get back on the beagle. But that's the problem.
And without delving too far into the weeds on this,
it essentially means that you and I and Paul and
everyone we are neither neutral creators nor are we a
neutral audience, and we're at an impasse because if no
(15:12):
one's objective, then where's the truth? Ooh.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Ultimately, oh man, this sounds like an even bigger episode.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
So all right, yeah, I'll buy what's going on.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Just talking about the nature of truth. We touch on
it every once in a while when we get into
discussing sources of news, but when you really think about
it this way from that deep of a psychological perspective, Oh,
makes the mind wander a bit.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yes, And we know that this pattern recognition can also
be used to make the mind wander because we're in
addition to being endearingly self obsessed, we're all also big
fans of following rituals and cues and social mores. They
(16:05):
are more patterns to recognize, and we're easily swayed by
subtle changes and routine of form. There's a great there's
a great book called the Illuminatus trilogy, which I think
we've talked about before, and I just want to put
this in because it's one reference to this kind of
social hacking.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
That's where the Illuminati game finds its origins.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
By the way, Oh yeah, no way, really, that's cool.
So this novel, which is incredibly incredibly long, presented as
a trilogy of smaller works. It depicts a number of
things in a rather convoluted plot. And we don't want
to spoil it for you, but there is one scene
in there where someone changes or adds to the signs
(16:51):
at this department store, a relatively high end department store
that has something like, you know, the kind of thing
you would read outside of a fitting room, like wait
for an intendant to help you or something. The addition
they make is they just put no spitting.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Oh okay, so well, I mean, nobody wants to do
that anyway, we only spit.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
No one should be But the hack about it, the
subtle change in that form, makes people think this is
a place of a much lower socioeconomic class. This is
a place where people are just spitting on the floor,
you know, like a roadhouse in a movie. Oh wow,
this was a work of fiction. But this kind of
(17:33):
stuff can work, and can work really well. This also
goes into the nature of propaganda. But the question is
how far does this sort of stuff go. Could some
groups or groups really be normalizing future events through the
lens of mass media and fiction, And if so.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Why, Yeah, why We're going to talk about that right
after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Here's where it gets crazy. Alan Watt described predictive programming
as a subtle form of psychological conditioning provided by the
media to acquaint the public with planned societal changes to
be implemented by our leaders. If and when these changes
are put through, the public will already be familiarized with
(18:25):
them and will accept them as natural progressions, thus lessening
possible public resistance and commotion.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
When I hear the words of Alan Wad, I always
feel that there is truth there. It just sounds like
there is Again, it's about how he writes and how
he how he spoke. But what I'm hearing here is
something that I've heard for a long time about the
(18:54):
concept of aliens and the concept that movies and television
and novels for decades and decades have been prepping humans
to accept that aliens have invaded or to accept alien
(19:14):
races from other planets, extraterrestrials to being a part of
our world. And again, when you put it in that way,
our leaders subtly psychologically conditioning us. I don't know. It
almost sounds like it could be real.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah you think so.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I love it sounds like it because of the way
he writes, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I think you're bringing up a really crucial point here,
one of the primary examples of predicted programming that the
advocates of this belief point out is almost always going
to be extraterrestrials, right, like a slow, decade long preparation
for disclosure. Hey, guys, Spielberg was right, aliens are around.
(20:02):
We thought the best way to tell you instead of
just ripping the band aid off, we thought we would
tell you over over like sixty years, get used to it,
get you know, settle in, settle in to this tub
of weirdness slowly.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Well, yeah, that way the reaction is, you know, less
oh my god, ah, and it's more like, oh wow, cool.
I think that's the whole point. If you believe this
to be here.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And there are millions of people waiting to go I
knew it, Yes, I knew it the whole time. So
what are some other examples of this?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Oh? There are so stink in many of these. Okay,
let's start with the top one of this one. Ben,
you put in the outline first. But this is the
one that I thought about when we even said the
phrase predictive programming. And it's the pilot episode of The
Lone Gunman, which you know, if you were an ext
(21:00):
Files fan, you know who the Loan Gunmen are. You
watched The Loan Gunman when it came out as a
spin off and it was awesome. But in the pilot episode,
it features as part of the plot and an attempted
bombing or destruction at least of the World Trade Center,
the Twin Towers, and specifically, it was a hijacked commercial
(21:24):
airliner that would be flown into the World Trade Center,
and it was a false flag attack by this rogue
group of government officials. And you know, since that came
out before the September eleventh, two thousand and one attacks,
this is looked at as WHOA, these guys knew something, right,
(21:47):
they put it out there. They're trying to warn us
that this was going to happen, and a lot of
the speaking about it early early on when it occurred
was it was a warning rather than a predict programming
getting you used to it. It was like somebody's trying
to tell us that this is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And this is, as you said, an
incredibly prevalent example. It gets brought up continually, but it's
not the only example, right. Oh No, there was one
that we found referencing the film The Dark Knight Rises
by Christopher Nolan. There's a map in The Dark Knight
(22:27):
Rises that has a location marked Sandy Hook.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yes, Commissioner Gordon's going over the attack plan for you know,
going in. It's the scene right before they actually go
into the stadium for one of the big climactic scenes.
There spoiler alert for The Dark Knight Rises. But yeah,
there's a map and it does say Sandy Hook.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
On it, so that one's not near his persuasive though,
because Sandy Hook is a place.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yes, yes, And why it's weird because it says strike
zone one and it came you know usually what this
has to do with our release dates. We have proximity
of release dates being before you know, and let's say
some given time frame year or two or even months. Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, again that's the nature of the perception. Yes, right,
we found the pattern. And another example would be Family Guy,
and a Family Guy is replete with cutaway jokes and
tangents that don't really go anywhere. It's just a it's
a quick bit. But there's an episode or a gag
(23:42):
in a Family Guy episode rather that concerns the Boston Marathon.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, it's an episode called Turban Cowboy that came out
and there's a scene in it, or let's let's say
a scene a breakaway, a cutaway sure to a quick
thing where Peter Griffin wins the b Boston Marathon by
driving his car through all of the other competitors and
kills a whole bunch of people. And then later on
(24:06):
in the episode. You might know this just from the
or you might glean it from the title Turbine Cowboy,
Peter accidentally joins up with a terrorist cell and he
uses a cell phone to call his buddy Mahmoud and
ends up setting off two bombs because he's using the
cell phone or whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You can also tell that Family Guy has an ongoing
tendency to be pretty.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Racist, racist and you know, yeah, they at least push
the boundaries. Let's say they push the boundaries creatively there.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Right, right, And this example, of course makes people believe
in predictive programming, think they were somehow depicting the later
disasters that would happen at the Boston Marathon. Yes, there's
another example with the movie Knowing, right that you had
(25:02):
mentioned the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe at the top of the episode.
Knowing has something to do with this.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, So if you have not seen Knowing, it's a
two thousand and nine Nick Cage movie, and it's all
based on predictive programming essentially, or a different version of
predictive programming. Numbers and codes hidden amongst things that mean
other things and predict the future. In that movie, right
(25:32):
in the opening scene, Nicholas Cage is watching television and
on the news comes this image and a news story
about an oil rig that's on fire in the Gulf
of Mexico. And again, this is a two thousand and
nine movie. A year later, the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurs,
where an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico explodes
(25:54):
and I think eleven people were missing. Immediately when it occurred,
and if you were watching television at the time immediately
when the news footage came out, it looks crazy similar
to the footage that's shown in the movie, knowing that
you might have seen.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Okay, so this footage is just is it a crucial
part of the film or is it something that just
happens in the film.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
It's something that happens within the first few moments, and
it's literally a television that's being shown. You know, the
camera is shooting a television showing the news. So it's
not a massive thing. It's just giving you kind of
current events setting up the story.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Because all it is you could understand. I could totally
understand though, how somebody would be I would see that
in theaters and then see the evening news later if
they caught a matinee or something like that, that's disturbing.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well, yeah, your your perspective is now Nicholas Cage is
sitting on the couch or whatever watching the television that
you watch Nick Cage watch in the movie.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I mean, I could you know, I could see where
that would be at least creepy to people.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah. Absolutely, Oh, but the the you know, we talked
about Family Guy, but the granddaddy of Family Guy, the Simpsons.
They have an incredible track record of predicting various future
events and trends and things like this, And honestly, it
could be a whole episode of just hey, what did
the how did the Simpsons know that?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Oh boy? Yeah, and there's one that you had brought
up off air before too, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
This is this is a great one. You'll find this
all over the internet, mostly on Facebook is where I've
seen it, and a couple other blog sites have reposted it.
But it's the Donald Trump presidency. There's so okay. On
June sixteenth, twenty fifteen, Donald Trump announced that he was
going to run for president, and you remember the whole deal,
coming down the escalator, waving to people. There are people
(27:52):
on the balcony with signs. Well, according to numerous posts
in the year two thousand, the Simpsons made this episode,
which is true. They made an episode called bart Bart
to the Future, and according to these posts, not only
did they predict the Trump presidency, they also predicted the
exact way in which his campaign would be announced. Again,
(28:13):
everything from the people standing on the balconies with signs
to Donald Trump going down the escalator. It's uncanny, it's insane,
it's the exact same sequence. Here's the problem, and you'll
notice this if you actually watch a clip from the
supposed Simpson's video. The animation quality is very high, and
(28:39):
you imagine the animation quality, you know, let's say fifteen
years later at least so like to twenty fifteen compared
to two thousand. Sure it changed a lot. And then
you do a little digging and then you realize all
of these posts are actually being taken from a July
(29:00):
twenty fifteen promotion of the next Simpsons season, which specifically,
it's a video that was posted to the YouTube channel
Animation on Fox. It was July seventh, twenty fifteen when
it was posted, and it's called Trump Tastic Voyage Season
twenty five The Simpsons, and what it is is a
(29:21):
perfect recreation of the event rather than a prediction of
the announcement of what was going to happen. But the
really interesting thing is if you go back to the
two thousand episode The Bart to the Future, they do
speak directly to Trump being president, but it's just an aside.
I think it's Maggie who says this, Oh God, there's
(29:43):
so much to explain here. But it's in the future.
It's like a vision of the future within the world
of The Simpsons. And in this vision of the future,
I want to say, it's Maggie the baby but now
grown up, who mentions something about something about how horrible
the Trump legacy was, so they're trying to fix like
all the budget or something. It's like I throw away
(30:05):
line essentially, but as a joke of Trump was president.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
So this actual this actually happened before the Trump presidency.
But people have been conflating this with the later recreation
of the campaign announcement.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Oh yeah, because it would be much more compelling if
this was actually what happened. And this is just naming
a few of these Oh my god. Yeah, there's so many.
There's so so many, And our first immediate questions are
pretty easy, Right, how is this different from a single
creative team proposing or depicting a social change they think
(30:43):
should happen. You know, if like the Star Trek example,
or let's say that the creators of The Simpsons really thought,
you know, the world will be a better place and
the best way to get it there is for us
to push the the greatness of a Donald Trump presidency.
Right that, Like, how is it different in this case,
(31:07):
in the Simpson's case, they're implying that it was a
bad thing for it.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
To happen, Right, Yeah, it was a joke, it was,
And it was a joke.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
It sounds like it's kind of a throwaway joke.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
It's what it you know, sort of felt like.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
But yeah, and then the other question is, how are
these events different from you know, an accident. Yeah, I know,
I know. As pattern seekers and master analyst all where,
we're not big fans of the idea of something being
an accident or a coincidence or just happening without a
(31:44):
real purpose behind it. First things first, from a psychological angle,
there's a problem with this idea of predictive programming because
we tend to model our behavior based less on an
object or an event and more on a character's reaction
(32:05):
to that object or event. There's a great experiment called
Bobo Doll. The Bobo Doll experiments in this is Bobo
is a clown. It's an inflatable clown, like punching bad clown.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
All right, I can't hear this?
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Do what me a wave? When when it passed this
part you come back and no stay stay this. Psychologist
Albert ben Dura conducted an experiment a series of studies
using an inflatable punching bad clown called the Bobo Doll,
(32:44):
and they got two groups of children. In one group,
each kid was shown a short film of an adult
hitting the doll, just smacking the grease paint off it.
In the other group, the adult in the film ignored
the doll, and after watching whichever film they were assigned to,
(33:05):
each kid was put in a room with a variety
of toys, including a Bobo doll. The children who have
been shown the aggressive video overwhelmingly mimic the adult and
beat the snot out of the doll, while the other
kids just ignored it because that's what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So this means that if we see, if we see
something depicting a future event, allegedly, what we're really paying
attention to psychologically is going to be how the characters
with whom we identify react to it. It's not going
to be a World Traits Center attack, it's not going
(33:43):
to be the Boston Marathon. It's going to be how
did the lone gunmen react to this? How did Peter
Griffin react to this? You know what I mean? Hmm,
And it sounds like a small difference, But it becomes
increasingly clear this is straight because the primary plank of
(34:04):
predictive programming as a theory is the idea that if
we see something in real life that we saw depicted
in fiction, we're going to have less of a reaction, right,
We're going to have resigned in difference or one quote,
a half hearted protest.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
If we see something in real life that was predicted.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Okay, so if we say, oh, the CDC in Atlanta
blew up, but we saw several movies about that earlier,
so you know what evs Okay, that's the idea. But
what we see from the science behind this is that
the idea that just portraying something will elicit the same
(34:51):
reaction regardless of context is incorrect. There has to be
a context to the pattern to the action that observing.
So the doll itself, the object or the event is
not inherently it can be one thing or the other.
It's going to be how people react to it. Someone
(35:11):
hitting the doll, someone ignoring the doll. That's what people
are modeling.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Okay, now I'm going back and applying this to all
this stuff, including the Trump presidency. Oh man, okay, I'm
going to reevaluate all that now. Thank you, Ben. That's awesome.
So there's another thing we haven't even we haven't even
discussed yet, which is that this type of prediction in
(35:37):
some form of mass media does really occur. It can occur,
and it's an accident, completely in accident. Consider the eerily
prescient story that you had mentioned before we've talked about
on the show before that, Edgar Allan Poe had this
vision of survival cannibalism on a boat.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yes, the only novel he published, The Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pim of Nantucket in eighteen thirty eight. Oh yeah,
this is a baffling coincidence. And even if you consider
yourself a very, very skeptical person, you have to admit
it boggles the mind.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
I think this might be the best example that I've
ever heard.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
So part way through the book the Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pim of Nantucket, the crew of a ship called
Grampus like Crampis, but with a g finds themselves on
a damaged boat and they have no food and they
have no water. They manage to catch a tortoise and
eat that, but eventually to survive they resort to cannibalism.
(36:42):
They draw straws to figure out which one of them
will be sacrificed to feed everyone else. The death straw
goes to a guy named Richard Parker, who's promptly stabbed
his head. His hands, and his feet are thrown overboard,
and this keeps the rest of the crew alive a
little longer, but the last two members are still on
(37:03):
the brink of death when they're finally rescued. Poe himself
thought it was a really silly story. Quote very silly,
if we're being accurate, very silly, those are his words.
Until that is in eighteen eighty four in real life,
when a yacht named the Minonette left England headed toward Australia.
(37:26):
The four man crew barely escaped in a lifeboat, but
they didn't have enough food eat, they didn't have enough
water to drink. They did catch a turtle and they
ate it, but just like the people in the story
by Poe, which is forty five years old, at that point,
they resorted to cannibalism. Specifically of a seventeen year old
(37:48):
named Richard Parker.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Isn't that insane? That is that is the crew. Honestly
the craziest version of something like this that I think
has ever occurred.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, I'm at a loss for words still thinking about it,
you know.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
I mean, it's it's so crazy and it really does
make you reevaluate the life of Pie movie with Richard Parker.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
The Yeah, the name of the tiger. So this this
is a really weird thing too, because it's not spot on.
And are we also just seeing what we want to see?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You know? That is the question?
Speaker 1 (38:31):
And there's an elephant in the room.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Right, Oh, there's a big elephant in the room, and
we'll talk about it right after a quick word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
All right, here we go finally, and kudos to us, Matt.
We got so far without acknowledging this.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
We did.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, we played the reindeer games. We said if this is,
if this is so, this is what would happen. These
are things we consider from pull different angles. But the big,
the big concern here, the as you said, the elephants,
is that this seems in every single case like a
very very very very complicated plan.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yes, and the the motivations for the machinations aren't there
for me. And how much work you'd have to put
in to get the Simpsons to predict something so that
you would be as the public, that we would be
okay with something in the future baffles my mind. That
(39:39):
some screenwriter who wrote the pilot for this TV show,
the spinoff of The X Files, knew that there was
this plan that was going to be enacted several years
or a year from then, two years whatever?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Why?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Why? How much planning would have to go into that.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Right? How much plan would have to go into it
publicly much less how much plan would have to go
into it for it to occur in secret? Yeah? Somehow? Yeah,
I mean that's easily hundreds of people.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Because you're talking about getting people to approve a script.
I mean, just just that alone, that process is not
an easy one. And uh, I don't know, man.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Well it it takes almost double think on the part
of us to believe in this, because if we walk
through it, it requires us to believe that not only
is a work of fiction being made with knowledge of
future events, certain knowledge that they have certitude about this,
but also that the creators of the work are either
in cooperation with some shadowy cabal or they're members of
(40:50):
some shadowy cabal that has vast, near omniscient control over
events in the real world. But as still saying, you
know what, guys, we shall make movies.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yeah, and all of these people are also okay with
these terrible tragedies that occur.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Right. This would mean that, if it were true someone
new catastrophes like nine to eleven were going to happen.
And additionally, rather than preventing the disaster, they had enough
time to make a high production level story about something
completely different, ultimately for the sole purpose of including a
passing reference to a real life event in the story
that seems like a massive amount of work for a
(41:27):
relatively small return.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah. I I don't get it, man, I don't. I
think in order to believe this fully you have to
really have gone down the rabbit hole of believing that
every person that's an elite of any sort is working
together for some bigger mass conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
And you know, we have found, over the course of
our time digging into all sorts of strange stuff on
this show, we have found that it's a lot less
likely that one group actually rules the world. It's a
lot more likely that there are several groups who are
all vastly entitled and above the law who feel like
they should run the world. Yeah, and they don't get
(42:11):
along well.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
And I wonder if you do subscribe to this theory,
you maybe, even as a conspiracy realist as we all
are in this, who can hear this voice right now?
Maybe you imagine that these are groups working, you know,
against each other with their predictive programming efforts. Ah.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I like that spin there. I like that angle because
it would also help at least to float the inevitable
problem of different predictions occurring. Right. That's really smart. There's
also there's another wrinkle in here, which is kind of
a con Propaganda works best when it's simplified. I mean,
(42:56):
there's no denying that fiction is incredible powerful, and even
today books and films are banned by governments around the world.
And also propaganda is produced by governments around the world
or by think tanks or agencies. People with some sort
of agenda, whether they're a fervent nationalists, whether they are
(43:19):
racial supremacists of some sort, they're out there and they
want to have a story where their agenda or their
goal is presented as the right thing, the best thing.
And I know I'm mentioning. I know I'm mentioning groups
like nationalists and supremacists, but that's barely the surface. It's
(43:44):
like everybody. Yeah, so people who you know, it's cause agnostic.
It's a technique that does not fall under the purview
of any one particular group of people that you might
think of as evil or they might think of as good.
The people who want to save coral reefs are absolutely
capable of doing the same kind of things that you
(44:06):
would see from another propaganda entity.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
I happen to believe that they have truth on their side.
That that's just me.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
You believe in the coral reefs.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, I think they're real. I think it churns out.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Well, some of them are not real. I was just
learning about some of I think it's the Georgia Coast.
NPR was talking about this where there are fake coral reefs,
artificial reefs. Yeah, really fascinating stuff made out of rubble.
But they're still real, Like they're not coral. Though they're reefs,
they're not coral. That's all.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
That's very good point. Matt. You thank you for bringing that,
bringing that to light. Finally, it's what Big Coral doesn't
want you to know.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Seriously, Oh man, rebar and concrete, it will do just
wonders for fish.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
It needed to be said, Thank you, no problem, dude.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Just while we're still in oceanic been. My father called
me panicked the other day about the Great Pacific garbage Patch,
and I think he honestly hadn't ever heard of it before.
And you know, this is something that maybe you listening
to this have heard about it before. It is a
massively troubling thing that is happening, a huge amount of
(45:23):
plastic and other garbage that's just there. I feel like
we need to do some kind of episode on it
because my dad was genuinely terrified and felt like the
world was ending because of this.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Well, it's certainly not a good thing.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well yeah, absolutely, but I think imagining it and seeing
some of the imagery that the news was putting out
about it was fear inducing, and I think it's worth
us discussing maybe in the future about what could happen.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Sure, yeah, we can also talk about whether recycling actually helps.
That's great because a lot of people in the West
at least are I don't know, are doing a ritual
where you put some trash in a blue box and
(46:13):
you tell yourself that you're making a difference, And you know,
I think that's a sincere thing. We recycle here at
the office, but in a lot of places when people
come around to collect the garbage, the things from those
two boxes go in the same dumpster. Yep. So I
don't know. Sometimes I don't want to make a huge
(46:34):
sweeping statement about it, but it's true that does happen.
So yeah, let us know what we should examine when
it comes to recycling, when it comes to the Great
garbage Patch. We did do an episode on ocean acidification
and we did Yeah, and you know that's scary.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
That's really scary. And why aren't we using the whole
the plasma methods of breaking down trash, turning it into
slag and usable gases.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah, you told me about that years ago. They had
the technology in Japan, right, dude.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
They've been doing this for decades in Japan and a
couple other places, just turning their trash into energy and
usable building materials. Why aren't we doing this? Guys? Wow,
that's a massive tangent. Okay, let's get back to this
really fast.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Oh are we predictively programming the audience? Oh?
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Is that what this is?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Is that what this whole thing was?
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Oh my god, Paul, were you in on this? Oh
my god, Matt.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
I figured the best way for you to learn this
would be on the air with no prep.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
You made me a part of this.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Oh my god, it's too late now. Pretty soon we're
gonna have George Soros, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and I
don't know who else, Oprah, Alice Cooper. They're all gonna
walk in and do a slow clap.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
The Bezos.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Maybe maybe he's a fearsome beast though, Oh no, no,
I don't. We don't have any celebrity illuminati that that
are coming by. Although today as we recorded this, Davey
Diggs did drop by to appear on a show our
pal Chuck does called Movie Crush, So do check that out.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
It was awesome.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Did you like that organic segue and perfect?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Thanks? You know they sometimes call me the Matt Frederick
of a Smooth Plugs. It's it's a tremendous compliment one
I don't deserve.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
But you know, if you're if you're thinking to yourself,
what did I miss and you want to, you know,
send us something. If you have any questions or comments
about anything we've talked about today. Have you noticed a
different version of predictive programming? Or do you have a
really good example, or you know what, do you think
it's hogwash? You should write to us. You can find
us on social media where we are conspiracy stuff on
(49:00):
most of them, sometimes conspiracy stuff show. You'll find us.
You can do it. You can go to Stuff they
Don't Want you to Know dot com. You can check
out every podcast we've ever recorded, some videos, all kinds
of good stuff there you can and that's the end
of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
questions about this episode, you can get into contact with
(49:21):
us in a number of different ways. One of the
best is to give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three STDWYTK. If you don't want to
do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
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,
Hey, fellow conspiracy realists, have you ever thought about this?
Have things ever seemed a little too purposeful, a little
too organized in your day to day life. What if
everything you encounter, all your interactions are somehow part of
a larger orchestrated scheme or plan.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
We're all inside episodes of The Simpsons.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
More stuff that I want you to know. Which is
more terrifying. I'll let you be the judge. 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.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
They called me Ben. We were joining with our super producer,
Paul the Paul the Predictor Decand okay, we got a shrug.
We're joining with Paul the Predictor Decand most importantly, you
are you, and you are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. We predict you
will find this episode fascinating.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Oh yeah, we can already tell this is going to
be your favorite episode that's come out in a long time.
We've already read some of your emails. Thank you for those.
It's really kind what you said about this episode. You know,
we look forward to your next ones.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Right, both represented in fiction and in real life. I
don't know if we can continue this this trope for
the whole show man, What do you think. No, we're
just being silly, We're just we're just having a goof.
Do people still say that having a goof?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Of course?
Speaker 1 (01:50):
Great, because if not, we're bringing it back. This episode
is about somewhat of a meta conspiracy, a conspiracy about conspiracies,
for lack of a better term, or a technique that
is attributed to a lot of specific theories. And oddly enough,
(02:13):
there's a very strong basis in truth in this, which
I think surprised both of us.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
There is a little bit of truth in a way,
but it's Yeah, it's one of those things where it's
so prevalent. This what we're speaking about today, and let's
just say what it.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Is a predictive programming.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
And it's so prevalent on the Internet when anything occurs.
There is so much media that exists and so many
things happening that when you find the little connective tissues,
there's always that eureka moment and it just happens all
the time.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Now maybe yeah, maybe we get into this too with
an anecdote. Several years ago, you and I made a
video about the Illuminati card game. Yes, yes, And in
the Illuminati Card Game there are certain cards that people
(03:11):
who believe in predictive programming have pointed to as evidence
of this practice. I think specifically the Twin Towers is correct.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
The Twin Towers was one about a terrorist attack. There
were so many though, Deepwater Horizon from twenty ten was one,
and again in that video, I guess do we want
to spoil any of that right now? About kind of
what we found out about the card game?
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Yeah, yeah, go ahead, laid up.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Okay. So there have been so many versions of that
card game over the years. The cards have shifted and
changed a little bit, the artwork has been altered. Exactly
what stated on the cards has been altered. And then
when you're online and you have people posting images about
you know, here, look at this card from this game
that came out in ninety something. You know it predicted
(04:00):
the World Trade Center because of this card, when in actuality,
that card was referring to the original World Trade Center bombing,
which occurred in the nineties, right, and then, and or
it was changed now because of other you know, circumstances,
things that actually occurred in the real world after it
was put out. It's just interesting how things shift over time,
(04:23):
and when it's posted on the internet, it could be
from any time throughout the span of the card's history.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Oh, we should also point out that it's a fun game.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
It is a really fun game.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
I was so happy because you introduced me to it.
I'm going to owe you for that one. Also, I
was thinking, should we play that game with with with
you friends and neighbors if we ever run into each
other in real life, or Matt, should you and Paul
and Nola and I make a game of our own?
Speaker 2 (04:55):
We could. We should make a game of our own.
We could live stream it.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Stuff they don't want you to play. I don't know.
I don't know. We'll put a pin in that, okay,
But but yeah, So that's a great example of an
allegation of predictive programming. Here's what we mean specifically when
we say there's a basis in truth. In decades past,
the US government would assemble groups of people to help
(05:18):
them predict the direction of future technological breakthroughs, and they
consulted scientists and technocrats, but they also asked science fiction
writers to join in this think tankery, and several of
these writers, it turns out, had already successfully predicted the
broad strokes of a certain aspect of technological progress or
(05:41):
social changes, and they had depicted these events in works
of fiction.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, and for a lot of people, this is just
it speaks to the human imagination. What can what images
and ideas can we conjure in our heads before it
becomes reality? And it's really, honestly, it's inspiring and our
species ability to dream beyond the limits of this moment
of what's occurring right now, things that I can possibly
(06:08):
do today to what I could do in the future
because of X. I mean, that's incredible. That's what separates us. Well,
there are a lot of things that separate us, but
that's one of the major things that separates us from
other mammals.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
You're giving me chills. That is inspiring, especially the way
you put it there. It is it is one of
the primary separations. But it's not all like angel farts
and trumpets in the sky. You know, there's a dark
side that people see here because for others, this story
of sci fi collaboration is only scratching the surface. It's
(06:42):
a relatively benign example of a much more widespread and,
according to them, sinister practice. Fringe researchers across the US
and the globe believe that nefarious, hidden groups are guiding
the public through the use of this predictive programming. So
let's look at the facts. When you look at the
(07:02):
idea of fiction, whether an Illuminati game or a film
depicting actual events in the future, we see two fundamental
factors at play immediately.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah. The first is what the creators are trying to do.
It's not a secret that people who write screenplays and
write books, directors of television and movie, they often are
attempting to depict what they think the future is going
to look like, what might happen in the future. If
you think about nineteen eighty four the novel or Brave
(07:38):
New World, these are two cautionary tales, very different from
each other and also quite similar. They're meant to educate
as much as they're meant to warn and entertain. They
function on a whole lot of levels.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Yeah, Yeah, nineteen eighty four is one of those books that,
even after having read it multiple times. I still don't
know if I would say I'm entertained by it, you
know what I mean. Sure, it definitely airs more on
the cautionary tale side, but you're absolutely right. I think
that's such a great point. These authors and these creators
(08:16):
are not working in a vacuum. They are attempting to
enact some sort of change in the world, whether it's
just making the world one story better or one story richer,
or whatever we want to say about it.
Speaker 2 (08:29):
Or as in the case of a Brave New World,
it's the question of dothtaw entertain too much?
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yes? Yes, And these authors could also depict something more aspirational,
like what the future of humanity could be if we
ever get our collective business together.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
You're talking about Star Trek.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
I'm talking about Star Trek, Matt Man.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Star Trek tng was the thing they like made me go, okay,
we're gonna be okay. The future is going to be
an amazing place. I can't wait to get there.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Right. It's a post scarcity economy, right, there's not income inequality,
and the species spends its time exploring strange new worlds
and attempting to enrich their knowledge of the galaxy and
the beautiful universe in which we live. Also having more
(09:25):
or less constant war or uneasy truces with various alien empires.
Probably a story for a different episode, but yeah, Star
Trek aspirational. Imagine what we could be.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Exactly, and then you could even have a Holid Deck.
I mean, come on, that's what it was for your
No it it was the big picture stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
I hated the Holid Deck episodes.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Yeah, I always felt like I was getting tricked.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I felt, you know, this is just my opinion, one
person's opinion, and I would love to hear everybody else's
opinion on this. I thought I felt as if the
actors were pushing this on the writers and the producers
and saying, well, you know, I've I've done some Shakespeare before.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You're talking specifically about El Capitan.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Right, I don't know, I don't you know, I don't
know who it was. I feel like I have suspicions,
but I can't pin it on any single actor. Okay,
And maybe it was just maybe it just felt like
a bait and switch.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Well, yeah, it's a I think it's a writing device
that the people in the writer's room can go, Wow,
we've been stuck on this enterprise for a long time
in all these episodes. Let's let's do a Western.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Yeah, it could be that. It could also be something,
As you know, these are big machines. Every television show
is a huge machine of its own. So it could
have been something behind the scenes where they said, Okay,
look we have this leftover set for a show that
didn't get used. We have to use it. And sorry,
(11:02):
Star trek TNG, you drew the short straw this time.
So writer's room, chop chop something something with the hollow deck.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Or maybe this set's about to get torn down. Hey, writers,
let's find a way to use it quick.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
We have We have spent a lot of time thinking
about thinking about this. You know, I bet someone out
there has a has the real scoop, the straight poop,
as we might say, on the origin of those hollow
Deck episodes. But there is another thing that comes into
play when we consider this idea of fiction purposefully predicting
(11:41):
actual events in the future, usually bad ones, and that
is the dangerous deceptive traits of the human mind.
Speaker 2 (11:50):
Yeah, it's not just the people creating the fiction and
the entertainment. It's the people who are consuming it, actively,
watching and hearing it right.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
And there's this assumption that is so prevalent in the
past and today that goes like this. Someone watching a
film or reading a book, even to a lesser degree,
is passively experiencing the vision or the creation that the
author made, or the director made, or whomever. But in actuality,
(12:24):
all audience members are collaborators. Whether it's a piece of
art like a sculpture, whether it's a television show, whether
it's a book, we are helping to create the story
by the mere act of observing and interpreting it. What
(12:45):
this all means is that people are really self obsessed pathologically.
And don't beat yourself up if you feel like this
is an unfair characterization, or if you feel bad and
you think, oh, I'm a little bit narcissistic, because everybody is.
Everybody is, and we're all the main characters of our
(13:06):
own stories, the center of our individual universes, the protagonist
around which this great world swings. In addition to this,
we're also fantastically talented analyzers and pattern recognizers. It's one
of the reasons our species runs so much of the
planet rather than say an octopus race or a super
(13:27):
intelligent empire of corvids.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
You know, I want to see those.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I would be super in the crows that run the world.
I don't know why that's supposed to be a caca
in the distance.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Oh yeah, no, it worked, I heard it.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Are we predictively programming the cor the corvids?
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
So this is this is dangerous because with this perspective
right as a starting point, we can make two assumptions.
We will say a pattern exists because we perceive it
to exist, and because we are the most important thing
in our experience, every pattern we perceive inherently in some
way applies to us. One thing that people don't like
(14:09):
to hear in general is that there's something big going
on and it has nothing to.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Do with you.
Speaker 1 (14:14):
Yeah, you know what I mean. I mean that's why
so much scientific literature became so controversial. Charles Darwin when
he releases The Origin on the Origin Species in eighteen
fifty nine, he's saying, Oh, no, humans, you're not special,
You're just you're part of a thing. We're part of
a pattern, part of a pattern that has existed long
(14:37):
before you and will continue long after you are dust.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Yeah, and then you're like Yeah, whatever, Darwin, get out
of here, right, go back to looking at islands.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Yeah, get back on the beagle. But that's the problem.
And without delving too far into the weeds on this,
it essentially means that you and I and Paul and
everyone we are neither neutral creators nor are we a
neutral audience, and we're at an impasse because if no
(15:12):
one's objective, then where's the truth? Ooh.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Ultimately, oh man, this sounds like an even bigger episode.
Speaker 1 (15:24):
So all right, yeah, I'll buy what's going on.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Just talking about the nature of truth. We touch on
it every once in a while when we get into
discussing sources of news, but when you really think about
it this way from that deep of a psychological perspective, Oh,
makes the mind wander a bit.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Yes, And we know that this pattern recognition can also
be used to make the mind wander because we're in
addition to being endearingly self obsessed, we're all also big
fans of following rituals and cues and social mores. They
(16:05):
are more patterns to recognize, and we're easily swayed by
subtle changes and routine of form. There's a great there's
a great book called the Illuminatus trilogy, which I think
we've talked about before, and I just want to put
this in because it's one reference to this kind of
social hacking.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
That's where the Illuminati game finds its origins.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
By the way, Oh yeah, no way, really, that's cool.
So this novel, which is incredibly incredibly long, presented as
a trilogy of smaller works. It depicts a number of
things in a rather convoluted plot. And we don't want
to spoil it for you, but there is one scene
in there where someone changes or adds to the signs
(16:51):
at this department store, a relatively high end department store
that has something like, you know, the kind of thing
you would read outside of a fitting room, like wait
for an intendant to help you or something. The addition
they make is they just put no spitting.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Oh okay, so well, I mean, nobody wants to do
that anyway, we only spit.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
No one should be But the hack about it, the
subtle change in that form, makes people think this is
a place of a much lower socioeconomic class. This is
a place where people are just spitting on the floor,
you know, like a roadhouse in a movie. Oh wow,
this was a work of fiction. But this kind of
(17:33):
stuff can work, and can work really well. This also
goes into the nature of propaganda. But the question is
how far does this sort of stuff go. Could some
groups or groups really be normalizing future events through the
lens of mass media and fiction, And if so.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Why, Yeah, why We're going to talk about that right
after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Here's where it gets crazy. Alan Watt described predictive programming
as a subtle form of psychological conditioning provided by the
media to acquaint the public with planned societal changes to
be implemented by our leaders. If and when these changes
are put through, the public will already be familiarized with
(18:25):
them and will accept them as natural progressions, thus lessening
possible public resistance and commotion.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
When I hear the words of Alan Wad, I always
feel that there is truth there. It just sounds like
there is Again, it's about how he writes and how
he how he spoke. But what I'm hearing here is
something that I've heard for a long time about the
(18:54):
concept of aliens and the concept that movies and television
and novels for decades and decades have been prepping humans
to accept that aliens have invaded or to accept alien
(19:14):
races from other planets, extraterrestrials to being a part of
our world. And again, when you put it in that way,
our leaders subtly psychologically conditioning us. I don't know. It
almost sounds like it could be real.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Yeah you think so.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
I love it sounds like it because of the way
he writes, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I think you're bringing up a really crucial point here,
one of the primary examples of predicted programming that the
advocates of this belief point out is almost always going
to be extraterrestrials, right, like a slow, decade long preparation
for disclosure. Hey, guys, Spielberg was right, aliens are around.
(20:02):
We thought the best way to tell you instead of
just ripping the band aid off, we thought we would
tell you over over like sixty years, get used to it,
get you know, settle in, settle in to this tub
of weirdness slowly.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Well, yeah, that way the reaction is, you know, less
oh my god, ah, and it's more like, oh wow, cool.
I think that's the whole point. If you believe this
to be here.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And there are millions of people waiting to go I
knew it, Yes, I knew it the whole time. So
what are some other examples of this?
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Oh? There are so stink in many of these. Okay,
let's start with the top one of this one. Ben,
you put in the outline first. But this is the
one that I thought about when we even said the
phrase predictive programming. And it's the pilot episode of The
Lone Gunman, which you know, if you were an ext
(21:00):
Files fan, you know who the Loan Gunmen are. You
watched The Loan Gunman when it came out as a
spin off and it was awesome. But in the pilot episode,
it features as part of the plot and an attempted
bombing or destruction at least of the World Trade Center,
the Twin Towers, and specifically, it was a hijacked commercial
(21:24):
airliner that would be flown into the World Trade Center,
and it was a false flag attack by this rogue
group of government officials. And you know, since that came
out before the September eleventh, two thousand and one attacks,
this is looked at as WHOA, these guys knew something, right,
(21:47):
they put it out there. They're trying to warn us
that this was going to happen, and a lot of
the speaking about it early early on when it occurred
was it was a warning rather than a predict programming
getting you used to it. It was like somebody's trying
to tell us that this is going to happen.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And this is, as you said, an
incredibly prevalent example. It gets brought up continually, but it's
not the only example, right. Oh No, there was one
that we found referencing the film The Dark Knight Rises
by Christopher Nolan. There's a map in The Dark Knight
(22:27):
Rises that has a location marked Sandy Hook.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Yes, Commissioner Gordon's going over the attack plan for you know,
going in. It's the scene right before they actually go
into the stadium for one of the big climactic scenes.
There spoiler alert for The Dark Knight Rises. But yeah,
there's a map and it does say Sandy Hook.
Speaker 1 (22:50):
On it, so that one's not near his persuasive though,
because Sandy Hook is a place.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yes, yes, And why it's weird because it says strike
zone one and it came you know usually what this
has to do with our release dates. We have proximity
of release dates being before you know, and let's say
some given time frame year or two or even months. Sometimes.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Yeah, again that's the nature of the perception. Yes, right,
we found the pattern. And another example would be Family Guy,
and a Family Guy is replete with cutaway jokes and
tangents that don't really go anywhere. It's just a it's
a quick bit. But there's an episode or a gag
(23:42):
in a Family Guy episode rather that concerns the Boston Marathon.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Yeah, it's an episode called Turban Cowboy that came out
and there's a scene in it, or let's let's say
a scene a breakaway, a cutaway sure to a quick
thing where Peter Griffin wins the b Boston Marathon by
driving his car through all of the other competitors and
kills a whole bunch of people. And then later on
(24:06):
in the episode. You might know this just from the
or you might glean it from the title Turbine Cowboy,
Peter accidentally joins up with a terrorist cell and he
uses a cell phone to call his buddy Mahmoud and
ends up setting off two bombs because he's using the
cell phone or whatever.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You can also tell that Family Guy has an ongoing
tendency to be pretty.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Racist, racist and you know, yeah, they at least push
the boundaries. Let's say they push the boundaries creatively there.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Right, right, And this example, of course makes people believe
in predictive programming, think they were somehow depicting the later
disasters that would happen at the Boston Marathon. Yes, there's
another example with the movie Knowing, right that you had
(25:02):
mentioned the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe at the top of the episode.
Knowing has something to do with this.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, So if you have not seen Knowing, it's a
two thousand and nine Nick Cage movie, and it's all
based on predictive programming essentially, or a different version of
predictive programming. Numbers and codes hidden amongst things that mean
other things and predict the future. In that movie, right
(25:32):
in the opening scene, Nicholas Cage is watching television and
on the news comes this image and a news story
about an oil rig that's on fire in the Gulf
of Mexico. And again, this is a two thousand and
nine movie. A year later, the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurs,
where an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico explodes
(25:54):
and I think eleven people were missing. Immediately when it occurred,
and if you were watching television at the time immediately
when the news footage came out, it looks crazy similar
to the footage that's shown in the movie, knowing that
you might have seen.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Okay, so this footage is just is it a crucial
part of the film or is it something that just
happens in the film.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
It's something that happens within the first few moments, and
it's literally a television that's being shown. You know, the
camera is shooting a television showing the news. So it's
not a massive thing. It's just giving you kind of
current events setting up the story.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Because all it is you could understand. I could totally
understand though, how somebody would be I would see that
in theaters and then see the evening news later if
they caught a matinee or something like that, that's disturbing.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Well, yeah, your your perspective is now Nicholas Cage is
sitting on the couch or whatever watching the television that
you watch Nick Cage watch in the movie.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
I mean, I could you know, I could see where
that would be at least creepy to people.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah. Absolutely, Oh, but the the you know, we talked
about Family Guy, but the granddaddy of Family Guy, the Simpsons.
They have an incredible track record of predicting various future
events and trends and things like this, And honestly, it
could be a whole episode of just hey, what did
the how did the Simpsons know that?
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Oh boy? Yeah, and there's one that you had brought
up off air before too, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
This is this is a great one. You'll find this
all over the internet, mostly on Facebook is where I've
seen it, and a couple other blog sites have reposted it.
But it's the Donald Trump presidency. There's so okay. On
June sixteenth, twenty fifteen, Donald Trump announced that he was
going to run for president, and you remember the whole deal,
coming down the escalator, waving to people. There are people
(27:52):
on the balcony with signs. Well, according to numerous posts
in the year two thousand, the Simpsons made this episode,
which is true. They made an episode called bart Bart
to the Future, and according to these posts, not only
did they predict the Trump presidency, they also predicted the
exact way in which his campaign would be announced. Again,
(28:13):
everything from the people standing on the balconies with signs
to Donald Trump going down the escalator. It's uncanny, it's insane,
it's the exact same sequence. Here's the problem, and you'll
notice this if you actually watch a clip from the
supposed Simpson's video. The animation quality is very high, and
(28:39):
you imagine the animation quality, you know, let's say fifteen
years later at least so like to twenty fifteen compared
to two thousand. Sure it changed a lot. And then
you do a little digging and then you realize all
of these posts are actually being taken from a July
(29:00):
twenty fifteen promotion of the next Simpsons season, which specifically,
it's a video that was posted to the YouTube channel
Animation on Fox. It was July seventh, twenty fifteen when
it was posted, and it's called Trump Tastic Voyage Season
twenty five The Simpsons, and what it is is a
(29:21):
perfect recreation of the event rather than a prediction of
the announcement of what was going to happen. But the
really interesting thing is if you go back to the
two thousand episode The Bart to the Future, they do
speak directly to Trump being president, but it's just an aside.
I think it's Maggie who says this, Oh God, there's
(29:43):
so much to explain here. But it's in the future.
It's like a vision of the future within the world
of The Simpsons. And in this vision of the future,
I want to say, it's Maggie the baby but now
grown up, who mentions something about something about how horrible
the Trump legacy was, so they're trying to fix like
all the budget or something. It's like I throw away
(30:05):
line essentially, but as a joke of Trump was president.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
So this actual this actually happened before the Trump presidency.
But people have been conflating this with the later recreation
of the campaign announcement.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Oh yeah, because it would be much more compelling if
this was actually what happened. And this is just naming
a few of these Oh my god. Yeah, there's so many.
There's so so many, And our first immediate questions are
pretty easy, Right, how is this different from a single
creative team proposing or depicting a social change they think
(30:43):
should happen. You know, if like the Star Trek example,
or let's say that the creators of The Simpsons really thought,
you know, the world will be a better place and
the best way to get it there is for us
to push the the greatness of a Donald Trump presidency.
Right that, Like, how is it different in this case,
(31:07):
in the Simpson's case, they're implying that it was a
bad thing for it.
Speaker 1 (31:12):
To happen, Right, Yeah, it was a joke, it was,
And it was a joke.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
It sounds like it's kind of a throwaway joke.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
It's what it you know, sort of felt like.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
But yeah, and then the other question is, how are
these events different from you know, an accident. Yeah, I know,
I know. As pattern seekers and master analyst all where,
we're not big fans of the idea of something being
an accident or a coincidence or just happening without a
(31:44):
real purpose behind it. First things first, from a psychological angle,
there's a problem with this idea of predictive programming because
we tend to model our behavior based less on an
object or an event and more on a character's reaction
(32:05):
to that object or event. There's a great experiment called
Bobo Doll. The Bobo Doll experiments in this is Bobo
is a clown. It's an inflatable clown, like punching bad clown.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
All right, I can't hear this?
Speaker 1 (32:23):
Do what me a wave? When when it passed this
part you come back and no stay stay this. Psychologist
Albert ben Dura conducted an experiment a series of studies
using an inflatable punching bad clown called the Bobo Doll,
(32:44):
and they got two groups of children. In one group,
each kid was shown a short film of an adult
hitting the doll, just smacking the grease paint off it.
In the other group, the adult in the film ignored
the doll, and after watching whichever film they were assigned to,
(33:05):
each kid was put in a room with a variety
of toys, including a Bobo doll. The children who have
been shown the aggressive video overwhelmingly mimic the adult and
beat the snot out of the doll, while the other
kids just ignored it because that's what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So this means that if we see, if we see
something depicting a future event, allegedly, what we're really paying
attention to psychologically is going to be how the characters
with whom we identify react to it. It's not going
to be a World Traits Center attack, it's not going
(33:43):
to be the Boston Marathon. It's going to be how
did the lone gunmen react to this? How did Peter
Griffin react to this? You know what I mean? Hmm,
And it sounds like a small difference, But it becomes
increasingly clear this is straight because the primary plank of
(34:04):
predictive programming as a theory is the idea that if
we see something in real life that we saw depicted
in fiction, we're going to have less of a reaction, right,
We're going to have resigned in difference or one quote,
a half hearted protest.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
If we see something in real life that was predicted.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
Okay, so if we say, oh, the CDC in Atlanta
blew up, but we saw several movies about that earlier,
so you know what evs Okay, that's the idea. But
what we see from the science behind this is that
the idea that just portraying something will elicit the same
(34:51):
reaction regardless of context is incorrect. There has to be
a context to the pattern to the action that observing.
So the doll itself, the object or the event is
not inherently it can be one thing or the other.
It's going to be how people react to it. Someone
(35:11):
hitting the doll, someone ignoring the doll. That's what people
are modeling.
Speaker 2 (35:16):
Okay, now I'm going back and applying this to all
this stuff, including the Trump presidency. Oh man, okay, I'm
going to reevaluate all that now. Thank you, Ben. That's awesome.
So there's another thing we haven't even we haven't even
discussed yet, which is that this type of prediction in
(35:37):
some form of mass media does really occur. It can occur,
and it's an accident, completely in accident. Consider the eerily
prescient story that you had mentioned before we've talked about
on the show before that, Edgar Allan Poe had this
vision of survival cannibalism on a boat.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yes, the only novel he published, The Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pim of Nantucket in eighteen thirty eight. Oh yeah,
this is a baffling coincidence. And even if you consider
yourself a very, very skeptical person, you have to admit
it boggles the mind.
Speaker 2 (36:16):
I think this might be the best example that I've
ever heard.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
So part way through the book the Narrative of Arthur
Gordon Pim of Nantucket, the crew of a ship called
Grampus like Crampis, but with a g finds themselves on
a damaged boat and they have no food and they
have no water. They manage to catch a tortoise and
eat that, but eventually to survive they resort to cannibalism.
(36:42):
They draw straws to figure out which one of them
will be sacrificed to feed everyone else. The death straw
goes to a guy named Richard Parker, who's promptly stabbed
his head. His hands, and his feet are thrown overboard,
and this keeps the rest of the crew alive a
little longer, but the last two members are still on
(37:03):
the brink of death when they're finally rescued. Poe himself
thought it was a really silly story. Quote very silly,
if we're being accurate, very silly, those are his words.
Until that is in eighteen eighty four in real life,
when a yacht named the Minonette left England headed toward Australia.
(37:26):
The four man crew barely escaped in a lifeboat, but
they didn't have enough food eat, they didn't have enough
water to drink. They did catch a turtle and they
ate it, but just like the people in the story
by Poe, which is forty five years old, at that point,
they resorted to cannibalism. Specifically of a seventeen year old
(37:48):
named Richard Parker.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
Isn't that insane? That is that is the crew. Honestly
the craziest version of something like this that I think
has ever occurred.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, I'm at a loss for words still thinking about it,
you know.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
I mean, it's it's so crazy and it really does
make you reevaluate the life of Pie movie with Richard Parker.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
The Yeah, the name of the tiger. So this this
is a really weird thing too, because it's not spot on.
And are we also just seeing what we want to see?
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You know? That is the question?
Speaker 1 (38:31):
And there's an elephant in the room.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Right, Oh, there's a big elephant in the room, and
we'll talk about it right after a quick word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (38:44):
All right, here we go finally, and kudos to us, Matt.
We got so far without acknowledging this.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
We did.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah, we played the reindeer games. We said if this is,
if this is so, this is what would happen. These
are things we consider from pull different angles. But the big,
the big concern here, the as you said, the elephants,
is that this seems in every single case like a
very very very very complicated plan.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yes, and the the motivations for the machinations aren't there
for me. And how much work you'd have to put
in to get the Simpsons to predict something so that
you would be as the public, that we would be
okay with something in the future baffles my mind. That
(39:39):
some screenwriter who wrote the pilot for this TV show,
the spinoff of The X Files, knew that there was
this plan that was going to be enacted several years
or a year from then, two years whatever?
Speaker 1 (39:55):
Why?
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Why? How much planning would have to go into that.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
Right? How much plan would have to go into it
publicly much less how much plan would have to go
into it for it to occur in secret? Yeah? Somehow? Yeah,
I mean that's easily hundreds of people.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Because you're talking about getting people to approve a script.
I mean, just just that alone, that process is not
an easy one. And uh, I don't know, man.
Speaker 1 (40:26):
Well it it takes almost double think on the part
of us to believe in this, because if we walk
through it, it requires us to believe that not only
is a work of fiction being made with knowledge of
future events, certain knowledge that they have certitude about this,
but also that the creators of the work are either
in cooperation with some shadowy cabal or they're members of
(40:50):
some shadowy cabal that has vast, near omniscient control over
events in the real world. But as still saying, you
know what, guys, we shall make movies.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yeah, and all of these people are also okay with
these terrible tragedies that occur.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
Right. This would mean that, if it were true someone
new catastrophes like nine to eleven were going to happen.
And additionally, rather than preventing the disaster, they had enough
time to make a high production level story about something
completely different, ultimately for the sole purpose of including a
passing reference to a real life event in the story
that seems like a massive amount of work for a
(41:27):
relatively small return.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Yeah. I I don't get it, man, I don't. I
think in order to believe this fully you have to
really have gone down the rabbit hole of believing that
every person that's an elite of any sort is working
together for some bigger mass conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
And you know, we have found, over the course of
our time digging into all sorts of strange stuff on
this show, we have found that it's a lot less
likely that one group actually rules the world. It's a
lot more likely that there are several groups who are
all vastly entitled and above the law who feel like
they should run the world. Yeah, and they don't get
(42:11):
along well.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
And I wonder if you do subscribe to this theory,
you maybe, even as a conspiracy realist as we all
are in this, who can hear this voice right now?
Maybe you imagine that these are groups working, you know,
against each other with their predictive programming efforts. Ah.
Speaker 1 (42:32):
I like that spin there. I like that angle because
it would also help at least to float the inevitable
problem of different predictions occurring. Right. That's really smart. There's
also there's another wrinkle in here, which is kind of
a con Propaganda works best when it's simplified. I mean,
(42:56):
there's no denying that fiction is incredible powerful, and even
today books and films are banned by governments around the world.
And also propaganda is produced by governments around the world
or by think tanks or agencies. People with some sort
of agenda, whether they're a fervent nationalists, whether they are
(43:19):
racial supremacists of some sort, they're out there and they
want to have a story where their agenda or their
goal is presented as the right thing, the best thing.
And I know I'm mentioning. I know I'm mentioning groups
like nationalists and supremacists, but that's barely the surface. It's
(43:44):
like everybody. Yeah, so people who you know, it's cause agnostic.
It's a technique that does not fall under the purview
of any one particular group of people that you might
think of as evil or they might think of as good.
The people who want to save coral reefs are absolutely
capable of doing the same kind of things that you
(44:06):
would see from another propaganda entity.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (44:10):
I happen to believe that they have truth on their side.
That that's just me.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
You believe in the coral reefs.
Speaker 1 (44:16):
Yeah, I think they're real. I think it churns out.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Well, some of them are not real. I was just
learning about some of I think it's the Georgia Coast.
NPR was talking about this where there are fake coral reefs,
artificial reefs. Yeah, really fascinating stuff made out of rubble.
But they're still real, Like they're not coral. Though they're reefs,
they're not coral. That's all.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
That's very good point. Matt. You thank you for bringing that,
bringing that to light. Finally, it's what Big Coral doesn't
want you to know.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
Seriously, Oh man, rebar and concrete, it will do just
wonders for fish.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
It needed to be said, Thank you, no problem, dude.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Just while we're still in oceanic been. My father called
me panicked the other day about the Great Pacific garbage Patch,
and I think he honestly hadn't ever heard of it before.
And you know, this is something that maybe you listening
to this have heard about it before. It is a
massively troubling thing that is happening, a huge amount of
(45:23):
plastic and other garbage that's just there. I feel like
we need to do some kind of episode on it
because my dad was genuinely terrified and felt like the
world was ending because of this.
Speaker 1 (45:35):
Well, it's certainly not a good thing.
Speaker 2 (45:37):
Well yeah, absolutely, but I think imagining it and seeing
some of the imagery that the news was putting out
about it was fear inducing, and I think it's worth
us discussing maybe in the future about what could happen.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Sure, yeah, we can also talk about whether recycling actually helps.
That's great because a lot of people in the West
at least are I don't know, are doing a ritual
where you put some trash in a blue box and
(46:13):
you tell yourself that you're making a difference, And you know,
I think that's a sincere thing. We recycle here at
the office, but in a lot of places when people
come around to collect the garbage, the things from those
two boxes go in the same dumpster. Yep. So I
don't know. Sometimes I don't want to make a huge
(46:34):
sweeping statement about it, but it's true that does happen.
So yeah, let us know what we should examine when
it comes to recycling, when it comes to the Great
garbage Patch. We did do an episode on ocean acidification
and we did Yeah, and you know that's scary.
Speaker 2 (46:49):
That's really scary. And why aren't we using the whole
the plasma methods of breaking down trash, turning it into
slag and usable gases.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Yeah, you told me about that years ago. They had
the technology in Japan, right, dude.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
They've been doing this for decades in Japan and a
couple other places, just turning their trash into energy and
usable building materials. Why aren't we doing this? Guys? Wow,
that's a massive tangent. Okay, let's get back to this
really fast.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Oh are we predictively programming the audience? Oh?
Speaker 2 (47:24):
Is that what this is?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Is that what this whole thing was?
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Oh my god, Paul, were you in on this? Oh
my god, Matt.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
I figured the best way for you to learn this
would be on the air with no prep.
Speaker 2 (47:41):
You made me a part of this.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Oh my god, it's too late now. Pretty soon we're
gonna have George Soros, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and I
don't know who else, Oprah, Alice Cooper. They're all gonna
walk in and do a slow clap.
Speaker 2 (47:58):
The Bezos.
Speaker 1 (48:00):
Maybe maybe he's a fearsome beast though, Oh no, no,
I don't. We don't have any celebrity illuminati that that
are coming by. Although today as we recorded this, Davey
Diggs did drop by to appear on a show our
pal Chuck does called Movie Crush, So do check that out.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
It was awesome.
Speaker 1 (48:21):
Did you like that organic segue and perfect?
Speaker 2 (48:26):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (48:27):
Thanks? You know they sometimes call me the Matt Frederick
of a Smooth Plugs. It's it's a tremendous compliment one
I don't deserve.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
But you know, if you're if you're thinking to yourself,
what did I miss and you want to, you know,
send us something. If you have any questions or comments
about anything we've talked about today. Have you noticed a
different version of predictive programming? Or do you have a
really good example, or you know what, do you think
it's hogwash? You should write to us. You can find
us on social media where we are conspiracy stuff on
(49:00):
most of them, sometimes conspiracy stuff show. You'll find us.
You can do it. You can go to Stuff they
Don't Want you to Know dot com. You can check
out every podcast we've ever recorded, some videos, all kinds
of good stuff there you can and that's the end
of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
questions about this episode, you can get into contact with
(49:21):
us in a number of different ways. One of the
best is to give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three STDWYTK. If you don't want to
do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (49:32):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
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,
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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