October 20, 2017 • 56 mins
In 2017 South Korean President Park Guen-hye was impeached and ousted from power as a result of a wide-reaching corruption scandal touching everything from big business to religion. In the aftermath, the world’s been left asking: What exactly happened? Was this another tragic case of nepotism and bribery, or … something more? Was South Korea’s President the victim of a cult?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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. Welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is no. They call me Ben. You are you and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
First off, it's very important to all of us, just
as individuals and on this show to provide credit, good
and bad where credit is due. And in this case,
we're very fortunate because we have a lot of good
(00:45):
credit to provide and we actually might be a little
bit late on this. We want to give a massive
Gargangeline shout out to our fantastic intern, former fantastic former
intern Sam T. Garden, who had the unenvied bowl or
very enviable task of sifting through months of email to
learn what you friends and neighbors, our listeners, the most
(01:08):
important part of the show found most intriguing. You've met
Sam before? Yes, Sam was our guest on the Golan
Movement episode because of some personal involvement in the issue
at one of the charter schools. And now again thanks
Sam for being on the show for that. Thank you, Sam, hey.
Also our super producer Tristan McNeil. Here, Tristan, can we
(01:28):
have like some sort of applause queue for Sam perfect
I like that and a cranky Tristan sound effect because
he's he's mad, because I was like to do, Oh,
he's not mad. I can see it in his eyes.
He's he's definitely shooting some emojis our way though he
writes this guy writes to us an official work corres spot.
It's solely an emoji. Sometimes it'll just be like a
(01:51):
cat and I don't understand a saxophone. And we already
talked about this on air. We have It's okay, it's
a great like Tristan. Probably I'll get his own episode
one day. It'll be all an audio emoji. Yes, with
Sam tea Garden. One thing we want to point out
is several of the recent episodes you have heard on
our show relied on his initial research for us, going
(02:13):
through emails, seeing what he thought had some sand And
we really trusted him on this and he did a
bang up job. We can't thank him enough. Yeah, but
he's back in school now. But we can promise you
that you haven't heard the last of Good Old Sam
the sift kid Tea Garden. What the sift kid like
sifting through stuff? Oh? I thought you meant like panning
(02:35):
for gold or yeah kind of yes, yeah, he's sift
for gold. Yeah. And whether or not you are familiar
with our friends Sam Tea Garden who probably heard a
great deal about a country called the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea street name North Korea. And you've heard it
in the news lately for the ratcheting tensions right as
(03:00):
as we record this now, um, North Korea has made
some progress in their i c b m's intercontinental ballistic
missile programs, and the US and North Korea are playing
a game of brinksmanship. Yeah, the DPRK recently shot a
missile across the bow of Japan. Then they had another
(03:22):
missile shot down I believe by China. So yeah, fun
stuff going on. May you live in interesting times? Right? Yeah? Exactly,
chiefs the curse that keeps on cursing. For some background
on the truth behind the fiction surrounding the so called
Hermit Kingdom, please check out our earlier episode on this country,
(03:44):
which unfortunately we may need to update soon for sure. Today, however,
we're looking south. We're looking at South Korea or the
Republic of Korea, that's the other half of the Korean
Peninsula in particular. We're exploring a story about two longtime friends,
a story about corruption, a story about religion, and a
(04:05):
story about the fall of a president. And murder most
foul murder, well there is one, there is one, and
murder most foul. Seriously, all of those things. But first,
here are the facts. So we're gonna give you just
like a quick, down and dirty, kind of top down
reader's digest view of the past. Uh, just for a
(04:28):
little bit of background. So here we go. We have
two countries, the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea, which we're both formed by the same
historical events, beginning with the division of the peninsula along
the thirty eighth parallel at the close of World War two. Um.
And that was formerly a single country. All of that, um.
So then we fast forward to and ben Bolan, Oh, yeah,
(04:52):
I was there. That's when the divided haves each declared
themselves sovereign nations. So one set as we're the Republic
of Korea. One says we're the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The problem is each declared themselves the lawful governing force
of the entire peninsula. Yeah, so, as you might imagine,
(05:14):
this situation was obviously unsustainable. Fast forward to Matt Frederick.
Then we get to the Korean War, which occurred between
nineteen fifty and nineteen fifty three. Overall throughout this conflict
there were five million, both military and civilian casualties. And
here's the thing. When it ended in fifty three, there
was no real defining winner, and it didn't technically end
(05:38):
us an armistice, right exactly. They just decided, Okay, we're
gonna stop actively attacking each other. And uh. South Korea
then shifted after this time back and forth between military
then democratic rule, then back and forth and back and
forth over the decades. Right and during during this time,
from the end or from the I guess to ation
(06:00):
of large scale warfare UH to the modern day, South
Korea has struggled more or less continually against widespread corruption
in the highest government and business offices. Part of this is,
of course due to nepotism, and that's no different from
any other country, and part is due to the existence
of gigantic corporations with their fingers in every single pie.
(06:22):
These things are huge. Yeah, they're they're called the chable
on which I may be mispronouncing. Their massive family controlled
conglomerates with international reach. So you can think of businesses
like l G or Samsung or maybe Hyundah, Yeah, checked
(06:42):
out like Christmas in July. These are examples of these
chable and the amount of influence that these conglomerates wheeled
in South Korea. It would astonish you. You your jaw
would drop to truly understand it. It would probably confuse
you too, especially if you live in let's say the
Western world. Right. One example, in two thousand fourteen, Samsung
(07:06):
alone comprised about seventeen percent of South Korea's entire economy.
And here's the thing, don't you know, don't get upon
your high horse like, oh, well, we would never allow
that to happen in here land. Well, they exist all
over the place in the US, the UK, France, all
these places of conglomerates. And here is a perfect example.
(07:29):
This is a fun one. Lay it on me. This
is new to me. Man, The Louis Dreyfuss Company. Have
you ever heard of that Louis Dreyfuss Company. Like a
lane from Seinfeld. Yeah, it sounds familiar, right. Julia Louis
Dreyfuss is the great great granddaughter of the founder of quote,
the world's largest cotton and rice trader. Hey, and also
(07:51):
it's considered to be the second largest player in the
world sugar market and very soon it's going to capture
officially the third place rank king of the largest trader
of coppers, inc. And led concentrate in this conglomerate posted
a revenue of over fifty five billion dollars. I guess
(08:11):
we know how Julia paid for all those acting classes.
But but nothing against Julia and Seinfeld is a great show.
But does this company have a podcast? There we go?
It's just crazy to think of how like I think
about that, right, and those different like agriculture and medals.
(08:32):
There are companies like that. They're you know, they're largely
out of the public eye. You won't hear the news
reporting on them as much. But yeah, a lot of
the world's wealth and resource extraction does come from companies
like this, and they have international reach. Can I fast
forward back to the modern day? Please? Please? Do? We're
(08:53):
in the modern day perfect. The current governments of South
Korea is the sixth Republic. It began in nineteen eighty
seven and continues at least as we record this episode.
It's so funny to think of it like a country
forming in nineteen eight seven. Yeah, you know, we were,
we were all alive. Then it's just I don't I
(09:15):
don't know why that's that's remarkable to me. I just listen. Yeah,
it's kind of like a government. To it's more. I
guess it's more a government because they didn't change the
borders of the country. But yeah, it also reminds me
of Italy, which has had um a historic problem in
Germany to the Yeah, it's it's not that remarkable, but
(09:36):
for some reason, I just it strikes me as like,
whoa a country that formed in my lifetime. Yeah, large
enough scope, just so I can do the accent again.
There are a lot of people in this world that
at a time said, forming your country in seventeen seventies six,
So congratulations a role today you watching BBC or something,
(10:01):
are just the Hamilton's soundtrack, That's what it is. And
they don't have British when I when I sing it back,
it's all British. King George does. That's that's that's a
good song too. That's like, probably you gotta have a
you've got to have a large range for that one,
you know. Um. But the here's another one. Um, South
(10:22):
Sudan formed quite recently in our within our lifetimes. Okay,
it's not remarkable, it's just no, it's I think it's
super remarkable. It's weird. I collect I stand by it
feeling weird. I stand with you in the fact that
that is incredibly weird. You know what I mean. Imagine
being born in earlier generations before the fall of the USSR,
(10:43):
and all of a sudden you're like, oh, well, we
had all these new countries now, many of which I
probably can't visit. And I have to remark on the
sinister nature of your coffee cup. It has a like
a Christmas reindeer cartoon on it, but the top is
like blacked out, like it's been spray painted over, and
it's like half of the reindeer's head is shrouded in shadows.
It's incredible, it's a gift. Well, these are burn marks.
(11:08):
I was actually on fire when when I was drinking
from it. No, this is emerged intact. This is a
great um. This is a gift, as Matt said, from
our friends Joe and Linda. And if you look really closely,
you can read the writing under the black part says
happy holidays to conspiracy stuff. This is a coffee cup
(11:28):
that is heat sensitive, so it's so it's all black
unless you pour something hot in it, like coffee reveals
the picture and reveals the picture. Well, I'm just tickled
by all kinds of simple stuff today. No, I think
it's remarkable too. And thanks again to Joe and Linda. Um,
I hope you're listening. And uh, I hope that Joe
(11:49):
and Linda, along with the rest of you find folks
forgive me for butchering Korean names throughout this episode. So
there's a person named Park Gunhi was born in nineteen
fifty two. That was pretty good. Well, we'll see. We
never know what that the emails come in right now,
(12:10):
uh Park. Miss Park is the eldest child of South
Korea's third president, Park Chung ky uh. She was elected
president of South Korea in two thousand thirteen and served
until seventeen. Wait record, scratch, pump, yeah, pump the brakes.
I know, I know how it sounds. It sounds pretty
(12:31):
freaking insane for a democracy to elect the child of
a former president to the same position, right, I mean,
what are the odds You'd have to be a pretty
corrupt country to ever allow that to happen, especially if
you purport to be a meritocracy. I just think it's
ridiculous for any democracy to do. We know how you
(12:52):
feel about political dynasties. Yeah, thank you, Okay, alright, alright,
let me you're right it is. It is my opinion,
but technically it's unsound anyway. Yeah, whenever your vote matters.
In South Korea, president is elected for a five year term,
meaning President Park was set to hold office from to teen.
(13:15):
But as we said, she left office in twenty seventeen.
So what happened. Scandal, that's what happened. Yes, long story short,
the first female president of South Korea was impeached this year.
But that's only the beginning of the rabbit hole. And
we're going to go down that rabbit hole right after
a quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy.
(13:42):
So President Park had a very close friend, a woman
named Chu sou sil. That's what we're going to uh
pronounce it as, but it's c h o O s
o O dash s I L. How else would you
pronounce that? That's how I would do it. So too
is the daughter of this cult lead or shamanesque if
you will, named Choi ta Men And Choi was a
(14:05):
former Buddhist monk. Uh. He formed a religious group called
Eternal Life Church. Doesn't that sound wonderful right now? This
thing in itself is relatively innocuous. It's it's a religious
organization that he founded. Sure, great going on, you you
can do that. South Korea has no laws barring religious
(14:26):
practice of any kind. And again you have to take
our word for it here. But despite the absolutely cartoonish practice,
like Ben said, of making a former family you know,
a family member of a former president president Uh, it's
pretty ridiculous. South Korea functions democratically, which means citizens have
(14:47):
freedom of religion, they have the ability to vote for,
you know, people going up for president. What they call
a sham democracy. He totally totally tell what mudo is
this research. The problem is if you try applaying that
across the board and you start to realize any relative
the holes in everybody's democracy. But anyway, that's what I'm saying.
(15:09):
Democracy is a bit of a magical loaded term. But no,
I don't know. Cake. Yeah, coffee's coffee sometimes what if
it's gluten free cake. That's a good point. So the
Church of Eternal Life or the Eternal Life Church saw
Joy as a messianic figure, a self described future boot
(15:34):
like a prophet, a prophet becoming a demi god. So
it's like a step up. Yeah, like The Bad Guy
and Lord of Illusions that it was so great. It
holds up to it holds up better than you would think.
You know, what was his name? Yeah? What I think
it might have been Nicki Swan was the magician. We're
(15:56):
getting knock Tracker. But y'all check out Lord of Illusions.
That's an underappreciated Cli of Parker movie. He gets maligned
quite a bit. And does I think I think he's worthy.
His short fiction is great Books of Blood and that's
a nice one. Um. Anyhow, Choi was a close associate
of miss Park's father until and here's the murder, most
foul my friend until her father was assassinated by Korea's
(16:18):
Central Intelligence agency, most foully, And admittedly that's what's different
um with this case versus a lot of other cases.
Of an intelligence agency assassinating their elected leader, not to
say that happens a lot, just to say that this
is not the only example. UH. Members officials or former
(16:40):
officials from Korea's CIA said, yeah, we we shot him
because we thought he was super corrupt and we were
doing the right thing for the country. It's bold. Uh.
During the younger Park's childhood, Miss Miss Park's childhood and
political ascendency, Choi, the eater of the Eternal Life Church,
(17:01):
was a mentor figure. And this much is acknowledged by
everybody in the conversation, UH, miss Parks supporters, miss parks opponents.
Everybody knows, um he was somewhere like a father figure,
somewhere an advisor, you know, um. And this is an
isolated person who has lost their parents. However, leaked diplomatic
(17:22):
cables from the American embassy and Soul, the capital of
South Korea, like they came to These cables come to
us via the wiki leaks um enterprise, which we should
also probably check back up on. Is Julian Osan still
there still in London hanging out? Okay? All right? Every
(17:42):
so often I asked Matt on air off air, what's
happening with Julian. The quick updates usually Yeah, he's still there,
He's still there. Uh So. Anyway, these leaked cables report
a bunch of rumors flying around Soul that Mr Choi
was a Korean rast Sputin and had complete control over
(18:06):
Park's body and soul during her formative years, and then
his children accumulated enormous wealth as a result. I love
how the idea of like Rasputin conjures the images of
like magical powers almost, you know, or like mind controlled
abilities absolutely and just using the phrase control over Park's
body and soul. Yeah, and he's a puppeteer of sorts. Well,
(18:29):
you know, um, the historical Rasputin is pretty fascinating character,
and I I wonder what it means, you know, like
to Knowl's point calling someone Rasputin definitely does have this
tinge of of occult nature, right or a cult power?
That Resputin makes a fine dark beer, is it true?
(18:52):
It's called old Resputin and it's delicious, you know. I'm
I'm so skeptical dark beer. Somebody told me that Guinness
is actually a people go on againness diet, and I
thought it was a joke because dark beers always seemed
really heavy to me. It's like, you know, I want
my loaf of bread and a glass. But apparently I
was wrong on that. Then you hear about an olden
(19:13):
times that people would drink a dark ale with their breakfast. Yeah,
come on, because the water would kill them. That's true.
That's a great way to start your day. Did you
ever hear that theory that the Dark Ages it could
be chalked up the Dark Ages being the period of
stagnation and education in Western Europe, can apparently be chalked
(19:34):
up to um fundamentalist religious practices and booze. There's there
are a couple of historians who say everybody was just
piss drunk for like several centuries. I think that's an oversimplification.
And speaking of oversimplifications, let's continue with some of the
backgrounds here. So, after becoming fast forward, as we said,
(19:57):
after becoming president of South Korea, miss part and her
friends Miss Chew continue to have a close relationship. So
the timeline of ms parks fall from Grace began in October,
which was about a year ago from now. Um, so
here's the rundown. On October seventeen, students protested at the
(20:22):
prestigious Awaha Women's University in Seoul, which sparked a much
wider investigation into corruption and influence pedaling in parks Inner circle. Uh.
And then specifically we had protesters arguing that miss Choi's
daughter was unfairly admitted to the school due to potential influence,
(20:43):
shall we say, from the administration from Park's office. And
then we've got one of the weirdest little bits from
this scandal, which was the choice daughter was able to
list her champion dressage performance on our application. And so
anyone doesn't know, that's like where the horse just kind
of steps right, like it's almost like a little prancing.
(21:05):
The horse and the rider perform a series of predetermined
move moves. It's not like jumping, it's not racing. It's
like kind of trotting in a circle. They're tapping and
like razing your Okay for every I literally a show pony, Yeah, exactly,
for everyone who doesn't have some weirdly specific version of synaesthesia,
claar voyance or telepathy. What Nolan I were doing when
(21:26):
we were trying to explain were both us sorry hands
like like the front hods of a horse. Um I
hope that doesn't come back to hunters. So yeah, yeah, dressage, dressage, dressage.
I think it's dressed dressage sounds more fancy. Let's let's
go with Yeah. I was gonna say that is something
I would associate with wealth, opulence. Yeah, here we go,
(21:51):
affluence and influence. As it turns out, yes, because this
training was apparently paid for by the South Korean government,
So taxpayer money essentially sent this kid to horse school.
Well they would, I'm sure they call it at that level.
I'm sure they don't call it horse school the dorsage academy. Yes,
(22:11):
and we continue, right, Oh boy do we ever? We
have October where in the South Korean broadcaster JTBC broke
open the scandal wide open by uncovering a tablet computer
belonging to Choi Soon still friend. Yeah, the friend of
it was a friend of miss Park, who had no
official government post whatsoever. And documents found on this device
(22:36):
suggests that miss Joy had received confidential presidential documents and
edited key speeches. So yeah, she's editing speeches for the
president who's not officially a part of anything. And again,
I'm not, you know, clear on the particulars of the
you know, um chain of command and levels of clearance,
(22:56):
I guess in this government. But I would imagine people
would have to be vetted and signed some kind of
clearance to get these documents. This obviously had not happened.
We'll imagine President Obama or imagine President Trump saying, uh, saying, well,
you know, these might be confidential, but I don't keep
(23:16):
any secrets from a boy jelly Roll. Jelly Roll, jelly
Roll has got all these documents on his tablet and
he's just editing speeches. He got me into that Floyd concert.
This is a man who understands the world, and I
want him working with these secrets. Jelly Roll. Well, it'd
be one thing if jelly Roll was an accomplished speechwriter
(23:37):
who just wasn't officially working on the thing, but was
a friend and was like helping him out. But if
it's somebody even though dude, can't you I mean, in
our government, at least you know he had just like
slip people that kind of stuff. I mean, you get
a big trouble for that, like at the highest levels.
I mean I would think of I mean confidential documents though,
(23:57):
that's that's a huge problem. I guess the president has
the agency to just kind of do whatever and listen.
I don't know. It seems like in our government we
have situations where the president, by virtue of his own office,
can just kind of like say, yeah, no, it's cool,
We're just gonna do this today, right like when we
had that discussion in Zone of Death about whether a
(24:19):
president can pardon themselves, you know. October, miss Park admits
to the country. She says, yes, I have close ties
to Miss Choi, who is at this time been nicknamed
the Shaman Adviser already because her father was a cult leader.
And she apologizes for causing the nation grief, Like, my bad,
(24:40):
I'm friends with her. That's crazy, alright. So then October
a little bit later, like right at the end October,
and hundreds of thousands of people began protesting and gathering
up in Soul for the first of six giant rallies
about this scandal approach, testing against the administration. And this
(25:02):
Park accepts the resignations of several key aids who have
gotten caught up in this whole affair, which probably means
they knew about it and didn't say anything, yeah exactly,
so they got cut first. Then On November one, Miss
Choi returns from Germany. She's been in Germany, kind of
escaping the situation in a way. And uh, she comes
(25:24):
back and she gets questioned and even detained by prosecutors
to figure out what the heck is going on. So
then on November eight, we have investigators rating the headquarters
of Samsung Electronics for the very first time. What um. Yeah,
and the company was believed to have come under pressure
to make donations to ms Choi. That's weird. Samsung, all right,
(25:49):
fourteen sevent of the economy Yeah, huh So what next?
Then on November twenty, Miss Park gets accused by prosecutors
of being a conspirator of the criminal variety in Miss
Choi's alleged scheme. So Miss Choi is kind of, in
this version like they accused her of before, being a
(26:10):
puppet master of sorts, and the president is just one
of the puppets that she's manipulating. And then on the
twenty nine of the same month, Miss Park offers to
resign but does not say when in her proposal. Then
is dismissed by the opposition and the protesters as a
(26:30):
stalling tactic of sorts. On December six, the heads of
the country's largest companies, those tribal we mentioned earlier are
interrogated by lawmakers in the National Assembly, and on December nine,
lawmakers vote to impeach Miss Park. So what kinds of
(26:53):
things are being whispered into President Park's ear Here's where
it gets kind of spooky to you know, write into
the BBC. Critics believe Choi perpetuated her father's habits. Choi's
father being, of course, the leader of the Eternal Life Church. Uh.
Some media reports suggested that Miss Park held shamanistic rituals
(27:15):
at the presidential compounds under choys influence. Miss Park, for
the record, denied this. Yeah, the president holding shamanistic rituals
in and if we apply it to the United States president,
just in our recurrent situation, President Trump performing rituals in
the White House with other people around. You know, maybe
(27:38):
they're not so creepy, but but the rituals were talking
about well first, you know, for another example, Ronald Reagan
consulted an astrologer. It's true, leader of the free world,
the most dangerous nukes at the time, and presidents do
hang out at the Bohemian grove right at the time
of our recording, part continues to deny any alley gaitions
(28:00):
of participating in cult rituals at the Blue House, think
of it as the South Korean White House, the President's
home specifically. To answer your question, all these rituals included,
but we're not limited to acts of alleged clairvoyance, fortune telling,
and channeling. Miss Joy is rumored to have told Miss
(28:21):
Park she was capable of channeling the spirit of the
president's dead mother. Additionally, she gave the President amulets that
had purported abilities to provide magical protection. She also um
listening devices. Quite possibly, she also advised the president on
(28:42):
which sorts of colors to wear and when, for example,
red and white clothing. I want to stop here before
we're before we get too far, and note that one
thing I really liked about the question you asked no
when you said, well, shamanistic rituals. What type of these
things for someone who you know? Historically all the US
(29:04):
presidents have outwardly, at least if only for the votes,
said that they were Christians. So it's kind of getting
at you mean, like, is it that bizarre and another
culture to perform these kind of quote unquote rituals. Is
it any more bizarre than presidents holding prayer meetings or
something like right or prayer breakfast or something. Yeah, exactly.
(29:25):
And you know, I really appreciate that point because I
think it's it's a fantastic points when we need to
make because there there are, um, there are shamanistic religious
practices in Korean. They are a part of the culture,
you know. So it's it's not necessarily, um, it doesn't
(29:47):
necessarily mean that this is stuff that Choi and her
father just made up. However, it does seem that it
does seem that the daughter took up the father mentor
role and definitely put the kid in horse school. That's
what that thinks for sure. So opponents of Park allege
(30:08):
their friend Choi was actually less like a friend and
more like a behind the scenes puppet master, picking up
where her father left off and directing the president in
matters of state policy. We know the choy ad access
to secret government documents. We also know that she edited
the president's speeches. But that leads us to a couple
of questions. Right, Yeah, we don't know exactly what types
(30:30):
of edits were made to the speeches. On one hand,
it could be as simple as proof reading. Maybe she's
just fixing some typos, right sure, just going through right
clicking in the word document and or whatever document and
there fixing the red saying that's actually further not farther. Yeah.
But on the other hand, Joy could have been altering
(30:51):
the content of the speeches, like meaning, somebody with absolutely
zero official government position was creating public policy through the
words of the president and possibly even swaying these things
like whatever is happening in either the favor of the
church or in personally choice favor. Because we know, like
(31:12):
I mean, speeches don't necessarily dictate policy directly, but they
can certainly shape perception and um, you know, the give
the impression of support of certain things, and that matters.
We know words matter, and that can make a big
difference in you know, the way things move in terms
of actual policy. Yeah, you're you're sending signals to the
(31:35):
rest of your government by saying things in public. That's
just it signaling. Yeah, and it is. It is very important.
It's a crucial component of foreign policy. So somebody with
no qualifications other than being someone's friend and or manipulator
had their hands at the wheel in one of the
(31:56):
most um, I would say, one of the top three
most fragile geopolitical areas in this time. You know, what
if what if Kim John un here's his speech that
he or his advisors don't like. You know, I have
a feeling that happens all the time. Probably does it,
(32:19):
Probably does. So this is an ongoing situation, and where
does it leave us in the modern day. We'll draw
some conclusions after a word from our sponsor, Well, we're
back and it doesn't look good right. Ms Park certainly
(32:43):
did seem to be under this way of choice influence
as well as choice fathers and heads of the corporation
involved are saying, you know, it's fairly it's incredibly uncommon
for these very powerful business leaders to be called into
the version of Congress. Uh. They're saying they were coerced
(33:05):
into donating millions of dollars to choice organizations. South Korea
already elected a new president, Like, how do you I'm
just wondering about being coerced into donating millions of dollars
to this stuff, because I guess you could have. You
could threaten to impose sanction or you know, new taxes
(33:25):
or you know, things that would make operating your giant
conglomerate unfeasible. I can't imagine how much pressure, but there
must have been something there, some triggers to pull. Well,
there's also the yeah, they're they're definitely triggers. There. There
are hard triggers, and they're soft triggers that might not
ever legally be uh personal stuff you're right, legal or
(33:51):
legally recognized as a threat to Yeah, there might be
personal stuff, um, but it might also be something as
simple as we have new complications on building codes, right,
or tariffs or something. You know. I wonder if Joy
threatened to summon the dead relatives of some of the
(34:11):
leaders of the conglomerates. That's an interesting idea, Matt. At
this point, we don't At this point, we don't know
if it's anything like that, and most likely as likely
as not, it would just be interesting. Well, that's the thing.
Without knowing what was happening, right, it's it's very difficult
for people to form uh concrete opinion or sort of
(34:34):
chronological chain of events. We do know that since the
tenth of May twenties seventeen, uh, there's been a new
president in South Korea, Moon giant in Um, who as
far as we know, is not under this way of
a cult. As a former human rights lawyer and chief
(34:57):
of staff to another former president, Romo hunt Uh he
was he was elected with a with an okay, okay
share of the of the vote. It seems like it
in all honesty, they just had to have a snap
election to get this other person out. Um. So that's
(35:21):
that's the case. So far as this is a developing situation,
we'll probably hear more about it. Um. It does not
come at the best time of course, geo politically, we
are this. This is gonna come out after we recorded,
so some of the events may seem a little bit
um older or changed even slightly, but not much hopefully
(35:44):
right like we are currently recording this the day before
the DPRK is set to launch another I C b
M and they'll be launching it on Saturday, September nine, yepeha,
and we can do an entire episode about North Korea's
purported nuclear capabilities plus versus their actual nuclear nuclear capabilities.
(36:10):
But at this time the region is under intense global
scrutiny and the powers that be are are flocking there.
This is a this is going to be as well
said interests a series of interesting times for South Korean
president and for the people of the region. Just as
(36:32):
a side note, I know a few people, multiple people,
who are in the navy, and they have been snapped
up from being on leave to go on an adventure
somewhere that they cannot discuss. So it always makes me think, Oh,
I wonder if they're heading that way. Who knows. At
the same time, we have signals from officials in the
(36:57):
Russian and US governments talking about that are indicating arms
build up training exercises. I want a time to be alive.
I hope that the streak of being alive continues not
and of course we hope that everyone hearing this is
(37:18):
in a safe place. Uh. And we are sending our
thoughts and support to the innocent people of the world
because you know, as they say, what's that old quote,
when elephants go to war, only the grass suffers. Oh geez,
trampling on all. And just one last thing here before
(37:40):
we you know, into this episode, per se, are you
doing the voice? Do the voice somewhere? We just have
to remember in our own country, if we look at ourselves,
the United States has an long tradition of secret societies
among the upper echelons of our government. Yeah, he including
(38:03):
freemasonrya let's say, the Illuminatis perhaps of Bavaria, and you know,
the Bohemian grove, Skull and Bones, all of these other
secret societies that the United States voter just has to
either not know about or completely ignore when they make
(38:24):
their decision on who they're going to vote for, because
most of the people that get up to that level
have been a part of one or more of these.
You know, that's a great point, Matt, and I'm glad
you made it, because it goes so so it's in
the great interest of people who profit from a status
quo to enforce um disunity amongst the bottom part of society, right,
(38:50):
or any lower part of society. So often you'll see
this false dichotomy um hinging on a political position, ship
or am. I mean, the best is when there's blind
loyalty to a party, because when the parties are both
fingers on the same hand, then everybody gets to have
(39:11):
a little bit of bread and circuses, a little bit
of Facebook liking, a little bit of clicktivism or whatever,
and feel that they've done their part for um reproduction
or gun ownership or whatever whatever their issue is. And honestly,
just saying it on a podcast that I know goes
(39:33):
out to a number of people makes me feel good.
But ultimately, what does it do? What does it do? Right?
And the the groups who are participating in the just buffoonish,
buffoonish summer camp that is Bohemian Grove or the dumb
(39:58):
fraternity that has skull and bones. I mean, look, here's
the thing with tradition. I don't have an opinion because well,
it's a very powerful organization with very powerful people in it,
and um, hopefully those people are using their power to
keep this species alive and push it toward its ultimate destiny,
(40:21):
which is expanding beyond this planet before we destroy it
one way or another. Uh. However, I think that it
is a lapse in critical thinking to assume that because
something has existed for a long time, or that because
powerful people like it, it is therefore somehow correct or superior.
(40:46):
I mean, look at uh. Sadly, there's so many examples
of times where people said, well, that's tradition or that's
how we've done it, and those turned out to be terrible, terrible,
incredibly stupid things. And we're still doing a lot of them,
and we can't we as individuals, we as groups, whatever
(41:11):
group you align yourself with, have to be I have
to take great pains to note that the problems we
so easily spy, or so we easily perceive in other organizations,
whether that's a religion, a state, or a business or
a family, whatever, a fan club for Christopher Walkin, groups
(41:33):
of humans tend to have some of the same root problems,
you know, And the same rotten uh tooth of corruption
in the mouth of the South Korean government um and
still exists. Right, the president was corrupt, But we can't
act like the US doesn't have its own cavities in
(41:54):
this terrible analogy. Dude, I I feel that the big
thing for me is loyalty. If you if you are
swearing an oath to serve as a democratically elected official,
especially and in the executive office as the president for
the people, you are you are acting as an executor
(42:15):
of the people's will essentially and also you know in
a way, and that's at least what it says. But
what if you've already sworn an oath to one of
these secret societies prior to swearing that oath. Do they
exist simultaneously? Do you? You know, who do you serve?
If you are a public public figure, if you're a
(42:36):
government official, should you be required to disclose all all
the ins and outs of those businesses or you know,
I swear like break that oath in some way officially? Well,
then is it a violation of because government official is
still a citizen, is a violation at least in the
US of their right to privacy? Oh? My god, you
(42:58):
know what anything? I don't know. I just I support
the right to you know, for a high level government
officials to have a guru of some sort they just
keep around, you know, I think that's that's cool. Yeah,
what's the point of having a stressful job like that
if you can't have some sort of weird magician that
you come around with all the time. There should always
(43:19):
be resputing a choice and still there. Uh. You know
that's interesting because we we do know that there are
advisors in different countries that would they're doing things that
would be considered magical acts, right like Myanmar. Uh we're
also a k Burma had the military powers there for
(43:42):
a long time. Uh took the advice of astrologers and
actually relocated the capital for that and even magical beliefs aside,
just having a trusted confidant or an advisor, especially if
you're in a series, if you're in a position where
several million, several hundred million people in case of of
(44:07):
any US president past n probably would like to kill you.
You know, it's good to have friends. Sometimes you want
to go where everybody knows your name, you know. You know,
I haven't learned much from TV and movies, but one
thing I have learned is that the bad guy is
almost always the close trusted advisor. Oh like Scar almost
(44:33):
always in the Lion King or Iago, There's so many
A lot of times it's the magician. A lot of
times you know, it's the religious leader just saying yeah,
you know, that makes me think, Lads and gentlemen, if
you were in a position of immense power, or if
(44:53):
you are now, h do you practice uh having gurus?
Do you have a trusted advisor? Uh? Do you have
even if you are not in a position of quote
unquote imense power? Now, do you have a spiritual advisor?
Do you do you have someone that has a connection
to things unseen and little understood? And if so, do
(45:14):
you follow their lead. Have you met with success or
have you been burned in the shamanistic rituals? We'd like
to Yeah, whatever the belief system, maybe we'd like to
hear from you. And speaking of which reminds us it's
time for first shout out today comes from Simon. Hey
(45:39):
from Australia, says Simon of the show. So, I thought
i'd give you a story I heard from a friend's
grandpapa um I inserted the extra papa um. He was
in the navy in Al Salvador or the US, and
after this encounter, he and his shipmates have never set
foot back on a boat. When they were out in
the Atlantic one night, massive swells began to form out
(45:59):
of nowhere, and he said something came out of the
water that was so big that his eyes were the
size of a semi trailer. It looked directly at the
boat and went back under water. So Simon says that
when they reported this to the command they were basically
dressed down by their commanders or whatever and basically accused
of being drunk. Um. So he swears to the story
(46:21):
and isn't go into too much more detail, but he
hates talking about it. Also, have you ever heard about
the Westall UFO sighting. I highly recommend you suss it out,
as Australia is known for weird things like UFO sightings.
Keep up the good work and schedooche nice Simon. That's
a cool story. Uh, you know the size of a
(46:41):
semi I like that. Yeah, I that's a tough one.
You gotta really believe that, friends Grandpa, but you know,
I believe him, but I want to learn more. Also,
if there's a massive storm, maybe it's possible that something
that typically would be in the lower levels of the
ocean was pulled up to the surface momentarily. We just
(47:04):
came to check it out, or just came to check
it out, just to see what the happs were. The
West All Ufo encounter is a uf UFO story from
nineteen sixty six where more than two hundred students and
teachers at these two schools UH witnessed in UFO descending
(47:27):
on a field. And it's an interesting case because you
know over two people, so there's a lot of corroboration.
That's a really good point, Simon, that's a really good
idea to thank you so much for writing in and
I hope your friend's grandfather talks about it more often.
That's you'd be surprised what people can remember when they try.
The size of a semi that keeps keeps baffling me.
(47:50):
I don't want to see that. Thanks, Writing in Simon,
who's next next? Shoutout goes to Cameron. Cameron, that's your
shout out, Cameron says, I was listening to the Lucky
Yates episode, and you pondered why aliens would analyze the
ethics of abducting humans and come to the conclusion that
they must return us to Earth after abducting us, but
that they do not have to ask permission in the
(48:11):
first place. It stands to reason that, by our morality,
the most ethical way to approach an abduction would be
to ask permission first and return the abductee to their
original state afterwards. This is a primary tenet of the
American justice system, after all. Cameron says, However, what if
alien morality does not parallel our own? Consider a man,
(48:33):
a human man who's sitting on a boat on a
lake with a pole attached to that pole as a
string with a hook on the end. This man is fishing.
I like how you're right, Cameron. Uh, he will not
ask the fish for their permission before catching them, but
there stands a good chance that if he will not
eat the fish, he will throw it back into the lake.
Why does the man do this Well, because humans have
(48:56):
an ethical standard that they apply to fishing, whereby the
fishes return into the water if it will not be eaten.
We call this catch and release. We do this because
we do not assign enough value to the lives of
the fish to require their permission. Oh wow, right, So
is it possible that the aliens operate with the same
ethical dichotomy. Could they see us as fish hiding underneath
(49:18):
the surface of Earth's atmosphere and reason that their ethics
do not require them to ask permission of us fish
human folk, but do require them to return us to
Earth if they don't plan to eat us and or
to you know, do something that would end our lives.
Mm hmm, you know, I I really, I really appreciate
(49:40):
that point. To me, probably the stranger thing is just
how one would traverse the gulfs of time and space.
I really love the catch and release comparison. The reasoning
here is, what do you think, Matt, what do you
think though I love this, Cameron. If there are in
fact species of some sort that are advanced enough to
(50:02):
want to study humans and this is in fact what
they're doing, this makes so much sense to me. Mm hmm.
And that that one line in particular, we do this
because we do not assign enough value to the lives
of fish to require their permission. Isn't it funny to
how even people that are like a lot of you know,
non meat eaters, are okay with eating fish to be
(50:24):
like pesketarians because they aren't cuddly, they don't seem to have,
you know, anthropomorphic type traits. Yeah, I wonder And if
anyone's out there, like I'm interested actually to hear what
your reasoning is behind is it Is it like a
health thing or is it in fact a kind of
more of an emotional thing. It's because their water breathers, man,
they breathing air. Now, an octopus is capable of experiencing
(50:47):
emotion and recognition, right, so ah, So if that's if
it's an ethical concern about like the ability to suffer
or have experience experience emotions, then I guess the pesketerium
shouldn't eat an octopus. I have known pescetarians that will
not eat cephalopods. So yeah, I mean I think it's
(51:10):
different for different people, but let us know. Yeah, that's
a great idea. And how can you prove if a
fish feels emotion or not because they're always just going sorry,
I'm so sorry. Oh man, No, I respect that we're
working live all right, Nolan, I did a horse dance earlier.
(51:32):
So now now the three of us are back on
even keel, we have time one more shout out today
from recon uh reached the name assumed name uh. Recon says,
I just listened to the Pyramid podcast and the part
at the end where you said your conversations normally continue
at a bar somewhere. I'd love if you all did
(51:53):
an after hours podcast where you were drinking at a
bar and continuing the conversation from a normal podcast. Thanks
so much, recon um drunk conspiracy or I mean even
just like conspira drunk the ambiance of a bar, hanging
out and having just maybe even if it's just a
(52:15):
beer or something with the cameo from the bartender. Well yeah,
and then just have we could have special guests come
over and just hang out with us. You say all
kinds of weird stuff. Once you've had a logger or two. Well, yeah,
I mean, look, we're still will still listen back and
Tristan will do his magic on whatever it is. But
I can imagine something really cool being there Tristan. You
have to edit sober though, right, That's that's the rule
(52:37):
he's given the no like not possible. Tristan will be
there with us and he'll edit real time as we're going,
just like cut and then keep going. I love this.
I like the idea too. And we have you know,
we have a couple of regular spots, maybe sometime in
like October later in the year. I've been off the
sauce this month. We both have to have a cranberry.
(53:00):
I didn't want to talk out of school, but yeah,
it's been pretty great. Actually, I'm I'm I might. I
might never go back. Well, hey, if that's what you
want to do, Mandy, Yeah, uh, then I gotta tell you, Hey,
you know, the bar is not drinking. It is actually
really interesting and a lot of fun. I went to
(53:21):
a show the other night at a concert. I saw
this amazing band, the O c S. If anyone's ever
heard of them, or check them out there like this,
um L a kind of garage e psychedelic punk kind
of I don't know, it's hard to even describe, but
the dude that plays guitar just blows it up. He's
amazing and he's it's it's really really cool music. But
it was one of the first times I've been to
(53:41):
a concert like that and not had a drink. And
I felt so undistracted, Like I watched the whole show,
never move, never worried about getting back the bar, you're
getting in line whatever. I felt like it was a
much more full experience. I really enjoyed it. Not to nice,
preachy or anything. Have been kind of digging it. That's
(54:02):
not preachy. Got more of your money's worth, you know. Yeah,
I went to a UH. I went to one of
our like local bars in the area here and I
hung out for a couple of hours in my bar.
Tap was seven dollars. I got a hot dog and fries.
It was great. UM So we're obviously into this idea
(54:24):
recon and UH fellow listeners, let us know if you
would want us to take a recording out and about
in the world where it would be believe it or not,
Probably even more casual. My thought is we could incorporate
the Lucky Yates style of hanging out and discussing multiple topics.
(54:45):
I think we might be able to make this work. Gentlemen,
I'm game, and hopefully you are. To let us know.
For now, that concludes ours but not our show. We
will be back next week with something weird, fascinating, perhaps disturbing.
(55:07):
There's one way to find out. Tune in when we've published. However,
before then, if you would like to learn more stuff
they want you to know, you can find Matt, Noel
and I on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook.
You can find us on Twitter. If you were a
long time listener, you've heard the names of all those.
If it's your first time listening, let's make it interesting
and just search see what you find. Right, it's conspiracy stuff,
(55:33):
and then with Instagram just add show to the end
of it. You can do it. And if you don't
want to do any of that stuff, and you know, officially,
go on the internet and talk to us where it's
being recorded all the time. Well, your emails recorded too,
but anyway, you can send us an email. We are
conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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. Welcome
(00:24):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is no. They call me Ben. You are you and
that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
First off, it's very important to all of us, just
as individuals and on this show to provide credit, good
and bad where credit is due. And in this case,
we're very fortunate because we have a lot of good
(00:45):
credit to provide and we actually might be a little
bit late on this. We want to give a massive
Gargangeline shout out to our fantastic intern, former fantastic former
intern Sam T. Garden, who had the unenvied bowl or
very enviable task of sifting through months of email to
learn what you friends and neighbors, our listeners, the most
(01:08):
important part of the show found most intriguing. You've met
Sam before? Yes, Sam was our guest on the Golan
Movement episode because of some personal involvement in the issue
at one of the charter schools. And now again thanks
Sam for being on the show for that. Thank you, Sam, hey.
Also our super producer Tristan McNeil. Here, Tristan, can we
(01:28):
have like some sort of applause queue for Sam perfect
I like that and a cranky Tristan sound effect because
he's he's mad, because I was like to do, Oh,
he's not mad. I can see it in his eyes.
He's he's definitely shooting some emojis our way though he
writes this guy writes to us an official work corres spot.
It's solely an emoji. Sometimes it'll just be like a
(01:51):
cat and I don't understand a saxophone. And we already
talked about this on air. We have It's okay, it's
a great like Tristan. Probably I'll get his own episode
one day. It'll be all an audio emoji. Yes, with
Sam tea Garden. One thing we want to point out
is several of the recent episodes you have heard on
our show relied on his initial research for us, going
(02:13):
through emails, seeing what he thought had some sand And
we really trusted him on this and he did a
bang up job. We can't thank him enough. Yeah, but
he's back in school now. But we can promise you
that you haven't heard the last of Good Old Sam
the sift kid Tea Garden. What the sift kid like
sifting through stuff? Oh? I thought you meant like panning
(02:35):
for gold or yeah kind of yes, yeah, he's sift
for gold. Yeah. And whether or not you are familiar
with our friends Sam Tea Garden who probably heard a
great deal about a country called the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea street name North Korea. And you've heard it
in the news lately for the ratcheting tensions right as
(03:00):
as we record this now, um, North Korea has made
some progress in their i c b m's intercontinental ballistic
missile programs, and the US and North Korea are playing
a game of brinksmanship. Yeah, the DPRK recently shot a
missile across the bow of Japan. Then they had another
(03:22):
missile shot down I believe by China. So yeah, fun
stuff going on. May you live in interesting times? Right? Yeah? Exactly,
chiefs the curse that keeps on cursing. For some background
on the truth behind the fiction surrounding the so called
Hermit Kingdom, please check out our earlier episode on this country,
(03:44):
which unfortunately we may need to update soon for sure. Today, however,
we're looking south. We're looking at South Korea or the
Republic of Korea, that's the other half of the Korean
Peninsula in particular. We're exploring a story about two longtime friends,
a story about corruption, a story about religion, and a
(04:05):
story about the fall of a president. And murder most
foul murder, well there is one, there is one, and
murder most foul. Seriously, all of those things. But first,
here are the facts. So we're gonna give you just
like a quick, down and dirty, kind of top down
reader's digest view of the past. Uh, just for a
(04:28):
little bit of background. So here we go. We have
two countries, the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's
Republic of Korea, which we're both formed by the same
historical events, beginning with the division of the peninsula along
the thirty eighth parallel at the close of World War two. Um.
And that was formerly a single country. All of that, um.
So then we fast forward to and ben Bolan, Oh, yeah,
(04:52):
I was there. That's when the divided haves each declared
themselves sovereign nations. So one set as we're the Republic
of Korea. One says we're the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
The problem is each declared themselves the lawful governing force
of the entire peninsula. Yeah, so, as you might imagine,
(05:14):
this situation was obviously unsustainable. Fast forward to Matt Frederick.
Then we get to the Korean War, which occurred between
nineteen fifty and nineteen fifty three. Overall throughout this conflict
there were five million, both military and civilian casualties. And
here's the thing. When it ended in fifty three, there
was no real defining winner, and it didn't technically end
(05:38):
us an armistice, right exactly. They just decided, Okay, we're
gonna stop actively attacking each other. And uh. South Korea
then shifted after this time back and forth between military
then democratic rule, then back and forth and back and
forth over the decades. Right and during during this time,
from the end or from the I guess to ation
(06:00):
of large scale warfare UH to the modern day, South
Korea has struggled more or less continually against widespread corruption
in the highest government and business offices. Part of this is,
of course due to nepotism, and that's no different from
any other country, and part is due to the existence
of gigantic corporations with their fingers in every single pie.
(06:22):
These things are huge. Yeah, they're they're called the chable
on which I may be mispronouncing. Their massive family controlled
conglomerates with international reach. So you can think of businesses
like l G or Samsung or maybe Hyundah, Yeah, checked
(06:42):
out like Christmas in July. These are examples of these
chable and the amount of influence that these conglomerates wheeled
in South Korea. It would astonish you. You your jaw
would drop to truly understand it. It would probably confuse
you too, especially if you live in let's say the
Western world. Right. One example, in two thousand fourteen, Samsung
(07:06):
alone comprised about seventeen percent of South Korea's entire economy.
And here's the thing, don't you know, don't get upon
your high horse like, oh, well, we would never allow
that to happen in here land. Well, they exist all
over the place in the US, the UK, France, all
these places of conglomerates. And here is a perfect example.
(07:29):
This is a fun one. Lay it on me. This
is new to me. Man, The Louis Dreyfuss Company. Have
you ever heard of that Louis Dreyfuss Company. Like a
lane from Seinfeld. Yeah, it sounds familiar, right. Julia Louis
Dreyfuss is the great great granddaughter of the founder of quote,
the world's largest cotton and rice trader. Hey, and also
(07:51):
it's considered to be the second largest player in the
world sugar market and very soon it's going to capture
officially the third place rank king of the largest trader
of coppers, inc. And led concentrate in this conglomerate posted
a revenue of over fifty five billion dollars. I guess
(08:11):
we know how Julia paid for all those acting classes.
But but nothing against Julia and Seinfeld is a great show.
But does this company have a podcast? There we go?
It's just crazy to think of how like I think
about that, right, and those different like agriculture and medals.
(08:32):
There are companies like that. They're you know, they're largely
out of the public eye. You won't hear the news
reporting on them as much. But yeah, a lot of
the world's wealth and resource extraction does come from companies
like this, and they have international reach. Can I fast
forward back to the modern day? Please? Please? Do? We're
(08:53):
in the modern day perfect. The current governments of South
Korea is the sixth Republic. It began in nineteen eighty
seven and continues at least as we record this episode.
It's so funny to think of it like a country
forming in nineteen eight seven. Yeah, you know, we were,
we were all alive. Then it's just I don't I
(09:15):
don't know why that's that's remarkable to me. I just listen. Yeah,
it's kind of like a government. To it's more. I
guess it's more a government because they didn't change the
borders of the country. But yeah, it also reminds me
of Italy, which has had um a historic problem in
Germany to the Yeah, it's it's not that remarkable, but
(09:36):
for some reason, I just it strikes me as like,
whoa a country that formed in my lifetime. Yeah, large
enough scope, just so I can do the accent again.
There are a lot of people in this world that
at a time said, forming your country in seventeen seventies six,
So congratulations a role today you watching BBC or something,
(10:01):
are just the Hamilton's soundtrack, That's what it is. And
they don't have British when I when I sing it back,
it's all British. King George does. That's that's that's a
good song too. That's like, probably you gotta have a
you've got to have a large range for that one,
you know. Um. But the here's another one. Um, South
(10:22):
Sudan formed quite recently in our within our lifetimes. Okay,
it's not remarkable, it's just no, it's I think it's
super remarkable. It's weird. I collect I stand by it
feeling weird. I stand with you in the fact that
that is incredibly weird. You know what I mean. Imagine
being born in earlier generations before the fall of the USSR,
(10:43):
and all of a sudden you're like, oh, well, we
had all these new countries now, many of which I
probably can't visit. And I have to remark on the
sinister nature of your coffee cup. It has a like
a Christmas reindeer cartoon on it, but the top is
like blacked out, like it's been spray painted over, and
it's like half of the reindeer's head is shrouded in shadows.
It's incredible, it's a gift. Well, these are burn marks.
(11:08):
I was actually on fire when when I was drinking
from it. No, this is emerged intact. This is a
great um. This is a gift, as Matt said, from
our friends Joe and Linda. And if you look really closely,
you can read the writing under the black part says
happy holidays to conspiracy stuff. This is a coffee cup
(11:28):
that is heat sensitive, so it's so it's all black
unless you pour something hot in it, like coffee reveals
the picture and reveals the picture. Well, I'm just tickled
by all kinds of simple stuff today. No, I think
it's remarkable too. And thanks again to Joe and Linda. Um,
I hope you're listening. And uh, I hope that Joe
(11:49):
and Linda, along with the rest of you find folks
forgive me for butchering Korean names throughout this episode. So
there's a person named Park Gunhi was born in nineteen
fifty two. That was pretty good. Well, we'll see. We
never know what that the emails come in right now,
(12:10):
uh Park. Miss Park is the eldest child of South
Korea's third president, Park Chung ky uh. She was elected
president of South Korea in two thousand thirteen and served
until seventeen. Wait record, scratch, pump, yeah, pump the brakes.
I know, I know how it sounds. It sounds pretty
(12:31):
freaking insane for a democracy to elect the child of
a former president to the same position, right, I mean,
what are the odds You'd have to be a pretty
corrupt country to ever allow that to happen, especially if
you purport to be a meritocracy. I just think it's
ridiculous for any democracy to do. We know how you
(12:52):
feel about political dynasties. Yeah, thank you, Okay, alright, alright,
let me you're right it is. It is my opinion,
but technically it's unsound anyway. Yeah, whenever your vote matters.
In South Korea, president is elected for a five year term,
meaning President Park was set to hold office from to teen.
(13:15):
But as we said, she left office in twenty seventeen.
So what happened. Scandal, that's what happened. Yes, long story short,
the first female president of South Korea was impeached this year.
But that's only the beginning of the rabbit hole. And
we're going to go down that rabbit hole right after
a quick word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy.
(13:42):
So President Park had a very close friend, a woman
named Chu sou sil. That's what we're going to uh
pronounce it as, but it's c h o O s
o O dash s I L. How else would you
pronounce that? That's how I would do it. So too
is the daughter of this cult lead or shamanesque if
you will, named Choi ta Men And Choi was a
(14:05):
former Buddhist monk. Uh. He formed a religious group called
Eternal Life Church. Doesn't that sound wonderful right now? This
thing in itself is relatively innocuous. It's it's a religious
organization that he founded. Sure, great going on, you you
can do that. South Korea has no laws barring religious
(14:26):
practice of any kind. And again you have to take
our word for it here. But despite the absolutely cartoonish practice,
like Ben said, of making a former family you know,
a family member of a former president president Uh, it's
pretty ridiculous. South Korea functions democratically, which means citizens have
(14:47):
freedom of religion, they have the ability to vote for,
you know, people going up for president. What they call
a sham democracy. He totally totally tell what mudo is
this research. The problem is if you try applaying that
across the board and you start to realize any relative
the holes in everybody's democracy. But anyway, that's what I'm saying.
(15:09):
Democracy is a bit of a magical loaded term. But no,
I don't know. Cake. Yeah, coffee's coffee sometimes what if
it's gluten free cake. That's a good point. So the
Church of Eternal Life or the Eternal Life Church saw
Joy as a messianic figure, a self described future boot
(15:34):
like a prophet, a prophet becoming a demi god. So
it's like a step up. Yeah, like The Bad Guy
and Lord of Illusions that it was so great. It
holds up to it holds up better than you would think.
You know, what was his name? Yeah? What I think
it might have been Nicki Swan was the magician. We're
(15:56):
getting knock Tracker. But y'all check out Lord of Illusions.
That's an underappreciated Cli of Parker movie. He gets maligned
quite a bit. And does I think I think he's worthy.
His short fiction is great Books of Blood and that's
a nice one. Um. Anyhow, Choi was a close associate
of miss Park's father until and here's the murder, most
foul my friend until her father was assassinated by Korea's
(16:18):
Central Intelligence agency, most foully, And admittedly that's what's different
um with this case versus a lot of other cases.
Of an intelligence agency assassinating their elected leader, not to
say that happens a lot, just to say that this
is not the only example. UH. Members officials or former
(16:40):
officials from Korea's CIA said, yeah, we we shot him
because we thought he was super corrupt and we were
doing the right thing for the country. It's bold. Uh.
During the younger Park's childhood, Miss Miss Park's childhood and
political ascendency, Choi, the eater of the Eternal Life Church,
(17:01):
was a mentor figure. And this much is acknowledged by
everybody in the conversation, UH, miss Parks supporters, miss parks opponents.
Everybody knows, um he was somewhere like a father figure,
somewhere an advisor, you know, um. And this is an
isolated person who has lost their parents. However, leaked diplomatic
(17:22):
cables from the American embassy and Soul, the capital of
South Korea, like they came to These cables come to
us via the wiki leaks um enterprise, which we should
also probably check back up on. Is Julian Osan still
there still in London hanging out? Okay? All right? Every
(17:42):
so often I asked Matt on air off air, what's
happening with Julian. The quick updates usually Yeah, he's still there,
He's still there. Uh So. Anyway, these leaked cables report
a bunch of rumors flying around Soul that Mr Choi
was a Korean rast Sputin and had complete control over
(18:06):
Park's body and soul during her formative years, and then
his children accumulated enormous wealth as a result. I love
how the idea of like Rasputin conjures the images of
like magical powers almost, you know, or like mind controlled
abilities absolutely and just using the phrase control over Park's
body and soul. Yeah, and he's a puppeteer of sorts. Well,
(18:29):
you know, um, the historical Rasputin is pretty fascinating character,
and I I wonder what it means, you know, like
to Knowl's point calling someone Rasputin definitely does have this
tinge of of occult nature, right or a cult power?
That Resputin makes a fine dark beer, is it true?
(18:52):
It's called old Resputin and it's delicious, you know. I'm
I'm so skeptical dark beer. Somebody told me that Guinness
is actually a people go on againness diet, and I
thought it was a joke because dark beers always seemed
really heavy to me. It's like, you know, I want
my loaf of bread and a glass. But apparently I
was wrong on that. Then you hear about an olden
(19:13):
times that people would drink a dark ale with their breakfast. Yeah,
come on, because the water would kill them. That's true.
That's a great way to start your day. Did you
ever hear that theory that the Dark Ages it could
be chalked up the Dark Ages being the period of
stagnation and education in Western Europe, can apparently be chalked
(19:34):
up to um fundamentalist religious practices and booze. There's there
are a couple of historians who say everybody was just
piss drunk for like several centuries. I think that's an oversimplification.
And speaking of oversimplifications, let's continue with some of the
backgrounds here. So, after becoming fast forward, as we said,
(19:57):
after becoming president of South Korea, miss part and her
friends Miss Chew continue to have a close relationship. So
the timeline of ms parks fall from Grace began in October,
which was about a year ago from now. Um, so
here's the rundown. On October seventeen, students protested at the
(20:22):
prestigious Awaha Women's University in Seoul, which sparked a much
wider investigation into corruption and influence pedaling in parks Inner circle. Uh.
And then specifically we had protesters arguing that miss Choi's
daughter was unfairly admitted to the school due to potential influence,
(20:43):
shall we say, from the administration from Park's office. And
then we've got one of the weirdest little bits from
this scandal, which was the choice daughter was able to
list her champion dressage performance on our application. And so
anyone doesn't know, that's like where the horse just kind
of steps right, like it's almost like a little prancing.
(21:05):
The horse and the rider perform a series of predetermined
move moves. It's not like jumping, it's not racing. It's
like kind of trotting in a circle. They're tapping and
like razing your Okay for every I literally a show pony, Yeah, exactly,
for everyone who doesn't have some weirdly specific version of synaesthesia,
claar voyance or telepathy. What Nolan I were doing when
(21:26):
we were trying to explain were both us sorry hands
like like the front hods of a horse. Um I
hope that doesn't come back to hunters. So yeah, yeah, dressage, dressage, dressage.
I think it's dressed dressage sounds more fancy. Let's let's
go with Yeah. I was gonna say that is something
I would associate with wealth, opulence. Yeah, here we go,
(21:51):
affluence and influence. As it turns out, yes, because this
training was apparently paid for by the South Korean government,
So taxpayer money essentially sent this kid to horse school.
Well they would, I'm sure they call it at that level.
I'm sure they don't call it horse school the dorsage academy. Yes,
(22:11):
and we continue, right, Oh boy do we ever? We
have October where in the South Korean broadcaster JTBC broke
open the scandal wide open by uncovering a tablet computer
belonging to Choi Soon still friend. Yeah, the friend of
it was a friend of miss Park, who had no
official government post whatsoever. And documents found on this device
(22:36):
suggests that miss Joy had received confidential presidential documents and
edited key speeches. So yeah, she's editing speeches for the
president who's not officially a part of anything. And again,
I'm not, you know, clear on the particulars of the
you know, um chain of command and levels of clearance,
(22:56):
I guess in this government. But I would imagine people
would have to be vetted and signed some kind of
clearance to get these documents. This obviously had not happened.
We'll imagine President Obama or imagine President Trump saying, uh, saying, well,
you know, these might be confidential, but I don't keep
(23:16):
any secrets from a boy jelly Roll. Jelly Roll, jelly
Roll has got all these documents on his tablet and
he's just editing speeches. He got me into that Floyd concert.
This is a man who understands the world, and I
want him working with these secrets. Jelly Roll. Well, it'd
be one thing if jelly Roll was an accomplished speechwriter
(23:37):
who just wasn't officially working on the thing, but was
a friend and was like helping him out. But if
it's somebody even though dude, can't you I mean, in
our government, at least you know he had just like
slip people that kind of stuff. I mean, you get
a big trouble for that, like at the highest levels.
I mean I would think of I mean confidential documents though,
(23:57):
that's that's a huge problem. I guess the president has
the agency to just kind of do whatever and listen.
I don't know. It seems like in our government we
have situations where the president, by virtue of his own office,
can just kind of like say, yeah, no, it's cool,
We're just gonna do this today, right like when we
had that discussion in Zone of Death about whether a
(24:19):
president can pardon themselves, you know. October, miss Park admits
to the country. She says, yes, I have close ties
to Miss Choi, who is at this time been nicknamed
the Shaman Adviser already because her father was a cult leader.
And she apologizes for causing the nation grief, Like, my bad,
(24:40):
I'm friends with her. That's crazy, alright. So then October
a little bit later, like right at the end October,
and hundreds of thousands of people began protesting and gathering
up in Soul for the first of six giant rallies
about this scandal approach, testing against the administration. And this
(25:02):
Park accepts the resignations of several key aids who have
gotten caught up in this whole affair, which probably means
they knew about it and didn't say anything, yeah exactly,
so they got cut first. Then On November one, Miss
Choi returns from Germany. She's been in Germany, kind of
escaping the situation in a way. And uh, she comes
(25:24):
back and she gets questioned and even detained by prosecutors
to figure out what the heck is going on. So
then on November eight, we have investigators rating the headquarters
of Samsung Electronics for the very first time. What um. Yeah,
and the company was believed to have come under pressure
to make donations to ms Choi. That's weird. Samsung, all right,
(25:49):
fourteen sevent of the economy Yeah, huh So what next?
Then on November twenty, Miss Park gets accused by prosecutors
of being a conspirator of the criminal variety in Miss
Choi's alleged scheme. So Miss Choi is kind of, in
this version like they accused her of before, being a
(26:10):
puppet master of sorts, and the president is just one
of the puppets that she's manipulating. And then on the
twenty nine of the same month, Miss Park offers to
resign but does not say when in her proposal. Then
is dismissed by the opposition and the protesters as a
(26:30):
stalling tactic of sorts. On December six, the heads of
the country's largest companies, those tribal we mentioned earlier are
interrogated by lawmakers in the National Assembly, and on December nine,
lawmakers vote to impeach Miss Park. So what kinds of
(26:53):
things are being whispered into President Park's ear Here's where
it gets kind of spooky to you know, write into
the BBC. Critics believe Choi perpetuated her father's habits. Choi's
father being, of course, the leader of the Eternal Life Church. Uh.
Some media reports suggested that Miss Park held shamanistic rituals
(27:15):
at the presidential compounds under choys influence. Miss Park, for
the record, denied this. Yeah, the president holding shamanistic rituals
in and if we apply it to the United States president,
just in our recurrent situation, President Trump performing rituals in
the White House with other people around. You know, maybe
(27:38):
they're not so creepy, but but the rituals were talking
about well first, you know, for another example, Ronald Reagan
consulted an astrologer. It's true, leader of the free world,
the most dangerous nukes at the time, and presidents do
hang out at the Bohemian grove right at the time
of our recording, part continues to deny any alley gaitions
(28:00):
of participating in cult rituals at the Blue House, think
of it as the South Korean White House, the President's
home specifically. To answer your question, all these rituals included,
but we're not limited to acts of alleged clairvoyance, fortune telling,
and channeling. Miss Joy is rumored to have told Miss
(28:21):
Park she was capable of channeling the spirit of the
president's dead mother. Additionally, she gave the President amulets that
had purported abilities to provide magical protection. She also um
listening devices. Quite possibly, she also advised the president on
(28:42):
which sorts of colors to wear and when, for example,
red and white clothing. I want to stop here before
we're before we get too far, and note that one
thing I really liked about the question you asked no
when you said, well, shamanistic rituals. What type of these
things for someone who you know? Historically all the US
(29:04):
presidents have outwardly, at least if only for the votes,
said that they were Christians. So it's kind of getting
at you mean, like, is it that bizarre and another
culture to perform these kind of quote unquote rituals. Is
it any more bizarre than presidents holding prayer meetings or
something like right or prayer breakfast or something. Yeah, exactly.
(29:25):
And you know, I really appreciate that point because I
think it's it's a fantastic points when we need to
make because there there are, um, there are shamanistic religious
practices in Korean. They are a part of the culture,
you know. So it's it's not necessarily, um, it doesn't
(29:47):
necessarily mean that this is stuff that Choi and her
father just made up. However, it does seem that it
does seem that the daughter took up the father mentor
role and definitely put the kid in horse school. That's
what that thinks for sure. So opponents of Park allege
(30:08):
their friend Choi was actually less like a friend and
more like a behind the scenes puppet master, picking up
where her father left off and directing the president in
matters of state policy. We know the choy ad access
to secret government documents. We also know that she edited
the president's speeches. But that leads us to a couple
of questions. Right, Yeah, we don't know exactly what types
(30:30):
of edits were made to the speeches. On one hand,
it could be as simple as proof reading. Maybe she's
just fixing some typos, right sure, just going through right
clicking in the word document and or whatever document and
there fixing the red saying that's actually further not farther. Yeah.
But on the other hand, Joy could have been altering
(30:51):
the content of the speeches, like meaning, somebody with absolutely
zero official government position was creating public policy through the
words of the president and possibly even swaying these things
like whatever is happening in either the favor of the
church or in personally choice favor. Because we know, like
(31:12):
I mean, speeches don't necessarily dictate policy directly, but they
can certainly shape perception and um, you know, the give
the impression of support of certain things, and that matters.
We know words matter, and that can make a big
difference in you know, the way things move in terms
of actual policy. Yeah, you're you're sending signals to the
(31:35):
rest of your government by saying things in public. That's
just it signaling. Yeah, and it is. It is very important.
It's a crucial component of foreign policy. So somebody with
no qualifications other than being someone's friend and or manipulator
had their hands at the wheel in one of the
(31:56):
most um, I would say, one of the top three
most fragile geopolitical areas in this time. You know, what
if what if Kim John un here's his speech that
he or his advisors don't like. You know, I have
a feeling that happens all the time. Probably does it,
(32:19):
Probably does. So this is an ongoing situation, and where
does it leave us in the modern day. We'll draw
some conclusions after a word from our sponsor, Well, we're
back and it doesn't look good right. Ms Park certainly
(32:43):
did seem to be under this way of choice influence
as well as choice fathers and heads of the corporation
involved are saying, you know, it's fairly it's incredibly uncommon
for these very powerful business leaders to be called into
the version of Congress. Uh. They're saying they were coerced
(33:05):
into donating millions of dollars to choice organizations. South Korea
already elected a new president, Like, how do you I'm
just wondering about being coerced into donating millions of dollars
to this stuff, because I guess you could have. You
could threaten to impose sanction or you know, new taxes
(33:25):
or you know, things that would make operating your giant
conglomerate unfeasible. I can't imagine how much pressure, but there
must have been something there, some triggers to pull. Well,
there's also the yeah, they're they're definitely triggers. There. There
are hard triggers, and they're soft triggers that might not
ever legally be uh personal stuff you're right, legal or
(33:51):
legally recognized as a threat to Yeah, there might be
personal stuff, um, but it might also be something as
simple as we have new complications on building codes, right,
or tariffs or something. You know. I wonder if Joy
threatened to summon the dead relatives of some of the
(34:11):
leaders of the conglomerates. That's an interesting idea, Matt. At
this point, we don't At this point, we don't know
if it's anything like that, and most likely as likely
as not, it would just be interesting. Well, that's the thing.
Without knowing what was happening, right, it's it's very difficult
for people to form uh concrete opinion or sort of
(34:34):
chronological chain of events. We do know that since the
tenth of May twenties seventeen, uh, there's been a new
president in South Korea, Moon giant in Um, who as
far as we know, is not under this way of
a cult. As a former human rights lawyer and chief
(34:57):
of staff to another former president, Romo hunt Uh he
was he was elected with a with an okay, okay
share of the of the vote. It seems like it
in all honesty, they just had to have a snap
election to get this other person out. Um. So that's
(35:21):
that's the case. So far as this is a developing situation,
we'll probably hear more about it. Um. It does not
come at the best time of course, geo politically, we
are this. This is gonna come out after we recorded,
so some of the events may seem a little bit
um older or changed even slightly, but not much hopefully
(35:44):
right like we are currently recording this the day before
the DPRK is set to launch another I C b
M and they'll be launching it on Saturday, September nine, yepeha,
and we can do an entire episode about North Korea's
purported nuclear capabilities plus versus their actual nuclear nuclear capabilities.
(36:10):
But at this time the region is under intense global
scrutiny and the powers that be are are flocking there.
This is a this is going to be as well
said interests a series of interesting times for South Korean
president and for the people of the region. Just as
(36:32):
a side note, I know a few people, multiple people,
who are in the navy, and they have been snapped
up from being on leave to go on an adventure
somewhere that they cannot discuss. So it always makes me think, Oh,
I wonder if they're heading that way. Who knows. At
the same time, we have signals from officials in the
(36:57):
Russian and US governments talking about that are indicating arms
build up training exercises. I want a time to be alive.
I hope that the streak of being alive continues not
and of course we hope that everyone hearing this is
(37:18):
in a safe place. Uh. And we are sending our
thoughts and support to the innocent people of the world
because you know, as they say, what's that old quote,
when elephants go to war, only the grass suffers. Oh geez,
trampling on all. And just one last thing here before
(37:40):
we you know, into this episode, per se, are you
doing the voice? Do the voice somewhere? We just have
to remember in our own country, if we look at ourselves,
the United States has an long tradition of secret societies
among the upper echelons of our government. Yeah, he including
(38:03):
freemasonrya let's say, the Illuminatis perhaps of Bavaria, and you know,
the Bohemian grove, Skull and Bones, all of these other
secret societies that the United States voter just has to
either not know about or completely ignore when they make
(38:24):
their decision on who they're going to vote for, because
most of the people that get up to that level
have been a part of one or more of these.
You know, that's a great point, Matt, and I'm glad
you made it, because it goes so so it's in
the great interest of people who profit from a status
quo to enforce um disunity amongst the bottom part of society, right,
(38:50):
or any lower part of society. So often you'll see
this false dichotomy um hinging on a political position, ship
or am. I mean, the best is when there's blind
loyalty to a party, because when the parties are both
fingers on the same hand, then everybody gets to have
(39:11):
a little bit of bread and circuses, a little bit
of Facebook liking, a little bit of clicktivism or whatever,
and feel that they've done their part for um reproduction
or gun ownership or whatever whatever their issue is. And honestly,
just saying it on a podcast that I know goes
(39:33):
out to a number of people makes me feel good.
But ultimately, what does it do? What does it do? Right?
And the the groups who are participating in the just buffoonish,
buffoonish summer camp that is Bohemian Grove or the dumb
(39:58):
fraternity that has skull and bones. I mean, look, here's
the thing with tradition. I don't have an opinion because well,
it's a very powerful organization with very powerful people in it,
and um, hopefully those people are using their power to
keep this species alive and push it toward its ultimate destiny,
(40:21):
which is expanding beyond this planet before we destroy it
one way or another. Uh. However, I think that it
is a lapse in critical thinking to assume that because
something has existed for a long time, or that because
powerful people like it, it is therefore somehow correct or superior.
(40:46):
I mean, look at uh. Sadly, there's so many examples
of times where people said, well, that's tradition or that's
how we've done it, and those turned out to be terrible, terrible,
incredibly stupid things. And we're still doing a lot of them,
and we can't we as individuals, we as groups, whatever
(41:11):
group you align yourself with, have to be I have
to take great pains to note that the problems we
so easily spy, or so we easily perceive in other organizations,
whether that's a religion, a state, or a business or
a family, whatever, a fan club for Christopher Walkin, groups
(41:33):
of humans tend to have some of the same root problems,
you know, And the same rotten uh tooth of corruption
in the mouth of the South Korean government um and
still exists. Right, the president was corrupt, But we can't
act like the US doesn't have its own cavities in
(41:54):
this terrible analogy. Dude, I I feel that the big
thing for me is loyalty. If you if you are
swearing an oath to serve as a democratically elected official,
especially and in the executive office as the president for
the people, you are you are acting as an executor
(42:15):
of the people's will essentially and also you know in
a way, and that's at least what it says. But
what if you've already sworn an oath to one of
these secret societies prior to swearing that oath. Do they
exist simultaneously? Do you? You know, who do you serve?
If you are a public public figure, if you're a
(42:36):
government official, should you be required to disclose all all
the ins and outs of those businesses or you know,
I swear like break that oath in some way officially? Well,
then is it a violation of because government official is
still a citizen, is a violation at least in the
US of their right to privacy? Oh? My god, you
(42:58):
know what anything? I don't know. I just I support
the right to you know, for a high level government
officials to have a guru of some sort they just
keep around, you know, I think that's that's cool. Yeah,
what's the point of having a stressful job like that
if you can't have some sort of weird magician that
you come around with all the time. There should always
(43:19):
be resputing a choice and still there. Uh. You know
that's interesting because we we do know that there are
advisors in different countries that would they're doing things that
would be considered magical acts, right like Myanmar. Uh we're
also a k Burma had the military powers there for
(43:42):
a long time. Uh took the advice of astrologers and
actually relocated the capital for that and even magical beliefs aside,
just having a trusted confidant or an advisor, especially if
you're in a series, if you're in a position where
several million, several hundred million people in case of of
(44:07):
any US president past n probably would like to kill you.
You know, it's good to have friends. Sometimes you want
to go where everybody knows your name, you know. You know,
I haven't learned much from TV and movies, but one
thing I have learned is that the bad guy is
almost always the close trusted advisor. Oh like Scar almost
(44:33):
always in the Lion King or Iago, There's so many
A lot of times it's the magician. A lot of
times you know, it's the religious leader just saying yeah,
you know, that makes me think, Lads and gentlemen, if
you were in a position of immense power, or if
(44:53):
you are now, h do you practice uh having gurus?
Do you have a trusted advisor? Uh? Do you have
even if you are not in a position of quote
unquote imense power? Now, do you have a spiritual advisor?
Do you do you have someone that has a connection
to things unseen and little understood? And if so, do
(45:14):
you follow their lead. Have you met with success or
have you been burned in the shamanistic rituals? We'd like
to Yeah, whatever the belief system, maybe we'd like to
hear from you. And speaking of which reminds us it's
time for first shout out today comes from Simon. Hey
(45:39):
from Australia, says Simon of the show. So, I thought
i'd give you a story I heard from a friend's
grandpapa um I inserted the extra papa um. He was
in the navy in Al Salvador or the US, and
after this encounter, he and his shipmates have never set
foot back on a boat. When they were out in
the Atlantic one night, massive swells began to form out
(45:59):
of nowhere, and he said something came out of the
water that was so big that his eyes were the
size of a semi trailer. It looked directly at the
boat and went back under water. So Simon says that
when they reported this to the command they were basically
dressed down by their commanders or whatever and basically accused
of being drunk. Um. So he swears to the story
(46:21):
and isn't go into too much more detail, but he
hates talking about it. Also, have you ever heard about
the Westall UFO sighting. I highly recommend you suss it out,
as Australia is known for weird things like UFO sightings.
Keep up the good work and schedooche nice Simon. That's
a cool story. Uh, you know the size of a
(46:41):
semi I like that. Yeah, I that's a tough one.
You gotta really believe that, friends Grandpa, but you know,
I believe him, but I want to learn more. Also,
if there's a massive storm, maybe it's possible that something
that typically would be in the lower levels of the
ocean was pulled up to the surface momentarily. We just
(47:04):
came to check it out, or just came to check
it out, just to see what the happs were. The
West All Ufo encounter is a uf UFO story from
nineteen sixty six where more than two hundred students and
teachers at these two schools UH witnessed in UFO descending
(47:27):
on a field. And it's an interesting case because you
know over two people, so there's a lot of corroboration.
That's a really good point, Simon, that's a really good
idea to thank you so much for writing in and
I hope your friend's grandfather talks about it more often.
That's you'd be surprised what people can remember when they try.
The size of a semi that keeps keeps baffling me.
(47:50):
I don't want to see that. Thanks, Writing in Simon,
who's next next? Shoutout goes to Cameron. Cameron, that's your
shout out, Cameron says, I was listening to the Lucky
Yates episode, and you pondered why aliens would analyze the
ethics of abducting humans and come to the conclusion that
they must return us to Earth after abducting us, but
that they do not have to ask permission in the
(48:11):
first place. It stands to reason that, by our morality,
the most ethical way to approach an abduction would be
to ask permission first and return the abductee to their
original state afterwards. This is a primary tenet of the
American justice system, after all. Cameron says, However, what if
alien morality does not parallel our own? Consider a man,
(48:33):
a human man who's sitting on a boat on a
lake with a pole attached to that pole as a
string with a hook on the end. This man is fishing.
I like how you're right, Cameron. Uh, he will not
ask the fish for their permission before catching them, but
there stands a good chance that if he will not
eat the fish, he will throw it back into the lake.
Why does the man do this Well, because humans have
(48:56):
an ethical standard that they apply to fishing, whereby the
fishes return into the water if it will not be eaten.
We call this catch and release. We do this because
we do not assign enough value to the lives of
the fish to require their permission. Oh wow, right, So
is it possible that the aliens operate with the same
ethical dichotomy. Could they see us as fish hiding underneath
(49:18):
the surface of Earth's atmosphere and reason that their ethics
do not require them to ask permission of us fish
human folk, but do require them to return us to
Earth if they don't plan to eat us and or
to you know, do something that would end our lives.
Mm hmm, you know, I I really, I really appreciate
(49:40):
that point. To me, probably the stranger thing is just
how one would traverse the gulfs of time and space.
I really love the catch and release comparison. The reasoning
here is, what do you think, Matt, what do you
think though I love this, Cameron. If there are in
fact species of some sort that are advanced enough to
(50:02):
want to study humans and this is in fact what
they're doing, this makes so much sense to me. Mm hmm.
And that that one line in particular, we do this
because we do not assign enough value to the lives
of fish to require their permission. Isn't it funny to
how even people that are like a lot of you know,
non meat eaters, are okay with eating fish to be
(50:24):
like pesketarians because they aren't cuddly, they don't seem to have,
you know, anthropomorphic type traits. Yeah, I wonder And if
anyone's out there, like I'm interested actually to hear what
your reasoning is behind is it Is it like a
health thing or is it in fact a kind of
more of an emotional thing. It's because their water breathers, man,
they breathing air. Now, an octopus is capable of experiencing
(50:47):
emotion and recognition, right, so ah, So if that's if
it's an ethical concern about like the ability to suffer
or have experience experience emotions, then I guess the pesketerium
shouldn't eat an octopus. I have known pescetarians that will
not eat cephalopods. So yeah, I mean I think it's
(51:10):
different for different people, but let us know. Yeah, that's
a great idea. And how can you prove if a
fish feels emotion or not because they're always just going sorry,
I'm so sorry. Oh man, No, I respect that we're
working live all right, Nolan, I did a horse dance earlier.
(51:32):
So now now the three of us are back on
even keel, we have time one more shout out today
from recon uh reached the name assumed name uh. Recon says,
I just listened to the Pyramid podcast and the part
at the end where you said your conversations normally continue
at a bar somewhere. I'd love if you all did
(51:53):
an after hours podcast where you were drinking at a
bar and continuing the conversation from a normal podcast. Thanks
so much, recon um drunk conspiracy or I mean even
just like conspira drunk the ambiance of a bar, hanging
out and having just maybe even if it's just a
(52:15):
beer or something with the cameo from the bartender. Well yeah,
and then just have we could have special guests come
over and just hang out with us. You say all
kinds of weird stuff. Once you've had a logger or two. Well, yeah,
I mean, look, we're still will still listen back and
Tristan will do his magic on whatever it is. But
I can imagine something really cool being there Tristan. You
have to edit sober though, right, That's that's the rule
(52:37):
he's given the no like not possible. Tristan will be
there with us and he'll edit real time as we're going,
just like cut and then keep going. I love this.
I like the idea too. And we have you know,
we have a couple of regular spots, maybe sometime in
like October later in the year. I've been off the
sauce this month. We both have to have a cranberry.
(53:00):
I didn't want to talk out of school, but yeah,
it's been pretty great. Actually, I'm I'm I might. I
might never go back. Well, hey, if that's what you
want to do, Mandy, Yeah, uh, then I gotta tell you, Hey,
you know, the bar is not drinking. It is actually
really interesting and a lot of fun. I went to
(53:21):
a show the other night at a concert. I saw
this amazing band, the O c S. If anyone's ever
heard of them, or check them out there like this,
um L a kind of garage e psychedelic punk kind
of I don't know, it's hard to even describe, but
the dude that plays guitar just blows it up. He's
amazing and he's it's it's really really cool music. But
it was one of the first times I've been to
(53:41):
a concert like that and not had a drink. And
I felt so undistracted, Like I watched the whole show,
never move, never worried about getting back the bar, you're
getting in line whatever. I felt like it was a
much more full experience. I really enjoyed it. Not to nice,
preachy or anything. Have been kind of digging it. That's
(54:02):
not preachy. Got more of your money's worth, you know. Yeah,
I went to a UH. I went to one of
our like local bars in the area here and I
hung out for a couple of hours in my bar.
Tap was seven dollars. I got a hot dog and fries.
It was great. UM So we're obviously into this idea
(54:24):
recon and UH fellow listeners, let us know if you
would want us to take a recording out and about
in the world where it would be believe it or not,
Probably even more casual. My thought is we could incorporate
the Lucky Yates style of hanging out and discussing multiple topics.
(54:45):
I think we might be able to make this work. Gentlemen,
I'm game, and hopefully you are. To let us know.
For now, that concludes ours but not our show. We
will be back next week with something weird, fascinating, perhaps disturbing.
(55:07):
There's one way to find out. Tune in when we've published. However,
before then, if you would like to learn more stuff
they want you to know, you can find Matt, Noel
and I on Instagram. You can find us on Facebook.
You can find us on Twitter. If you were a
long time listener, you've heard the names of all those.
If it's your first time listening, let's make it interesting
and just search see what you find. Right, it's conspiracy stuff,
(55:33):
and then with Instagram just add show to the end
of it. You can do it. And if you don't
want to do any of that stuff, and you know, officially,
go on the internet and talk to us where it's
being recorded all the time. Well, your emails recorded too,
but anyway, you can send us an email. We are
conspiracy at how stuff works dot com.
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.