September 3, 2026 • 53 mins
An Expectant Rebel explains how DARPA's strange SHINE initiative may hack human brains to revolutionize learning -- and possibly create real-life Manchurian candidates. Luke shares a terrifying story about elephants. Shep prompts a conversation about 'AI' and emergency phone numbers. Jai Shree RĀM teases smart dust. Tune in for all this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
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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. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal, Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the Stuff
They Don't Want You To Know. It is our weekly
listener mail program. So if you are tuning in the
evening this publishes, let us welcome you to Thursday, September 3rd. Guys,
(00:51):
I've got some sad news that we forgot to report earlier.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Remember how we were so bullish on Count Benface running
for office?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, Benface.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Yeah, with the trash can head. He did not win.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Son of a gun.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
I know. I know.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
But he did get 26.9% of the vote.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
What?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, that's something.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Jeez Louise, bury the lead. That's incredible.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Maybe he will run in the future. I don't know.
We'd love to hear from you in person.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I think he should just start his own country. You know, Bentopia. Bensville.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Benvania, maybe? Benvania.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
He has a count, after all.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Oh, that's right. That's right.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Bensilvania.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hey, guys, I have a tiny bit of news to
share as well.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
The whole family just got back last night from a
showing of Coyote vs. Acme, and I just want to
encourage every single human being on the planet to go
and see that movie.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I'm hearing wonderful things about it.
Speaker 6 (01:58):
I saw it yesterday, too.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Will Forte. That's all you got to say. Will Forte.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Plus cartoon characters running around like it's some kind of
movie from the 90s. It's incredible. You feel for the Coyote.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
There was right. Empathy is key. And also, uh, if
you want to have some fun with cartoon lore, uh,
you can find this floating around the internet. Now folks,
the creator of Wiley coyote and the road runner had
a printed list of guidelines for how the road runner
and Wiley interact. And it's, it's pretty illuminating if you
(02:34):
like a rabbit hole.
Speaker 7 (02:35):
Well, and maybe something worth mentioning in terms of conspiracies, uh,
You know, that film was like basically shelved. It was
completed and then it was shelved. And from everything that
I'm seeing as far as the reviews and the box
office take, no one fully understands why.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Discovery Communications bought it, right?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
They just thought it was a dud. I just don't understand. Like,
it's an odd one.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
Maybe because the Space Jam sequel did so poorly and
they were. likening it to that or something, or there
haven't been very many good animated live action crossovers. It
seems like maybe, yeah, that might be it.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
And people don't like taking risk. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It made 15 million over the weekend, right? It's opening weekend.
15 million is not bad, but look at what Spider-Man
has been doing. It's insane. What some of these big
movies will do that have that mass appeal. It's, it's,
Fascinating to think that this Looney Tunes picture wouldn't have
(03:36):
mass appeal, but it definitely doesn't in the same way.
I don't know. It's a calculation, a tax write-off. But
the big reason to go see this movie is because
the entire movie is about a conspiracy. Which is, I'm
telling you, if you like this show, you're going to
love the movie. They're not paying us.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
And we can't wait to we can't wait to hear
your opinion about the newest adventures of Wile E. Coyote.
Speaking of fortes, folks, we always love to start listener
mail with a forte of our own Tennessee pal, the rutabagas.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
Chickpeas for dinner again.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Oh, man.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Why can't we ever have any cool food, dad? Kids
not digging your meals? Tired of scraping chickpeas in the
trash for a third night in a row? Get kids
what they really want.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Rutabagels!
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Whoa, rutabagels! You're the coolest, Dad!
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Rutabagels are good at any time of day. Rutabagels with
egg for breakfast, turkey rutabagels for lunch, and pepperoni rutabagels
for dinner.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Yay!
Speaker 6 (04:45):
Rutabagels are enriched with our proprietary, and definitely FDA-approved, don't
worry about it, blend of vitamins and minerals. Giving your
kid the energy to knock out their essays, hit home runs,
and defeat the evil Commander Hackington and Billy Vega. The
official video game of.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Rude Bagels!
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Hey kids, it's Billy.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
If you really love me, you'll have your parents buy
Rude Bagels.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Dad, Billy's love is on the line.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
I want Rude Bagels. You've got it, son. I'm going
to the store right now.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Rude Bagels.
Speaker 6 (05:17):
They're much better than chickpeas.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Oh, shots fired.
Speaker 7 (05:22):
Now we've got a nemesis in the rutabaga universe.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
I love that. I love Dylan, the deep emotional angst
as we're shouting rutabagals there. There's something that makes me think,
especially on that second yell. that our narrator is falling
to his knees and shouting toward the sky.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
In the rain.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (05:43):
With the camera pulling up, like, you know, Busby Berkeley style. Dylan,
I got to just give you props for adding, continuously
expanding and adding so much emotional depth to the Begaverse.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh, thank you. And disclaimer, I eat chickpeas like three
or four times a day.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I mean, not day. Week.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
No, it's too late. It's on record. This is going
in the congressional library.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
This is going in the congressional library.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Dude, it's tough to beat hummus, right? I mean, just
as a food thing, a food substance.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
It's good.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
It sticks to your ribs. Could you make a rutabaga hummus?
I just don't think it's that kind of, it's just
not that kind of creature. It wouldn't hummusify.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
It would.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I bet it would work. If you roasted them up enough, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
You know what? If you roasted them up enough, it'd
be a little bit more like a mash. No, you
know what? You might be able to do it. We
should try it.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And we are going to have a quick break for
a word from our sponsors. We're going to dive into
some messages from you. And we have returned. Our first
piece of listener mail comes to us from an expectant
(07:00):
rebel over in the wild world of social media. This
is something that hits a returning character in our show
in a way that was new to me and I
think maybe new to all of us. Guys, we remember DARPA, right?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Rings a bell.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
It does. It does ring a bell for our longtime listeners,
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Irma Gerd Darpa?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Right. Darpa from earlier, right, is known as kind of
the mad science wing of the United States military. And
there was something going around Instagram that Expectant Rebel hit
us to, and it's the following. Darpa just put this
in writing, the potential for selective augmentation. Now look at
what the program is designed to do. DARPA's SHINE program
(07:52):
aims to develop technology that can precisely and non-invasively target
specific neural circuits and enhance the brain's ability to adapt
and rewire itself. Their description goes even further. Selective remodeling
of brain circuits. Selective augmentation. Those aren't my words, says
(08:13):
expected rebel. They're DARPA's.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Remodeling?
Speaker 4 (08:18):
This is wild. Yeah, and you continue there, Expected Rebel.
You say, this isn't some decades-old declassified experiment or leaked document.
It's sitting on DARPA's own website right now. Maybe the
intended medical applications could help people suffering from neurological injuries
and disorders, but the capability they're describing raises a much
(08:40):
bigger question. If technology can selectively enhance and remodel specific
brain circuits without invasive procedures, where does this technology eventually lead?
Pretty crazy stuff, you guys. And thank you, expectant rebel.
Of course, we went to the source. We went straight
(09:01):
to DARPA to figure out what's going on, make sure
this isn't just internet ephemera or misinformation. And you guys,
it is totally real. Not only is it real, SHINE
is an acronym, we love an acronym, Selective Harnessing of
Intrinsic Neuroplasticity Engineering.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Is this not life extension type tech?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
This, I mean, this could be quality of life improvements, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It says, in the end, it's about more complete recovery
after an injury, and I'm reading that on the DARPA.mil site.
Speaker 7 (09:38):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
You could also see this falling under. So they're describing
shine as what they call a disruption opportunity. And they
are pointing out, you know, medications and behavioral interventions already exist.
Things called neuromodulation, for instance, that, quote, activate. large areas
(10:00):
of the brain instead of just specific circuits in need
of repair. So what they're trying to figure out how
to do is to sort of miniaturize their treatments and
scope in on very specific parts of your brain. So
hopefully it will help people recover from diseases or injuries
in a more complete way. While we're on the DARPA website,
(10:23):
you guys, we learned a new word, and this is
also DARPA.mil. I've never heard this phrase before. They call
it disruption-eering. Engineering, disruption, portmanteau.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Wait, there's a link for that, Ben.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Yes, yes, yes. This is, Very strange. They're describing disruption
opportunities as something that enables DARPA to investigate the potential
of high-risk science and to do so quickly. So if
you publish a paper that they like, you get an
(11:00):
award in no more than 120 days. They call it high-risk,
high-payoff research in support of national security and technological surprise.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Oh, jeez.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Right? I'm not sure where this should go. I mean,
they have to do this research, right?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Like, it has to happen.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's the endless, yeah, it's the endless pursuit of needing
to literally surprise your enemy on a battlefield situation. Like, whoops, hey,
we got this thing, it's called the discombobulator. Hey, you
didn't know it before now, but you know about it now.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Right, right. Let's see you try to get combobulated again.
This comes to us under the auspice of DARPA's Defense
Sciences Office. Their focus is to, well, this is weird.
They call them thrust areas, which also, there's so many
strange terms here.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Is that like areas of opportunity?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
It's places, it's, it's, Places where the military-industrial complex can
really jam in there and work real hard.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Just work as hard as you can.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Just work up a sweat, right? Get a nice pump. Yeah,
the thrust areas are materials, manufacturing, energy systems, then sensing, measuring,
and affecting, very vague, math, computation, and processing systems. And
then complex, dynamic, and intelligent systems. So that last one
(12:34):
is clearly AI. That's, I think, the easiest one to understand.
But you didn't have to call them thrust areas. And disruption-earing,
as much as we love a Seussian phrase, it's a
little too cutesy, right? Sorry, guys.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Thrust areas just really makes me think of being, you know, taken.
Speaker 8 (12:58):
Blind, unawares.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Look, so we can verify, Rebel, that this is a
true story. We can also verify that it looks like
this is not smoke and mirror research that's going on.
And it could really help people who are recovering from
traumatic brain injuries. So not just the fighting forces, but
(13:24):
also boxers, right? Or people who play football. This is...
is going to be more and more important because we
have seen rising rates of traumatic brain injury in the U.S. military,
especially recently. So I guess to walk it out, though,
the concern is where this technology could go, right? Now
(13:48):
we're targeting people to help recover from an injury, but
what if you could target the part of the brain
associated with language learning?
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
What if we could make something like the Matrix real
where you download knowledge?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Accelerate.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not trying.
Speaker 7 (14:07):
To poo poo the idea of helping folks with traumatic
brain injuries or increasing the ability to recover efficiently and quickly.
It just I'm just inherently suspicious of these to your point, Ben,
like of what this is actually for. And I just
my brain always goes to like super soldier. That is
kind of where it has agreed.
Speaker 8 (14:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
I mean, DARPA doesn't exist as a pure science for
the fun of it thing. You know what I mean?
They don't have a lot of research into how to
make people happier. Right.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Can we just encourage people once again? Head on over
to DARPA.mil and then just click on Programs. We made
a couple of episodes in the past where we literally
just did that and then looked at different programs and
described some of the out there concepts that are being
explored in both research science, applied science, all kinds of
(15:06):
different things where the military, industrial complex, and DARPA exist.
are wanting to throw millions and millions of dollars at
anybody that can innovate in any one of the, I'm just,
you scroll through and you just click show more and
you keep clicking show more and there's so many programs.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
There are so many and the rate of attrition is
known to be high. That's what they mean by high risk,
high reward. So for DARPA, it's not a bad day
if nine of these things fail because the 10th one
could be a game changer. We didn't even get to
the weirdest part about shine. We need a few more
details here. We said non-invasive methods, right? And we kind
(15:48):
of glided over that. They're talking about light and sound therapy.
They're also talking about biosynthetic psychedelics. So this is, so
this is, this is potentially giving people different mind altering
substances in conjunction with the other treatment regiments. And we
(16:13):
know that, you know, we know that the relatively conservative
bent of U S culture has, has really stymied psychedelic
research in the past, but we also know there's a
wealth of hard evidence that under the right circumstances, some
of these substances are, can make a meaningful difference in
(16:35):
people's lives. Like we have several friends of the show
who undergo ketamine therapy, and they're not doing it for fun.
They're doing it under medical supervision.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Ben, I'm coming in with a non sequitur. I just
sent you something on chat that relates back to an
episode we recently recorded.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Just look at this dude.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
All right. We are on deep thoughts. Tell us about it.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
From Jack Handy. No, from DARPA. Deep Thoughts is a
program that seeks to develop a new generation of small
autonomous undersea vehicles to meet the challenges and opportunities of
this domain. Our vision is to develop AUVs that are
independent of long lead and architecturally constraining components, quick to design, produce, integrate,
(17:23):
and test, reducing timelines from years to months or even weeks,
easily deployable from a wide variety of host platforms. Ben,
it seems like they want to design... like the type
of drones that we see being utilized in warfare now,
but for the sea, or exploration, or monitoring.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Mass-produced baby water drones, right? That is probably going to work.
We know that all of these, well, a lot of
the science here is concerning to us for years because
it introduces dual-use technology, right? Just like nuclear refinement can
(18:02):
lead to weapons as well as pretty awesome power sources,
the ethical concerns about stuff like Shine is the potential
for mind control. If you can target and rewrite neural circuits,
could you not weaponize them to change somebody's behavior, the
way their emotions process, or even their thoughts? We are
(18:24):
closer now, depending on how this works out, than ever
before to something like a true Manchurian candidate.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
And Manchurian candidate that could go underwater autonomously.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (18:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
And then also one that, um, you, one that could
have its memory wiped. So the person doesn't realize what
happened to them until they, you know, they hear the,
the code phrase gray Malkin corduroy or something. We went
too far. Well, uh, we've got some other stuff to
(18:59):
get to. We'd love to hear your thoughts about the craziest,
actual mad science that's happening out there. Thank you again
to Expectant Rebel. We had another piece of correspondence that
we'll probably save for a later date from our friend
Jai Sri Ram. Look up SmartDust. It's a heck of
a ride. We'll be right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
And we've returned. Ben, I can't get off of this
dang website.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
I know.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I'm still... DARPA.mil?
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Dude, DARPA.mil. Everybody needs to go there because every one
of these programs has a program manager. And if you
click on their name, you can get information on that
program manager and maybe you could contact them. Oh, wait,
on every one of these, there's a contact thing you can...
just put your full name, your email, your phone number,
your birth date.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Do you think you really want to do that?
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Social security number, your specific phobias.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Guys, do you think we could get a.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Mil URL?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
What does it take?
Speaker 8 (20:02):
For us?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
I don't know. You know what?
Speaker 4 (20:05):
We'd have to have a good pitch for real. We
could probably pay somebody right now. But a big shout
out to Robin Bonomi over at Shine.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Heck yeah. Also, Mark Salvador over there at the EXVI,
which is a way to use existing unmodified vegetation as
a sensor to identify activities of Department of War interest.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Cool.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Okay.
Speaker 8 (20:32):
You're good.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
You're going to use plants to sense things that are
happening with response to man-made chemical exposure? Okay. I really
want to know what that's about. Guys, what if we
could use the plants to figure out when the trucks
are rolling through?
Speaker 8 (20:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Check out our episode on whether plants can think it
is a wild ride.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Hey, well, here's one. Let's find out whether human beings
that listen to this show might actually take a little
trip to our fair city and then call us about it.
Because one, one of you did. Your name is Hidalgo.
Here's your message.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Hey guys, this is Hidalgo. I just want to call
and thank you for gatekeeping your local hangouts and talking
about how great they are. Last week I was in
your fair city there of Atlanta hanging out on a
Beech Tree area, my company's Atlanta office with some interns
(21:33):
that we came down for a conference. And our last
night there, I hit up the local and enjoyed some
wings and a couple of pictures of Guinness. Any place
I can get a picture of Guinness is just delightful
for me. I also hit up the Trap Music Museum there.
(21:56):
other side of the tent. Well, I don't really know.
I stayed in a little bubble, but really enjoyed the local.
Glad that you guys talked about it. And I was like, hey,
I'm only like two miles away. I should go and
grab something to eat. And I drug some kids with
me and then had to make sure that they were
able to stumble back to the hotel. So, hey, guys,
thank you very much. Have a great day.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
And this was Sadonga.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
The local.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Gosh, yes.
Speaker 7 (22:21):
It's a local gem. And really, really, truly, I think
we stand by this. uh, best wings in town in
a wing city.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And we did receive a message been a little while
ago from somebody who found local wings that we're not
going to tell you about. I think, right. We're not
going to mention that new place that we got onto
because we were going to gatekeep that one.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Are you gatekeeping it from me, Matt? Cause I don't
know what the hell you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's in listener mail, baby. It's in there. We got,
we got a little secret.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Secret spots. The wing conspiracy continues in magic city.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
No.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
We do have to say, of course, yeah, we personally,
as Noel was saying, we personally vouch for the wings
at the local. The spot has been arguably blown up
a little bit by social media influencers, but tell them
we sent you so that they yell at us about
it the next time we go by.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
Guys, speaking of Atlanta stuff, just while we're on the subject,
Did you see that there was a stabbing that took
place on the Beltline last week?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I did.
Speaker 7 (23:29):
The Beltline is kind of this beloved, you know, walking, biking,
sort of, you know, I don't know, very happening area.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And there's multiple stretches of it.
Speaker 7 (23:39):
It's old repurposed rail lines that have kind of become
this really incredible feature of the city. There's the east
side one, the west side one, and they're eventually supposed
to connect them all together. But the one near where
we used to work, a place called Ponce City Market,
which is right off the Beltline. You can get to
it from there. Good shopping, good restaurants. A little over
(23:59):
the overpriced side, but there's some good stuff in there.
As well as the local, the east side, I.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Believe, trail.
Speaker 7 (24:05):
There was an incident that took place where someone was
stabbed and police apprehended a suspect. And I haven't followed
up on it, but I do know. So I bike
there all the time. Never seen a police officer there.
As far as long as I've been going and now
I would not say that it has like a police presence,
but I do see some cops on bicycles. And I'm
(24:28):
actually happy to see that because, frankly, there are folks
that are dangerously riding e-bikes and these lime scooters and
all that stuff and can be kind of a menace.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
So it is nice to see folks.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
At least sort of keeping the peace in doing what
police officers kind of should do.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Dude, old man Grandpa Frederick here saw a term that
I'd never seen before, and I can't remember it now,
but it's when somebody on like a scooter or an
e-bike kind of menaces a pedestrian, does it really quickly,
like all of a sudden out of nowhere, and tries
to flex on somebody to scare them, and then they
just keep going. It's like a trend or something.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
So I was biking there yesterday and last night actually,
And as I was coming through this place area called
the Crog Street Tunnel, a gang of young, I say
gang and a group of them connected, you know, they
were all riding together on scooters and maybe even some like,
you know, dirt bikes came up behind me super aggressively
(25:30):
and started screaming at.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Me, move. get out the way.
Speaker 7 (25:34):
I was like, the old man yelling at clouds in
me wanted to retaliate and yell at them. But then
I realized there were quite a lot of them and
it was just me and they could have beat the
crap out of me. So maybe that's what you're talking about.
That maybe that's a, whatever the term is, it's that thing.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Surely someone out there listening has heard this term or
seen it. We would love to hear from you what
that is. I'd love to learn that. Uh, last thing
on the Atlanta TIP. Hey, get, get it. Uh, um, um,
There is another wings place. We're not going to gatekeep it.
We will make it a bit of a riddle for you, though,
if you happen to be in the city. It's a
(26:11):
place that you can find in the eastern area, and
it involves chairs. Hopefully you can find it. You can
find some Carolina Reaper wings there that are smoked.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
The smoking is the key.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's right. Smoking is the key. That's what I say.
Let's share one more message here. From Luke this time. Guys,
this is a response to the elephants episode that you
did that I was not a part of. And I
don't think you talked about this story, but I want
to double check. Okay, Ben, do you know this message yet?
Speaker 4 (26:48):
I believe I do, Matt. We did not talk about
this specific instance on stuff they don't want you to know.
We may have talked about it a few years back
on Ridiculous History, but it's a hell of a story.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Oh, and hey, guys, before we jump into this, you
may want to skip forward a ways if you have
an aversion to any type of harm to animals. I mean,
we all have that a little bit, right? But some
of us are a little more sensitive to that maybe.
And if you have that, don't listen to this message
or this next part. It does involve elephants just like
(27:20):
that episode that we're referencing did. Okay, well, let's see.
Let's find out. First, we got to hear from Luke.
Here it goes. Tennessee, you might know a little something
about this one, too. Let's hear from Luke.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
Hey, this is Luke. I have called in before. I
am calling in response to the podcast you guys did
about the elephants and the horrible way they've been treated
in elephant shows. So I'm from northeast Tennessee, and there
is a local story about murderous Mary in 1916. She
(27:53):
killed a handler that had mistreated her, and the solution
to get rid of Mary was to hang her. and
then literally take her over to the neighboring town of Irwin, Tennessee,
put her on a big derrick that I think lifted
stuff for railroads, and hang her. If you're interested in
(28:13):
looking at the story, it is horrible, and so you
might need to take that into account. But it turns out,
from further investigation, she might have had a sore tooth.
They had gotten somebody that was very untrained. He was
a local clerk or janitor at a hotel. And he
poked her in the jaw, and she had an infected tooth.
(28:36):
And she slung him off her back and most likely
killed him for that.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
Anyway.
Speaker 8 (28:44):
Murderous Mary, it is a horrible story, but it is
right on line with what you guys just talked about.
By the way, the article that I'm looking at is
an NPR article called The Town That Hanged an Elephant
Is Now Working to Save Them. Hope that helps. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Man, guys, the way Luke said, and is now working
to save them, is so the Tennessee dialect or the phrasing,
the way he said that, to me, I just went, oh, yep.
I don't know what it is about that. It's just so, um,
that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
So yes.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So guys, have you heard of this or were you
aware of murderous Mary?
Speaker 4 (29:25):
I was, I, I was vaguely aware probably just due
to having a family in East Tennessee. Uh, so it's
one of those bits of local lore that people will discuss.
So I, I, don't know the full details until you
inspired us to look further into this, Luke. It just
(29:46):
goes back to show you how human-like elephants are. Their
intelligence is really just non-parallel.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Guys.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
really surprised we didn't mention this and Ben I think
this may be the thing you're thinking about that we
talked about on Ridiculous History but there is another instance
that is often associated with Thomas Edison of an elephant
being executed in the 1930s at Luna Park in Coney
Island in New York the elephant was electrocuted and it
(30:19):
was often characterized as being a demonstration of of direct
current in the current wars between Edison and Tesla, and
that the newspapers described the elephant Topsy, by the way,
as having been electrocuted by electricians of.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
The Edison company.
Speaker 7 (30:41):
However, at that point, it would appear that Thomas Edison
had actually sold all of his stock in the company,
and he was not associated with the Edison company anymore.
even though he was associated with, I believe, the Edison
Film Company, and there were other.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Initiatives bearing his name. But do you remember that one, Ben?
Speaker 4 (31:03):
Yeah, I remember. If we didn't do it, Stuff You
Missed in History class definitely did it. But I remember
growing up and being convinced that that was a casualty
of the current generation. of the current wars, right? But
are you saying that, are we saying that it's not true?
Speaker 7 (31:23):
Yeah, it was the Edison Film Company that created and
distributed a famous video of the event. And Thomas Edison's
name was featured in the credits. But since it was
something that was made by the Edison Film Company, he
sort of had this de facto executive producer kind of status.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
I was just so ready to hate Tommy Edison.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
A hundred percent.
Speaker 7 (31:47):
And I almost want to say that when we discussed this,
we maybe printed the myth. But it's been a long time,
and I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I fully
believe that this was some sort of publicity stunt by
the Edison Electric Company. But that appears to not be
the case, that he didn't have anything to do with it.
And the decision to euthanize Topsy the Elephant had to
(32:07):
do similarly to murderess Mary, the fact that this animal
had killed some humans.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Oh my gosh. And Mary... was in Tennessee, get this,
Mary was in a parade in Kingsport. Yes. Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Let's go to the official story here, and we are
getting it from that same NPR article. It was on
All Things Considered back in 2019. And cool enough, guys,
this whole story, the reason why it was written about
in NPR is because a group of high school students
made a podcast about some local history, and they were
there in East Tennessee in a different area. Elizabethton, I
(32:48):
think that's how you say it, Elizabethton, Tennessee. A couple
of different places around there, Kingsport, Tennessee, and then Irwin, Tennessee.
So in Kingsport back in 1916, according to this article,
according to the research that was done by these high
school students, it was a parade, the Sparks Circus. It
was parading through Kingsport, and there was somebody on top
(33:12):
of Mary, a five-ton Asian elephant, She stopped because, as
they note, she saw a pile of watermelon rinds and
just headed that way. Veered off of the course. And
on the back, there was a new person who wasn't
very trained. They refer to him as a hotel bellhop, formerly,
who is now on top of a five-ton elephant. And
(33:36):
he has a.
Large metal implement, a metal hook is what they call it,
in his hand, and he is using it to, I guess,
hit Mary into submission to do whatever Mary is supposed
to do for the person, the tiny little human riding
on her back. So he proceeds to do this, and
(33:58):
she grabs him with her trunk, throws him into a
drink stand, and then steps on his head in front
of a large crowd of people. And you can imagine
a five-ton elephant stepping on your head doesn't go well
for the old noggin. So that person was dead. And
then the town, the entire town, was in an uproar.
(34:19):
They wanted to figure out what to do. They were
angry at the elephant because, you know, you can't kill
people even if they are horrifically hitting you in the
face with a metal hook, I guess. Although, and that's debatable.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Well, anyway, the people of the town there in Kingsport decided, hey,
we need to get rid of this elephant. How are
we going to do it? They thought of Erwin because
they had this 100-ton Derrick car with a crane, and
they decided to hang that elephant, which to me is just...
That's insane, you guys, to have that thought even.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Oh, one of the main reasons they had that thought,
when the initial thing went down and Mary... attacked and
killed the person riding on her. There was at least
one person that reportedly used their firearm to attempt to
shoot Mary, but the, I guess, weapon and the ammunition
within that weapon was unable to pierce the skin of Mary,
and it was ineffective. So I'm imagining there was a,
(35:23):
oh God, a brainstorming moment of how to do it.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
It's just awful.
Speaker 7 (35:30):
By the way, Topsy the elephant that I was mentioning
earlier was euthanized because of striking back against circus abusers,
let's call it.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, so very similar.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
I remember the photograph that was supposedly of the actual
elephant hanging there in Tennessee. Is that photograph authentic?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Oh, it's courtesy of the archives of Appalachia East Tennessee
State University. I mean, it's cited here. It's on that
NPR article. It's very small. It's allegedly from 1916 of
the crane and the elephant in Irwin, Tennessee. It's sad
to look at because of the quality of the photo.
(36:19):
It almost looks like an illustration more than a photograph. Yeah,
it's a... caution you not to look at that and
even oh god we should probably caution people if you
have an aversion to any kind of harm to animals
be very careful about reading this article and especially looking
at that image one of the i don't know lights
at the end of this tunnel is that for a
(36:42):
long time erwin tennessee carried the stink of a town
that hanged an elephant if that makes sense. It was
known as the town, literally, that hanged an elephant, just
as the title of this NPR article suggests. One kind
of cool thing about the town of Irwin is that
after 100 years, on the 100th year anniversary, they began
(37:05):
a new ritual where they pay artists to create fiberglass elephants,
large fiberglass elephants, and then they put them all over
town to celebrate elephants, as an amazing creature and all
the cool things that they are and do. Again, I
guess it's kind of a PR thing to get away
(37:27):
from the we hanged an elephant stink, but it is
a really nice thing because they end up raising quite
a bit of money for a local place. It's somewhere
in Tennessee. It's like six hours away from Irwin, but
it is a sanctuary for elephants. Pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Highly recommend you read the article if you can and
you're into it. Also look up an organization called Rise Erwin,
which is mentioned in this article. I'll just read it
from their website. Rise Erwin seeks to rejuvenate, invest in, support,
and energize Erwin and Unicoi County by collaborating and advocating
for a sustainable future-focused community.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
Cool.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Very cool.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
We love to see that. Hey, so thank you so much, Luke,
and thank you, Hidalgo. We'll be right back with more
messages from you.
Speaker 7 (38:18):
And we have returned with the last segment in today's
Listener Mail episode. This one references a strange news story
that I think I just kind of touched on at
the end of a previous segment. So I just wanted
to give an opportunity to discuss this a little further,
talking about AI in First Responder.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Situations, dispatch in particular. And this one comes to us
from Shep.
Speaker 7 (38:46):
Howdy, lads, says Shep. I had an experience recently that
was referenced in either the most recent strange news or
listener mail, can't recall which, but it made me think
I should possibly relay it to y'all. I live in
a county in Portland, Oregon, or in the Portland, Oregon
metro area. And the other night I was walking my
dog pretty late in the evening and was prompted by
some strange goings on. in the neighborhood to phone my
(39:09):
local non-emergency number. Now, I'm used to getting a phone
tree sort of situation when I call this number, but
this time it was different. I'm not sure if it
was because I was calling so late or if this
is just their new go-to now, but instead of the
phone tree, I was met with a full-on conversational AI chatbot. Now,
in my mind, AI chatbots... set a low bar, but
(39:31):
this thing still banged its shins trying to cross it.
The only thing I could say it excelled at was inefficiency.
For example, the thing I was trying to report was
that two houses in my neighborhood had their garage doors open,
but there were no lights on in the houses, and
it seemed like no one was home at either place.
I just thought, hey, I feel like someone should know
about this. In the case of Prowlers, Home Invaders, which
(39:53):
my area has been having a bit of a problem
with recently. The first question the chatbot asked me was,
about how many people would you say are involved in
this incident?
Speaker 3 (40:03):
None, I said. That's kind of the whole reason I called.
Speaker 7 (40:06):
I know it was a non-emergency line I called, but
with the shortage slash high turnover of 911 dispatchers, I
really hope this doesn't become a common enough practice that
we start investigating employing chatbots for that stuff as well.
Have any of y'all experienced anything like this? Here's hoping not, LOL.
Obligatory love the show and hope y'all are well. Also,
(40:27):
thanks for a few years ago advanced reader copy of
the book. I still whip it out when I feel
like being the most fun one in my friend group chat.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Fun at parties.
Speaker 8 (40:37):
Shep.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Love it, Shep. Thank you so much.
Speaker 7 (40:40):
Didn't know that Portland was doing this, but this is
a non-emergency event. So probably slightly different news story than
the one about New Orleans. 911 operations in New Orleans
Parish use AI to assist operators. This story is from
Loyola Maroon, the Loyola Maroon, which I think is a
(41:03):
college newspaper by Angelica Pendetta. And it says the next
time you call 911 to report a car accident, you
might be connected to an AI system. used to assist
911 operators during call surges. The Orleans Parish Communications Department
has been using the assistance of AI for managing and
assisting 911 call takers for the past three years. However,
(41:25):
community members across Loyola and Orleans Parish are just now
expressing their concerns after a false publication about how the
department uses AI was released. The false publication was released
and corrected in early August, but Loyola students are still
skeptical about how the department's use of AI is appropriate.
for 911 operations. A handful of other articles about this
(41:46):
that seem to have been updated pretty recently. Let's see,
AI may answer some New Orleans 911 calls. It does
seem like the kind of click-baity version of the story
was that New Orleans has completely offloaded 911 dispatchers to
artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
This is not the case.
Speaker 7 (42:08):
Apparently, the AI system's might answer only in a limited
number of situations involving certain types of calls about things
that have already been reported, like auto crashes, for example.
The Orleans Parish Communication District handles the 911 emergency communications,
and their department heads or their PR department said the
(42:30):
AI helps manage repeat crash reports, specifically car accidents, while
keeping human call takers available for other emergencies. hearing an
automated voice after dialing 911 could make anyone pause from.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
An AP piece.
Speaker 7 (42:43):
And guys, I think, you know, we've all had to
deal with phone trees when we're anytime we have to
deal with insurance claim or, you know, dealing with a
bill or calling the power company or whatever. Like, you know,
I just always immediately say, speak.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
To a human, speak to a human.
Speaker 7 (42:59):
And it can just, even before machine learning was involved,
these things have always been pretty abysmal and just feeling
like you're just shouting into the abyss. And, you know,
given how exponentially artificial or machine learning, let's call it,
chatbots have improved, it is still kind of mind blowing
(43:20):
how bad they are for this kind of stuff. And
I think that the thing that immediately occurs to folks
is that this is a slippery slope. And then if
you start using it in this capacity before you know it,
it'll be that same attitude. that it just seems a
lot of folks rolling out this technology have. Let's just
shove it anywhere it could possibly fit, even if it
(43:41):
doesn't belong there. And then it could potentially yield some
pretty nasty results when it comes to the ability to
efficiently report emergencies. Or, you know, if there's a shortage
in 911 dispatchers, as there certainly are, that this would
be looked at as not only a way to mitigate that,
but to kind of replace these individuals. So guys, what
(44:04):
do you think about this in terms of like integration
of chatbots into emergency situations? No.
Speaker 8 (44:13):
Done.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
That's, that's my only real thought.
Speaker 7 (44:17):
No, man.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
I mean, I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
If I'm in an emergency situation, I want a human
being that can understand that I am stressed out, a
human being that can understand I'm, you know, Maybe not
even speaking correctly, but I'm attempting to get across something.
Someone who has perhaps been in this situation before with
an exasperated, terrified human being. And I want that person
(44:43):
to use all those skills and that wisdom they've accrued
to figure out what needs to happen. I really, really
don't want to have to explain it over and over
in a way that, you know, in prompts that are
curated so that a machine can understand.
Speaker 7 (44:58):
Well, guys, Ben, I'm really looking forward to hearing your
thoughts on this. I think I have an inkling of
where you're going to go. But I did just find
that this is not only being used, the main story,
it seems, because of some of that clickbaity reporting around
the New Orleans situation. This is not only being used
in New Orleans. In fact, it's being used, or something
very similar, in our home state of Georgia, something called RapidSOS,
(45:21):
which is an AI-powered emergency communications platform that's now being
used by several emergency communications center in georgia including right
here in atlanta fulton county cobb county and forsyth county
and this according to cbs news the goal is straightforward
it says reduce response times and give dispatchers more information
(45:42):
during the critical first moments of an emergency rapid sos
integrates directly with smartphones and other connected devices providing precise
location data to 911 operators almost instantly.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Interesting. This is more slippery slope type stuff. Ben, I
yield the floor.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
Yeah, well, I don't think anybody should die yelling operator
over and over again. And this also, thanks for the
shout out regarding the book. We're so glad you enjoy it.
We have to point out, like Noel said, Some of
this gets a little bit clickbaity, but we do know
(46:21):
other places are using a lot of these virtual assistants.
I'm thinking of Denver in particular. They have a tool
called CityBot, but it's not for emergency services. It's for,
you know, what happens to the trash? Can I get
a permit? Somebody fix this pothole. It's just, to your point, Matt,
I think we can all agree the technology is not
(46:44):
there yet. right, to understand nuance, to have that ability
to establish rapport, or even to parse what a panicked
person is saying, right, when they're trying to recite an address,
the pattern recognition or the vocal recognition of a lot
of these AI assistants, it just, it isn't there. And,
(47:05):
you know, to that point, guys, I don't know the
best way to get that technology up to snuff or
where it needs to be because that could possibly involve
endangering human lives.
Speaker 7 (47:19):
Well, being devil's advocate about this, I am seeing some
details that I do find interesting a little further down
in the CBS piece. The idea of these types of
systems being able to offer translation opportunities, that does seem
like that could be useful, though it seems like it
would be more something that would be a tool that
(47:41):
a human dispatcher might have access to rather than having
it replace the human. Again, I'm all about these things
as tools and having human oversight and the ability to
leverage these things for positive results. But it just seems
like there's such a holistic view of all or nothing
view of this AI stuff that is just so seemingly
(48:04):
missing the point kind of. And this kind of seems
like that. But I do think there are ways that
this kind of stuff, some of the ways that it
can integrate with first responders and EMTs, for example, and
things like that and pinpointing locations, the ability to text
instead of speak if someone was, say, in a dangerous
(48:24):
situation where they couldn't speak. But again, these just seem
like ways, the tools that can be integrated into a
human-backed dispatch system rather than replacing them.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Can I speak to Shep for just a second here, guys?
I want to speak to Shep's situation that he found
himself in. Because just like Shep, we all, say it
with me, get in... Situations? You bet. Sometimes that situation
is you find yourself standing amongst a pile of giant
(48:58):
white skulls playing MF Doom's supervillain theme. Sometimes that's what happens.
Other times you... Other times you leave your garage door
open at night and your neighbor texts to make sure
you're good. And further, sometimes you notice your neighbor's garage
door is open at 2 a.m. when your dog decides
it's time to go outside. And so you do a
little ocular pat down, then you text them. in the
(49:20):
morning to make sure they're good. Really, the only answer
to this situation and these situations is to get to
know your neighbors, to share things with each other, to
help each other out, you know, become neighbors. That is
a huge thing to do because each one makes each
(49:40):
of us become stronger.
Speaker 8 (49:41):
Right?
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Right? This is the way. Let's do this. Shep, get
to know those neighbors so that the next time the
garage door is open, just shoot them a text and
make sure all is good.
Speaker 5 (49:53):
Perfect.
Speaker 7 (49:53):
No, it's a good point, Matt, and it's something that's
kind of easy to overlook is that, you know, just the...
exponential rollout of this kind of technology is just another
way of kind of further dividing people from each other
and from, you know, normal ways of finding community in
the interest of what is supposedly some sort of like
futuristic solution that's going to improve our lives. But it
(50:17):
actually just kind of pushes us further and further apart.
I mean, we've talked about it. I mean, this AI
stuff and these chatbots is really just an escalation of
the kind of stuff that Facebook is only just now
paying billions of dollars for doing.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
You know, to children and people.
Speaker 7 (50:32):
I mean, I wonder when the lawsuits are going to
come down around chatbot psychosis and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Is that going to take another 25 years? And will
it have been worth it?
Speaker 2 (50:44):
I mean, yeah, when we're all just hooked up to
a machine and we don't go outside anymore. And yeah,
it'll be great.
Speaker 7 (50:50):
Well, guys, I think this is a good place to
end it and end today's Listener Mail episode.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
And thank you, as always, to everybody who has written in,
everybody who has given us a phone call or found
us on the internet. Big thanks to Josh Sri Ram,
Unexpected Rebel, Hilago, Luke, and, of course, Shep. And again,
one of the most important things about this show is you,
(51:15):
our fellow audience members. We love spending time with you
on Listener Mail. We love when you inspire actual episodes
in the future. So don't hesitate. Reach out and find us.
There are a number of ways to get in contact.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
There sure are.
Speaker 7 (51:29):
You can find us at The Handel's Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show on the internet, social media platform of choice.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
You know the drill.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Guys, I forgot to say, the reason I knew about
Coyote vs. Acme is through Rob Schraub, who we met
when we were on Harmontown.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
That's the whole reason I even knew about the thing.
So shout out. Amazing director and creator of things. We
have a phone number. It is 1-833-STD-WYTK. If you call it,
you'll leave a voicemail if you stay on the phone
for a while. You got three minutes. Give yourself a
cool nickname and let us know if we can use
your name and message on one of these listener mail episodes.
(52:08):
If you'd like to send us an email, we are.
Speaker 4 (52:11):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive.
Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Tell us your favorite creepy book you've been reading as
we get into the best season of all, Halloween season.
For instance, I've got a thing about yokai right here.
It's going to be a heck of a rabbit hole.
(52:31):
We'll update later. We'll see you in the dark. Conspiracy
at iHeartRadio.com.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
My name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined, as always, with our
super producer, Dylan, the Tennessee pal, Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the Stuff
They Don't Want You To Know. It is our weekly
listener mail program. So if you are tuning in the
evening this publishes, let us welcome you to Thursday, September 3rd. Guys,
(00:51):
I've got some sad news that we forgot to report earlier.
Speaker 5 (00:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Remember how we were so bullish on Count Benface running
for office?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, Benface.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
Yeah, with the trash can head. He did not win.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Son of a gun.
Speaker 5 (01:09):
I know. I know.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
But he did get 26.9% of the vote.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
What?
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (01:15):
Well, that's something.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Jeez Louise, bury the lead. That's incredible.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Maybe he will run in the future. I don't know.
We'd love to hear from you in person.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
I think he should just start his own country. You know, Bentopia. Bensville.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Benvania, maybe? Benvania.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
He has a count, after all.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Oh, that's right. That's right.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Bensilvania.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Hey, guys, I have a tiny bit of news to
share as well.
Speaker 5 (01:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
The whole family just got back last night from a
showing of Coyote vs. Acme, and I just want to
encourage every single human being on the planet to go
and see that movie.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
I'm hearing wonderful things about it.
Speaker 6 (01:58):
I saw it yesterday, too.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Will Forte. That's all you got to say. Will Forte.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Plus cartoon characters running around like it's some kind of
movie from the 90s. It's incredible. You feel for the Coyote.
Speaker 4 (02:12):
There was right. Empathy is key. And also, uh, if
you want to have some fun with cartoon lore, uh,
you can find this floating around the internet. Now folks,
the creator of Wiley coyote and the road runner had
a printed list of guidelines for how the road runner
and Wiley interact. And it's, it's pretty illuminating if you
(02:34):
like a rabbit hole.
Speaker 7 (02:35):
Well, and maybe something worth mentioning in terms of conspiracies, uh,
You know, that film was like basically shelved. It was
completed and then it was shelved. And from everything that
I'm seeing as far as the reviews and the box
office take, no one fully understands why.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Right.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Discovery Communications bought it, right?
Speaker 3 (02:56):
They just thought it was a dud. I just don't understand. Like,
it's an odd one.
Speaker 7 (03:00):
Maybe because the Space Jam sequel did so poorly and
they were. likening it to that or something, or there
haven't been very many good animated live action crossovers. It
seems like maybe, yeah, that might be it.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
And people don't like taking risk. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
It made 15 million over the weekend, right? It's opening weekend.
15 million is not bad, but look at what Spider-Man
has been doing. It's insane. What some of these big
movies will do that have that mass appeal. It's, it's,
Fascinating to think that this Looney Tunes picture wouldn't have
(03:36):
mass appeal, but it definitely doesn't in the same way.
I don't know. It's a calculation, a tax write-off. But
the big reason to go see this movie is because
the entire movie is about a conspiracy. Which is, I'm
telling you, if you like this show, you're going to
love the movie. They're not paying us.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
And we can't wait to we can't wait to hear
your opinion about the newest adventures of Wile E. Coyote.
Speaking of fortes, folks, we always love to start listener
mail with a forte of our own Tennessee pal, the rutabagas.
Speaker 6 (04:16):
Chickpeas for dinner again.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
Oh, man.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Why can't we ever have any cool food, dad? Kids
not digging your meals? Tired of scraping chickpeas in the
trash for a third night in a row? Get kids
what they really want.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Rutabagels!
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Whoa, rutabagels! You're the coolest, Dad!
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Rutabagels are good at any time of day. Rutabagels with
egg for breakfast, turkey rutabagels for lunch, and pepperoni rutabagels
for dinner.
Speaker 5 (04:43):
Yay!
Speaker 6 (04:45):
Rutabagels are enriched with our proprietary, and definitely FDA-approved, don't
worry about it, blend of vitamins and minerals. Giving your
kid the energy to knock out their essays, hit home runs,
and defeat the evil Commander Hackington and Billy Vega. The
official video game of.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Rude Bagels!
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Hey kids, it's Billy.
Speaker 6 (05:03):
If you really love me, you'll have your parents buy
Rude Bagels.
Speaker 3 (05:08):
Dad, Billy's love is on the line.
Speaker 6 (05:10):
I want Rude Bagels. You've got it, son. I'm going
to the store right now.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Rude Bagels.
Speaker 6 (05:17):
They're much better than chickpeas.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Oh, shots fired.
Speaker 7 (05:22):
Now we've got a nemesis in the rutabaga universe.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
I love that. I love Dylan, the deep emotional angst
as we're shouting rutabagals there. There's something that makes me think,
especially on that second yell. that our narrator is falling
to his knees and shouting toward the sky.
Speaker 6 (05:41):
In the rain.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (05:43):
With the camera pulling up, like, you know, Busby Berkeley style. Dylan,
I got to just give you props for adding, continuously
expanding and adding so much emotional depth to the Begaverse.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Oh, thank you. And disclaimer, I eat chickpeas like three
or four times a day.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I mean, not day. Week.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
No, it's too late. It's on record. This is going
in the congressional library.
Speaker 7 (06:06):
This is going in the congressional library.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
Dude, it's tough to beat hummus, right? I mean, just
as a food thing, a food substance.
Speaker 5 (06:17):
It's good.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
It sticks to your ribs. Could you make a rutabaga hummus?
I just don't think it's that kind of, it's just
not that kind of creature. It wouldn't hummusify.
Speaker 5 (06:25):
It would.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
I bet it would work. If you roasted them up enough, yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
You know what? If you roasted them up enough, it'd
be a little bit more like a mash. No, you
know what? You might be able to do it. We
should try it.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Speaker 4 (06:40):
And we are going to have a quick break for
a word from our sponsors. We're going to dive into
some messages from you. And we have returned. Our first
piece of listener mail comes to us from an expectant
(07:00):
rebel over in the wild world of social media. This
is something that hits a returning character in our show
in a way that was new to me and I
think maybe new to all of us. Guys, we remember DARPA, right?
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Rings a bell.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
It does. It does ring a bell for our longtime listeners,
the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Irma Gerd Darpa?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Right. Darpa from earlier, right, is known as kind of
the mad science wing of the United States military. And
there was something going around Instagram that Expectant Rebel hit
us to, and it's the following. Darpa just put this
in writing, the potential for selective augmentation. Now look at
what the program is designed to do. DARPA's SHINE program
(07:52):
aims to develop technology that can precisely and non-invasively target
specific neural circuits and enhance the brain's ability to adapt
and rewire itself. Their description goes even further. Selective remodeling
of brain circuits. Selective augmentation. Those aren't my words, says
(08:13):
expected rebel. They're DARPA's.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Remodeling?
Speaker 4 (08:18):
This is wild. Yeah, and you continue there, Expected Rebel.
You say, this isn't some decades-old declassified experiment or leaked document.
It's sitting on DARPA's own website right now. Maybe the
intended medical applications could help people suffering from neurological injuries
and disorders, but the capability they're describing raises a much
(08:40):
bigger question. If technology can selectively enhance and remodel specific
brain circuits without invasive procedures, where does this technology eventually lead?
Pretty crazy stuff, you guys. And thank you, expectant rebel.
Of course, we went to the source. We went straight
(09:01):
to DARPA to figure out what's going on, make sure
this isn't just internet ephemera or misinformation. And you guys,
it is totally real. Not only is it real, SHINE
is an acronym, we love an acronym, Selective Harnessing of
Intrinsic Neuroplasticity Engineering.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Is this not life extension type tech?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
This, I mean, this could be quality of life improvements, yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
It says, in the end, it's about more complete recovery
after an injury, and I'm reading that on the DARPA.mil site.
Speaker 7 (09:38):
Yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
You could also see this falling under. So they're describing
shine as what they call a disruption opportunity. And they
are pointing out, you know, medications and behavioral interventions already exist.
Things called neuromodulation, for instance, that, quote, activate. large areas
(10:00):
of the brain instead of just specific circuits in need
of repair. So what they're trying to figure out how
to do is to sort of miniaturize their treatments and
scope in on very specific parts of your brain. So
hopefully it will help people recover from diseases or injuries
in a more complete way. While we're on the DARPA website,
(10:23):
you guys, we learned a new word, and this is
also DARPA.mil. I've never heard this phrase before. They call
it disruption-eering. Engineering, disruption, portmanteau.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Wait, there's a link for that, Ben.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
Yes, yes, yes. This is, Very strange. They're describing disruption
opportunities as something that enables DARPA to investigate the potential
of high-risk science and to do so quickly. So if
you publish a paper that they like, you get an
(11:00):
award in no more than 120 days. They call it high-risk,
high-payoff research in support of national security and technological surprise.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Oh, jeez.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
Right? I'm not sure where this should go. I mean,
they have to do this research, right?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Like, it has to happen.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
It's the endless, yeah, it's the endless pursuit of needing
to literally surprise your enemy on a battlefield situation. Like, whoops, hey,
we got this thing, it's called the discombobulator. Hey, you
didn't know it before now, but you know about it now.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Right, right. Let's see you try to get combobulated again.
This comes to us under the auspice of DARPA's Defense
Sciences Office. Their focus is to, well, this is weird.
They call them thrust areas, which also, there's so many
strange terms here.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Is that like areas of opportunity?
Speaker 4 (12:00):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
It's places, it's, it's, Places where the military-industrial complex can
really jam in there and work real hard.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Just work as hard as you can.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
Just work up a sweat, right? Get a nice pump. Yeah,
the thrust areas are materials, manufacturing, energy systems, then sensing, measuring,
and affecting, very vague, math, computation, and processing systems. And
then complex, dynamic, and intelligent systems. So that last one
(12:34):
is clearly AI. That's, I think, the easiest one to understand.
But you didn't have to call them thrust areas. And disruption-earing,
as much as we love a Seussian phrase, it's a
little too cutesy, right? Sorry, guys.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Thrust areas just really makes me think of being, you know, taken.
Speaker 8 (12:58):
Blind, unawares.
Speaker 4 (13:04):
Look, so we can verify, Rebel, that this is a
true story. We can also verify that it looks like
this is not smoke and mirror research that's going on.
And it could really help people who are recovering from
traumatic brain injuries. So not just the fighting forces, but
(13:24):
also boxers, right? Or people who play football. This is...
is going to be more and more important because we
have seen rising rates of traumatic brain injury in the U.S. military,
especially recently. So I guess to walk it out, though,
the concern is where this technology could go, right? Now
(13:48):
we're targeting people to help recover from an injury, but
what if you could target the part of the brain
associated with language learning?
Speaker 5 (13:57):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
What if we could make something like the Matrix real
where you download knowledge?
Speaker 3 (14:03):
Accelerate.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah. I mean, look, I'm not trying.
Speaker 7 (14:07):
To poo poo the idea of helping folks with traumatic
brain injuries or increasing the ability to recover efficiently and quickly.
It just I'm just inherently suspicious of these to your point, Ben,
like of what this is actually for. And I just
my brain always goes to like super soldier. That is
kind of where it has agreed.
Speaker 8 (14:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
I mean, DARPA doesn't exist as a pure science for
the fun of it thing. You know what I mean?
They don't have a lot of research into how to
make people happier. Right.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
Can we just encourage people once again? Head on over
to DARPA.mil and then just click on Programs. We made
a couple of episodes in the past where we literally
just did that and then looked at different programs and
described some of the out there concepts that are being
explored in both research science, applied science, all kinds of
(15:06):
different things where the military, industrial complex, and DARPA exist.
are wanting to throw millions and millions of dollars at
anybody that can innovate in any one of the, I'm just,
you scroll through and you just click show more and
you keep clicking show more and there's so many programs.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
There are so many and the rate of attrition is
known to be high. That's what they mean by high risk,
high reward. So for DARPA, it's not a bad day
if nine of these things fail because the 10th one
could be a game changer. We didn't even get to
the weirdest part about shine. We need a few more
details here. We said non-invasive methods, right? And we kind
(15:48):
of glided over that. They're talking about light and sound therapy.
They're also talking about biosynthetic psychedelics. So this is, so
this is, this is potentially giving people different mind altering
substances in conjunction with the other treatment regiments. And we
(16:13):
know that, you know, we know that the relatively conservative
bent of U S culture has, has really stymied psychedelic
research in the past, but we also know there's a
wealth of hard evidence that under the right circumstances, some
of these substances are, can make a meaningful difference in
(16:35):
people's lives. Like we have several friends of the show
who undergo ketamine therapy, and they're not doing it for fun.
They're doing it under medical supervision.
Speaker 6 (16:44):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Ben, I'm coming in with a non sequitur. I just
sent you something on chat that relates back to an
episode we recently recorded.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
Just look at this dude.
Speaker 4 (16:56):
All right. We are on deep thoughts. Tell us about it.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
From Jack Handy. No, from DARPA. Deep Thoughts is a
program that seeks to develop a new generation of small
autonomous undersea vehicles to meet the challenges and opportunities of
this domain. Our vision is to develop AUVs that are
independent of long lead and architecturally constraining components, quick to design, produce, integrate,
(17:23):
and test, reducing timelines from years to months or even weeks,
easily deployable from a wide variety of host platforms. Ben,
it seems like they want to design... like the type
of drones that we see being utilized in warfare now,
but for the sea, or exploration, or monitoring.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
Mass-produced baby water drones, right? That is probably going to work.
We know that all of these, well, a lot of
the science here is concerning to us for years because
it introduces dual-use technology, right? Just like nuclear refinement can
(18:02):
lead to weapons as well as pretty awesome power sources,
the ethical concerns about stuff like Shine is the potential
for mind control. If you can target and rewrite neural circuits,
could you not weaponize them to change somebody's behavior, the
way their emotions process, or even their thoughts? We are
(18:24):
closer now, depending on how this works out, than ever
before to something like a true Manchurian candidate.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
And Manchurian candidate that could go underwater autonomously.
Speaker 4 (18:38):
Yes.
Speaker 7 (18:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
And then also one that, um, you, one that could
have its memory wiped. So the person doesn't realize what
happened to them until they, you know, they hear the,
the code phrase gray Malkin corduroy or something. We went
too far. Well, uh, we've got some other stuff to
(18:59):
get to. We'd love to hear your thoughts about the craziest,
actual mad science that's happening out there. Thank you again
to Expectant Rebel. We had another piece of correspondence that
we'll probably save for a later date from our friend
Jai Sri Ram. Look up SmartDust. It's a heck of
a ride. We'll be right back with more messages from you.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
And we've returned. Ben, I can't get off of this
dang website.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
I know.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
I'm still... DARPA.mil?
Speaker 5 (19:34):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Dude, DARPA.mil. Everybody needs to go there because every one
of these programs has a program manager. And if you
click on their name, you can get information on that
program manager and maybe you could contact them. Oh, wait,
on every one of these, there's a contact thing you can...
just put your full name, your email, your phone number,
your birth date.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Do you think you really want to do that?
Speaker 4 (19:55):
Social security number, your specific phobias.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
Guys, do you think we could get a.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Mil URL?
Speaker 3 (20:02):
What does it take?
Speaker 8 (20:02):
For us?
Speaker 3 (20:03):
I don't know. You know what?
Speaker 4 (20:05):
We'd have to have a good pitch for real. We
could probably pay somebody right now. But a big shout
out to Robin Bonomi over at Shine.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Heck yeah. Also, Mark Salvador over there at the EXVI,
which is a way to use existing unmodified vegetation as
a sensor to identify activities of Department of War interest.
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Cool.
Speaker 5 (20:32):
Okay.
Speaker 8 (20:32):
You're good.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
You're going to use plants to sense things that are
happening with response to man-made chemical exposure? Okay. I really
want to know what that's about. Guys, what if we
could use the plants to figure out when the trucks
are rolling through?
Speaker 8 (20:48):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Check out our episode on whether plants can think it
is a wild ride.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Hey, well, here's one. Let's find out whether human beings
that listen to this show might actually take a little
trip to our fair city and then call us about it.
Because one, one of you did. Your name is Hidalgo.
Here's your message.
Speaker 5 (21:10):
Hey guys, this is Hidalgo. I just want to call
and thank you for gatekeeping your local hangouts and talking
about how great they are. Last week I was in
your fair city there of Atlanta hanging out on a
Beech Tree area, my company's Atlanta office with some interns
(21:33):
that we came down for a conference. And our last
night there, I hit up the local and enjoyed some
wings and a couple of pictures of Guinness. Any place
I can get a picture of Guinness is just delightful
for me. I also hit up the Trap Music Museum there.
(21:56):
other side of the tent. Well, I don't really know.
I stayed in a little bubble, but really enjoyed the local.
Glad that you guys talked about it. And I was like, hey,
I'm only like two miles away. I should go and
grab something to eat. And I drug some kids with
me and then had to make sure that they were
able to stumble back to the hotel. So, hey, guys,
thank you very much. Have a great day.
Speaker 8 (22:16):
And this was Sadonga.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
The local.
Speaker 3 (22:19):
Gosh, yes.
Speaker 7 (22:21):
It's a local gem. And really, really, truly, I think
we stand by this. uh, best wings in town in
a wing city.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
Yeah. Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
And we did receive a message been a little while
ago from somebody who found local wings that we're not
going to tell you about. I think, right. We're not
going to mention that new place that we got onto
because we were going to gatekeep that one.
Speaker 3 (22:41):
Are you gatekeeping it from me, Matt? Cause I don't
know what the hell you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
It's in listener mail, baby. It's in there. We got,
we got a little secret.
Speaker 4 (22:50):
Secret spots. The wing conspiracy continues in magic city.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
No.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (22:57):
We do have to say, of course, yeah, we personally,
as Noel was saying, we personally vouch for the wings
at the local. The spot has been arguably blown up
a little bit by social media influencers, but tell them
we sent you so that they yell at us about
it the next time we go by.
Speaker 7 (23:19):
Guys, speaking of Atlanta stuff, just while we're on the subject,
Did you see that there was a stabbing that took
place on the Beltline last week?
Speaker 4 (23:28):
I did.
Speaker 7 (23:29):
The Beltline is kind of this beloved, you know, walking, biking,
sort of, you know, I don't know, very happening area.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And there's multiple stretches of it.
Speaker 7 (23:39):
It's old repurposed rail lines that have kind of become
this really incredible feature of the city. There's the east
side one, the west side one, and they're eventually supposed
to connect them all together. But the one near where
we used to work, a place called Ponce City Market,
which is right off the Beltline. You can get to
it from there. Good shopping, good restaurants. A little over
(23:59):
the overpriced side, but there's some good stuff in there.
As well as the local, the east side, I.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
Believe, trail.
Speaker 7 (24:05):
There was an incident that took place where someone was
stabbed and police apprehended a suspect. And I haven't followed
up on it, but I do know. So I bike
there all the time. Never seen a police officer there.
As far as long as I've been going and now
I would not say that it has like a police presence,
but I do see some cops on bicycles. And I'm
(24:28):
actually happy to see that because, frankly, there are folks
that are dangerously riding e-bikes and these lime scooters and
all that stuff and can be kind of a menace.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
So it is nice to see folks.
Speaker 7 (24:40):
At least sort of keeping the peace in doing what
police officers kind of should do.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Dude, old man Grandpa Frederick here saw a term that
I'd never seen before, and I can't remember it now,
but it's when somebody on like a scooter or an
e-bike kind of menaces a pedestrian, does it really quickly,
like all of a sudden out of nowhere, and tries
to flex on somebody to scare them, and then they
just keep going. It's like a trend or something.
Speaker 7 (25:08):
So I was biking there yesterday and last night actually,
And as I was coming through this place area called
the Crog Street Tunnel, a gang of young, I say
gang and a group of them connected, you know, they
were all riding together on scooters and maybe even some like,
you know, dirt bikes came up behind me super aggressively
(25:30):
and started screaming at.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Me, move. get out the way.
Speaker 7 (25:34):
I was like, the old man yelling at clouds in
me wanted to retaliate and yell at them. But then
I realized there were quite a lot of them and
it was just me and they could have beat the
crap out of me. So maybe that's what you're talking about.
That maybe that's a, whatever the term is, it's that thing.
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
Surely someone out there listening has heard this term or
seen it. We would love to hear from you what
that is. I'd love to learn that. Uh, last thing
on the Atlanta TIP. Hey, get, get it. Uh, um, um,
There is another wings place. We're not going to gatekeep it.
We will make it a bit of a riddle for you, though,
if you happen to be in the city. It's a
(26:11):
place that you can find in the eastern area, and
it involves chairs. Hopefully you can find it. You can
find some Carolina Reaper wings there that are smoked.
Speaker 4 (26:24):
The smoking is the key.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
That's right. Smoking is the key. That's what I say.
Let's share one more message here. From Luke this time. Guys,
this is a response to the elephants episode that you
did that I was not a part of. And I
don't think you talked about this story, but I want
to double check. Okay, Ben, do you know this message yet?
Speaker 4 (26:48):
I believe I do, Matt. We did not talk about
this specific instance on stuff they don't want you to know.
We may have talked about it a few years back
on Ridiculous History, but it's a hell of a story.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Oh, and hey, guys, before we jump into this, you
may want to skip forward a ways if you have
an aversion to any type of harm to animals. I mean,
we all have that a little bit, right? But some
of us are a little more sensitive to that maybe.
And if you have that, don't listen to this message
or this next part. It does involve elephants just like
(27:20):
that episode that we're referencing did. Okay, well, let's see.
Let's find out. First, we got to hear from Luke.
Here it goes. Tennessee, you might know a little something
about this one, too. Let's hear from Luke.
Speaker 8 (27:31):
Hey, this is Luke. I have called in before. I
am calling in response to the podcast you guys did
about the elephants and the horrible way they've been treated
in elephant shows. So I'm from northeast Tennessee, and there
is a local story about murderous Mary in 1916. She
(27:53):
killed a handler that had mistreated her, and the solution
to get rid of Mary was to hang her. and
then literally take her over to the neighboring town of Irwin, Tennessee,
put her on a big derrick that I think lifted
stuff for railroads, and hang her. If you're interested in
(28:13):
looking at the story, it is horrible, and so you
might need to take that into account. But it turns out,
from further investigation, she might have had a sore tooth.
They had gotten somebody that was very untrained. He was
a local clerk or janitor at a hotel. And he
poked her in the jaw, and she had an infected tooth.
(28:36):
And she slung him off her back and most likely
killed him for that.
Speaker 5 (28:42):
Anyway.
Speaker 8 (28:44):
Murderous Mary, it is a horrible story, but it is
right on line with what you guys just talked about.
By the way, the article that I'm looking at is
an NPR article called The Town That Hanged an Elephant
Is Now Working to Save Them. Hope that helps. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Man, guys, the way Luke said, and is now working
to save them, is so the Tennessee dialect or the phrasing,
the way he said that, to me, I just went, oh, yep.
I don't know what it is about that. It's just so, um,
that's the thing.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
So yes.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
So guys, have you heard of this or were you
aware of murderous Mary?
Speaker 4 (29:25):
I was, I, I was vaguely aware probably just due
to having a family in East Tennessee. Uh, so it's
one of those bits of local lore that people will discuss.
So I, I, don't know the full details until you
inspired us to look further into this, Luke. It just
(29:46):
goes back to show you how human-like elephants are. Their
intelligence is really just non-parallel.
Speaker 5 (29:56):
Guys.
Speaker 7 (29:57):
really surprised we didn't mention this and Ben I think
this may be the thing you're thinking about that we
talked about on Ridiculous History but there is another instance
that is often associated with Thomas Edison of an elephant
being executed in the 1930s at Luna Park in Coney
Island in New York the elephant was electrocuted and it
(30:19):
was often characterized as being a demonstration of of direct
current in the current wars between Edison and Tesla, and
that the newspapers described the elephant Topsy, by the way,
as having been electrocuted by electricians of.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
The Edison company.
Speaker 7 (30:41):
However, at that point, it would appear that Thomas Edison
had actually sold all of his stock in the company,
and he was not associated with the Edison company anymore.
even though he was associated with, I believe, the Edison
Film Company, and there were other.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Initiatives bearing his name. But do you remember that one, Ben?
Speaker 4 (31:03):
Yeah, I remember. If we didn't do it, Stuff You
Missed in History class definitely did it. But I remember
growing up and being convinced that that was a casualty
of the current generation. of the current wars, right? But
are you saying that, are we saying that it's not true?
Speaker 7 (31:23):
Yeah, it was the Edison Film Company that created and
distributed a famous video of the event. And Thomas Edison's
name was featured in the credits. But since it was
something that was made by the Edison Film Company, he
sort of had this de facto executive producer kind of status.
Speaker 4 (31:43):
I was just so ready to hate Tommy Edison.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
A hundred percent.
Speaker 7 (31:47):
And I almost want to say that when we discussed this,
we maybe printed the myth. But it's been a long time,
and I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I fully
believe that this was some sort of publicity stunt by
the Edison Electric Company. But that appears to not be
the case, that he didn't have anything to do with it.
And the decision to euthanize Topsy the Elephant had to
(32:07):
do similarly to murderess Mary, the fact that this animal
had killed some humans.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
Oh my gosh. And Mary... was in Tennessee, get this,
Mary was in a parade in Kingsport. Yes. Okay.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
Let's go to the official story here, and we are
getting it from that same NPR article. It was on
All Things Considered back in 2019. And cool enough, guys,
this whole story, the reason why it was written about
in NPR is because a group of high school students
made a podcast about some local history, and they were
there in East Tennessee in a different area. Elizabethton, I
(32:48):
think that's how you say it, Elizabethton, Tennessee. A couple
of different places around there, Kingsport, Tennessee, and then Irwin, Tennessee.
So in Kingsport back in 1916, according to this article,
according to the research that was done by these high
school students, it was a parade, the Sparks Circus. It
was parading through Kingsport, and there was somebody on top
(33:12):
of Mary, a five-ton Asian elephant, She stopped because, as
they note, she saw a pile of watermelon rinds and
just headed that way. Veered off of the course. And
on the back, there was a new person who wasn't
very trained. They refer to him as a hotel bellhop, formerly,
who is now on top of a five-ton elephant. And
(33:36):
he has a.
Large metal implement, a metal hook is what they call it,
in his hand, and he is using it to, I guess,
hit Mary into submission to do whatever Mary is supposed
to do for the person, the tiny little human riding
on her back. So he proceeds to do this, and
(33:58):
she grabs him with her trunk, throws him into a
drink stand, and then steps on his head in front
of a large crowd of people. And you can imagine
a five-ton elephant stepping on your head doesn't go well
for the old noggin. So that person was dead. And
then the town, the entire town, was in an uproar.
(34:19):
They wanted to figure out what to do. They were
angry at the elephant because, you know, you can't kill
people even if they are horrifically hitting you in the
face with a metal hook, I guess. Although, and that's debatable.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Well, anyway, the people of the town there in Kingsport decided, hey,
we need to get rid of this elephant. How are
we going to do it? They thought of Erwin because
they had this 100-ton Derrick car with a crane, and
they decided to hang that elephant, which to me is just...
That's insane, you guys, to have that thought even.
Speaker 4 (34:57):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 5 (34:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Oh, one of the main reasons they had that thought,
when the initial thing went down and Mary... attacked and
killed the person riding on her. There was at least
one person that reportedly used their firearm to attempt to
shoot Mary, but the, I guess, weapon and the ammunition
within that weapon was unable to pierce the skin of Mary,
and it was ineffective. So I'm imagining there was a,
(35:23):
oh God, a brainstorming moment of how to do it.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
It's just awful.
Speaker 7 (35:30):
By the way, Topsy the elephant that I was mentioning
earlier was euthanized because of striking back against circus abusers,
let's call it.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Yeah, so very similar.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
I remember the photograph that was supposedly of the actual
elephant hanging there in Tennessee. Is that photograph authentic?
Speaker 2 (35:57):
Oh, it's courtesy of the archives of Appalachia East Tennessee
State University. I mean, it's cited here. It's on that
NPR article. It's very small. It's allegedly from 1916 of
the crane and the elephant in Irwin, Tennessee. It's sad
to look at because of the quality of the photo.
(36:19):
It almost looks like an illustration more than a photograph. Yeah,
it's a... caution you not to look at that and
even oh god we should probably caution people if you
have an aversion to any kind of harm to animals
be very careful about reading this article and especially looking
at that image one of the i don't know lights
at the end of this tunnel is that for a
(36:42):
long time erwin tennessee carried the stink of a town
that hanged an elephant if that makes sense. It was
known as the town, literally, that hanged an elephant, just
as the title of this NPR article suggests. One kind
of cool thing about the town of Irwin is that
after 100 years, on the 100th year anniversary, they began
(37:05):
a new ritual where they pay artists to create fiberglass elephants,
large fiberglass elephants, and then they put them all over
town to celebrate elephants, as an amazing creature and all
the cool things that they are and do. Again, I
guess it's kind of a PR thing to get away
(37:27):
from the we hanged an elephant stink, but it is
a really nice thing because they end up raising quite
a bit of money for a local place. It's somewhere
in Tennessee. It's like six hours away from Irwin, but
it is a sanctuary for elephants. Pretty cool.
Speaker 4 (37:43):
That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Highly recommend you read the article if you can and
you're into it. Also look up an organization called Rise Erwin,
which is mentioned in this article. I'll just read it
from their website. Rise Erwin seeks to rejuvenate, invest in, support,
and energize Erwin and Unicoi County by collaborating and advocating
for a sustainable future-focused community.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
Cool.
Speaker 4 (38:05):
Very cool.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
We love to see that. Hey, so thank you so much, Luke,
and thank you, Hidalgo. We'll be right back with more
messages from you.
Speaker 7 (38:18):
And we have returned with the last segment in today's
Listener Mail episode. This one references a strange news story
that I think I just kind of touched on at
the end of a previous segment. So I just wanted
to give an opportunity to discuss this a little further,
talking about AI in First Responder.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Situations, dispatch in particular. And this one comes to us
from Shep.
Speaker 7 (38:46):
Howdy, lads, says Shep. I had an experience recently that
was referenced in either the most recent strange news or
listener mail, can't recall which, but it made me think
I should possibly relay it to y'all. I live in
a county in Portland, Oregon, or in the Portland, Oregon
metro area. And the other night I was walking my
dog pretty late in the evening and was prompted by
some strange goings on. in the neighborhood to phone my
(39:09):
local non-emergency number. Now, I'm used to getting a phone
tree sort of situation when I call this number, but
this time it was different. I'm not sure if it
was because I was calling so late or if this
is just their new go-to now, but instead of the
phone tree, I was met with a full-on conversational AI chatbot. Now,
in my mind, AI chatbots... set a low bar, but
(39:31):
this thing still banged its shins trying to cross it.
The only thing I could say it excelled at was inefficiency.
For example, the thing I was trying to report was
that two houses in my neighborhood had their garage doors open,
but there were no lights on in the houses, and
it seemed like no one was home at either place.
I just thought, hey, I feel like someone should know
about this. In the case of Prowlers, Home Invaders, which
(39:53):
my area has been having a bit of a problem
with recently. The first question the chatbot asked me was,
about how many people would you say are involved in
this incident?
Speaker 3 (40:03):
None, I said. That's kind of the whole reason I called.
Speaker 7 (40:06):
I know it was a non-emergency line I called, but
with the shortage slash high turnover of 911 dispatchers, I
really hope this doesn't become a common enough practice that
we start investigating employing chatbots for that stuff as well.
Have any of y'all experienced anything like this? Here's hoping not, LOL.
Obligatory love the show and hope y'all are well. Also,
(40:27):
thanks for a few years ago advanced reader copy of
the book. I still whip it out when I feel
like being the most fun one in my friend group chat.
Speaker 3 (40:35):
Fun at parties.
Speaker 8 (40:37):
Shep.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Love it, Shep. Thank you so much.
Speaker 7 (40:40):
Didn't know that Portland was doing this, but this is
a non-emergency event. So probably slightly different news story than
the one about New Orleans. 911 operations in New Orleans
Parish use AI to assist operators. This story is from
Loyola Maroon, the Loyola Maroon, which I think is a
(41:03):
college newspaper by Angelica Pendetta. And it says the next
time you call 911 to report a car accident, you
might be connected to an AI system. used to assist
911 operators during call surges. The Orleans Parish Communications Department
has been using the assistance of AI for managing and
assisting 911 call takers for the past three years. However,
(41:25):
community members across Loyola and Orleans Parish are just now
expressing their concerns after a false publication about how the
department uses AI was released. The false publication was released
and corrected in early August, but Loyola students are still
skeptical about how the department's use of AI is appropriate.
for 911 operations. A handful of other articles about this
(41:46):
that seem to have been updated pretty recently. Let's see,
AI may answer some New Orleans 911 calls. It does
seem like the kind of click-baity version of the story
was that New Orleans has completely offloaded 911 dispatchers to
artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3 (42:07):
This is not the case.
Speaker 7 (42:08):
Apparently, the AI system's might answer only in a limited
number of situations involving certain types of calls about things
that have already been reported, like auto crashes, for example.
The Orleans Parish Communication District handles the 911 emergency communications,
and their department heads or their PR department said the
(42:30):
AI helps manage repeat crash reports, specifically car accidents, while
keeping human call takers available for other emergencies. hearing an
automated voice after dialing 911 could make anyone pause from.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
An AP piece.
Speaker 7 (42:43):
And guys, I think, you know, we've all had to
deal with phone trees when we're anytime we have to
deal with insurance claim or, you know, dealing with a
bill or calling the power company or whatever. Like, you know,
I just always immediately say, speak.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
To a human, speak to a human.
Speaker 7 (42:59):
And it can just, even before machine learning was involved,
these things have always been pretty abysmal and just feeling
like you're just shouting into the abyss. And, you know,
given how exponentially artificial or machine learning, let's call it,
chatbots have improved, it is still kind of mind blowing
(43:20):
how bad they are for this kind of stuff. And
I think that the thing that immediately occurs to folks
is that this is a slippery slope. And then if
you start using it in this capacity before you know it,
it'll be that same attitude. that it just seems a
lot of folks rolling out this technology have. Let's just
shove it anywhere it could possibly fit, even if it
(43:41):
doesn't belong there. And then it could potentially yield some
pretty nasty results when it comes to the ability to
efficiently report emergencies. Or, you know, if there's a shortage
in 911 dispatchers, as there certainly are, that this would
be looked at as not only a way to mitigate that,
but to kind of replace these individuals. So guys, what
(44:04):
do you think about this in terms of like integration
of chatbots into emergency situations? No.
Speaker 8 (44:13):
Done.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
That's, that's my only real thought.
Speaker 7 (44:17):
No, man.
Speaker 3 (44:17):
I mean, I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
If I'm in an emergency situation, I want a human
being that can understand that I am stressed out, a
human being that can understand I'm, you know, Maybe not
even speaking correctly, but I'm attempting to get across something.
Someone who has perhaps been in this situation before with
an exasperated, terrified human being. And I want that person
(44:43):
to use all those skills and that wisdom they've accrued
to figure out what needs to happen. I really, really
don't want to have to explain it over and over
in a way that, you know, in prompts that are
curated so that a machine can understand.
Speaker 7 (44:58):
Well, guys, Ben, I'm really looking forward to hearing your
thoughts on this. I think I have an inkling of
where you're going to go. But I did just find
that this is not only being used, the main story,
it seems, because of some of that clickbaity reporting around
the New Orleans situation. This is not only being used
in New Orleans. In fact, it's being used, or something
very similar, in our home state of Georgia, something called RapidSOS,
(45:21):
which is an AI-powered emergency communications platform that's now being
used by several emergency communications center in georgia including right
here in atlanta fulton county cobb county and forsyth county
and this according to cbs news the goal is straightforward
it says reduce response times and give dispatchers more information
(45:42):
during the critical first moments of an emergency rapid sos
integrates directly with smartphones and other connected devices providing precise
location data to 911 operators almost instantly.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Interesting. This is more slippery slope type stuff. Ben, I
yield the floor.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
Yeah, well, I don't think anybody should die yelling operator
over and over again. And this also, thanks for the
shout out regarding the book. We're so glad you enjoy it.
We have to point out, like Noel said, Some of
this gets a little bit clickbaity, but we do know
(46:21):
other places are using a lot of these virtual assistants.
I'm thinking of Denver in particular. They have a tool
called CityBot, but it's not for emergency services. It's for,
you know, what happens to the trash? Can I get
a permit? Somebody fix this pothole. It's just, to your point, Matt,
I think we can all agree the technology is not
(46:44):
there yet. right, to understand nuance, to have that ability
to establish rapport, or even to parse what a panicked
person is saying, right, when they're trying to recite an address,
the pattern recognition or the vocal recognition of a lot
of these AI assistants, it just, it isn't there. And,
(47:05):
you know, to that point, guys, I don't know the
best way to get that technology up to snuff or
where it needs to be because that could possibly involve
endangering human lives.
Speaker 7 (47:19):
Well, being devil's advocate about this, I am seeing some
details that I do find interesting a little further down
in the CBS piece. The idea of these types of
systems being able to offer translation opportunities, that does seem
like that could be useful, though it seems like it
would be more something that would be a tool that
(47:41):
a human dispatcher might have access to rather than having
it replace the human. Again, I'm all about these things
as tools and having human oversight and the ability to
leverage these things for positive results. But it just seems
like there's such a holistic view of all or nothing
view of this AI stuff that is just so seemingly
(48:04):
missing the point kind of. And this kind of seems
like that. But I do think there are ways that
this kind of stuff, some of the ways that it
can integrate with first responders and EMTs, for example, and
things like that and pinpointing locations, the ability to text
instead of speak if someone was, say, in a dangerous
(48:24):
situation where they couldn't speak. But again, these just seem
like ways, the tools that can be integrated into a
human-backed dispatch system rather than replacing them.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Can I speak to Shep for just a second here, guys?
I want to speak to Shep's situation that he found
himself in. Because just like Shep, we all, say it
with me, get in... Situations? You bet. Sometimes that situation
is you find yourself standing amongst a pile of giant
(48:58):
white skulls playing MF Doom's supervillain theme. Sometimes that's what happens.
Other times you... Other times you leave your garage door
open at night and your neighbor texts to make sure
you're good. And further, sometimes you notice your neighbor's garage
door is open at 2 a.m. when your dog decides
it's time to go outside. And so you do a
little ocular pat down, then you text them. in the
(49:20):
morning to make sure they're good. Really, the only answer
to this situation and these situations is to get to
know your neighbors, to share things with each other, to
help each other out, you know, become neighbors. That is
a huge thing to do because each one makes each
(49:40):
of us become stronger.
Speaker 8 (49:41):
Right?
Speaker 2 (49:42):
Right? This is the way. Let's do this. Shep, get
to know those neighbors so that the next time the
garage door is open, just shoot them a text and
make sure all is good.
Speaker 5 (49:53):
Perfect.
Speaker 7 (49:53):
No, it's a good point, Matt, and it's something that's
kind of easy to overlook is that, you know, just the...
exponential rollout of this kind of technology is just another
way of kind of further dividing people from each other
and from, you know, normal ways of finding community in
the interest of what is supposedly some sort of like
futuristic solution that's going to improve our lives. But it
(50:17):
actually just kind of pushes us further and further apart.
I mean, we've talked about it. I mean, this AI
stuff and these chatbots is really just an escalation of
the kind of stuff that Facebook is only just now
paying billions of dollars for doing.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
You know, to children and people.
Speaker 7 (50:32):
I mean, I wonder when the lawsuits are going to
come down around chatbot psychosis and all of that stuff.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Is that going to take another 25 years? And will
it have been worth it?
Speaker 2 (50:44):
I mean, yeah, when we're all just hooked up to
a machine and we don't go outside anymore. And yeah,
it'll be great.
Speaker 7 (50:50):
Well, guys, I think this is a good place to
end it and end today's Listener Mail episode.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
And thank you, as always, to everybody who has written in,
everybody who has given us a phone call or found
us on the internet. Big thanks to Josh Sri Ram,
Unexpected Rebel, Hilago, Luke, and, of course, Shep. And again,
one of the most important things about this show is you,
(51:15):
our fellow audience members. We love spending time with you
on Listener Mail. We love when you inspire actual episodes
in the future. So don't hesitate. Reach out and find us.
There are a number of ways to get in contact.
Speaker 3 (51:29):
There sure are.
Speaker 7 (51:29):
You can find us at The Handel's Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show on the internet, social media platform of choice.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
You know the drill.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Guys, I forgot to say, the reason I knew about
Coyote vs. Acme is through Rob Schraub, who we met
when we were on Harmontown.
Speaker 4 (51:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
That's the whole reason I even knew about the thing.
So shout out. Amazing director and creator of things. We
have a phone number. It is 1-833-STD-WYTK. If you call it,
you'll leave a voicemail if you stay on the phone
for a while. You got three minutes. Give yourself a
cool nickname and let us know if we can use
your name and message on one of these listener mail episodes.
(52:08):
If you'd like to send us an email, we are.
Speaker 4 (52:11):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive.
Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
Tell us your favorite creepy book you've been reading as
we get into the best season of all, Halloween season.
For instance, I've got a thing about yokai right here.
It's going to be a heck of a rabbit hole.
(52:31):
We'll update later. We'll see you in the dark. Conspiracy
at iHeartRadio.com.
Speaker 2 (52:54):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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