February 20, 2025 • 52 mins
Multiple Conspiracy Realists reach out regarding firefighters. Sacremento responds to the exploration of social media and attention spans. A Combustable (and stoned) Coyote ask for more information on the earlier story about exploding headsets. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Our brother in arms Ben is away on adventures, but
we'll be returning soon. And you know that means this
is stuff they don't want you to know the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
That's right. We're joined by our super producer, Dylan Lord
Rudebega Fagan. Yes you are you do Bega fa Yes
you are you. You are here, and that is what
makes this stuff they don't watch you to know.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Everybody. I totally mess with that. That's what happens when Ben's.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hey, hey, he keeps these trains on the tracks. Thank you, sir, Ben.
We miss you, but we'll see you soon. It's Thursday, y'all.
You know what that means. We're hearing from the best
part of this show.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
You, yes, you, that's right you. We are super excited
to bring you another instance, segment, whatever you want to
call it, of listener, ma'am.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
That's right tonight on stuff they don't want you to know,
listener mail, we're talking attention spans, more exploding devices, nocturnally
missions and more. Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.
I hid that one in there. It's going to be
a surprise for Noel.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hey, but first, before we get started, let's hear a
quick voicemail from a certain so and so who just
hit us to a thing that we've all been watching.
But it is something we need to be paying more
attention to.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Here we go, this is Scorpion.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
I think that you should take a look at some
of the stuff that current President Trump has been doing,
specifically regarding declassifying files regarding the JFK, DAVE LK, and RFK,
and so that the rumor is right now that a
unprecedented number of documents are about to be declassified and
(02:03):
releases in the public. So that might be something for you
guys to take a look at. All right, feel free
to use this if you so desire. Again, this is
long time off.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Oh, Matt, have you actually read any of these executive orders?
Like the language of them is very fascinating to me.
At the very least, the first line by the authority
vested in me as president by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America. It is hereby
ordered as follows, and then you know the things that follow,
which are declassification of JFK, r f K and what's
(02:36):
the what's the third one MLK of course, yes, and
you've got real deep knowledge on those MLK tapes, and
I'm sure through the production of that podcast, you know,
got a sense of what might be in some of
these these documents.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Oh, for certain, I am at the edge of my
seat waiting basically, and you know, this show, each of
us as individuals, but also this show as a thing
has been on those JFK and RFK files as well,
for gosh, since we've started, and we every couple of years,
usually with every administration, there's an announcement, Hey, we're going
to release some more files. We're gonna get a little
(03:13):
bit more out there, and.
Speaker 6 (03:14):
They do just a little trickle, you know, well, well, yeah,
and it's true, and they do, and it's it's sometimes
hundreds of files, sometimes thousands of files, and then it's
the job of journalists to go through and parse through
that stuff figure out if there's anything that's worth actually
telling everybody about and making it a story.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I asked such a boneheaded question that I will fully
cop to before we start recording on, Like, so what
happens next? Are they just going to like make a
website for it? The government? It's like here it is,
guys here, That's not how it works. It's all these
FOYA acts, you know, requests and then you're right, I mean,
they may declassify it, but it's still just potentially a
needle in a haystack kind of situation for the folks
that have to parse through it.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Like you said, yeah, I am assuming because of the
weight of this executive order that there will be some
kind of pr notice, like a public relations first or
something that comes out, Hey, here are the new files.
They exist now and you can look at them here.
It would be pretty amazing to have the entirety of
(04:10):
all of it just laid out so we would know
what's happening, but it also could be terrifying.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Well do you have a sense of what a move
like this means or what the message is like? Is
it a we've got nothing to hide kind of situation?
Is it like it's been long enough, we want to
give people the truth? Like I just I always kind
of second guess, these kinds of decisions, you know, from
a pr standpoint.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
In my mind, everybody is aware at this point that
there are secrets when it comes to what happened during
each of those three assassinations, right, what the what the
government did, how they reacted, what they knew beforehand, all
of that stuff. There's some secrets in there somewhere that
none of us know yet, but all of us know
that those the answers to the questions that remain are
(04:57):
either going to be damaging to someone, tell Diligence Agency,
to the government itself, to you know, the way other
countries view the United States. There's something in there that's
dangerous and damaging that the stamp of National Security is
just real bright on that thing.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But the question is damaging to whom? Like if it
is a political maneuver, is this something where there's the
potential for like a previous administration to take a fall
for it or another you know, not opposing political party.
I just maybe I'm overthinking it, but it does seem
like there has to be some maneuvering in that direction.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, you know, this is speculation on my part, but
I feel as though if you got to the heart
of the matter. With each of those, you might find
out some super unsettling things about the FBI and how
it really functioned. At least that's what the MLK tapes
kind of got pointed towards. Basically what we uncovered and
what you and Ben and I have been talking about
for you know, being almost two decades now, got.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, and I mean maybe to that point, Matt, it
could well help the argument of you know, we need
to clean house and restructure government agencies and like redefine
how these things work because there's too much corruption and
too little oversight.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, in the sixties there was too much corruption, because
that's really.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Mere talking about, right, But I'm just saying, like, if
there was a political reason for doing something like this
and the news stories that it'll generate, you know, it
makes sense that it would be something that a current
official could point to and justify maybe some of the
stuff that they're doing, if they even bother needing to
justify it, you.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Know, for sure, for sure, But for now we're gonna
have to just sit around, keep your eyes peeled to
those internets and see what we find, because it could
be beautiful. It could be terrifying either way. It's about
the death of three highly influential, important human beings, so
it's probably not going to be fun.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, and three fascinatingly flawed human beings. Yeah, if you
really look into their backstories. And I mean, it's just
I don't know. The history alone is staggering.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
For sure, for sure, So let's all pay attention for now.
We're going to take a quick break here, word from
our sponsors, and we'll be right back with more messages
from you.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
And we're back with a couple of shorties, one with
a fun link that we're going to get right to
about some strange news actually, but we'll start with a
message from Sacra Tomato, who is from Sacramento. And I
first read this, I read it as you can call
me Sacramento. I'm from Sacramento. Much more clever than that.
(07:34):
He's a sacred Tomato going on. I read a lot,
and as I was listening to your podcast on social
media and attention span, I started thinking about how sometimes
I'll catch myself finishing a page and realizing I didn't
absorb a single thing from the last paragraph and go
back to actually absorb the content. It's like driving subconsciously.
I think I've started to read to the point that
I can finish a book and not know what I've
(07:57):
even read, just like how we can SubCom justly do that.
Also ironic, I was writing this email while listening to
a show in low attention span mode. Nice Sacer Tomato,
I pluge you for your candor here. I have experienced
this phenomenon more times than I can count, and it
(08:17):
has actually hindered me from being much of a reader.
I've really I've mentioned it on the show before, like,
I've got a goal that I want to, like read
a handful of these wonderful books and music biographies and
fiction that I've bought over the last few years but
have not been able to crack because of this very thing.
I'll start reading, I'll find myself thinking about something else
while still reading the words. But to Ben's point, you
(08:41):
can't multitask. You're not fully thinking about the thing outside
of what you're doing, and you're also not fully processing
the information that you're taking in while doing that, And
I find myself rereading whole pages and still having a
hard time feeling like I'm retaining. And so my goal
this year is to really do some of the things
we were talking about of limiting screen time. A friend
(09:01):
of mine turned me onto an app, actually, I think
one of probably many that sort of limits your screen
time and it sort of locks you out and gives
a lots you little bits of time. Obviously you can
always bypass it, but I wish I knew the name
of it. But I mean, this type of app certainly
is is a thing, and for good reason. Right, But
have you experienced this, Matt with trying to sit down
and really take in a book.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yes, for sure, it's a bit different for me. Most
of my reading now occurs on a screen, and it's
usually an article or you know.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Part of the problem, isn't it. We're so we're doing
the thing that is limiting our attentions ban for our work,
and then we also still live in that same ecosystem
for pleasure, and it starts to the lines get really blurry.
I'm sorry to interrupt. I just it occurs to me
that that's exactly true for me as well. But I
find that it just bolsters my screen dependency.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Oh for sure. I've noticed that I use the same
rules with reading as I do for psychedelic drugs. Okay,
which is a little weird. It's set and setting for me, okay.
And so if I prepare myself to read, I prepare
my environment to read, and I you know, make it.
I actively think about where I'm going to be, how
(10:10):
I'm going to be sitting, what the light's going to
be like yep, and then I go and I do
that thing I can focus in on just that.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah. I recently bought some really cool record sholves that
are more like the kind you might see in a
record store, and it's caused me to really enjoy my
record collection more records, flip through and put something on.
And I've been doing that constantly because the act of
picking out and putting on a record and listening to
the span of time that it takes to fill up
one side of that record, and in that time, like
(10:38):
focusing on doing the task and using that the kind
of mark time. I've tried to be more intentional just
with my you know, around the house time, and I
think I'm going to next goal for me is to
figure out that set and setting for reading a book.
Maybe it involves putting on a record. Maybe it's a
type of record, like an ambient you know, electronic instrumental
record or something, and then I read for the duration
(10:59):
of one side of the record, you know, and then
maybe take a little pause, flip it over, read a
little more, and if I can consume it maybe in
chunks like that, maybe I can manage my attention span
better and almost I don't know, retrain that muscle, because
it atrophies, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. It's been a long
time since I've been so I was going to use
the word enraptured, since I was so stuck in a
book and excited about its contents that I would just
pick it up and read it, even if there are
people talking around me, even if there's stuff going on
in my world, that I would just sit and look
at a book and read it.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I forgot what that feels a long time, and I
want to get that back. It's a wonderful feeling. And
you know, Ben is such a voracious reader, and I
really envy him a lot of times, Like I've been
on long flights with him where I've seen him finish
a book, like you know, on a six hour flight
to the West coast or whatever.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yep, it's amazing. It's a super power.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It is indeed, Well, thank you, Sakra Tomato. We hear you,
We support you in your struggle. We're honestly right there
with you. Moving on to a message from our pal,
the Stoned Coyote, but in this situation, he's referring to
himself by the new more fiery moniker, the combustible Coyote,
and you'll see by in a second. Hey guys, I
(12:16):
hope you are seeing this. The tact deck has shown
to be effective with the pagers and radios, so it
only makes sense that others are going to find ways
to implement it. And I should have copied and pasted.
He probably had a really clever subject line for this email,
like exploding goggles or something like that, but I left
that out. But he is in fact talking about a
(12:38):
news story that he linked to on Business Insider about
drone headsets, and Matt, maybe you know a little bit
more about the tech here, but I'm imagining this is
like these are military grade drone headsets that go along
with piloting a small drone. It would be a heads
up display like of like an on board camera, you know,
on the device that you would be able to like,
(13:00):
you know, monitor maybe have some stats or you know,
what's the word like pitch and y'aw kind of like
flight simulator type, some sort of center radical or something.
I don't know if you have you heard much about these.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, there are a bunch of bunch of different versions
and you know, upgrades that are constantly happening, and it's
a it's a technology that is just honestly skyrocketing when
it comes to innovation. Some of them are full on
like virtual environments that you go into, you know, and
some of them are.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
A little yep, I'm seeing it now, VR headsets. That
sounds incredible, It doesn't that kind of like make the
idea of flying and drones sound a whole lot more fun.
But also if you were using in the military capacity,
a whole lot more precise.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, uh and quite frankly terrifying.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
No one million, I'm sorry. I always kind of get
hung up and not hung up, but excited about the
nerdy tech side of it before I then realize the
kind of long term humanity ramifications of some of these
kind of things. I try to live somewhere between those
two extremes for sure. For sure, Well, in any case,
these things are exploding on people's heads, Russian troops heads.
(14:05):
In fact, there's an article I referenced, or actually that
the muscible coyote referenced on Business Insider by Mia Jenkowik's
drone headsets sent to Russian troops were booby trapped to
explode when switched on, State media says, and that state
news agency is TASS. They say that the sabotaged headsets
were supplied via humanitarian aid. That's interesting. I guess I
(14:29):
never really thought of humanitarian aid doling out military gear.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, let's go, let just on that note. Let's go
to the source for sure. Please, where how did Business
Insider hear about this? Well, they heard about it from Igor.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Popov much better. Whichever potato Potapov.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
He is, quote a spokesperson for the Russian manufacturer JSC NPP,
and he told a state controlled news agency at we
got well. But but this is a spokesperson for a
Russian manufacturer speaking to a state controlled news agency, and
they are saying that an individual donated the goggles, as
(15:11):
you married humanitarian aids. So like some person, this guy
is telling a stake troll thing some person. It feels,
it feels it's way down the line there, right, So
it's we're not saying this isn't true necessarily, it's just
like sounds like something.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Is that just a box that you tick when you
donate military VR drones to a government, to a country.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
What are one of the biggest threats facing you know,
the Russian military right now as they operate in Ukraine.
What are one of the biggest threats that Ukrainian soldiers
and you know, citizens are facing right now? It is
these drones, absolutely, And those drones. It's like the actual
body of the drone is designed to either hold explosives
or carry explosives, and you know, in this case there's
(16:01):
high explosives at least according to the story inside the headset.
So you're trying to take out the person that's trying
to take out the verse soldiers.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, And this article is answering literally every single question
that I posed at the top. Pot Topop said the
goggles were a brand Skyzone Cobra x V four and
they're used to, just as I was maybe conjecturing, provide
a first person view when controlling these drones. And again
I also imagine that it has a you know, x
Y type role and all of that stuff as well.
(16:32):
He added, as quoting directly from the Business Insider piece,
that when the military opened the batch, they found plastic
explosives and all of the products nikes. They don't go
into detail about like did this literally blow people's heads off?
I mean, is that the implication, Matt, I.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Mean potentially, But in this case, they're just saying they
open up a shipment and maybe they had some some
way of testing the product for or narcotics or whatever
they were doing, you know, some kind of customs system
where they got a shipment in, they checked them out
and they found plastic explosives. And I'm assuming anybody and
everybody who was buying sourcing electronic devices for their military
(17:15):
right or for military use, I'm assuming everybody right now
is checking everything.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Oh absolutely, I mean, this is the statement from Potopov
is just so or Patapov is just so straightforward. It
just says when the glasses were turned on, they detonated
and exploded. There's no mention of like were they on
a person or again, like you said, were they being tested.
But it's a good point, Matt, because this does go
back to a story that we covered pretty in depth.
(17:39):
All those exploding pagers and walkie talkies that's plagued hesbola.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, very dangerous situation for an individual human
when that stuff's happening and right, and if you're on
the wrong side of wherever is attempting to sabotage your tech, yep,
all you gotta do usually is turn it on or
have a signal sent to it, depending on how the
device is triggered, and then it's over. In this case,
(18:08):
there is a telegram account that allegedly showed stuff right
like you you can see. I'm looking at images right
now of what appears to be plastic explosive in a
fairly tight container that would be a part of this
br headset.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
I gotta wonder when you look at like you know, tech,
when you open it up and you look at like
a printed circuit board and all the little components. I've
been doing a lot of that with all this modular
garbage that I mess with. There are little capacitors and
little things they're soldered onto one of these circuit boards,
and they sometimes are a little round kind of plastic
things with a coating on them. I do wonder is
(18:44):
it that little because it wouldn't be enough C four
when maybe that's just too generic a term for plastic explosives,
but that's what I remember from like the Diehard movies.
If it was just a small amount, it would be
enough to really really injure somebody, but not like enough
to take out a building or something. So I'm wondering, Yeah,
are they literally sneaking it in it's disguised as some
of these soldered on components.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Uh no, in this case, imagine the housing, like the
side housing, that would be a plastic piece that goes
over the metal components to kind of give the product
a shape or something. In between that piece of plastic
and the actual metal part, the internal metal part, there's
plastic explosive. It looks kind of like putty spread throughout
(19:28):
that like flat surface, and it appears to be about
the side like maybe half the size of a cell phone,
at least that's what it looks like from the images
I'm seeing. So it's designed to take out personnel, like
a single person whoever is going to use this device.
It'll take that person out, but it's probably not going
to you know, damage what.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I was suggesting, but not enough to like take out
a facility like this is like, oh ye, a single,
single serve explosive device.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
And you know we're not the only one making this connection.
Matthew Ford was a war expert and a lecturer in
international relations at Sussex University or the University of Sussex.
He compared it to Israel's attacks on Hesbola and Lebanon
using those explosive pagers last September. And this kind of
calls attention, as does the pager story. And to your point,
(20:20):
matg just like of how important it is to keep
tight tabs on these supply chains. Because this device that
we're talking about is available on Amazon currently for like
three hundred and thirty bucks just the headset controller. I
guess it can be adapted to control different drones, but
I wouldn't have thought that, so, I mean, this is
(20:42):
not some sort of like you know, custom made, small
run piece of tech. This is like consumer grade.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, that would be an interesting trade off. If you
were going to use your drone to go blow somebody up,
you also have to blow up at the moment of
explosions wherever your drone is.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I like that. I'm yeah, peace on Earth man, Yeah,
we'll get there real quick with that policy. So well,
thanks a million to the exploding coyote. Now the combustible coyote.
Eploding coyote is cool too. That sounds like another you know,
goth band or something. And then I just wanted to
read a quick add of boy. I guess sort of.
I don't know. We don't often read these kinds of messages,
(21:21):
but I thought it was relevant. Just someone talking about,
you know, the way we've been discussing Elon Musk and
like his low key overthrow of the government or whatever
you want to call it is, you know, the Doge
Department or division and his gaggle of young hackers, some
of whom had some problematic backgrounds. Something's got to be discussed.
We're experiencing it right alongside everybody else. But Seer just
(21:43):
wrote in and said, good segment. Guys, don't be too spooked.
We're all seeing this play out in real time. Be real,
say what's happening. We listen to be informed. See her,
that's very swee appreciate that we're doing the best again,
and it definitely is something to be freaked out about.
Whatever side of the political aisle you may fall I think, Yeah,
we've all read nineteen eighty four. I mean, it's it's
(22:05):
hard to not see some comparisons and talk about him.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, we're we're doing quite a few what what should
we call lookbacks. We're doing some lookbacks in history just
to see some other things that have happened in the
past that some alignments.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, history doesn't always repeat, but it rhymes like Ben
likes to say, you've seen some pretty firebars from history
right now.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah, yeah, did anybody Noel happened to catch the the
thing where Elon's four year old was getting interviewed with him.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
It's weird. Yeah, he said something like us talking about SpaceX,
like we just do whatever we want or something like that.
He's like, what it was it that he says?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Specifically, he said something to the kin of quietly, like
we'll quietly.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Do quietly do whatever we.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Want, something about avoiding taxes or like before the taxes
come in, then we'll quietly do whatever we want. And
then he had a maniacal billionairely.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
He sure did. And then that other very interesting appearance
of young X in the Oval office where Trump's just
kind of sitting there the whole time. While you know,
Elon Fields questions from the press. At some point that
I saw a meme where it kind of did a
close up on X and he's looking at Trump and
saying like, don't talk, shut your mouth or something. What
(23:25):
don't I don't think it was ai dude, and kids,
we know kids say the darnedest things, and there it
was definitely some darnedest things coming out of that kid's mouth.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
It's uh, really interesting. And again that's like it's a show,
it's a big weird show.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
But it's also looking me. I'm like, I'm a kid
with me in the workplace, like I'm a human. I'm
just like you.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, it's just dad's day. So he's here and he's
going to tell the sitting president while he sits, you know,
at his desk. Oh here it is here, it is.
I found another one quote, you're not the president, you
need to go away. And then he went over and
picked his nose for a while.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
It's crazy. It's too much, you guys, I mean, listen,
we can't not talk about it. So thanks Sierra, and
thanks to Combustible Coyote, and thanks to Sakra Tomato for
those wonderful missives from you, Yes, you the public, Matt,
would you say we take a little quick break and
then we come back with some audio listener now, yes.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Sir ee, and we've returned. Let's jump to the phone
lines to hear some personal experience about incarcerated firefighters. So
we've been talking about this a lot. It's a complicated issue,
and depending on where you are and what you've seen,
(24:53):
you may think about it one way. Let's hear from
somebody who has someone in their family who has gone
through that experience, and you know, as a third party
to somebody you know going through it, like, what does
she think. Let's jump to mellow.
Speaker 8 (25:08):
Hey, guys, I was listening to your recent podcast about
firefighters in California, the incarcerated ones. My biological dad is
an inmate in Idaho, and he's been in and out
of this particular penitentiary for a couple of years, and
he has been on their firefighting slot for the last
(25:30):
ten years or so, on and off. You know, it's
probably a little bit more than that, maybe about fifteen years.
And as an chronically incarcerated person, he loves it. It's
something to get him out of their area. You can
only do it if you're you know, in good standing
in your prison, that way that they give you, you know,
(25:50):
leeway to leave. So for some of them, it gives
them kind of a incentive to stay right while they're
in prison, so that they can potentially leave never they
have the opportunity to. Saying opportunity seems callous because it's
destructive and people's lives are at stake, I will caveat
(26:11):
and say it is disgusting. It is quite literally slave labor.
What they're doing for the wages that they're doing is horrendous.
It's not like the prices in prison are any cheaper.
They are still making five dollars to ten dollars a day,
and that five dollars to ten dollars then pretty similarly
as it does out here, so it's not like they're
(26:33):
earning a lot. And the work that they are doing
is incredibly dangerous. But with that, I do think a
lot of them do enjoy the opportunity. Like you are
saying that moral obligation of I have the time, I
have the means, I have the body, I have you know,
the strength to do it, so why not me instead
(26:54):
of somebody else? And I think that is incredibly brave
and selfless of them to do, to be able to
put themselves out there and do that. But there's there's
no reason why they shouldn't be compensated or at the
minimum be able to work as a firefighter after they're
(27:14):
potentially out and you know, use those skills to do
a good use. You know, it's disgusting and callous that
they get out of prison and do all of this
hard working stuff and learn all these skills and they
still can't be a firefighter in the states that they're in.
So I definitely think means like that need to be changed,
and the pay needs to change, you know, or the
(27:37):
payment needs to change, whether it be able to do
sentence or something that's better for the person who's working. Anyways,
I'm probably almost out of time. Thank you guys. Have
a great day, Mellow. I guess if you need to,
you get party later.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Lots of unpacked there, Oh yeah, definitely a lot. And
thank you so much Mellow for giving us all of
that too unpack because there's some great info in here.
Specific I mean, there are so many things I want
to talk about it, as you said, but let's let's
get into it.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
First.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Of all, somebody who has been doing this for a
long time, right, this is Melo's father. You know, someone
who is, as she stated, chronically incarcerated, constantly going in
and out of a prison system. But when they're in
they are working as a firefighter. But once they get
out of prison, you know, in those moments, right, even
(28:28):
if you are constantly going back in for things. He
you whoever, you know, imagine yourself as this person. You
can't then work as a firefighter on the outside. That
seems tremendously shortsighted. You know, maybe I can see the
reasoning behind it and all that stuff, but again, I
(28:48):
don't know. If somebody is trained and really good at
doing something, why not put those skills to use?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Oh? I completely agree, And I mean I was kind
of just intrigued by the way the calls took a
turn where it started with referencing her father and how
this is something that he really digs, like he really
enjoys doing this, the way of getting outdoors. I mean,
even she as she was going through it, sort of
kind of started checking herself almost because it's like she
caught herself describing it as sort of this great thing.
(29:16):
But then when you look at the behind the scenes
of it and how much they're actually paid, and the
absolute peril that they are in, you know, maybe comparatively
to being stuck in a prison cell. It feels like
a great opportunity I think was the word that she used,
and sort of walked it back a little bit. I
can see that perspective, but it is an absolute example
of these folks being taken advantage of as well.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Oh yeah, well, and I think again this is a third,
third person view of the thing, right, but it is
it show. It gets us a little closer to that
experience of what is it actually like and what does
it mean to the person who is doing it. And
in this case, it appears as though it stinks because
the person is putting them graved danger and they're not
(30:01):
getting compensated for it, even though they've done other things
wrong in the past, right, And that's the reason that
they don't get compensated the way they should. That's the reasoning,
at least from the state's perspective as to why things
are as they are. You did something wrong, now you
don't get the good stuff anymore, and we are also
(30:21):
going to use you, you know, for the laterities yeah, yeah,
well for this really important, dangerous thing.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
But it also represents sort of a lack or a
shortcoming and just the institutions that are supposed to have
that covered in the first place, right that it's that
it's necessary. Is this isn't like we're sending inmates, you know,
to fight a fire entirely on their own. This is
to like bolster numbers you know, in various states and
(30:49):
city firefighting organizations.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Right well, yeah, yeah, because if if depending on the state,
the county and all that stuff, like is it a
volunteer firefighting force? Is it a paid are fighting force?
You know, do do the men and women who are
out there doing it earn a salary? Or are they
just there because they want to do something good? As
we've heard from previous you know, people who've written in
for sure, in this case, it's just it shows the
(31:13):
complexity I think did did.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Did she go into whether or not this is a
voluntary thing where it's like you sort of put yourself
up for it and then you get selected or I
mean that I guess that's a really important question for me.
Or is this surely it couldn't just be forced assigned? Right?
So there is a volunteer aspect to it.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yes, yes, And I'm when I'm speaking on volunteering, I'm
speaking like on the outside, I get it away from the.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I'm just talking about the like morality of the whole thing,
And like, you know, is this forced labor, forced you know,
putting someone in harm's way, or is there a choice
you know of being you know, willing to participate in
something like this, knowing the stakes and knowing that you're
not getting paid much. Again, I'm not trying to be like,
you know, a booster for the government or like prison system.
(32:00):
The whole system is totally ft. But I'm just trying to.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Understand you're speaking to the psychological gymnastics that are exactly
an entire situation, right, Thank you, Matt, because you can
you can say as the prison system itself, right, you
could say, hey, this is an opportunity for you to
get outside and do something good. And really, with your
other hand, you're just you know, you're offering them, yeah,
(32:24):
offering them a pittance taking the rest that they're getting
in whatever grant they're getting from the state.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
That's exactly right, which is very odd, but it doesn't
make the quote unquote opportunity for the individual any more
or less valid. Like exactly I am someone maybe in
the outside, I was a firefighter, I was a volunteer firefighter,
and this is something that I truly maybe even you know,
at the point I'm at in my rehabilitation, like, I
feel passionately about this and I do want to help people,
(32:52):
and I'm able to do that, you know, with this
much more than I am sitting here lifting weights and
you know, reading books in my cell.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
So what is the reasoning, the concrete reasoning behind not
allowing someone who is a part of one of these
programs to get out and then continue doing that.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Good? What right? I think the callers point about just
the reform of the payment system is important, just to
make it maybe a little more, you know, they should
be compensated more, because I didn't really ever think about that.
But it's true, like money more or less spends the
same in prison, the commissary and also probably black market
stuff as it does on the outside. If anything on
(33:33):
the black market stuff is probably way more expensive for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And this is a tough thing for me, and I
don't want to ruffle too many feathers here, but in
my mind, if you are incarcerated and you're doing work.
Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think you should be compensating
in the same way, but not like to those levels,
those low levels, Right, there's something in between there that
makes sense. The biggest thing that makes sense to me
(33:59):
is if you use the skills that you're learning and
whatever job you're performing on the outside. But in this case,
this specific case, at least according to Melo, and I've
been looking at these specific rules in Idaho and trying
to find out, like, what's the concrete thing if you
are incarcerated and you're a felon and you're in this
you know, firefighter's system and you get out, can you
(34:19):
actually be employed anywhere? Or is that just something that
just can't happen or is it a specific thing for
her father?
Speaker 8 (34:25):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
And I haven't been able to find it yet.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
I'm sorry, I don't think i've follow employed like after
you being released, Like, is this in some way like
a benefit to your ability to be employed after you
know your sentence is done.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Well, that's one of the big points that Melo makes
there is that her father, once he leaves, is unable
to be employed as a firefighter in the state where
he was imprisoned and working as a firefighter while in prison,
so he cannot be a firefighter fighter on the outside
according to whatever rules are set up, right with hiring
somebody that is a huge misstep.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
I think I see what you're saying. It's yourule that
should be reconsidered because you've proven yourself in the field,
and this is a field that is in pretty most
of the time desperate need of additional folks. So why
would you cut off that ready made supply of people
for some sort of bias based on hiring former convicts.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, and then while incarcerated, rather than getting compensated for
that kind of work, you are building up training. Yeah,
you're building yourself up. You're right, your self esteem, whatever
it is you need to see that you were better
than some of the stuff they got you in there,
and now you can do good. That's a little too.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
I'm with you. And this is the kind of stuff
that someone out there is going to be like, oh,
you guys are so pie in the sky about this,
YadA YadA, YadA. But I do think these kinds of
things are worth discussing because it's like, you know, the
prison system sucks. We know about wrongful convictions and all
of that, but are there ways at the very least
to reintegrate people after they've served their sentences so they're
(35:57):
not just like persona non grata society and actually benefit society,
you know, And this is what you're suggesting, I think
is a pretty decent solution to that. And I'm certain
that this is one of the first people to have
thought about. But no, it does seem like it's a
societal thing, like why do we still harbor this like
long term grudge against you know, former convicts and felons.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Exactly, So in that light, right, let's jump to a
first persons perspective and hear from Jason and salt Lake,
who knows exactly what it's like.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Hey, it's a Jason salt Lake City, huge fans almost
you guys for a while.
Speaker 9 (36:36):
Uh, you guys been talking about the wildfires the other
day and the inmate firefighters. I just wanted to give
a little personal experience. Uh, I made some poor decisions.
I was incarcerated in Washington State for five years, and
for four of those years I got to be on
me the D and R crew fighting those source fires.
And uh, I know people say, it's slave labor, you know,
(36:57):
indentured servitude. But you got to realize that Number one,
a normal job in prison. I was working in the kitchen.
I was making thirty two cents an hour. They put
me on a fire crew and I was making a
dollar sixteen hour. Not only that, they feed you, just
like they feed the rest of the firefighters out there.
You know, you eat pops here food. Everybody is cool
to you. And and for me and everybody else that
(37:20):
was out there, it was it was.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Something we wanted to do. You know, you have to
sign up for it, you have to get approved. It was.
It was something we all volunteered for. We wanted to
be at you know. And on top of that, you know,
a lot of it was made mistakes. We're in there,
and that kind of gets on your that kind of
starts wearing on your on your self esteem.
Speaker 9 (37:40):
You know, you did some bad things, and start thinking
that respects to who you are and getting out there
and doing something like that.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Not only was it amazing to be out in nature.
Speaker 9 (37:49):
You know, outside the prison walls, but the self esteem
and the sense of accomplishment and pride it gave me
and and every really else around me was was priceless.
You know, we at the end of the day that
was of what we did. You know, it was an
honor to be out with the firefighters may treat you
like one of them, you know, it's not like a
bunch of inmates out they getting looked down on.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
They appreciate the help and they treat us accordingly. So
I just wanted you guys will piece of personal experience.
Speaker 9 (38:14):
I'm all for it. Obviously, I have a different help
look on things. I understand where other people are coming from.
But again that's just my experience. You can go ahead
and do my name I recording whatever you want, man,
I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Wow, I'm on that verge of tearing up a little bit.
I mean, I don't want to be too like hard
on sleeve about it, but I just the passion that
I heard in his voice, and just you know, I
think the point we brought up about like a way
of paying it forward or like you know, in some
way not redemption is such a movie term, but you
know what I mean, I just I heard that in
(38:48):
his voice and in his story.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah for sure, for sure, And that's huge too, being
able to hear it in the voice when somebody by
the way.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
And I'm just I'm literally you could see I'm like,
I'm kind of emotional, like I'm not.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, I see it and I feel it too, man,
And yeah, it's it's incredible to hear that because often
on the news, if you're watching just videos on YouTube
or somebody commenting, or even on this show sometimes and
I cop to it. We talk in generalities. We talk
in you know, a situation that affects a whole bunch
(39:22):
of people. But when you hear from an individual consciousness,
a human that has gone through it, is going through it,
whatever it is, it fully changes things because it's not
about statistics, it's not about you know, laws and all
that other stuff. It's how did all of that stuff
affect my experience? Right, And in this case, Jason just
lets us know there are really good things to a
(39:46):
system like that. It's just the system itself and the
way it functions maybe is the thing that needs to
get altered quite a bit, but there's something inside of
it that is extremely positive, at least in my view.
After hearing that from Jason specifically.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Oh one hundred percent. I mean, and that's the kind
of thing that, like on paper, it's easy to get
hung up on the negative side of it. And I
think that all that stuff still holds. And Jason didn't
didn't mention that, but again it wasn't about that, it
was about his perspective on it. So it does highlight
what a complex issue is. And I didn't realize how
comparatively even less they get paid for, you know, working
(40:26):
in the kitchen or machine shop or whatever else, you know,
on the prison grounds. That's insane and of itself. So
this is a much larger, you know, discussion about reform
in terms of like what prisoners are compensated. But to
your point, Matt, you know, it does feel separate from
what happens outside, but there should be a little bit
more parody between the two. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Just that concept of a group of firefighters welcoming in
another group of incarcerated men. They don't see them as that,
They see them as human beings that are going to
help them solve major problem. Right, And that's all you see,
and that's all it has to be. There are of course,
you know, there's minutia to get into, depending on what
specific crimes and all that stuff that you have to
(41:11):
take into consideration at some level, but at you know,
if you can drill down deep enough, I think you
can find the humanity in everybody. So guy has some
other stuff I wanted to say here. Lease I'm kind
of losing it a bit, but.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
It's just.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I was thinking about social media and some of our
talks about attention span talks about the click is the
most important thing. How do you get that click? How
do you get the eyeball on it so they don't
scroll away a user? Right, A story about incarcerated firefighters
being wronged by a system, I think is going to
(41:49):
get a lot more clicks than a personal story from Jason,
let's say, or a group of firefighters who say, Hey,
this was really incredibly meaningful for us to be able
to do this.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
And this person is not coming at us from a
place of being like a shill or a poster boy
for some kind of program like this is a human
experience being shared directly from the human who experienced it.
And I don't know that's how it hit me, you know,
So I guess what I was getting at with stuff
on paper versus like when you actually talk to people.
I think that's just always so important to remember about
anything is it's so easy to spin up one version
(42:22):
or perspective about a thing that is certainly can be valid,
but it completely ignores just the like broadness of people's
experiences oftentimes. And it's so because of the black and
white of the Internet and social media. It's so easy
to need to wrap it in some kind of cut
and dry, sort of like shell so that people can
eat it up and be mad about it or be gushy,
(42:44):
bleeding heart about it instead out you know what I'm.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Saying, mostly mad, though mostly mad.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
It's mad, right, it's it's almost exclusively mad.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
That's how the algorithm works.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
For the short form stuff especially, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, if it's gonna elicit a comment from you, which
generally means you're fired up enough. You know, if you
like something a lot, you're like, wow, this is incredible,
you might give it a little heart and then send
it to a buddy or something like that. But if
you're fired up, you're gonna comment, and then somebody else
might get fired up, and then they're gonna comment, and
then you might comment back. And guess what, you spend
(43:20):
a ton of time on their platform or app or whatever,
just creepy stuff. Well, hey, we're gonna tell you how
to contact us at the end of the show. Please
let us know if you have any thoughts on this stuff,
you have any experience you want to share and send
it our way. We'd love to hear it, and we'd
also love to share it with the class if we can.
For now, let's take a break. Here, a word from
(43:40):
our sponsor, and we'll be right back with more messages
from you. And we're back, and we're jumping to the
phone lines again, this time to hear from Troglodyte about
a story we covered that hit a little too close
to home, but in a good way. I think, in
a good way. A while back we interviewed Carryl Miller,
(44:00):
the host of kill List, and that is a story
that we'll talk more about after the break. But it's
a story about the darknet and hired assassins and scams
and actual real life people that want to kill other people.
It's a deep, dark story. You can listen to that
episode right now if you want to. Here is Troglodite's experience.
Speaker 10 (44:23):
All right, hey, this is Troglodite again. I'm listening to
your new episode about the dangers of the Dark Web,
and you're talking about Amien Stephen online they I'm not
even kidding. You were my neighbors. My little sister baby
sat for their child. I went to their house for
the National Night Out, and they that murder happened my
(44:48):
first year of college, when I moved away to go
to college for the first time, and it was the
wildest thing I ever experienced. I grew up down the
street from their house, and their property was then sold
and now like a huge subdivision of houses they are
being put on there. If you want to talk about
(45:09):
that Stephen an amy Allwine case, I lived it, and
I love your show so much, thank you so much.
When you were doing that dark Web stuff, I was like,
oh my god, I I know a dark Web assassin
story because that was my neighbors. And then you said
Amy all Wine, and my jaw hit the floor and
I stopped and I pulled the car over and I
called and I was like, oh my god. So now
(45:31):
I get to listen to the whole thing about what
you guys found. But yeah, crazy crazy, crazy crazy sus
think you love the show, you can use whatever I say.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
By there we go stru Okay, okaye. Really, yes, he
kind of looks like a dude who would hire an
internet assassin to kill man a little bit. Man, I'm
just looking at this picture of him. I've never seen
this guy before, and he has a little bit of
what it was like a one thousand miles stare.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, this is the story if you happen to actually
listen to kill List, this is the story that opens
the entire show. It's a story of a man that
called nine to one one because his wife had been
shot and she was dead. And after, you know, the
police began investigating, they found out that, oh, it does
(46:23):
appear that he killed his wife, that Stephen killed his wife.
It appears that way, and he's currently serving time because
of that. It's a complicated story, but it all goes
back to how he attempted to hire a hitman on
the darknet.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
He did, yeah, okay, so it looks like he attempted
it and was unsuccessful, and then he felt strongly enough
about it that he went through with it himself.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Right, yes, Which is really the entire point of the
kill List show or kill List if you look it up,
it's that there there was this fake assassin's website where
people were paying tens of thousands of dollars to have
other people assassinated. But the site itself was a scam
and it was money just being taken in by somebody else, right.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
But what.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Carl Miller and the rest of the team that he
was working with realized is that every single human being
who has paid money into the site is potentially a killer,
right because they wanted that desire to have someone else
dead could lead them to do what Stephen Olwine did
and kill that person in real life rather than have
somebody else do it. So check that out. Pretty great
(47:32):
episode in great podcast if you ask me.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Yeah, I've heard of it, and I've heard good things,
but I have not checked it out myself. I honestly,
I kind of tend to shy away from the hardcore
true crime stuff these days. I just listened to like
pop culture pot there's just another of that going on
here in the world. But it sounds like it's well made,
and we've all of course participated in making these types
of shows, so this sounds like a high quality one
for sure.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
It's a very unique, very cool perspective, and you're on
the ground with them as they're attempting to basically save
people from potential murder. It's intense stuff. On a lighter note.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yes, we always like to end on a lighter note.
Let's go out on a.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, let's let this person take us there, take us
all the way there.
Speaker 7 (48:18):
Hey, guys, this is offster hot pants. Well in talking
about foods that have a weird connection with dreams. When
I was a Mormon missionary, one of the rules is,
of course, you know, you can't have any kind of
specual relations with someone of the opposite gender, including up
(48:40):
hugging as well, just to kind of help, you know,
keep that temptation away while you're a missionary. Now, there
was a myth that I heard as a missionary. I
never tried it myself, that if you were to eat
three bananas right before going to bed, you wouldn'tduce yourself
into having a wet dream. Now, I'd heard this second
(49:04):
hand claim it you and in you know, the area
where I served among other missionaries. I never saw it personally.
I always thought it was kind of funny, but again
I never tried it personally, so I can't say if
it was just something that was induced by you know,
thought power, whatever, that's called when you know, sugarpark kind
(49:27):
of thing. Anyways, thank you so much, guys for everything
you guys do. Show great, have a good day.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
All right. How many bananas was that again?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Three bananas, according to Officer Hotpants. Just so everyone knows,
I've got four bananas in my house right now. One
is for my son's breakfast in the morning and the
other three for later tonight. All right, what a what
a fun idea. You can find all kinds of stuff
online about consuming bananas and milk fore bed and all
(50:01):
kinds of other things to get potassium and certain nutrients
in your body before you sleep, for you know, all
the beneficial effects of that stuff. It's tough to know
what's actually backed by science, you know. And then I
can't find anything that is actually connecting potassium intake and
banana intake to nocturnal e missions of one form or another.
(50:24):
But hey, let us know what you find. Get out
there and experiment with them bananas, just like I'm gonna
do that.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
I'm gonna question cont on that one, buddy. Yeah, get
out there and experiment with those bananas. Let us know
what wild stuff you get up to with bananas out there.
In the real world. Were pretty easy to find.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Oh, you can find us all over the place. We're
on the internet. We're on YouTube conspiracy stuff, We're on Instagram,
conspiracy stuff show. I think you can still find us
on TikTok if that still exists. When you're hearing this,
there's other stuff Twitter, I mean, x Facebook, conspiracy stuff.
Just look around, you'll find us.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
And Hey, if you want to get in touch with us,
just like many of our listeners today did, Matt, I'm
gonna have to get you to give us those names
of our amazing voicemailers. You can call us at one
A three three STDWYTK Matt, tell them how it goes.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yes, when you call in, give yourself a cool nickname
and let us know within the voicemail if we can
use your name and message on the air. You've got
three minutes say whatever you'd like. Call in, just like
Crooked Scorpion, Mello, Jason Troglodite and Officer Hotpants. And we've
got other ways to contact us. You can send us
an email.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a product
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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
Our brother in arms Ben is away on adventures, but
we'll be returning soon. And you know that means this
is stuff they don't want you to know the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
That's right. We're joined by our super producer, Dylan Lord
Rudebega Fagan. Yes you are you do Bega fa Yes
you are you. You are here, and that is what
makes this stuff they don't watch you to know.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Everybody. I totally mess with that. That's what happens when Ben's.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hey, hey, he keeps these trains on the tracks. Thank you, sir, Ben.
We miss you, but we'll see you soon. It's Thursday, y'all.
You know what that means. We're hearing from the best
part of this show.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
You, yes, you, that's right you. We are super excited
to bring you another instance, segment, whatever you want to
call it, of listener, ma'am.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
That's right tonight on stuff they don't want you to know,
listener mail, we're talking attention spans, more exploding devices, nocturnally
missions and more. Yeah, that's right, that's right, that's right.
I hid that one in there. It's going to be
a surprise for Noel.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Hey, but first, before we get started, let's hear a
quick voicemail from a certain so and so who just
hit us to a thing that we've all been watching.
But it is something we need to be paying more
attention to.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Here we go, this is Scorpion.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
I think that you should take a look at some
of the stuff that current President Trump has been doing,
specifically regarding declassifying files regarding the JFK, DAVE LK, and RFK,
and so that the rumor is right now that a
unprecedented number of documents are about to be declassified and
(02:03):
releases in the public. So that might be something for you
guys to take a look at. All right, feel free
to use this if you so desire. Again, this is
long time off.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Oh, Matt, have you actually read any of these executive orders?
Like the language of them is very fascinating to me.
At the very least, the first line by the authority
vested in me as president by the Constitution and the
laws of the United States of America. It is hereby
ordered as follows, and then you know the things that follow,
which are declassification of JFK, r f K and what's
(02:36):
the what's the third one MLK of course, yes, and
you've got real deep knowledge on those MLK tapes, and
I'm sure through the production of that podcast, you know,
got a sense of what might be in some of
these these documents.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Oh, for certain, I am at the edge of my
seat waiting basically, and you know, this show, each of
us as individuals, but also this show as a thing
has been on those JFK and RFK files as well,
for gosh, since we've started, and we every couple of years,
usually with every administration, there's an announcement, Hey, we're going
to release some more files. We're gonna get a little
(03:13):
bit more out there, and.
Speaker 6 (03:14):
They do just a little trickle, you know, well, well, yeah,
and it's true, and they do, and it's it's sometimes
hundreds of files, sometimes thousands of files, and then it's
the job of journalists to go through and parse through
that stuff figure out if there's anything that's worth actually
telling everybody about and making it a story.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I asked such a boneheaded question that I will fully
cop to before we start recording on, Like, so what
happens next? Are they just going to like make a
website for it? The government? It's like here it is,
guys here, That's not how it works. It's all these
FOYA acts, you know, requests and then you're right, I mean,
they may declassify it, but it's still just potentially a
needle in a haystack kind of situation for the folks
that have to parse through it.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Like you said, yeah, I am assuming because of the
weight of this executive order that there will be some
kind of pr notice, like a public relations first or
something that comes out, Hey, here are the new files.
They exist now and you can look at them here.
It would be pretty amazing to have the entirety of
(04:10):
all of it just laid out so we would know
what's happening, but it also could be terrifying.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Well do you have a sense of what a move
like this means or what the message is like? Is
it a we've got nothing to hide kind of situation?
Is it like it's been long enough, we want to
give people the truth? Like I just I always kind
of second guess, these kinds of decisions, you know, from
a pr standpoint.
Speaker 7 (04:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
In my mind, everybody is aware at this point that
there are secrets when it comes to what happened during
each of those three assassinations, right, what the what the
government did, how they reacted, what they knew beforehand, all
of that stuff. There's some secrets in there somewhere that
none of us know yet, but all of us know
that those the answers to the questions that remain are
(04:57):
either going to be damaging to someone, tell Diligence Agency,
to the government itself, to you know, the way other
countries view the United States. There's something in there that's
dangerous and damaging that the stamp of National Security is
just real bright on that thing.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
But the question is damaging to whom? Like if it
is a political maneuver, is this something where there's the
potential for like a previous administration to take a fall
for it or another you know, not opposing political party.
I just maybe I'm overthinking it, but it does seem
like there has to be some maneuvering in that direction.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Well, you know, this is speculation on my part, but
I feel as though if you got to the heart
of the matter. With each of those, you might find
out some super unsettling things about the FBI and how
it really functioned. At least that's what the MLK tapes
kind of got pointed towards. Basically what we uncovered and
what you and Ben and I have been talking about
for you know, being almost two decades now, got.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
Well, and I mean maybe to that point, Matt, it
could well help the argument of you know, we need
to clean house and restructure government agencies and like redefine
how these things work because there's too much corruption and
too little oversight.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Yeah, in the sixties there was too much corruption, because
that's really.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Mere talking about, right, But I'm just saying, like, if
there was a political reason for doing something like this
and the news stories that it'll generate, you know, it
makes sense that it would be something that a current
official could point to and justify maybe some of the
stuff that they're doing, if they even bother needing to
justify it, you.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Know, for sure, for sure, But for now we're gonna
have to just sit around, keep your eyes peeled to
those internets and see what we find, because it could
be beautiful. It could be terrifying either way. It's about
the death of three highly influential, important human beings, so
it's probably not going to be fun.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
Yeah, and three fascinatingly flawed human beings. Yeah, if you
really look into their backstories. And I mean, it's just
I don't know. The history alone is staggering.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
For sure, for sure, So let's all pay attention for now.
We're going to take a quick break here, word from
our sponsors, and we'll be right back with more messages
from you.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
And we're back with a couple of shorties, one with
a fun link that we're going to get right to
about some strange news actually, but we'll start with a
message from Sacra Tomato, who is from Sacramento. And I
first read this, I read it as you can call
me Sacramento. I'm from Sacramento. Much more clever than that.
(07:34):
He's a sacred Tomato going on. I read a lot,
and as I was listening to your podcast on social
media and attention span, I started thinking about how sometimes
I'll catch myself finishing a page and realizing I didn't
absorb a single thing from the last paragraph and go
back to actually absorb the content. It's like driving subconsciously.
I think I've started to read to the point that
I can finish a book and not know what I've
(07:57):
even read, just like how we can SubCom justly do that.
Also ironic, I was writing this email while listening to
a show in low attention span mode. Nice Sacer Tomato,
I pluge you for your candor here. I have experienced
this phenomenon more times than I can count, and it
(08:17):
has actually hindered me from being much of a reader.
I've really I've mentioned it on the show before, like,
I've got a goal that I want to, like read
a handful of these wonderful books and music biographies and
fiction that I've bought over the last few years but
have not been able to crack because of this very thing.
I'll start reading, I'll find myself thinking about something else
while still reading the words. But to Ben's point, you
(08:41):
can't multitask. You're not fully thinking about the thing outside
of what you're doing, and you're also not fully processing
the information that you're taking in while doing that, And
I find myself rereading whole pages and still having a
hard time feeling like I'm retaining. And so my goal
this year is to really do some of the things
we were talking about of limiting screen time. A friend
(09:01):
of mine turned me onto an app, actually, I think
one of probably many that sort of limits your screen
time and it sort of locks you out and gives
a lots you little bits of time. Obviously you can
always bypass it, but I wish I knew the name
of it. But I mean, this type of app certainly
is is a thing, and for good reason. Right, But
have you experienced this, Matt with trying to sit down
and really take in a book.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Yes, for sure, it's a bit different for me. Most
of my reading now occurs on a screen, and it's
usually an article or you know.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Part of the problem, isn't it. We're so we're doing
the thing that is limiting our attentions ban for our work,
and then we also still live in that same ecosystem
for pleasure, and it starts to the lines get really blurry.
I'm sorry to interrupt. I just it occurs to me
that that's exactly true for me as well. But I
find that it just bolsters my screen dependency.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Oh for sure. I've noticed that I use the same
rules with reading as I do for psychedelic drugs. Okay,
which is a little weird. It's set and setting for me, okay.
And so if I prepare myself to read, I prepare
my environment to read, and I you know, make it.
I actively think about where I'm going to be, how
(10:10):
I'm going to be sitting, what the light's going to
be like yep, and then I go and I do
that thing I can focus in on just that.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah. I recently bought some really cool record sholves that
are more like the kind you might see in a
record store, and it's caused me to really enjoy my
record collection more records, flip through and put something on.
And I've been doing that constantly because the act of
picking out and putting on a record and listening to
the span of time that it takes to fill up
one side of that record, and in that time, like
(10:38):
focusing on doing the task and using that the kind
of mark time. I've tried to be more intentional just
with my you know, around the house time, and I
think I'm going to next goal for me is to
figure out that set and setting for reading a book.
Maybe it involves putting on a record. Maybe it's a
type of record, like an ambient you know, electronic instrumental
record or something, and then I read for the duration
(10:59):
of one side of the record, you know, and then
maybe take a little pause, flip it over, read a
little more, and if I can consume it maybe in
chunks like that, maybe I can manage my attention span
better and almost I don't know, retrain that muscle, because
it atrophies, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
Oh yeah, for sure, for sure. It's been a long
time since I've been so I was going to use
the word enraptured, since I was so stuck in a
book and excited about its contents that I would just
pick it up and read it, even if there are
people talking around me, even if there's stuff going on
in my world, that I would just sit and look
at a book and read it.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I forgot what that feels a long time, and I
want to get that back. It's a wonderful feeling. And
you know, Ben is such a voracious reader, and I
really envy him a lot of times, Like I've been
on long flights with him where I've seen him finish
a book, like you know, on a six hour flight
to the West coast or whatever.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yep, it's amazing. It's a super power.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
It is indeed, Well, thank you, Sakra Tomato. We hear you,
We support you in your struggle. We're honestly right there
with you. Moving on to a message from our pal,
the Stoned Coyote, but in this situation, he's referring to
himself by the new more fiery moniker, the combustible Coyote,
and you'll see by in a second. Hey guys, I
(12:16):
hope you are seeing this. The tact deck has shown
to be effective with the pagers and radios, so it
only makes sense that others are going to find ways
to implement it. And I should have copied and pasted.
He probably had a really clever subject line for this email,
like exploding goggles or something like that, but I left
that out. But he is in fact talking about a
(12:38):
news story that he linked to on Business Insider about
drone headsets, and Matt, maybe you know a little bit
more about the tech here, but I'm imagining this is
like these are military grade drone headsets that go along
with piloting a small drone. It would be a heads
up display like of like an on board camera, you know,
on the device that you would be able to like,
(13:00):
you know, monitor maybe have some stats or you know,
what's the word like pitch and y'aw kind of like
flight simulator type, some sort of center radical or something.
I don't know if you have you heard much about these.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Yeah, there are a bunch of bunch of different versions
and you know, upgrades that are constantly happening, and it's
a it's a technology that is just honestly skyrocketing when
it comes to innovation. Some of them are full on
like virtual environments that you go into, you know, and
some of them are.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
A little yep, I'm seeing it now, VR headsets. That
sounds incredible, It doesn't that kind of like make the
idea of flying and drones sound a whole lot more fun.
But also if you were using in the military capacity,
a whole lot more precise.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, uh and quite frankly terrifying.
Speaker 3 (13:45):
No one million, I'm sorry. I always kind of get
hung up and not hung up, but excited about the
nerdy tech side of it before I then realize the
kind of long term humanity ramifications of some of these
kind of things. I try to live somewhere between those
two extremes for sure. For sure, Well, in any case,
these things are exploding on people's heads, Russian troops heads.
(14:05):
In fact, there's an article I referenced, or actually that
the muscible coyote referenced on Business Insider by Mia Jenkowik's
drone headsets sent to Russian troops were booby trapped to
explode when switched on, State media says, and that state
news agency is TASS. They say that the sabotaged headsets
were supplied via humanitarian aid. That's interesting. I guess I
(14:29):
never really thought of humanitarian aid doling out military gear.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Yeah, let's go, let just on that note. Let's go
to the source for sure. Please, where how did Business
Insider hear about this? Well, they heard about it from Igor.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Popov much better. Whichever potato Potapov.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
He is, quote a spokesperson for the Russian manufacturer JSC NPP,
and he told a state controlled news agency at we
got well. But but this is a spokesperson for a
Russian manufacturer speaking to a state controlled news agency, and
they are saying that an individual donated the goggles, as
(15:11):
you married humanitarian aids. So like some person, this guy
is telling a stake troll thing some person. It feels,
it feels it's way down the line there, right, So
it's we're not saying this isn't true necessarily, it's just
like sounds like something.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Is that just a box that you tick when you
donate military VR drones to a government, to a country.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
What are one of the biggest threats facing you know,
the Russian military right now as they operate in Ukraine.
What are one of the biggest threats that Ukrainian soldiers
and you know, citizens are facing right now? It is
these drones, absolutely, And those drones. It's like the actual
body of the drone is designed to either hold explosives
or carry explosives, and you know, in this case there's
(16:01):
high explosives at least according to the story inside the headset.
So you're trying to take out the person that's trying
to take out the verse soldiers.
Speaker 4 (16:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Yeah, And this article is answering literally every single question
that I posed at the top. Pot Topop said the
goggles were a brand Skyzone Cobra x V four and
they're used to, just as I was maybe conjecturing, provide
a first person view when controlling these drones. And again
I also imagine that it has a you know, x
Y type role and all of that stuff as well.
(16:32):
He added, as quoting directly from the Business Insider piece,
that when the military opened the batch, they found plastic
explosives and all of the products nikes. They don't go
into detail about like did this literally blow people's heads off?
I mean, is that the implication, Matt, I.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Mean potentially, But in this case, they're just saying they
open up a shipment and maybe they had some some
way of testing the product for or narcotics or whatever
they were doing, you know, some kind of customs system
where they got a shipment in, they checked them out
and they found plastic explosives. And I'm assuming anybody and
everybody who was buying sourcing electronic devices for their military
(17:15):
right or for military use, I'm assuming everybody right now
is checking everything.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
Oh absolutely, I mean, this is the statement from Potopov
is just so or Patapov is just so straightforward. It
just says when the glasses were turned on, they detonated
and exploded. There's no mention of like were they on
a person or again, like you said, were they being tested.
But it's a good point, Matt, because this does go
back to a story that we covered pretty in depth.
(17:39):
All those exploding pagers and walkie talkies that's plagued hesbola.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, very dangerous situation for an individual human
when that stuff's happening and right, and if you're on
the wrong side of wherever is attempting to sabotage your tech, yep,
all you gotta do usually is turn it on or
have a signal sent to it, depending on how the
device is triggered, and then it's over. In this case,
(18:08):
there is a telegram account that allegedly showed stuff right
like you you can see. I'm looking at images right
now of what appears to be plastic explosive in a
fairly tight container that would be a part of this
br headset.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
I gotta wonder when you look at like you know, tech,
when you open it up and you look at like
a printed circuit board and all the little components. I've
been doing a lot of that with all this modular
garbage that I mess with. There are little capacitors and
little things they're soldered onto one of these circuit boards,
and they sometimes are a little round kind of plastic
things with a coating on them. I do wonder is
(18:44):
it that little because it wouldn't be enough C four
when maybe that's just too generic a term for plastic explosives,
but that's what I remember from like the Diehard movies.
If it was just a small amount, it would be
enough to really really injure somebody, but not like enough
to take out a building or something. So I'm wondering, Yeah,
are they literally sneaking it in it's disguised as some
of these soldered on components.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Uh no, in this case, imagine the housing, like the
side housing, that would be a plastic piece that goes
over the metal components to kind of give the product
a shape or something. In between that piece of plastic
and the actual metal part, the internal metal part, there's
plastic explosive. It looks kind of like putty spread throughout
(19:28):
that like flat surface, and it appears to be about
the side like maybe half the size of a cell phone,
at least that's what it looks like from the images
I'm seeing. So it's designed to take out personnel, like
a single person whoever is going to use this device.
It'll take that person out, but it's probably not going
to you know, damage what.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
I was suggesting, but not enough to like take out
a facility like this is like, oh ye, a single,
single serve explosive device.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
And you know we're not the only one making this connection.
Matthew Ford was a war expert and a lecturer in
international relations at Sussex University or the University of Sussex.
He compared it to Israel's attacks on Hesbola and Lebanon
using those explosive pagers last September. And this kind of
calls attention, as does the pager story. And to your point,
(20:20):
matg just like of how important it is to keep
tight tabs on these supply chains. Because this device that
we're talking about is available on Amazon currently for like
three hundred and thirty bucks just the headset controller. I
guess it can be adapted to control different drones, but
I wouldn't have thought that, so, I mean, this is
(20:42):
not some sort of like you know, custom made, small
run piece of tech. This is like consumer grade.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Yeah, that would be an interesting trade off. If you
were going to use your drone to go blow somebody up,
you also have to blow up at the moment of
explosions wherever your drone is.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
I like that. I'm yeah, peace on Earth man, Yeah,
we'll get there real quick with that policy. So well,
thanks a million to the exploding coyote. Now the combustible coyote.
Eploding coyote is cool too. That sounds like another you know,
goth band or something. And then I just wanted to
read a quick add of boy. I guess sort of.
I don't know. We don't often read these kinds of messages,
(21:21):
but I thought it was relevant. Just someone talking about,
you know, the way we've been discussing Elon Musk and
like his low key overthrow of the government or whatever
you want to call it is, you know, the Doge
Department or division and his gaggle of young hackers, some
of whom had some problematic backgrounds. Something's got to be discussed.
We're experiencing it right alongside everybody else. But Seer just
(21:43):
wrote in and said, good segment. Guys, don't be too spooked.
We're all seeing this play out in real time. Be real,
say what's happening. We listen to be informed. See her,
that's very swee appreciate that we're doing the best again,
and it definitely is something to be freaked out about.
Whatever side of the political aisle you may fall I think, Yeah,
we've all read nineteen eighty four. I mean, it's it's
(22:05):
hard to not see some comparisons and talk about him.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, we're we're doing quite a few what what should
we call lookbacks. We're doing some lookbacks in history just
to see some other things that have happened in the
past that some alignments.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
You know.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, history doesn't always repeat, but it rhymes like Ben
likes to say, you've seen some pretty firebars from history
right now.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Yeah, yeah, did anybody Noel happened to catch the the
thing where Elon's four year old was getting interviewed with him.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
It's weird. Yeah, he said something like us talking about SpaceX,
like we just do whatever we want or something like that.
He's like, what it was it that he says?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Specifically, he said something to the kin of quietly, like
we'll quietly.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Do quietly do whatever we.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Want, something about avoiding taxes or like before the taxes
come in, then we'll quietly do whatever we want. And
then he had a maniacal billionairely.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
He sure did. And then that other very interesting appearance
of young X in the Oval office where Trump's just
kind of sitting there the whole time. While you know,
Elon Fields questions from the press. At some point that
I saw a meme where it kind of did a
close up on X and he's looking at Trump and
saying like, don't talk, shut your mouth or something. What
(23:25):
don't I don't think it was ai dude, and kids,
we know kids say the darnedest things, and there it
was definitely some darnedest things coming out of that kid's mouth.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
It's uh, really interesting. And again that's like it's a show,
it's a big weird show.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
But it's also looking me. I'm like, I'm a kid
with me in the workplace, like I'm a human. I'm
just like you.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
Yeah, it's just dad's day. So he's here and he's
going to tell the sitting president while he sits, you know,
at his desk. Oh here it is here, it is.
I found another one quote, you're not the president, you
need to go away. And then he went over and
picked his nose for a while.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
It's crazy. It's too much, you guys, I mean, listen,
we can't not talk about it. So thanks Sierra, and
thanks to Combustible Coyote, and thanks to Sakra Tomato for
those wonderful missives from you, Yes, you the public, Matt,
would you say we take a little quick break and
then we come back with some audio listener now, yes.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Sir ee, and we've returned. Let's jump to the phone
lines to hear some personal experience about incarcerated firefighters. So
we've been talking about this a lot. It's a complicated issue,
and depending on where you are and what you've seen,
(24:53):
you may think about it one way. Let's hear from
somebody who has someone in their family who has gone
through that experience, and you know, as a third party
to somebody you know going through it, like, what does
she think. Let's jump to mellow.
Speaker 8 (25:08):
Hey, guys, I was listening to your recent podcast about
firefighters in California, the incarcerated ones. My biological dad is
an inmate in Idaho, and he's been in and out
of this particular penitentiary for a couple of years, and
he has been on their firefighting slot for the last
(25:30):
ten years or so, on and off. You know, it's
probably a little bit more than that, maybe about fifteen years.
And as an chronically incarcerated person, he loves it. It's
something to get him out of their area. You can
only do it if you're you know, in good standing
in your prison, that way that they give you, you know,
(25:50):
leeway to leave. So for some of them, it gives
them kind of a incentive to stay right while they're
in prison, so that they can potentially leave never they
have the opportunity to. Saying opportunity seems callous because it's
destructive and people's lives are at stake, I will caveat
(26:11):
and say it is disgusting. It is quite literally slave labor.
What they're doing for the wages that they're doing is horrendous.
It's not like the prices in prison are any cheaper.
They are still making five dollars to ten dollars a day,
and that five dollars to ten dollars then pretty similarly
as it does out here, so it's not like they're
(26:33):
earning a lot. And the work that they are doing
is incredibly dangerous. But with that, I do think a
lot of them do enjoy the opportunity. Like you are
saying that moral obligation of I have the time, I
have the means, I have the body, I have you know,
the strength to do it, so why not me instead
(26:54):
of somebody else? And I think that is incredibly brave
and selfless of them to do, to be able to
put themselves out there and do that. But there's there's
no reason why they shouldn't be compensated or at the
minimum be able to work as a firefighter after they're
(27:14):
potentially out and you know, use those skills to do
a good use. You know, it's disgusting and callous that
they get out of prison and do all of this
hard working stuff and learn all these skills and they
still can't be a firefighter in the states that they're in.
So I definitely think means like that need to be changed,
and the pay needs to change, you know, or the
(27:37):
payment needs to change, whether it be able to do
sentence or something that's better for the person who's working. Anyways,
I'm probably almost out of time. Thank you guys. Have
a great day, Mellow. I guess if you need to,
you get party later.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Lots of unpacked there, Oh yeah, definitely a lot. And
thank you so much Mellow for giving us all of
that too unpack because there's some great info in here.
Specific I mean, there are so many things I want
to talk about it, as you said, but let's let's
get into it.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
First.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Of all, somebody who has been doing this for a
long time, right, this is Melo's father. You know, someone
who is, as she stated, chronically incarcerated, constantly going in
and out of a prison system. But when they're in
they are working as a firefighter. But once they get
out of prison, you know, in those moments, right, even
(28:28):
if you are constantly going back in for things. He
you whoever, you know, imagine yourself as this person. You
can't then work as a firefighter on the outside. That
seems tremendously shortsighted. You know, maybe I can see the
reasoning behind it and all that stuff, but again, I
(28:48):
don't know. If somebody is trained and really good at
doing something, why not put those skills to use?
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Oh? I completely agree, And I mean I was kind
of just intrigued by the way the calls took a
turn where it started with referencing her father and how
this is something that he really digs, like he really
enjoys doing this, the way of getting outdoors. I mean,
even she as she was going through it, sort of
kind of started checking herself almost because it's like she
caught herself describing it as sort of this great thing.
(29:16):
But then when you look at the behind the scenes
of it and how much they're actually paid, and the
absolute peril that they are in, you know, maybe comparatively
to being stuck in a prison cell. It feels like
a great opportunity I think was the word that she used,
and sort of walked it back a little bit. I
can see that perspective, but it is an absolute example
of these folks being taken advantage of as well.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
Oh yeah, well, and I think again this is a third,
third person view of the thing, right, but it is
it show. It gets us a little closer to that
experience of what is it actually like and what does
it mean to the person who is doing it. And
in this case, it appears as though it stinks because
the person is putting them graved danger and they're not
(30:01):
getting compensated for it, even though they've done other things
wrong in the past, right, And that's the reason that
they don't get compensated the way they should. That's the reasoning,
at least from the state's perspective as to why things
are as they are. You did something wrong, now you
don't get the good stuff anymore, and we are also
(30:21):
going to use you, you know, for the laterities yeah, yeah,
well for this really important, dangerous thing.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
But it also represents sort of a lack or a
shortcoming and just the institutions that are supposed to have
that covered in the first place, right that it's that
it's necessary. Is this isn't like we're sending inmates, you know,
to fight a fire entirely on their own. This is
to like bolster numbers you know, in various states and
(30:49):
city firefighting organizations.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
Right well, yeah, yeah, because if if depending on the state,
the county and all that stuff, like is it a
volunteer firefighting force? Is it a paid are fighting force?
You know, do do the men and women who are
out there doing it earn a salary? Or are they
just there because they want to do something good? As
we've heard from previous you know, people who've written in
for sure, in this case, it's just it shows the
(31:13):
complexity I think did did.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Did she go into whether or not this is a
voluntary thing where it's like you sort of put yourself
up for it and then you get selected or I
mean that I guess that's a really important question for me.
Or is this surely it couldn't just be forced assigned? Right?
So there is a volunteer aspect to it.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Yes, yes, And I'm when I'm speaking on volunteering, I'm
speaking like on the outside, I get it away from the.
Speaker 3 (31:38):
I'm just talking about the like morality of the whole thing,
And like, you know, is this forced labor, forced you know,
putting someone in harm's way, or is there a choice
you know of being you know, willing to participate in
something like this, knowing the stakes and knowing that you're
not getting paid much. Again, I'm not trying to be like,
you know, a booster for the government or like prison system.
(32:00):
The whole system is totally ft. But I'm just trying to.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Understand you're speaking to the psychological gymnastics that are exactly
an entire situation, right, Thank you, Matt, because you can
you can say as the prison system itself, right, you
could say, hey, this is an opportunity for you to
get outside and do something good. And really, with your
other hand, you're just you know, you're offering them, yeah,
(32:24):
offering them a pittance taking the rest that they're getting
in whatever grant they're getting from the state.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
That's exactly right, which is very odd, but it doesn't
make the quote unquote opportunity for the individual any more
or less valid. Like exactly I am someone maybe in
the outside, I was a firefighter, I was a volunteer firefighter,
and this is something that I truly maybe even you know,
at the point I'm at in my rehabilitation, like, I
feel passionately about this and I do want to help people,
(32:52):
and I'm able to do that, you know, with this
much more than I am sitting here lifting weights and
you know, reading books in my cell.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
So what is the reasoning, the concrete reasoning behind not
allowing someone who is a part of one of these
programs to get out and then continue doing that.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Good? What right? I think the callers point about just
the reform of the payment system is important, just to
make it maybe a little more, you know, they should
be compensated more, because I didn't really ever think about that.
But it's true, like money more or less spends the
same in prison, the commissary and also probably black market
stuff as it does on the outside. If anything on
(33:33):
the black market stuff is probably way more expensive for sure.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
And this is a tough thing for me, and I
don't want to ruffle too many feathers here, but in
my mind, if you are incarcerated and you're doing work.
Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think you should be compensating
in the same way, but not like to those levels,
those low levels, Right, there's something in between there that
makes sense. The biggest thing that makes sense to me
(33:59):
is if you use the skills that you're learning and
whatever job you're performing on the outside. But in this case,
this specific case, at least according to Melo, and I've
been looking at these specific rules in Idaho and trying
to find out, like, what's the concrete thing if you
are incarcerated and you're a felon and you're in this
you know, firefighter's system and you get out, can you
(34:19):
actually be employed anywhere? Or is that just something that
just can't happen or is it a specific thing for
her father?
Speaker 8 (34:25):
Right?
Speaker 2 (34:26):
And I haven't been able to find it yet.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
I'm sorry, I don't think i've follow employed like after
you being released, Like, is this in some way like
a benefit to your ability to be employed after you
know your sentence is done.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Well, that's one of the big points that Melo makes
there is that her father, once he leaves, is unable
to be employed as a firefighter in the state where
he was imprisoned and working as a firefighter while in prison,
so he cannot be a firefighter fighter on the outside
according to whatever rules are set up, right with hiring
somebody that is a huge misstep.
Speaker 3 (35:01):
I think I see what you're saying. It's yourule that
should be reconsidered because you've proven yourself in the field,
and this is a field that is in pretty most
of the time desperate need of additional folks. So why
would you cut off that ready made supply of people
for some sort of bias based on hiring former convicts.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Yeah, and then while incarcerated, rather than getting compensated for
that kind of work, you are building up training. Yeah,
you're building yourself up. You're right, your self esteem, whatever
it is you need to see that you were better
than some of the stuff they got you in there,
and now you can do good. That's a little too.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
I'm with you. And this is the kind of stuff
that someone out there is going to be like, oh,
you guys are so pie in the sky about this,
YadA YadA, YadA. But I do think these kinds of
things are worth discussing because it's like, you know, the
prison system sucks. We know about wrongful convictions and all
of that, but are there ways at the very least
to reintegrate people after they've served their sentences so they're
(35:57):
not just like persona non grata society and actually benefit society,
you know, And this is what you're suggesting, I think
is a pretty decent solution to that. And I'm certain
that this is one of the first people to have
thought about. But no, it does seem like it's a
societal thing, like why do we still harbor this like
long term grudge against you know, former convicts and felons.
Speaker 2 (36:21):
Exactly, So in that light, right, let's jump to a
first persons perspective and hear from Jason and salt Lake,
who knows exactly what it's like.
Speaker 4 (36:31):
Hey, it's a Jason salt Lake City, huge fans almost
you guys for a while.
Speaker 9 (36:36):
Uh, you guys been talking about the wildfires the other
day and the inmate firefighters. I just wanted to give
a little personal experience. Uh, I made some poor decisions.
I was incarcerated in Washington State for five years, and
for four of those years I got to be on
me the D and R crew fighting those source fires.
And uh, I know people say, it's slave labor, you know,
(36:57):
indentured servitude. But you got to realize that Number one,
a normal job in prison. I was working in the kitchen.
I was making thirty two cents an hour. They put
me on a fire crew and I was making a
dollar sixteen hour. Not only that, they feed you, just
like they feed the rest of the firefighters out there.
You know, you eat pops here food. Everybody is cool
to you. And and for me and everybody else that
(37:20):
was out there, it was it was.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
Something we wanted to do. You know, you have to
sign up for it, you have to get approved. It was.
It was something we all volunteered for. We wanted to
be at you know. And on top of that, you know,
a lot of it was made mistakes. We're in there,
and that kind of gets on your that kind of
starts wearing on your on your self esteem.
Speaker 9 (37:40):
You know, you did some bad things, and start thinking
that respects to who you are and getting out there
and doing something like that.
Speaker 4 (37:46):
Not only was it amazing to be out in nature.
Speaker 9 (37:49):
You know, outside the prison walls, but the self esteem
and the sense of accomplishment and pride it gave me
and and every really else around me was was priceless.
You know, we at the end of the day that
was of what we did. You know, it was an
honor to be out with the firefighters may treat you
like one of them, you know, it's not like a
bunch of inmates out they getting looked down on.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
They appreciate the help and they treat us accordingly. So
I just wanted you guys will piece of personal experience.
Speaker 9 (38:14):
I'm all for it. Obviously, I have a different help
look on things. I understand where other people are coming from.
But again that's just my experience. You can go ahead
and do my name I recording whatever you want, man,
I appreciate you guys.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Wow, I'm on that verge of tearing up a little bit.
I mean, I don't want to be too like hard
on sleeve about it, but I just the passion that
I heard in his voice, and just you know, I
think the point we brought up about like a way
of paying it forward or like you know, in some
way not redemption is such a movie term, but you
know what I mean, I just I heard that in
(38:48):
his voice and in his story.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah for sure, for sure, And that's huge too, being
able to hear it in the voice when somebody by
the way.
Speaker 3 (38:57):
And I'm just I'm literally you could see I'm like,
I'm kind of emotional, like I'm not.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
No, I see it and I feel it too, man,
And yeah, it's it's incredible to hear that because often
on the news, if you're watching just videos on YouTube
or somebody commenting, or even on this show sometimes and
I cop to it. We talk in generalities. We talk
in you know, a situation that affects a whole bunch
(39:22):
of people. But when you hear from an individual consciousness,
a human that has gone through it, is going through it,
whatever it is, it fully changes things because it's not
about statistics, it's not about you know, laws and all
that other stuff. It's how did all of that stuff
affect my experience? Right, And in this case, Jason just
lets us know there are really good things to a
(39:46):
system like that. It's just the system itself and the
way it functions maybe is the thing that needs to
get altered quite a bit, but there's something inside of
it that is extremely positive, at least in my view.
After hearing that from Jason specifically.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
Oh one hundred percent. I mean, and that's the kind
of thing that, like on paper, it's easy to get
hung up on the negative side of it. And I
think that all that stuff still holds. And Jason didn't
didn't mention that, but again it wasn't about that, it
was about his perspective on it. So it does highlight
what a complex issue is. And I didn't realize how
comparatively even less they get paid for, you know, working
(40:26):
in the kitchen or machine shop or whatever else, you know,
on the prison grounds. That's insane and of itself. So
this is a much larger, you know, discussion about reform
in terms of like what prisoners are compensated. But to
your point, Matt, you know, it does feel separate from
what happens outside, but there should be a little bit
more parody between the two. Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Just that concept of a group of firefighters welcoming in
another group of incarcerated men. They don't see them as that,
They see them as human beings that are going to
help them solve major problem. Right, And that's all you see,
and that's all it has to be. There are of course,
you know, there's minutia to get into, depending on what
specific crimes and all that stuff that you have to
(41:11):
take into consideration at some level, but at you know,
if you can drill down deep enough, I think you
can find the humanity in everybody. So guy has some
other stuff I wanted to say here. Lease I'm kind
of losing it a bit, but.
Speaker 3 (41:25):
It's just.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
I was thinking about social media and some of our
talks about attention span talks about the click is the
most important thing. How do you get that click? How
do you get the eyeball on it so they don't
scroll away a user? Right, A story about incarcerated firefighters
being wronged by a system, I think is going to
(41:49):
get a lot more clicks than a personal story from Jason,
let's say, or a group of firefighters who say, Hey,
this was really incredibly meaningful for us to be able
to do this.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
And this person is not coming at us from a
place of being like a shill or a poster boy
for some kind of program like this is a human
experience being shared directly from the human who experienced it.
And I don't know that's how it hit me, you know,
So I guess what I was getting at with stuff
on paper versus like when you actually talk to people.
I think that's just always so important to remember about
anything is it's so easy to spin up one version
(42:22):
or perspective about a thing that is certainly can be valid,
but it completely ignores just the like broadness of people's
experiences oftentimes. And it's so because of the black and
white of the Internet and social media. It's so easy
to need to wrap it in some kind of cut
and dry, sort of like shell so that people can
eat it up and be mad about it or be gushy,
(42:44):
bleeding heart about it instead out you know what I'm.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
Saying, mostly mad, though mostly mad.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
It's mad, right, it's it's almost exclusively mad.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
That's how the algorithm works.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
For the short form stuff especially, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:59):
Yeah, if it's gonna elicit a comment from you, which
generally means you're fired up enough. You know, if you
like something a lot, you're like, wow, this is incredible,
you might give it a little heart and then send
it to a buddy or something like that. But if
you're fired up, you're gonna comment, and then somebody else
might get fired up, and then they're gonna comment, and
then you might comment back. And guess what, you spend
(43:20):
a ton of time on their platform or app or whatever,
just creepy stuff. Well, hey, we're gonna tell you how
to contact us at the end of the show. Please
let us know if you have any thoughts on this stuff,
you have any experience you want to share and send
it our way. We'd love to hear it, and we'd
also love to share it with the class if we can.
For now, let's take a break. Here, a word from
(43:40):
our sponsor, and we'll be right back with more messages
from you. And we're back, and we're jumping to the
phone lines again, this time to hear from Troglodyte about
a story we covered that hit a little too close
to home, but in a good way. I think, in
a good way. A while back we interviewed Carryl Miller,
(44:00):
the host of kill List, and that is a story
that we'll talk more about after the break. But it's
a story about the darknet and hired assassins and scams
and actual real life people that want to kill other people.
It's a deep, dark story. You can listen to that
episode right now if you want to. Here is Troglodite's experience.
Speaker 10 (44:23):
All right, hey, this is Troglodite again. I'm listening to
your new episode about the dangers of the Dark Web,
and you're talking about Amien Stephen online they I'm not
even kidding. You were my neighbors. My little sister baby
sat for their child. I went to their house for
the National Night Out, and they that murder happened my
(44:48):
first year of college, when I moved away to go
to college for the first time, and it was the
wildest thing I ever experienced. I grew up down the
street from their house, and their property was then sold
and now like a huge subdivision of houses they are
being put on there. If you want to talk about
(45:09):
that Stephen an amy Allwine case, I lived it, and
I love your show so much, thank you so much.
When you were doing that dark Web stuff, I was like,
oh my god, I I know a dark Web assassin
story because that was my neighbors. And then you said
Amy all Wine, and my jaw hit the floor and
I stopped and I pulled the car over and I
called and I was like, oh my god. So now
(45:31):
I get to listen to the whole thing about what
you guys found. But yeah, crazy crazy, crazy crazy sus
think you love the show, you can use whatever I say.
Speaker 3 (45:39):
By there we go stru Okay, okaye. Really, yes, he
kind of looks like a dude who would hire an
internet assassin to kill man a little bit. Man, I'm
just looking at this picture of him. I've never seen
this guy before, and he has a little bit of
what it was like a one thousand miles stare.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, this is the story if you happen to actually
listen to kill List, this is the story that opens
the entire show. It's a story of a man that
called nine to one one because his wife had been
shot and she was dead. And after, you know, the
police began investigating, they found out that, oh, it does
(46:23):
appear that he killed his wife, that Stephen killed his wife.
It appears that way, and he's currently serving time because
of that. It's a complicated story, but it all goes
back to how he attempted to hire a hitman on
the darknet.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
He did, yeah, okay, so it looks like he attempted
it and was unsuccessful, and then he felt strongly enough
about it that he went through with it himself.
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Right, yes, Which is really the entire point of the
kill List show or kill List if you look it up,
it's that there there was this fake assassin's website where
people were paying tens of thousands of dollars to have
other people assassinated. But the site itself was a scam
and it was money just being taken in by somebody else, right.
Speaker 3 (47:06):
But what.
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Carl Miller and the rest of the team that he
was working with realized is that every single human being
who has paid money into the site is potentially a killer,
right because they wanted that desire to have someone else
dead could lead them to do what Stephen Olwine did
and kill that person in real life rather than have
somebody else do it. So check that out. Pretty great
(47:32):
episode in great podcast if you ask me.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
Yeah, I've heard of it, and I've heard good things,
but I have not checked it out myself. I honestly,
I kind of tend to shy away from the hardcore
true crime stuff these days. I just listened to like
pop culture pot there's just another of that going on
here in the world. But it sounds like it's well made,
and we've all of course participated in making these types
of shows, so this sounds like a high quality one
for sure.
Speaker 4 (47:56):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
It's a very unique, very cool perspective, and you're on
the ground with them as they're attempting to basically save
people from potential murder. It's intense stuff. On a lighter note.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
Yes, we always like to end on a lighter note.
Let's go out on a.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah, let's let this person take us there, take us
all the way there.
Speaker 7 (48:18):
Hey, guys, this is offster hot pants. Well in talking
about foods that have a weird connection with dreams. When
I was a Mormon missionary, one of the rules is,
of course, you know, you can't have any kind of
specual relations with someone of the opposite gender, including up
(48:40):
hugging as well, just to kind of help, you know,
keep that temptation away while you're a missionary. Now, there
was a myth that I heard as a missionary. I
never tried it myself, that if you were to eat
three bananas right before going to bed, you wouldn'tduce yourself
into having a wet dream. Now, I'd heard this second
(49:04):
hand claim it you and in you know, the area
where I served among other missionaries. I never saw it personally.
I always thought it was kind of funny, but again
I never tried it personally, so I can't say if
it was just something that was induced by you know,
thought power, whatever, that's called when you know, sugarpark kind
(49:27):
of thing. Anyways, thank you so much, guys for everything
you guys do. Show great, have a good day.
Speaker 3 (49:34):
All right. How many bananas was that again?
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Three bananas, according to Officer Hotpants. Just so everyone knows,
I've got four bananas in my house right now. One
is for my son's breakfast in the morning and the
other three for later tonight. All right, what a what
a fun idea. You can find all kinds of stuff
online about consuming bananas and milk fore bed and all
(50:01):
kinds of other things to get potassium and certain nutrients
in your body before you sleep, for you know, all
the beneficial effects of that stuff. It's tough to know
what's actually backed by science, you know. And then I
can't find anything that is actually connecting potassium intake and
banana intake to nocturnal e missions of one form or another.
(50:24):
But hey, let us know what you find. Get out
there and experiment with them bananas, just like I'm gonna
do that.
Speaker 3 (50:31):
I'm gonna question cont on that one, buddy. Yeah, get
out there and experiment with those bananas. Let us know
what wild stuff you get up to with bananas out there.
In the real world. Were pretty easy to find.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
Oh, you can find us all over the place. We're
on the internet. We're on YouTube conspiracy stuff, We're on Instagram,
conspiracy stuff show. I think you can still find us
on TikTok if that still exists. When you're hearing this,
there's other stuff Twitter, I mean, x Facebook, conspiracy stuff.
Just look around, you'll find us.
Speaker 3 (51:05):
And Hey, if you want to get in touch with us,
just like many of our listeners today did, Matt, I'm
gonna have to get you to give us those names
of our amazing voicemailers. You can call us at one
A three three STDWYTK Matt, tell them how it goes.
Speaker 2 (51:18):
Yes, when you call in, give yourself a cool nickname
and let us know within the voicemail if we can
use your name and message on the air. You've got
three minutes say whatever you'd like. Call in, just like
Crooked Scorpion, Mello, Jason Troglodite and Officer Hotpants. And we've
got other ways to contact us. You can send us
an email.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a product
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
24/7 News: The Latest
Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.