Anne Ominous shares their own experience with sketchy gas stations, and introduces the guys to a new slang phrase for gambling machines. Maximus weighs in with a true story about synthetic estrogen, waste water and fish populations. Following up on news about Palantir and train hoppers, Mr. Delay calls in to ask whether the growing surveillance society may drive some people off the grid. 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 the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
argue you are here. That makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. If you are joining us
for tonight's listener mail program, let us be the first
to welcome you to June twenty sixth. Guys, it's almost
(00:54):
the end of June, which means we are once again
in season.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Oh thank goodness, finally, Matt, I heard you got a
rude bega hanging out in your friends and you're gonna
dice up and delightfully roast.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Perhaps I do, indeed, but it needs me some more
route of begas. So let's see if we can find one.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Can you do some digging, Billy?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Oh, I'm sorry, we were looking for what is rudebega?
What is rude vega? Is the question? I believe, Ben,
you got some correspondence to shed some light on just
that very question.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
All right, since it's just the five of us and
millions of other people, we will share the following correspondence
from our pal that I hope we can identify. His
title is chef. His name rhymes with ted. So this
(01:56):
fellow conspiracy realist says, spoilers, rude begas are not true turnips.
They're the unholy children of turnips and cabbages.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Okay, I'm holy indeed.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Well, we're obviously fans and Matt, thank you for doing
the research here on your case study of a rudabak.
How you planing to cook it.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Like any other root vegetable? Baby, put it in the
oven after being shopped in.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Get us some seasoning, yimmy.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I like that quiet storm voice, and we like your
voices as well. So we're going to take a quick
break for a word from our sponsors, and when we return,
we're going to explore synthetic estrogen. We're going to talk
about analog society versus a surveillance state. We're going to
study brain stuff for a second. But before we do
(02:54):
any of that, we're going to have a follow up
with our gas station episode stuff gas stations don't want
you to know. We asked you, fellow conspiracy realists, for
your first hand experiences, and gosh knows, we got some
great stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
And we've returned with a listener coming to us from
rural Bartow County, Georgia. Fellas, where's Bartow County in relation
to where we are?
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Is this an official inquort? It?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I guess I could google it myself. I know I've
heard the name, but I don't. I'm really bad at geography.
It looks pretty Cartersville near Kansas, so really not that
far from us at all, about an hour drive from
where we currently sits. And if there's anything like where
we live, we talked about this openly on the episode.
(03:50):
There's gonna be some sketchy gas stations, and sure enough,
our listener and Ominous told us about just that very thing. Hi, guys,
been listening forever, and I've been looking forward to the
gas station episode since y'all first mentioned it. I live
in rural Bartow County, Georgia, and nearly every gas station
around that isn't a quick trip, which a big chain
around here or a racetrack, which I think is a
(04:12):
little more national has slot machines. Locally, everyone refers to
them as the ding Dings. Really love that, Gonna co
op that my own daily life the ding Dings. Part
of the reason that the sketchy gas stations often have
lots of random items is to use as prizes for playing.
According to the official store policy, you can only cash
(04:35):
out for store credit, and having those items around makes
it appear more legit. One place that used to be
near me had a whole side building they called the
Game Room, which I've mentioned seeing around me as well,
just slap full of ding Dings and a bunch of
prizes that you could win. The thing is you could
(04:55):
always get cash. I don't play often, but the handful
of times I've played in won I was able to
get cash, whether or not I was a regular or not.
There's no chance those machines would be so popular otherwise.
The sketchiest gas station I know of is also the
one closest to me. I'm in the middle of nowhere
and it's right at the end of my street. Over
(05:15):
the years, the amount of products in the store has
dwindled to next to nothing. They have gas, cigarettes, beer, soda, lottery,
and then shells with some random dusty items and candy.
The weird and sketchy part. They used to have four
older slot machines. They've recently upgraded to four huge, brand new,
fancy ones, while the rest of the store is absolutely depleted.
(05:38):
What's weirder about this is that hardly anyone plays them.
Every once in a while, I'll see a local tweaker
on a machine, but it's not laughing at addiction problems.
It's the term tweaker always. It makes me giggle, but
never enough to justify how much those suckers cost. The
only person I see regularly feeding money into it is
an employee, which makes me really wonder if my neighborhood
(06:01):
sketch station is actually a front for money laundering.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
My money's running to the laundry like there's something smelly
on Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Anyway, you're more than welcome to use this on the podcast.
And you can just call me an ominous. That's my
old AOL username that I thought was so cool and
edgy when I was fourteen. Well, I think it's still
cool and edgy today an ominous and I dig the
reference to aim. It was a golden time for Internet
communication for us all boy boy, does this ever hit
(06:32):
home some of the stuff we talked about in that
episode in terms of I mean you kind of you know,
ran the gamut here in terms of loose adherence to
the law where these machines are concerned, the idea that
it's supposed to only pay with prizes and store credit,
but that it's more than easy enough to convert those
(06:52):
winnings to cold hard cash, and the idea of these
potentially being fronts for other types of illicit activity. Guys,
is there anything about an Ominous's email that hit home
for you?
Speaker 4 (07:06):
First off? Misominous? If I may be formal here, thank
you so much for writing in and verifying something we
said earlier. One of the signals of a sketchy gas
station is indeed going to be dust upon some of
the products. You know, not to sound, not to sound
(07:28):
like one of those old jerks and basic with a
putting on the white gloves and walking around and testing dust.
Do you guys remember that.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Of course? Yeah, classic trope of the old drill sergeant.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
But if you see that, right, if you see the
visible dust, it is a signal that there may be
something interesting afoot, and we cannot cast dispersion on the
choices of those owner operators. But mis ominous you have
(08:04):
you have provided multiple details that seem to indicate this
is worth looking into. Now, we're not gonna snitch on
this gas station, are we misominous? Are we norm we.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Think so, we don't have a snitches no call in
the gambling you know that way, We did talk about
there being a direct hotline to the GBI for just
such snitchery. But yeah, I mean, look, I've certainly it's
weird how many gas stations there are in certain rural areas,
in certain maybe like food desert y type areas like
(08:39):
I mentioned I live in. It just doesn't seem like
a small stretch like that could sustain that many of
the same exact business, oftentimes on the same exact side
of the street, et cetera. And then you do start
to see in that glut of these types of businesses,
some of them becoming more and more depleted, and yet
(09:00):
somehow still remaining. You know, No, I don't know that
I've ever seen a gas station go out of business.
It's just I don't know. It's interesting and then a
little bit odd, and I do tend to lean towards
nefarious activities from time to time. But this whole you know,
cash payout thing, it absolutely confirms what we had suspected.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Can I tell you, guys my favorite thing about and
ominous message. It's referring to these as ding dings. I
don't know if you guys have ever seen this glorious
show that you can find right now. I've seen it
because I'm father of a young son who loves the
show Big City Greens. It is a fantastic little animated
(09:42):
series with one of the main characters being Cricket Green and.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
He does that Big City Greens plural.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yes, and he goes around to the Greens as the family.
He goes around and he calls people ding ding all
the time, and he's my kids.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Sometimes I don't like ding ding.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
That's up there with Bozone.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, but but it made me think of all these machines.
And there's even I found an article from what is
this ninety five point five WSB. We knew WSB the
radio radio channel, the radio station hereas station exactly, but
they refer to these as ding ding gambling machines as well,
which is very funny to me.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
I like the rhyme, and we also want you to
know mis ominous.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
We will never call our fellow compatriots ding Ding's, but
we want you to know that you are not alone
in a lot of firsthand accounts we have received about
gas stations. And I got to ask you, guys after
we recorded the stuff gas stations don't want you to
(10:51):
know how how were your experiences when you visited a
gas station next? Did you, guys feel like more tuned
in to things? Did anybody else purposely visit out of
the way gas station?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
No, I don't need to because there's a gazillion of
them in my neck of the woods, and I typically
go to the same two. Yeah, one of them definitely
has this big old gambling parlor, and of the two
is the least legit seeming one.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
So did you ever play? No?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I never have, but you know what, maybe I will
and then see how it goes because I am kind
of a regular they know me there. So I bet
you if anyone was going to get a kind of special,
you know, secret treatment, right, it might.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Be mm hm.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, I'll tell you one thing that this discussion that
we had did prompt me to do was look a
little more into just gas station crime rate. Specifically here
in Atlanta and matt we were talking off here you
found a story specifically surrounding these gambling machines and specifically
in Bartow County where Sheriff's office officials are looking for
three people who were seen stealing from gambling machines. The
(11:56):
Bartow County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public's help
and identifying three people connected to stealing money from gambling machines.
So there's money in the gambling machines, deputy say. The
theft took place on November twenty that a Texaco gas
station on Cassville White Road in Cartersville. Two men and
one woman sat at the Ding Ding gambling machines. This
is news to me. The press is actually calling it
(12:18):
that too, And after all three individuals were done playing,
the cashier provided them with store credit. Upon them bringing
the credit voucher to redeem, police say. Store camera footage
showed two of the suspense conserting money into the machine
and hitting the collect button to get a voucher for
store credit. They then opened the machine with a duplicate key,
retracted the cash box, and took all the money and
(12:40):
of course in my mind immediately asked the question why
is there money inside these machines, to which I answered,
because people put the money into the machine to play,
and the money is stored in there, and that's how
they take their profit. It's not dispensing money like a
gambling machine, and Vegas might with actual coins that flood
out of the old style gambling machines. And employee check
(13:03):
the machines the next day and discovered approximately two thousand,
six hundred and sixty four dollars missing between three of
the machines. That's a decent haul for these machines at
a rural gas station. So I just think that's another
point towards the profitability of these things and also the
potential for crime surrounding them. Oh and really quickly though,
(13:24):
while we're at it, Ben, you found a voicemail that
referenced this very thing, and I thought it might be
a good way to take us out of this segment.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Yeah, mis ominous and fellow conspiracy realist, we're working live.
Not all of us have heard this. We got a
message from a trucker regarding gas stations and reacting specifically
to the issues of trafficking and we think this is
very important, so we're just going to play this message.
(13:56):
Hopefully this will reach people who may need assistance. So
here we are with Sasquatch.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Hey, guys, you can call me Sasquatch. Is stunt double
calling in again. I just listened to your podcast about
gas stations and truck stops and been a trucker for
almost two decades now and I have seen some crazy things.
But one of the things you guys mentioned about was
(14:26):
the human trafficking at truck stops and gas stations, and
I have to say that has been greatly reduced. You
don't see it as often. It's still out there, happens occasionally.
But there is a group called Truckers Against Trafficking and
it was started by a mother and her four daughters
and one of their friends, and they have done a
(14:49):
campaign across the US to educate truck drivers, truck stops
and fuel stops about human trafficking, what to look for,
the issues that come along with and the damage it
does it does to people. They are a fantastic organization.
(15:13):
It's definitely something people should know about. And I really
believe that the reason why so many truck stops are
safe havens for people in trafficking situations is because of
that organization. And the fact that you don't see it
as much happening in the world is because of that organization.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
And we'll pause it there. We just I think collectively
agree this is an important message to send out to
the world.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, I mean, truckers are certainly a frontline position in
this fight, and the fact that they can kind of
band together to help identify some of these issues is
a powerful thing, you know.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Now, No, Sasquatch stunt Double also has an awesome man, Matt.
You may have spoken with him directly in the past.
There's another part of this message that we may play
in the future. Objecting to the term lot lizards, which
we all I think collectively.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Absolutely we mentioned that when we brought it up. It
is just kind of like a parlance of the time.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I guess let's just say, yeah, we heard from Sasquatch's
stunt double back when we were talking about stolen meat.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
He had some cool insight about that. Well, with that,
let's take a quick break here a word from our sponsor,
and then come back with more messages from you.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
And we've returned, guys, I have a really important update.
This is Final Fantasy MTG. I'm holding a pack. We're
not going to open it. We're just gonna state it exists.
It's real. I have a bunch of packs. Yeah, and
I got one of these little I can't remember how
to say this.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Cactore, cactar, cactus fella doing a little jump.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Is that a rare pool? No?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
But but no, it's a I think it's a common
or maybe how.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Many backs did you get?
Speaker 2 (17:10):
You got all like boosterbacks, right, everyone that was available
to me in my immediate vicinity. I purchased every single one.
I'm now in debt. I need your help. I've seen
the go fund me for Matt's MTG addiction issues. That's
not the most important thing, guys. The important thing is
we got a great message from Maximus. Maximus is bringing
up something that we talked about back in twenty eighteen
(17:33):
when we made our highly important episode are Frogs Really
Changing Gender? Also, hearkens back to our August fifteenth, twenty
twenty three, classic version of that episode. This is you guys,
remember that whole uh, that whole thing that Alex Jones
put all of the world through when when he said
(17:55):
that phrase.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Frog.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yes, there you go. Well, and then you know, we
on this show looked it up and said, oh crap,
is there are some really weird things going on actually
with stuff ending up in the water and having effects
on amphibian populations. Well, Maximus has called in with a
whole other group of animals that are being affected by
(18:19):
the stuff we humans put into ourselves and then pee
into our toilets. So here we go.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
This is Maximus. Please do an episode exploring the correlation
between worth control becoming widely available in the United States
of America and the declining population of fish as water
is recycled from wastewater systems to drinking water systems and
(18:47):
then recycled to freshwater systems and is a direct correlation
and the declining population of freshwater fish and North America
as always, thank you, keep doing you.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Oh okay, so that sounds a little weird, right, Like, oh,
come on now, there can't be a correlation between any
of that stuff. That doesn't make any sense birth control
and fish populations. That's human stuff and fish stuff, and
those two things don't come together at all. Well, you'd
be wrong, just as I was, just as silence when
(19:21):
I initially encountered Maximus's message there, because if you do
a quick little search on the internet machines, you're gonna
find several articles that are written in the news about
these things, and several scientific journals that are reporting this
very thing. First, we'll jump to a two thousand and
(19:41):
eight article within The Guardian written by James Anderson titled
birth control for Fish. And in this article you will
learn about the studies run by doctor Karen Kidd of
the University of New Brunswick in Canada and some very
upsetting results, very very setting results. She and her team
(20:03):
had a really cool idea. There's a group of lakes
out there in Canada, Ontario that's just north of Minnesota,
just east of Winnipeg called THEISD Experimental Lakes Area, and IISD,
by the way, stands for International Institute for Sustainable Development,
(20:26):
and this lakes area has a whole bunch of freshwater lakes.
What they did they went to over fifty fifty eight
research lakes and they checked out all of the populations
of freshwater fish within those lakes. They gathered as much
information as they possibly could. Then they went to another
lake and made sure that lake had an average population
(20:47):
of all the fish that was found in the other
fifty eight lakes. They basically made a perfect version of
an average lake within this area. Right then they started
adding teeny tiny amounts of a synthetic estrogen that's used
it's commonly used in birth control pills for humans, and
they found that populations of specific fish were altered so
(21:11):
much that the population was almost decimated within the lake,
almost none, because the males of the of that specific
fish started to lose their gonads. And they found that
the which is crazy to think about, and the males
were also unable to reproduce, Like you can imagine those
(21:31):
two things being correlated, but it's real stuff. Then she
went on to author more articles and do more science
checking out what happens when there's just teeny tiny trace
amounts of the synthetic estrogen within freshwater lakes and rivers,
and they found in other species, this tiny amount is
(21:51):
having a major effect on the ability of these fish
to breed. And guys, here is the major problem that
Maximus points out.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
There.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Teeny tiny trace amounts of this stuff can have an effect.
And every time humans who are on birth control p
they release trace amounts of the synthetic estrogen into the
water systems. The wastewater plants are not able to process
pharmaceuticals We've talked about that before on this show, which
then get sent back into the freshwater systems, which then
(22:21):
have effects on the fish population, which can then have
an effect on the other species that are within that
ecosystem that prey upon these smaller fish. I didn't know
this was real, guys. I didn't think this was real.
I didn't think there could be this kind of effect,
especially from the waste that we produce after taking pharmaceuticals.
(22:43):
In my mind, it was always if pills end up
in the water system because they go down a drain
or something. But no, it is processed materials that have
the effect. Okay, yeah, uh, there's a lot more you
can go into here. By the way, one of the
people that co authored one of these studies titled Collapse
(23:07):
of a Fish population after Exposure to a synthetic estrogen
that was published in two thousand and seven. One of
the co authors is Robert Evans. H different, Robert, right,
I think so, Roberty Evans, I don't know it. I
don't need You can look up all of this stuff.
You can search for twenty fourteen article. New study finds
(23:30):
estrogen has detrimental and surprising effects on freshwater wildlife. That's
based on a whole other paper that was published titled
Direct and Indirect Responses of a Freshwater food Web to
a potent synthetic estrogen. It feels like a major problem
that we're not thinking about, not talking about, and I
(23:51):
don't know it just it feels like if that one
small synthetic thing hormone can have an effect on the
fish popular as well as we know specific herbicides and
pesticides can have an effect on amphibian populations. It does
make me wonder how much of the waste water runoff
from our treatment plants actually have effects on the wider
(24:13):
ecosystems that we're just we're kind of forgetting to even
look at. And that's it, all right, Well, we'll be
right back with more messages from you, froud.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
We have returned. We've been going through a bit of
a pallanteer phase. We received an interesting thought experiment from
a from a fellow listener going by mister Delay. So
we're going to hear from mister delay, Lay lay lay delay,
(24:52):
getting just take it a second to load up. Let's
keep it in.
Speaker 7 (24:56):
Hey, boys, you can call me mister Delay and feel
free to my message on the air. I just listened
to your episodes about train hoppers and your new strange
news thing about Talenteer and I had a thought. As
you know, companies like Talent here are increasingly putting Americans,
(25:20):
certain groups of Americans in their surveillance. And as the
economy gets mores and homeless movies is on the rise,
and many of the people that will suffer from both
things of these things will be younger, more tech stivy generations.
Might we see a resurgence in train hopping culture in
(25:42):
the next few years? Just as thought, I want to
share with y'all.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
So the question then becomes, first off, thank you, mister Delay.
The question becomes is this a is the pendulum of
state surveillance going to swing so far that people, especially
in younger generations, start to unplug or become increasingly analogue.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
I don't know, go off grid. I used to know
some trained kids back in my own town. They always
had a dog with a bandana with a name like
Rusty or something.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Good.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Cool folks. They're always in like punk bands, and I
actually knew a couple of folks who got big time
arrested like like sting style, like like they were helicopters involved.
It was a big deal pulling them off the train
and you know, throwing them in the paddy wagon. It
is considered, like stowing away is a pretty serious offense,
(26:37):
and they take it. It took it pretty seriously. But
I was really taken aback by how aggressive the authorities were.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Oh yeah, the railroad bulls.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
But danger your question, I mean, I think it's certainly
that was their goal in those days. Was to be invisible,
was to be off grid, was to move in silence,
And it certainly seems like if you don't get caught
in that fashion, it is a good way of doing it.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, So what do you guys, What do you guys
think about what mister Delay is proposing here. Noel, you've
noticed that, or you've noted that, there is a real
contingent of what are sometimes called vagabonds or modern hoboes
in the United States today. Matt, interested in your experience
(27:22):
as well. I know that we have all, at various
times throughout our strange careers, considered going off the grid.
And Dylan was pointing out before we recorded the idea
that it is suspicious to not be on social media
at this point. So so what's your take, man, do
(27:43):
you do you think, like Noel and I do, that
more people might be tempted to live in an analog society.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, I don't know if I agree that they'll be
using the trains like that. I think it'll be more
isolated communities and you know, just house is further away
from each other. I think we're gonna start doing that.
That's what humanity seems to be poised to set down
that path.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, it's interesting how like you know, I mean it's
almost cliche to say, but like with the increasing connectivity
of the Internet and social media, it almost just you know,
serves to push people further apart in real life, and
like anything, you're gonna see a backlash and sort of
(28:29):
like a let's turn the clock back a little bit.
Like you know, with streaming services and things like that,
are like video streaming and also music of course, people
are now buying more Blu rays, people are buying more
Vinyl records. It just feels like there's always kind of
a backlash against the popular movement. People are like wanting
(28:50):
to read things and holding it in their hands. You know,
I just think there's this is a very similar impulse.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Right, Oh yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, because oh also,
we have to pause just really quickly here to give
you a stuff that don't want you to know recommendation.
If ever, as Nol was saying, you see a blu
ray or a dusty collection of CDs at the counter
of your local gas station, buy them, buy the mixtape,
(29:18):
you know what I mean. You see like the Poughkeepsie
Posse or something, pick it up as long as it's
not over thirty dollars. Is that okay? Do you guys
ever buy this sort of sketchy CS that you see?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yeah, especially when I was driving the aforementioned sixteen disc
changer Beatermobile that I talked about in our previous.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Episode Legendary, Did you have a name for that vehicle? Now?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
I just made up Beatermobile, and I think I like that.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I like that too. I like that too. What's your
social Security number?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
It's a.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
There's one last thing we wanted to share. A lot
of folks have written to us about the following. We've
talked at length about large language models. Sometimes called AI problematically,
and the most famous of those in the West is
something called chat GPT. Now, it's quite common in education
(30:19):
in day to day life for people to use chat
GPT pretty often, and not to sound like old entity
shouting at the sky, but I think we've all harbored
concerns that using this stuff may harm cognitive abilities at
(30:40):
some point and to some degree. There's a new study
that was recently published from researchers at MIT's Media Lab
that gives a little bit of quantitative basis to this,
similar to the Alex Jones frog stuff right, and the
dangers of synthetic estrogen emission and transmission throughout an unregulated ecosystem.
(31:08):
This study, guys, have we heard about this? It's kind
of breaking news. No.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
No, I'm excited to hear about it, though, maybe excited
to throw and I'm fascinated to hear about it.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
We should ask chat gpt about it. The study divides
fifty four subjects, all from Boston, all between eighteen to
thirty nine years old, and it put them in three groups,
and it asked them to write essays like you would
write in a college entrance exam, right, or a qualifier
(31:40):
exam like the SAT and one group uses chat GPT,
one group uses Google, and the third group is just
working the way you would in say the nineteen fifties
or something, right, just the treasures in their own minds.
And while they were working on these questions, the researchers
(32:03):
used an EEG to record the brain activity of these
folks writing these essays, and they recorded it across thirty
two regions of the brain and they found that provably,
with an admittedly small sample size, the chat GPT group
had the lowest brain engagement. And this is a quote
(32:27):
from the study, consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavioral levels.
What do we think about that? Does that jibe with
earlier conversations? Yes, should we be concerned? Yes?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
And yes I think so. I don't mess with them
at all. And I don't know if maybe it's just
it's not appealing to me. It's less of like a
philosophical thing than it just doesn't particularly interest me. And
maybe that is me getting aged out of a new
thing to a degree, being old man shouting at cloud.
But yeah, I can imagine even just the way people
(33:01):
get obsessed and addicted to the Internet and to social
media and things. This is just an escalation of that
because it like talks back and sort of acts as
a stand for some of that common sense, that kind
of critical thinking, you know, and those muscles then kind
of atrophy.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Well, yeah, it's it's stepped offloading of processing power, right. Yeah,
So every time you have an AID, Let's say you've
got books that you're looking at, that's a lot of
the processing power that you would be using. It's already
written down somebody else's thoughts, somebody else's words, and now
you're taking that in and translating that into your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Well, then if you've got Google, you're doing kind of
the same thing, but now you've got access to way
more thoughts from way more people, and you're processing all
that stuff. Then, if you're in chat GBT, you really
are offloading all of the conceptualization, all of the crystallization.
It is now in the hands of something else and
you're just gonna pair it back. You're just now a
(34:02):
conduit through which these computers are processing all of the information.
So I could totally see why it makes the old
noggin stop working as well as it as it did before.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
At least that's a brilliant observation. It reminds me, well,
he just said, reminds me of the the old evenings
when the calculator was proliferating, right, and there was quite
a bit of social panic and hullabaloo, and people were saying, oh,
these kids, what's that movie? Stand and Deliver? That were
(34:36):
James almost he's like these kids. But there was this
moment wherein the adults of the day were saying, look,
if every kid learns math via a calculator, then how
will they do triggonometry in their heads? How will they
do long division? And turns out that was a good question,
(35:01):
because we don't know a ton of people in the
modern day in the West who can do trigonometry or
long division in their heads unless.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
That's your specialty here, unless you know, you're just one
of those people that's fascinated with old school math. Because now,
even like the top dogs like have you know, very
powerful computers that offload a lot of that a lot
of those duties too, not to mention the use of
AI for and quantum computing. We talked about that with
Jorge Chan on a recent episode of Ridiculous History, that
(35:32):
they all should check out, very very interesting and kind
of scary stuff in terms of that offloading.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Think about it this way, guys, A couple of years
after we were born, the first state in the United
States decided that calculators are necessary for their standard exams.
Before that, it was nineteen seventy five when they when
the world, when the United States especially said hey, maybe
calculators would be good for students in a grade and above,
(36:01):
maybe we should use these calculator things like that. That's
crazy to think it's been since we've been alive, but still,
ever since we've been alive, we've had access to calculators,
and so our brains were never forced to learn the
things that those before us were forced to do. Right
(36:22):
that the computing power.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
And we've talked about this often, but one could argue
that when you free up that stuff, it can adapt
to do other stuff that is maybe more beneficial. But
when you start offloading kind of everything and just thought
and critical thinking in general, that does seem like a
really dangerous, since slippery slope.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
And that's the point we want to get to exactly
well put the idea of the brain, the human brain
as the great repurposer, does have a lot of validity
to a certain threshold. The name of the study. Shout
out to you, Dylan for introducing transactive memory. I think
(37:08):
we read a lot of the same books. The name
of the study will give us a bit of a
hint of why this may be different to the earlier
comparison we introduced about calculators. Here is the title your
Brain on chat GPT accumulation of here this well cognitive
debt when using an AI assistant for say, writing task.
(37:33):
And then we'll triangle the top like an asterisk. Eight authors,
fantastic work, most from MIT one from Wellesley also in Massachusetts.
To your point, Noel, it makes us wonder whether there
are some specific regions of the brain that just have
(37:54):
to do that one thing right, that one aspect of
intelligence or processing that may be the muscle matter is
referring to when we're talking about, you know, uh, atrophy
of these faculties. Atrophy of these faculties. That sounds like
a what band would make that.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Album Corrosion of Conformity?
Speaker 4 (38:19):
True? Is that a real bit is? Are they good?
I don't know, And we got a hell yeah from
our Tennessee pal. I feel like it's inevitable. I think
we all agree that unless we reach an inflection point
similar to the background of the Doune universe when there
(38:43):
was a but Lerry and Jahad against thinking machines, I
believe the future of the human is increasingly cybernetic, and
I'm interested to hear I think we all are interested
to hear from you guys about how you see your
children's education going forward in a world where chat GPT
(39:03):
kind of becomes like the next iteration of a calculator
on a test. Yuck.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Yeah, And that is part of the conversation around it,
Like in terms of it as a tool, you know,
and there are some very interesting and useful and relevant
ways to use it, but unfortunately, it just seems that
a lot of people are using it in place of,
you know, things that maybe that shouldn't meant for.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Well, it's really tough for me, and I think I
might just be having old man syndrome every time I
think about this stuff. But the skill of searching for something,
maybe we don't need that anymore, right necessarily, but the
skill of sorting through sources, sorting through information, and then
(39:52):
putting that information together in your head does feel like
the exact thing like that we talk about on the show.
That's so important, right, the critical thinking thing, the ability
to create a third thought out of two different thoughts.
And if we really do put something in place of
that overall, for all of society, for just for kids,
(40:14):
like that's the downfall of humanity.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Not to mention, if you're just trusting something like that
so implicitly, and you're offloading your own personal cognitive ability
to differentiate between fact and fiction and whatever various perspectives.
Then let's say there were bad actors, or let's say
that the AI did start to become sentient and wanted
to use that trust against us. I mean, I don't
(40:39):
mean to be too alarmist, but if you're completely trusting
in this, that is a real dangerous situation because then
it could be people could be manipulated so easily, because
no one has the ability to make a decision or
a judgment call for themselves anymore.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
You know what I'm gonna miss you, guys. I'm gonna
miss m dashes. You know, the long dashes of a
long dash. Yeah, Now they're for boating. They're seen as
bad as a trill bey or fedora. Back when the
men's rights dudes took those over and ruined them for everybody.
The M dash is now seen as a signal that
(41:15):
someone has not written their own thing but has instead
used chat GPT, which is irksome because you guys know me,
I use M dashes a lot, not as much as
Emily Dickinson, but I'm always like, and the other thing.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I just hit dash twice or the minus sign twice
a lot.
Speaker 4 (41:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that's the way
it moves with uh, it moves with conversation. But I
think the reason people are maybe anti m dash at
this point is because to our earlier, earlier conversation, everyone
is trying to figure out how to differentiate between human
(41:56):
made thoughts and chat gpt he generated stuff. I wouldn't
always call it AI slop, but no.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
One thing we talked about with Jorge Ben is this
idea that you know, when photoshop first came out, and
how then, you know, as rudimentary as that might have seemed,
it created a new scenario where people no longer could
fully trust their eyes. Now, with you know, AI generated
video looking so convincing, the only real answer there is
(42:27):
to have like almost mandated watermarks or ways of determining
whether a piece of content was in fact generated or
was captured, you know, from the world, because it's going
to get to a point where we're not gonna be
able to tell the difference. It's already there in a
lot of ways.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Yeah, So, dear large language models, bots and humes alike,
we we can't wait to hear from you. We're off
for some adventures. We're going to be returning very soon.
We hope that you will join us. More importantly, we
hope that you will tell us your thoughts. We want
to get in your head. You know what I mean,
(43:05):
nothing creepy. You can send us an email, call us
on the phone, or find us on the lines.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
You certainly can't find us all over the lines at
the handle conspiracy Stuff where we exist on Facebook with
our Facebook group here's where it gets crazy, on xfka, Twitter,
and on YouTube video content color for your perusing enjoyment
on Instagram and TikTok. However, we're conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Show Give us a call. Our number is one eight
three three st d WYTK. When you call in, give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know within the
message if we can use your message and your voice
on the air. If you'd like to write to us.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back ding ding conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
argue you are here. That makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. If you are joining us
for tonight's listener mail program, let us be the first
to welcome you to June twenty sixth. Guys, it's almost
(00:54):
the end of June, which means we are once again
in season.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Oh thank goodness, finally, Matt, I heard you got a
rude bega hanging out in your friends and you're gonna
dice up and delightfully roast.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Perhaps I do, indeed, but it needs me some more
route of begas. So let's see if we can find one.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Can you do some digging, Billy?
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Oh, I'm sorry, we were looking for what is rudebega?
What is rude vega? Is the question? I believe, Ben,
you got some correspondence to shed some light on just
that very question.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
All right, since it's just the five of us and
millions of other people, we will share the following correspondence
from our pal that I hope we can identify. His
title is chef. His name rhymes with ted. So this
(01:56):
fellow conspiracy realist says, spoilers, rude begas are not true turnips.
They're the unholy children of turnips and cabbages.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Okay, I'm holy indeed.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
Well, we're obviously fans and Matt, thank you for doing
the research here on your case study of a rudabak.
How you planing to cook it.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Like any other root vegetable? Baby, put it in the
oven after being shopped in.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Get us some seasoning, yimmy.
Speaker 4 (02:29):
I like that quiet storm voice, and we like your
voices as well. So we're going to take a quick
break for a word from our sponsors, and when we return,
we're going to explore synthetic estrogen. We're going to talk
about analog society versus a surveillance state. We're going to
study brain stuff for a second. But before we do
(02:54):
any of that, we're going to have a follow up
with our gas station episode stuff gas stations don't want
you to know. We asked you, fellow conspiracy realists, for
your first hand experiences, and gosh knows, we got some
great stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
And we've returned with a listener coming to us from
rural Bartow County, Georgia. Fellas, where's Bartow County in relation
to where we are?
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Is this an official inquort? It?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
I guess I could google it myself. I know I've
heard the name, but I don't. I'm really bad at geography.
It looks pretty Cartersville near Kansas, so really not that
far from us at all, about an hour drive from
where we currently sits. And if there's anything like where
we live, we talked about this openly on the episode.
(03:50):
There's gonna be some sketchy gas stations, and sure enough,
our listener and Ominous told us about just that very thing. Hi, guys,
been listening forever, and I've been looking forward to the
gas station episode since y'all first mentioned it. I live
in rural Bartow County, Georgia, and nearly every gas station
around that isn't a quick trip, which a big chain
around here or a racetrack, which I think is a
(04:12):
little more national has slot machines. Locally, everyone refers to
them as the ding Dings. Really love that, Gonna co
op that my own daily life the ding Dings. Part
of the reason that the sketchy gas stations often have
lots of random items is to use as prizes for playing.
According to the official store policy, you can only cash
(04:35):
out for store credit, and having those items around makes
it appear more legit. One place that used to be
near me had a whole side building they called the
Game Room, which I've mentioned seeing around me as well,
just slap full of ding Dings and a bunch of
prizes that you could win. The thing is you could
(04:55):
always get cash. I don't play often, but the handful
of times I've played in won I was able to
get cash, whether or not I was a regular or not.
There's no chance those machines would be so popular otherwise.
The sketchiest gas station I know of is also the
one closest to me. I'm in the middle of nowhere
and it's right at the end of my street. Over
(05:15):
the years, the amount of products in the store has
dwindled to next to nothing. They have gas, cigarettes, beer, soda, lottery,
and then shells with some random dusty items and candy.
The weird and sketchy part. They used to have four
older slot machines. They've recently upgraded to four huge, brand new,
fancy ones, while the rest of the store is absolutely depleted.
(05:38):
What's weirder about this is that hardly anyone plays them.
Every once in a while, I'll see a local tweaker
on a machine, but it's not laughing at addiction problems.
It's the term tweaker always. It makes me giggle, but
never enough to justify how much those suckers cost. The
only person I see regularly feeding money into it is
an employee, which makes me really wonder if my neighborhood
(06:01):
sketch station is actually a front for money laundering.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
My money's running to the laundry like there's something smelly
on Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
Anyway, you're more than welcome to use this on the podcast.
And you can just call me an ominous. That's my
old AOL username that I thought was so cool and
edgy when I was fourteen. Well, I think it's still
cool and edgy today an ominous and I dig the
reference to aim. It was a golden time for Internet
communication for us all boy boy, does this ever hit
(06:32):
home some of the stuff we talked about in that
episode in terms of I mean you kind of you know,
ran the gamut here in terms of loose adherence to
the law where these machines are concerned, the idea that
it's supposed to only pay with prizes and store credit,
but that it's more than easy enough to convert those
(06:52):
winnings to cold hard cash, and the idea of these
potentially being fronts for other types of illicit activity. Guys,
is there anything about an Ominous's email that hit home
for you?
Speaker 4 (07:06):
First off? Misominous? If I may be formal here, thank
you so much for writing in and verifying something we
said earlier. One of the signals of a sketchy gas
station is indeed going to be dust upon some of
the products. You know, not to sound, not to sound
(07:28):
like one of those old jerks and basic with a
putting on the white gloves and walking around and testing dust.
Do you guys remember that.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Of course? Yeah, classic trope of the old drill sergeant.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:44):
But if you see that, right, if you see the
visible dust, it is a signal that there may be
something interesting afoot, and we cannot cast dispersion on the
choices of those owner operators. But mis ominous you have
(08:04):
you have provided multiple details that seem to indicate this
is worth looking into. Now, we're not gonna snitch on
this gas station, are we misominous? Are we norm we.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Think so, we don't have a snitches no call in
the gambling you know that way, We did talk about
there being a direct hotline to the GBI for just
such snitchery. But yeah, I mean, look, I've certainly it's
weird how many gas stations there are in certain rural areas,
in certain maybe like food desert y type areas like
(08:39):
I mentioned I live in. It just doesn't seem like
a small stretch like that could sustain that many of
the same exact business, oftentimes on the same exact side
of the street, et cetera. And then you do start
to see in that glut of these types of businesses,
some of them becoming more and more depleted, and yet
(09:00):
somehow still remaining. You know, No, I don't know that
I've ever seen a gas station go out of business.
It's just I don't know. It's interesting and then a
little bit odd, and I do tend to lean towards
nefarious activities from time to time. But this whole you know,
cash payout thing, it absolutely confirms what we had suspected.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Can I tell you, guys my favorite thing about and
ominous message. It's referring to these as ding dings. I
don't know if you guys have ever seen this glorious
show that you can find right now. I've seen it
because I'm father of a young son who loves the
show Big City Greens. It is a fantastic little animated
(09:42):
series with one of the main characters being Cricket Green and.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
He does that Big City Greens plural.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yes, and he goes around to the Greens as the family.
He goes around and he calls people ding ding all
the time, and he's my kids.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Sometimes I don't like ding ding.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
That's up there with Bozone.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, but but it made me think of all these machines.
And there's even I found an article from what is
this ninety five point five WSB. We knew WSB the
radio radio channel, the radio station hereas station exactly, but
they refer to these as ding ding gambling machines as well,
which is very funny to me.
Speaker 4 (10:24):
I like the rhyme, and we also want you to
know mis ominous.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
We will never call our fellow compatriots ding Ding's, but
we want you to know that you are not alone
in a lot of firsthand accounts we have received about
gas stations. And I got to ask you, guys after
we recorded the stuff gas stations don't want you to
(10:51):
know how how were your experiences when you visited a
gas station next? Did you, guys feel like more tuned
in to things? Did anybody else purposely visit out of
the way gas station?
Speaker 3 (11:06):
No, I don't need to because there's a gazillion of
them in my neck of the woods, and I typically
go to the same two. Yeah, one of them definitely
has this big old gambling parlor, and of the two
is the least legit seeming one.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
So did you ever play? No?
Speaker 3 (11:22):
I never have, but you know what, maybe I will
and then see how it goes because I am kind
of a regular they know me there. So I bet
you if anyone was going to get a kind of special,
you know, secret treatment, right, it might.
Speaker 4 (11:33):
Be mm hm.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
Well, I'll tell you one thing that this discussion that
we had did prompt me to do was look a
little more into just gas station crime rate. Specifically here
in Atlanta and matt we were talking off here you
found a story specifically surrounding these gambling machines and specifically
in Bartow County where Sheriff's office officials are looking for
three people who were seen stealing from gambling machines. The
(11:56):
Bartow County Sheriff's Office is asking for the public's help
and identifying three people connected to stealing money from gambling machines.
So there's money in the gambling machines, deputy say. The
theft took place on November twenty that a Texaco gas
station on Cassville White Road in Cartersville. Two men and
one woman sat at the Ding Ding gambling machines. This
is news to me. The press is actually calling it
(12:18):
that too, And after all three individuals were done playing,
the cashier provided them with store credit. Upon them bringing
the credit voucher to redeem, police say. Store camera footage
showed two of the suspense conserting money into the machine
and hitting the collect button to get a voucher for
store credit. They then opened the machine with a duplicate key,
retracted the cash box, and took all the money and
(12:40):
of course in my mind immediately asked the question why
is there money inside these machines, to which I answered,
because people put the money into the machine to play,
and the money is stored in there, and that's how
they take their profit. It's not dispensing money like a
gambling machine, and Vegas might with actual coins that flood
out of the old style gambling machines. And employee check
(13:03):
the machines the next day and discovered approximately two thousand,
six hundred and sixty four dollars missing between three of
the machines. That's a decent haul for these machines at
a rural gas station. So I just think that's another
point towards the profitability of these things and also the
potential for crime surrounding them. Oh and really quickly though,
(13:24):
while we're at it, Ben, you found a voicemail that
referenced this very thing, and I thought it might be
a good way to take us out of this segment.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Yeah, mis ominous and fellow conspiracy realist, we're working live.
Not all of us have heard this. We got a
message from a trucker regarding gas stations and reacting specifically
to the issues of trafficking and we think this is
very important, so we're just going to play this message.
(13:56):
Hopefully this will reach people who may need assistance. So
here we are with Sasquatch.
Speaker 5 (14:05):
Hey, guys, you can call me Sasquatch. Is stunt double
calling in again. I just listened to your podcast about
gas stations and truck stops and been a trucker for
almost two decades now and I have seen some crazy things.
But one of the things you guys mentioned about was
(14:26):
the human trafficking at truck stops and gas stations, and
I have to say that has been greatly reduced. You
don't see it as often. It's still out there, happens occasionally.
But there is a group called Truckers Against Trafficking and
it was started by a mother and her four daughters
and one of their friends, and they have done a
(14:49):
campaign across the US to educate truck drivers, truck stops
and fuel stops about human trafficking, what to look for,
the issues that come along with and the damage it
does it does to people. They are a fantastic organization.
(15:13):
It's definitely something people should know about. And I really
believe that the reason why so many truck stops are
safe havens for people in trafficking situations is because of
that organization. And the fact that you don't see it
as much happening in the world is because of that organization.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
And we'll pause it there. We just I think collectively
agree this is an important message to send out to
the world.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Yeah, I mean, truckers are certainly a frontline position in
this fight, and the fact that they can kind of
band together to help identify some of these issues is
a powerful thing, you know.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
Now, No, Sasquatch stunt Double also has an awesome man, Matt.
You may have spoken with him directly in the past.
There's another part of this message that we may play
in the future. Objecting to the term lot lizards, which
we all I think collectively.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Absolutely we mentioned that when we brought it up. It
is just kind of like a parlance of the time.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
I guess let's just say, yeah, we heard from Sasquatch's
stunt double back when we were talking about stolen meat.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
He had some cool insight about that. Well, with that,
let's take a quick break here a word from our sponsor,
and then come back with more messages from you.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
And we've returned, guys, I have a really important update.
This is Final Fantasy MTG. I'm holding a pack. We're
not going to open it. We're just gonna state it exists.
It's real. I have a bunch of packs. Yeah, and
I got one of these little I can't remember how
to say this.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
Cactore, cactar, cactus fella doing a little jump.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Is that a rare pool? No?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
But but no, it's a I think it's a common
or maybe how.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
Many backs did you get?
Speaker 2 (17:10):
You got all like boosterbacks, right, everyone that was available
to me in my immediate vicinity. I purchased every single one.
I'm now in debt. I need your help. I've seen
the go fund me for Matt's MTG addiction issues. That's
not the most important thing, guys. The important thing is
we got a great message from Maximus. Maximus is bringing
up something that we talked about back in twenty eighteen
(17:33):
when we made our highly important episode are Frogs Really
Changing Gender? Also, hearkens back to our August fifteenth, twenty
twenty three, classic version of that episode. This is you guys,
remember that whole uh, that whole thing that Alex Jones
put all of the world through when when he said
(17:55):
that phrase.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Frog.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yes, there you go. Well, and then you know, we
on this show looked it up and said, oh crap,
is there are some really weird things going on actually
with stuff ending up in the water and having effects
on amphibian populations. Well, Maximus has called in with a
whole other group of animals that are being affected by
(18:19):
the stuff we humans put into ourselves and then pee
into our toilets. So here we go.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
This is Maximus. Please do an episode exploring the correlation
between worth control becoming widely available in the United States
of America and the declining population of fish as water
is recycled from wastewater systems to drinking water systems and
(18:47):
then recycled to freshwater systems and is a direct correlation
and the declining population of freshwater fish and North America
as always, thank you, keep doing you.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Oh okay, so that sounds a little weird, right, Like, oh,
come on now, there can't be a correlation between any
of that stuff. That doesn't make any sense birth control
and fish populations. That's human stuff and fish stuff, and
those two things don't come together at all. Well, you'd
be wrong, just as I was, just as silence when
(19:21):
I initially encountered Maximus's message there, because if you do
a quick little search on the internet machines, you're gonna
find several articles that are written in the news about
these things, and several scientific journals that are reporting this
very thing. First, we'll jump to a two thousand and
(19:41):
eight article within The Guardian written by James Anderson titled
birth control for Fish. And in this article you will
learn about the studies run by doctor Karen Kidd of
the University of New Brunswick in Canada and some very
upsetting results, very very setting results. She and her team
(20:03):
had a really cool idea. There's a group of lakes
out there in Canada, Ontario that's just north of Minnesota,
just east of Winnipeg called THEISD Experimental Lakes Area, and IISD,
by the way, stands for International Institute for Sustainable Development,
(20:26):
and this lakes area has a whole bunch of freshwater lakes.
What they did they went to over fifty fifty eight
research lakes and they checked out all of the populations
of freshwater fish within those lakes. They gathered as much
information as they possibly could. Then they went to another
lake and made sure that lake had an average population
(20:47):
of all the fish that was found in the other
fifty eight lakes. They basically made a perfect version of
an average lake within this area. Right then they started
adding teeny tiny amounts of a synthetic estrogen that's used
it's commonly used in birth control pills for humans, and
they found that populations of specific fish were altered so
(21:11):
much that the population was almost decimated within the lake,
almost none, because the males of the of that specific
fish started to lose their gonads. And they found that
the which is crazy to think about, and the males
were also unable to reproduce, Like you can imagine those
(21:31):
two things being correlated, but it's real stuff. Then she
went on to author more articles and do more science
checking out what happens when there's just teeny tiny trace
amounts of the synthetic estrogen within freshwater lakes and rivers,
and they found in other species, this tiny amount is
(21:51):
having a major effect on the ability of these fish
to breed. And guys, here is the major problem that
Maximus points out.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
There.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Teeny tiny trace amounts of this stuff can have an effect.
And every time humans who are on birth control p
they release trace amounts of the synthetic estrogen into the
water systems. The wastewater plants are not able to process
pharmaceuticals We've talked about that before on this show, which
then get sent back into the freshwater systems, which then
(22:21):
have effects on the fish population, which can then have
an effect on the other species that are within that
ecosystem that prey upon these smaller fish. I didn't know
this was real, guys. I didn't think this was real.
I didn't think there could be this kind of effect,
especially from the waste that we produce after taking pharmaceuticals.
(22:43):
In my mind, it was always if pills end up
in the water system because they go down a drain
or something. But no, it is processed materials that have
the effect. Okay, yeah, uh, there's a lot more you
can go into here. By the way, one of the
people that co authored one of these studies titled Collapse
(23:07):
of a Fish population after Exposure to a synthetic estrogen
that was published in two thousand and seven. One of
the co authors is Robert Evans. H different, Robert, right,
I think so, Roberty Evans, I don't know it. I
don't need You can look up all of this stuff.
You can search for twenty fourteen article. New study finds
(23:30):
estrogen has detrimental and surprising effects on freshwater wildlife. That's
based on a whole other paper that was published titled
Direct and Indirect Responses of a Freshwater food Web to
a potent synthetic estrogen. It feels like a major problem
that we're not thinking about, not talking about, and I
(23:51):
don't know it just it feels like if that one
small synthetic thing hormone can have an effect on the
fish popular as well as we know specific herbicides and
pesticides can have an effect on amphibian populations. It does
make me wonder how much of the waste water runoff
from our treatment plants actually have effects on the wider
(24:13):
ecosystems that we're just we're kind of forgetting to even
look at. And that's it, all right, Well, we'll be
right back with more messages from you, froud.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
We have returned. We've been going through a bit of
a pallanteer phase. We received an interesting thought experiment from
a from a fellow listener going by mister Delay. So
we're going to hear from mister delay, Lay lay lay delay,
(24:52):
getting just take it a second to load up. Let's
keep it in.
Speaker 7 (24:56):
Hey, boys, you can call me mister Delay and feel
free to my message on the air. I just listened
to your episodes about train hoppers and your new strange
news thing about Talenteer and I had a thought. As
you know, companies like Talent here are increasingly putting Americans,
(25:20):
certain groups of Americans in their surveillance. And as the
economy gets mores and homeless movies is on the rise,
and many of the people that will suffer from both
things of these things will be younger, more tech stivy generations.
Might we see a resurgence in train hopping culture in
(25:42):
the next few years? Just as thought, I want to
share with y'all.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
So the question then becomes, first off, thank you, mister Delay.
The question becomes is this a is the pendulum of
state surveillance going to swing so far that people, especially
in younger generations, start to unplug or become increasingly analogue.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
I don't know, go off grid. I used to know
some trained kids back in my own town. They always
had a dog with a bandana with a name like
Rusty or something.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
Good.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Cool folks. They're always in like punk bands, and I
actually knew a couple of folks who got big time
arrested like like sting style, like like they were helicopters involved.
It was a big deal pulling them off the train
and you know, throwing them in the paddy wagon. It
is considered, like stowing away is a pretty serious offense,
(26:37):
and they take it. It took it pretty seriously. But
I was really taken aback by how aggressive the authorities were.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Oh yeah, the railroad bulls.
Speaker 3 (26:45):
But danger your question, I mean, I think it's certainly
that was their goal in those days. Was to be invisible,
was to be off grid, was to move in silence,
And it certainly seems like if you don't get caught
in that fashion, it is a good way of doing it.
Speaker 4 (27:00):
Yeah, So what do you guys, What do you guys
think about what mister Delay is proposing here. Noel, you've
noticed that, or you've noted that, there is a real
contingent of what are sometimes called vagabonds or modern hoboes
in the United States today. Matt, interested in your experience
(27:22):
as well. I know that we have all, at various
times throughout our strange careers, considered going off the grid.
And Dylan was pointing out before we recorded the idea
that it is suspicious to not be on social media
at this point. So so what's your take, man, do
(27:43):
you do you think, like Noel and I do, that
more people might be tempted to live in an analog society.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
Yeah, I don't know if I agree that they'll be
using the trains like that. I think it'll be more
isolated communities and you know, just house is further away
from each other. I think we're gonna start doing that.
That's what humanity seems to be poised to set down
that path.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, it's interesting how like you know, I mean it's
almost cliche to say, but like with the increasing connectivity
of the Internet and social media, it almost just you know,
serves to push people further apart in real life, and
like anything, you're gonna see a backlash and sort of
(28:29):
like a let's turn the clock back a little bit.
Like you know, with streaming services and things like that,
are like video streaming and also music of course, people
are now buying more Blu rays, people are buying more
Vinyl records. It just feels like there's always kind of
a backlash against the popular movement. People are like wanting
(28:50):
to read things and holding it in their hands. You know,
I just think there's this is a very similar impulse.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Right, Oh yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, because oh also,
we have to pause just really quickly here to give
you a stuff that don't want you to know recommendation.
If ever, as Nol was saying, you see a blu
ray or a dusty collection of CDs at the counter
of your local gas station, buy them, buy the mixtape,
(29:18):
you know what I mean. You see like the Poughkeepsie
Posse or something, pick it up as long as it's
not over thirty dollars. Is that okay? Do you guys
ever buy this sort of sketchy CS that you see?
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Yeah, especially when I was driving the aforementioned sixteen disc
changer Beatermobile that I talked about in our previous.
Speaker 4 (29:40):
Episode Legendary, Did you have a name for that vehicle? Now?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
I just made up Beatermobile, and I think I like that.
Speaker 4 (29:47):
I like that too. I like that too. What's your
social Security number?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
It's a.
Speaker 4 (29:56):
There's one last thing we wanted to share. A lot
of folks have written to us about the following. We've
talked at length about large language models. Sometimes called AI problematically,
and the most famous of those in the West is
something called chat GPT. Now, it's quite common in education
(30:19):
in day to day life for people to use chat
GPT pretty often, and not to sound like old entity
shouting at the sky, but I think we've all harbored
concerns that using this stuff may harm cognitive abilities at
(30:40):
some point and to some degree. There's a new study
that was recently published from researchers at MIT's Media Lab
that gives a little bit of quantitative basis to this,
similar to the Alex Jones frog stuff right, and the
dangers of synthetic estrogen emission and transmission throughout an unregulated ecosystem.
(31:08):
This study, guys, have we heard about this? It's kind
of breaking news. No.
Speaker 3 (31:14):
No, I'm excited to hear about it, though, maybe excited
to throw and I'm fascinated to hear about it.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
We should ask chat gpt about it. The study divides
fifty four subjects, all from Boston, all between eighteen to
thirty nine years old, and it put them in three groups,
and it asked them to write essays like you would
write in a college entrance exam, right, or a qualifier
(31:40):
exam like the SAT and one group uses chat GPT,
one group uses Google, and the third group is just
working the way you would in say the nineteen fifties
or something, right, just the treasures in their own minds.
And while they were working on these questions, the researchers
(32:03):
used an EEG to record the brain activity of these
folks writing these essays, and they recorded it across thirty
two regions of the brain and they found that provably,
with an admittedly small sample size, the chat GPT group
had the lowest brain engagement. And this is a quote
(32:27):
from the study, consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavioral levels.
What do we think about that? Does that jibe with
earlier conversations? Yes, should we be concerned? Yes?
Speaker 3 (32:39):
And yes I think so. I don't mess with them
at all. And I don't know if maybe it's just
it's not appealing to me. It's less of like a
philosophical thing than it just doesn't particularly interest me. And
maybe that is me getting aged out of a new
thing to a degree, being old man shouting at cloud.
But yeah, I can imagine even just the way people
(33:01):
get obsessed and addicted to the Internet and to social
media and things. This is just an escalation of that
because it like talks back and sort of acts as
a stand for some of that common sense, that kind
of critical thinking, you know, and those muscles then kind
of atrophy.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
Well, yeah, it's it's stepped offloading of processing power, right. Yeah,
So every time you have an AID, Let's say you've
got books that you're looking at, that's a lot of
the processing power that you would be using. It's already
written down somebody else's thoughts, somebody else's words, and now
you're taking that in and translating that into your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
Well, then if you've got Google, you're doing kind of
the same thing, but now you've got access to way
more thoughts from way more people, and you're processing all
that stuff. Then, if you're in chat GBT, you really
are offloading all of the conceptualization, all of the crystallization.
It is now in the hands of something else and
you're just gonna pair it back. You're just now a
(34:02):
conduit through which these computers are processing all of the information.
So I could totally see why it makes the old
noggin stop working as well as it as it did before.
Speaker 4 (34:13):
At least that's a brilliant observation. It reminds me, well,
he just said, reminds me of the the old evenings
when the calculator was proliferating, right, and there was quite
a bit of social panic and hullabaloo, and people were saying, oh,
these kids, what's that movie? Stand and Deliver? That were
(34:36):
James almost he's like these kids. But there was this
moment wherein the adults of the day were saying, look,
if every kid learns math via a calculator, then how
will they do triggonometry in their heads? How will they
do long division? And turns out that was a good question,
(35:01):
because we don't know a ton of people in the
modern day in the West who can do trigonometry or
long division in their heads unless.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
That's your specialty here, unless you know, you're just one
of those people that's fascinated with old school math. Because now,
even like the top dogs like have you know, very
powerful computers that offload a lot of that a lot
of those duties too, not to mention the use of
AI for and quantum computing. We talked about that with
Jorge Chan on a recent episode of Ridiculous History, that
(35:32):
they all should check out, very very interesting and kind
of scary stuff in terms of that offloading.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Think about it this way, guys, A couple of years
after we were born, the first state in the United
States decided that calculators are necessary for their standard exams.
Before that, it was nineteen seventy five when they when
the world, when the United States especially said hey, maybe
calculators would be good for students in a grade and above,
(36:01):
maybe we should use these calculator things like that. That's
crazy to think it's been since we've been alive, but still,
ever since we've been alive, we've had access to calculators,
and so our brains were never forced to learn the
things that those before us were forced to do. Right
(36:22):
that the computing power.
Speaker 3 (36:24):
And we've talked about this often, but one could argue
that when you free up that stuff, it can adapt
to do other stuff that is maybe more beneficial. But
when you start offloading kind of everything and just thought
and critical thinking in general, that does seem like a
really dangerous, since slippery slope.
Speaker 4 (36:46):
And that's the point we want to get to exactly
well put the idea of the brain, the human brain
as the great repurposer, does have a lot of validity
to a certain threshold. The name of the study. Shout
out to you, Dylan for introducing transactive memory. I think
(37:08):
we read a lot of the same books. The name
of the study will give us a bit of a
hint of why this may be different to the earlier
comparison we introduced about calculators. Here is the title your
Brain on chat GPT accumulation of here this well cognitive
debt when using an AI assistant for say, writing task.
(37:33):
And then we'll triangle the top like an asterisk. Eight authors,
fantastic work, most from MIT one from Wellesley also in Massachusetts.
To your point, Noel, it makes us wonder whether there
are some specific regions of the brain that just have
(37:54):
to do that one thing right, that one aspect of
intelligence or processing that may be the muscle matter is
referring to when we're talking about, you know, uh, atrophy
of these faculties. Atrophy of these faculties. That sounds like
a what band would make that.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
Album Corrosion of Conformity?
Speaker 4 (38:19):
True? Is that a real bit is? Are they good?
I don't know, And we got a hell yeah from
our Tennessee pal. I feel like it's inevitable. I think
we all agree that unless we reach an inflection point
similar to the background of the Doune universe when there
(38:43):
was a but Lerry and Jahad against thinking machines, I
believe the future of the human is increasingly cybernetic, and
I'm interested to hear I think we all are interested
to hear from you guys about how you see your
children's education going forward in a world where chat GPT
(39:03):
kind of becomes like the next iteration of a calculator
on a test. Yuck.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
Yeah, And that is part of the conversation around it,
Like in terms of it as a tool, you know,
and there are some very interesting and useful and relevant
ways to use it, but unfortunately, it just seems that
a lot of people are using it in place of,
you know, things that maybe that shouldn't meant for.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Well, it's really tough for me, and I think I
might just be having old man syndrome every time I
think about this stuff. But the skill of searching for something,
maybe we don't need that anymore, right necessarily, but the
skill of sorting through sources, sorting through information, and then
(39:52):
putting that information together in your head does feel like
the exact thing like that we talk about on the show.
That's so important, right, the critical thinking thing, the ability
to create a third thought out of two different thoughts.
And if we really do put something in place of
that overall, for all of society, for just for kids,
(40:14):
like that's the downfall of humanity.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
Not to mention, if you're just trusting something like that
so implicitly, and you're offloading your own personal cognitive ability
to differentiate between fact and fiction and whatever various perspectives.
Then let's say there were bad actors, or let's say
that the AI did start to become sentient and wanted
to use that trust against us. I mean, I don't
(40:39):
mean to be too alarmist, but if you're completely trusting
in this, that is a real dangerous situation because then
it could be people could be manipulated so easily, because
no one has the ability to make a decision or
a judgment call for themselves anymore.
Speaker 4 (40:53):
You know what I'm gonna miss you, guys. I'm gonna
miss m dashes. You know, the long dashes of a
long dash. Yeah, Now they're for boating. They're seen as
bad as a trill bey or fedora. Back when the
men's rights dudes took those over and ruined them for everybody.
The M dash is now seen as a signal that
(41:15):
someone has not written their own thing but has instead
used chat GPT, which is irksome because you guys know me,
I use M dashes a lot, not as much as
Emily Dickinson, but I'm always like, and the other thing.
Speaker 2 (41:31):
I just hit dash twice or the minus sign twice
a lot.
Speaker 4 (41:36):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean that's the way
it moves with uh, it moves with conversation. But I
think the reason people are maybe anti m dash at
this point is because to our earlier, earlier conversation, everyone
is trying to figure out how to differentiate between human
(41:56):
made thoughts and chat gpt he generated stuff. I wouldn't
always call it AI slop, but no.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
One thing we talked about with Jorge Ben is this
idea that you know, when photoshop first came out, and
how then, you know, as rudimentary as that might have seemed,
it created a new scenario where people no longer could
fully trust their eyes. Now, with you know, AI generated
video looking so convincing, the only real answer there is
(42:27):
to have like almost mandated watermarks or ways of determining
whether a piece of content was in fact generated or
was captured, you know, from the world, because it's going
to get to a point where we're not gonna be
able to tell the difference. It's already there in a
lot of ways.
Speaker 4 (42:43):
Yeah, So, dear large language models, bots and humes alike,
we we can't wait to hear from you. We're off
for some adventures. We're going to be returning very soon.
We hope that you will join us. More importantly, we
hope that you will tell us your thoughts. We want
to get in your head. You know what I mean,
(43:05):
nothing creepy. You can send us an email, call us
on the phone, or find us on the lines.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
You certainly can't find us all over the lines at
the handle conspiracy Stuff where we exist on Facebook with
our Facebook group here's where it gets crazy, on xfka, Twitter,
and on YouTube video content color for your perusing enjoyment
on Instagram and TikTok. However, we're conspiracy Stuff.
Speaker 2 (43:27):
Show Give us a call. Our number is one eight
three three st d WYTK. When you call in, give
yourself a cool nickname and let us know within the
message if we can use your message and your voice
on the air. If you'd like to write to us.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back ding ding conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.