June 1, 2023 • 48 mins
Disco Funk inspires a strange series of thought experiments. Amdroid writes in on the controversy surrounding tipping. An author gives the gang a special shoutout in their upcoming book. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
the stuff they don't want you to know. This is
our it's our weekly time where we do an extended
(00:48):
thank you to all of our fellow conspiracy realists who
make this show possible. We're so grateful that you are
here and we cannot wait to share some messages from you.
In this week's listener mail segment, we're going to learn
about some fellow authors. We have many in the audience.
We're going to learn well, we're going to talk about
(01:11):
We're going to interrogate a very interesting conversational prompt about
the purpose and the design of humanity and the spread
of that species. And then I think we're going to
end with a little little grab bag some teasers for
some upcoming episodes that will strike a chord with you,
as well as just some friendly letters from our conspiratorial
(01:35):
home of stuff they don't want you to know. We
start today, right, we tease this idea. We love creative minds,
we love artists, we love musicians, we love authors. We're
all three of those. And Noel, we're talking about this
a little bit off air. We receive just a wonderful
(01:57):
piece of correspondence that I don't know about you guys,
but I found it touching and inspiring for sure.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
And this is a case where we can definitely use
this individual's government name because they are a published author.
Alex Crespo, subject of the email, You're in my book acknowledgments.
That's so cool, Thanks Alex, Matt Ben and nol Okay.
So I'm a traditionally published author and the subject line
kind of says it all. But here's a little background
(02:24):
for flavor. I started listening to the podcast in twenty
seventeen because I needed something to make my commute to
my boring nine to five job a little more bearable.
That ritual quickly became the highlight of the day, and
listening to you guys help me revive with the bizarre
imaginative part of my brain that had been atrophied by
corporate America derogatory in parentheses. All of my daydreamings solidified
(02:47):
eventually into a book idea, and Saint Juniper's Folly was born.
It's a young adult gothic mystery in which a straight
laced golden boy and a novice witch team up to
rescue a Mexican American team with a cryptic who's become
trapped inside a haunted mansion in Vermont. Wow, all the stuff.
I love it, and it's coming out June sixth. This
book is a patchwork of so many topics you guys
(03:09):
have discussed on the podcast, from ghost stories to which
trials and psychokinesis, and I truly feel like the show
had a hand in shaping it in the best way possible.
I've attached a pick of what I actually said in
the acknowledgments, but I want to thank you directly for
sharing the stories that you do and adding a little
extra wonder and mystery to everyone's lives in the process.
(03:31):
I'm a full time author now, so my commute is
walking ten feet from my bed to my desk and
I get to listen to the show as I travel
to signings and author events, which feels like a very
cool full circle moment. And now you guys are authors too,
but it's time.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
To be alive.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Anyways, much love and if you want signed copies, I'd
be happy to send some over, yes please. Ps you
can feel free to read this on the air and
use my name if you want. And then he signs
it Alex and looking at let's see openly here because
we don't always open the attachments, but when they come
from trusted sources like published authors, we do do that thing.
(04:09):
So you see, oh goodness, we're yeah, we are sort of.
It reads as follows, thank you to Matt, Ben and
Nole the stuff they don't want you to know, who
supplemented so much of my supernatural research for this book
and have kept me company on every commute and long
haul flight for years. Man, we don't usually read emails
(04:30):
like kind of people just kind of big upping us
and expressing appreciation, but this one has felt a little
special because you know, these stories inspire us too, and
I think in our creative work as well outside of
the show, whether it be ben your fiction writing, my end,
Matt's kind of music writing, I think you can't not
(04:51):
be affected by this stuff. And to be able to
kind of be a platform that someone is getting any
kind of inspiration from, whether it be you know, literary
or other otherwise, it feels really really cool.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I just want to point out, Alex, that whenever you
refer to us, the order should be Ben Matten Dole.
We have always said it that way, and that is
the way it shall stand, Alex. I demand to read whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
We're slaves to the alphabet. Yeah, it's funny because Alex,
I went and I went ahead and pre ordered Saint
Juniper's Folly, mainly because flattery gets you everywhere. Kidding. Like
Noel said, we we greatly appreciate this and hopefully, as
every longtime listener knows, it is very important to us
(05:38):
to support creativity in any in any form or fashion
you find it. Alex, just want to give you a
creepy heads up. I follow you on Twitter now, and
and it's it's fascinating to realize just how how connected
the world can be. I wish that I had already
(06:01):
read Saint Juniper's Folly before we before we got to
this listener mail, But I for one am excited Noela
Saire if we read just a little bit of the
like the blurb on the back, Oh yeah, please all right, So,
without spoiling too much, Alex, you're you're so kind to us.
(06:22):
We don't want to we don't want to spoil things.
Let's give one of the many reviews that you can
find on let's see this is Amazon. The bulletin for
the Center of Children's Books gave this a starred review.
This stood out particularly to them, and they said, teens
feeling stuck in various identification boxes, in the Sissaphian cycle
(06:46):
of school days or in the sometimes poisonous, sometimes nurturing
bounds of family will likely relate to Jamie. That's the
main character to Jamie's yearning for freedom, and this remarkable
debut novel carefully explores these struggles with grace and sympathy.
Theo jam and Taylor are unforgettable. That's kind of cool.
And again, like Alex said, like you said, Noel, we
(07:09):
haven't read the book yet, so we're kind of we're
kind of excited. June sixth, it's on the way. Let's see,
this will come out before the book is available, But
that's kind of cool. It makes me think. You know,
we've had some a lot of conversations off air about
the current resurgence and banning books in the United States.
(07:31):
If you guys have been reading about that too, Yeah, yeah, well.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, and it also goes back to, you know, the
topic that we kind of discussed and we didn't kind
of discussed. We totally discussed in the previous Strange News
episode the idea of banning certain types of concerts, you know,
in Mexico as a result of drug violence.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
And not to say that the.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Two are exactly the same, but we kind of ended
that segment talking about how banning a thing is a
surefire way of spreading it further because you know, when
you ban something, it's just going to make people more
curious about what it is that they're missing. People do
not like to be told what to do, what to read,
what to listen to.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
So yeah, well you know what y'all are missing? Hmmm,
pictures of Hex.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, who was in the acknowledgments?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yes there, pictures are adorable.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
We are fans. We are big fans of pet pictures.
And that's another reason why we love these weekly this
weekly Listener Mail segment, because we do get.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
To I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
It's not quite like the Letters from Home with Prairie
Home Companion or something like that. But we're we do
spend a lot of grateful time. You know. Matt is
always running point on the amazing voicemails we get. We
read every email we get, and we we try to
keep track of social media. It's a lot, but we're
(08:55):
we're very fortunate to be here. It is nuts, by
the way, to realize our age as a show when
we have people writing to us because they've had their
first kid, or they just you know, got married, or
they graduated, and there's always that line in there, you guys,
where they say, I grew up watching you on YouTube
(09:16):
And what's that old?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
David Byrne, I think about the passage of time?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Was this song yeah, oh gosh, I don't know, maybe
once in a lifetime, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Exactly, like singing in my Mouth.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Yeah, the one where he sings to the lampshade and
then this.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Out of context that sounds like a weird lyric.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It was also the way he sings it because burn
is away away with the cadence of words, because oftentimes
the meaning of the words, the lyrics themselves are just
part of the equation, and the way that their song
and the rhythm and the tune is a big part
of it too, which is the same case for the
English language. You know, say, Shakespeare's just word put in order.
(10:00):
I think Mark from a Peep show had that to say,
very sarcastically, No, it wasn't, It wasn't. Actually it was
in Mitchellan Webb. It was the episode that's sort of
like lampooning Gordon Ramsey torturing a poor local chef who's
got a failing restaurant. But Shakespeare is indeed words just
put in order. But it's got to be the order.
(10:22):
You got to crack the code so that all you
authors out there who are putting words in order, we
we salute you.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Do you think it's some kind of superpower, like if
the words are sung into your mouth, like you could
somehow capture them and then send them back out.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
And this is a little short, but I thought it
was it was worth worth talking and giving a little
shout out to one of our listeners that's also making
creative work out there. But I wanted to bring something
up just the tail end of this talking about the
power of words and the ubiquitous topic of conversation of
artificial intelligence and specifically AI art. A friend of mine,
a really really, really creative artist who you know, does
(11:02):
all kinds of analog art, you know, with paint brushes
and the like, and all kinds of you know, textures
and various things, and it was also an incredible musician,
has really been getting into AI art lately, and I
want to send you, guys really quickly a handful of
his pieces. And let's talk a little bit about the
power of words as it pertains to AI art, because
(11:25):
at the end of the day, AI art is all
about figuring out what prompts to give to this algorithm
to create something that no one else nor the algorithm
itself on its own, could ever possibly create.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
This.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Yes, you are castings, but I just texted this to
you guys, and these are some unsettling and gorgeous images.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
And again this is now the secret sauce. This guy,
Danny Carey Bailey. You can find him on Instagram as
his art and his music. He's a really really talented
dude here in Atlanta. I just am blown away by
some of the stuff that he's doing. Literally speaking these
things into existence.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Some of them are kind of in the style of
Hoeronymous Bosh. Some of them are like government buildings with
alien crafts landing outside, surrounded by a hooded figures, you know,
children wearing these bizarre masks. A lot of these just
really have these ritualistic vibes and well, I'm sure there's
a couple that he probably did say something about Hornymous
(12:31):
Basha in terms of the style. This is stuff that, like,
I think he probably had to learn learn how to
speak to this algorithm in such a way that the
idea in his head is more or less translated, you know,
onto the page or the screen. What do you guys
think of these?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
It's quite disturbing. They're really well done. I mean, you're right,
like he's gotten it correct to where I don't know
what editing has been done on these photos after they
were initially generated.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I don't think much at all, if any, maybe some
color correction, but it certainly these are not composites. These
are singular creations of specifically of mid Journey.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Got you, I'd.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Be interested to sorry it took me a second to
get my phone. I would be interested in seeing the prompts, Danny.
Though I understand they may be proprietary, they are a
bit of a secret sauce. A lot of the forums
I participate in regarding this great challenging discourse, they do
hinge on on the idea of prompts, and a lot
(13:37):
of people have created their kind of their own system
for this stuff and they play it close to the chest,
which I completely understand. But Danny, very well done. Color
me impressed. Well.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
If you want to check out more of his work,
his name is Dan Carey Bailey. He's a composer and
an artist and you can find him on Instagram at
Dan Carrey Bailey or on his website Dan Carrie Bailey.
So with that, let's take a quick break and then
we'll be right back with some more messages from you.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
And we've returned. Guys, this is gonna be one of
those that I play a message for you. You're gonna hear,
maybe for the first time. Now we're gonna just chat
for a minute. You ready, It's gonna get weird. So stoked,
So stoked, bro, That's how I know you're super involved
and interested.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Ben, all right, you can you can see me though,
you can see me on this on this remote platform
we're using the record, and I am staring at you
because I am indeed stoked, so stoked.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
All right, here we go, Hey, what's going on? Guys?
Just listening to your episode about faces species has had
kind of a thuck popping in my head on my
drive here, and so we talked about how humans have
essentially spread all sources of species all across the globe,
allowing them to invade areas where they were not intended
(15:07):
to be. But my thoughts are, what if we were,
in fact a byproduct of nature meant to spread all
of these animals, plants, etc. Think of just like how
certain vegetation as certain seeds that attached to fur or clothing,
and they are then spread all over the place. What
(15:29):
if we were designed to in fact spread everything, not
only across the globe, but into the stars. Maybe we
are put on here for that very reason to spread everything.
Just thought came to my mind. Love your guys, show
what which you do? You can use this if you
choose to. My name is disco Funk, and I have
(15:51):
hope you have a wonderful net.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, yeah, disco funk. Matt, what Strea out to you?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
About this, well, I thought it was a fascinating concept. Really,
That's why I wanted to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
You know what pop to me though, is who's to say,
we're not that thing that he's describing. You know, on
a certain evolutionary level, when you compare seeds and seed
pods and insects and the way they're able to spread
their seed across the land, we do that too, It's
just on a slightly different scale and with a different mechanism.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, And it's evolutionarily fascinating to me because disco Funk
is taking us there to that place where many a
plant species uses birds to their advantage to spread their seeds.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I mean, trees and squirrels get along real fine because
of the way they like to knock seeds and acorns
and all kinds of things off of trees. They ended
up the squirrels eat a lot of them, but some
of them get planted because of them squirrels, and they're
excited of ripping of things off of trees or you know,
(17:00):
flowers and bees. In that relationship and how it formed
right in the pollination process. It is interesting to think
about intelligence as something that has arisen from evolutionary processes,
maybe not purposefully accidentally, just through sheer force of will,
(17:20):
It's arisen as the thing that can function as a
spreader of seeds, a spreader of species, and theoretically a
spreader of itself of intelligence to other planets eventually, if
it can survive long enough. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I agree, I agree, I agree with you guys totally,
because again we always have to say it louder once
again for the people in the back, there is no operative,
real definition of intelligence. The human brain studying itself finds
itself endlessly confusing. And what I like about what you're saying, Matt,
(17:57):
what this reminds me of is is maybe the argument
of intelligence if we keep it into practical methods, right,
which would be successfully reproducing and expanding through a number
of given environments, and that's one of the easiest, most
practical ways to define it. Then we look at the
(18:18):
constraints humans often think in terms of an individual instances intelligence.
Person A is quote unquote intelligent, person B is quote
unquote more or less intelligent. Right, So it's a weird
comparative game. But could we not argue that ant communities
(18:41):
are intelligent They successfully construct metropolis. Right, every time they
expand they have very sophisticated reproduction rituals, feeding rituals. They
practice agriculture, and I'll say the quiet part out loud.
A lot of ant species also practice slave What about
(19:01):
bees that, as a like a group mind is quite intelligent.
To the question that disco Funk is exploring here, which
I'm grateful for, is we would want to look at
the overall history of the most popular infamous primate, the
(19:22):
human species, and see whether there is a tipping point
or you'll love this, an inflection point after which they
stopped spreading different organisms and started killing more. Right, because
we're in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. But
(19:44):
before that, before this ongoing extinction, Yeah, man, a ton
of stuff plants and animals alike, spread because they went
with this human fad. It's so nuts to me when
I learned that the avocado should not exist in the
modern day. It only exists because of human beings us.
(20:08):
Great job. Everyone.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Wasn't there a time where like the idea like the
avocado is sort of like maybe won't exist for forever.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I mean, you could say that about a lot of things, unfortunately, right,
do you.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Soon to remember. There was our buddy Ramsey had a
podcast pitch for a show way back in the day,
You Will Miss, You Will Miss, and I believe the
first episode was about the humble avocado.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, I know there's a difficulty, or there's a very
difficult conversation coming up with humans regarding water use and agriculture.
Like very thirsty products such as almonds, they may pose
a threat to putable water for ordinary human beings. So
(20:51):
maybe that's part of it. But I remember what you mentioned,
I don't remember the specifics.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Popped into my head. And another thing that popped into
my head with all this conversation about polutionary levels and
mechanisms of extinction and creation, is this quote that I've
read from Stanley Kubrick, the genius and cantankerous, notoriously difficult
film director, a bit of a nihilist. You can tell
(21:16):
by this sentiment here that he expresses, how would a
sentient ant view the foot that crushes his ant hill
as the action of another being on a higher evolutionary
scale in itself, or as the divinely terrible intercession of God.
I know that's not directly pertaining we're talking about, but
(21:37):
it just you know, it's all about levels and scale
and perception.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
You know, of the level above or.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Beneath you, you know what I mean, dark tower, yeah,
or supersymmetry.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I mean, it's a great question too because right now,
from Earth's experience, so far as is known, there's a
tremendous disadvantage in understanding intelligence, understanding sentience, sapiens life, because
there is a sample size of one. There's one planet
(22:10):
that people know of that is doing this one thing
that we collectively call life, and it's really interesting. I
can't remember if we ever talked about it, but I
had one of those mind blowing conversations with a biophysicist
many years ago and was about exploring space. We all
(22:30):
love space on the shows. Most of us listening today
are probably big fans of exploring outer space. It seems
to be the destiny of the human species. And this biophysicist,
whom I will not name, told me they did not
want to go to space, and their argument was that
(22:51):
life on Earth is designed for Earth, which I felt
was oddly conservative for this person. But the but I
still wrestle with it because it does feel like the job,
doesn't it capital t capital j The job of life
is to expand.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
It reminds me of that sentiment that William Shatner expressed,
I believe in his memoir about his trip to space
and describing kind of what's referred to, I think collectively
as the overview effect, that rather than being filled with
a sense of wonder and discovery, you know, seeing the
Earth from outer space, he was filled with a sense
of dread because exactly to your point, Ben, Earth was
(23:29):
meant for earth life, and it's sort of like, you know,
seeing it in the context of the greater vastness of
you know, suffocating black space filled him with a sense
of dread and sadness because of how this Earth and
this life might not be long for this universe, because
of the choices that you know, human beings have made.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Who guys, that's why I wanted to really thank you
for having this conversation already, because this is why I
wanted to talk about this stuff. Y'all think, for lack
of a better term, out there right just don't get
to talk with anybody else like this, So thank you, guys.
It does make me feel like from an evolutionary perspective,
it's not the humans have never been the endpoint. And
(24:13):
I think in even the argument here or in the
suggestion that we're getting from disco Funk, humans as we
stand right now are not that thing that's going to
go to the stars. And I don't think we ever
meant to be the things that go to the stars,
but we were meant to design the things that go
to the stars. And boys, I propose a massive conspiracy
(24:36):
behind all of it. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
No? So ready?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
We talked recently about reproduction and changing out certain types
of DNA within human cells that make up that which
is a human.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
First part of this conspiracy talked about human cells enslaving
mitochondria for their own purposes. Proposed that that's the other
way round. Mitochondria enslaved the human cells to do their bidding,
to work for their purposes. Those same mitochondria, the tiny
(25:12):
little bacteriums that became mitochondria, are on a journey to
one day pilot metal beings into space.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
And so you're talking like sentient particles essentially, huh.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Sentient microscopic organisms, because that's where it all began.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Philosophers refer to these building blocks like I think it
was Descartes. Maybe I'm a little rusty on my philosophy,
but referring to monads and sort of like the precursor
to cells at least in terms of the description, and
these sort of like sentient building blocks of reality and
of you know, humanity. I love this idea that you
(25:54):
know that these are the ones that have the quote
unquote intelligent design.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Again, it's tough to say intelligent design in an environment
where no one can really define intelligence, but I love
what you're conveying here. Matt good friend of the show.
Robert Lamb, creator and co host of Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, is all about these conversations, was kicking it
with him a while back and talking about this idea. Right,
(26:21):
and we've said this on the show years and years ago.
There is a fundamental lack of perspective in humanity, assuming
it is the end point.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's kind of how a lot of people assume the
world is going to end in their lifetime when the
world ends for someone literally every day. There's a great
argument that humans are sort of, for lack of a
better word, I don't love the gendering of it, but
humans are sort of the midwives of the future, thing
that will explore the cosmos, And it's quite possible, at
(26:55):
least from what humans understand of life today, that the
first extraterrestrials met by Earthlings, whatever form they end up in,
is going to be the descendant of some other organic
thing from long ago, something that got purposely built to
withstand the terrifying demands and rigors of outer space and
(27:18):
gamma rays and radiation and so on and so on.
And I love that you're bringing up monads, Nol. I
think that comes from maybe I'm confused, it was Pythagorean
followers who originally thought of the monad as like the
supreme being, and then maybe it.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Was ah leaves correctness.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, but that's like that's an idea
of like the the concept of size is really what
defeats size in terms of three D space, but then
size in terms of timescale.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
So there.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I love this conspiracy that it's been mitochondria all along.
They took over it, took over these other cells way
way back in the day before humans, and now they're
steering the show because as we know, they outnumber human cells. Right,
we established that.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Yeah, that they've been they've been commandeering vehicles this whole time.
They've just been upgrading over and over and over, and
they upgrade their vehicle right because animal cells are just
they've been chilling with these mitochondria for I don't know,
millions of years, millions and millions of years. They've been around.
They know what's up, and they figured out that these humans,
(28:32):
they seem to be able to get a lot done
with those hands of theirs and those big old brains
that we are also a part of and steering. So
you know, once we can actually create the ships and
the machines that are powerful enough, we're good to go,
we can spread to the next giant sphere.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And then eventually we could mitochondria eyes just churchifying, I
love this language. We could mitochondria eyes of planet to
galaxy and move up on the Crushev scale. We should
also say, Matt, to add some further octane to your
beautiful conspiracy here, mikey, Caandria are present in plants and
(29:11):
oh yes, oh yeah, they've been running the whole game.
It was big and from the top.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
They've been riding evolution ever since it started. Man, they
started from the ooze. Now they're here, yeah, the Primorial boys.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
Yeah, yeah, when they went they emerged from said ooze.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
It's so it's so fascinating though to think about that,
because these kinds of conversations. Really what we're seeing disco
funk is that if you get far enough along the
horizon and the curve of known science, you very quickly
enter the realm of philosophy. If anyone works in the
(29:51):
rarefied airs of higher math physics stuff like that, or
even the rarefied air the very small stuff like examining
quantum behavior, than when you see the people who know
the most in the world about these fields, when you
see them interact together, their conversation becomes much like a
(30:11):
philosophical discourse from days of ancient human civilization.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
I think it's cool, correct me if I'm wrong. That's
why it's theoretical, right, because it's like we can't really
observe these things existing in nature. But there's a whole
lot of interesting conversation to be had around And I
know there's math and there's science behind theoretical physics. I
know it's not all just a bunch of conjecture and
like you know, brainstorming or whatever.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
But there is, to your.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Point, been a certain philosophical core to these kinds of conversations.
I think that's really interesting and a very great observation.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I would agree with it. You know, maybe we should
you know what, guys, maybe we should go have a
field trip and just just hang out at a local
university and see if we can see if we can
pay the boffins in I don't know, like beer, copies
of the books, or pizza to tell us about this stuff.
(31:06):
I used to.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Offen currency right there, pizza and beer. It'll help us
move while they're at it.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
But I just want to get uh, you know, some
tabs on these mitochondria, Like we need to get some
wire taps. We need to figure out how to get
in there, figure out what these mitochondria are playing tags.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
It's gonna be a bunch of gurgling that we're gonna.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
That We're gonna figure it out. We're gonna crack this case. Guys.
All right, well that's it for now. Thank you so
much disco Funk for sending us to that thought experiment.
We will be right back with some shout outs and
some awesome stuff. You just wait, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Just you wait. We have returned. I hope you had
a good break. We're not at liberty to disclose everything
that happened to us, but we are legally required to
apologize if we have it any way misrepresented mitochondria. There's
literally nothing else we are allowed to say about that,
(32:14):
thanks to as always to our sponsor, Illumination Global Unlimited.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Yeah, I do hope that people understand, like we're having
fun with concepts, that we don't actually believe that mitochondria
are in control of everything, but it would be fun
if they were. But that's not what we're saying.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
We're legally required to tell you. That is not what
we are saying. So moving there, we wanted to we
wanted to have, you know, just a little a little
quick family time here, and before we do that, we're
going to have a bit of foreshadowing courtesy of someone
who's going by am droid, So Android says, Hi, guys,
(32:55):
I just wanted to see if you have any perspective
on the craziness of tipping in the US. For anybody
outside of the US, you probably know about this, this
editorialized on my part, just for background. Tipping is when
you give a certain amount of cash or a certain
amount of payment over the stated amount. Sometimes it is
(33:16):
in terms of absolute dollars. Sometimes it's in terms of
rounding up. Often it is in terms of some sort
of socially agreed upon percentage. And Droid says, I work
off tips, so I understand the need. I'm an independent contractor,
but I've been noticing and reading about how all sorts
of transactions are requesting tips now, retail stores, drive throughs,
(33:38):
online shopping, etc. I bought some colored contact lenses online
and they asked for tips. I've read about some places
asking for tips at a self service drink cooler and
even a self checkout, I think, says Android. It's just
another way for big companies to get away with paying
their employees less than living wages and putting some moral
(33:59):
dilemma on consumers since most of us tip out of obligation. Anyway.
Curious to hear your thoughts and love starting my day
listening to you guys. This is foreshadowing everyone. We are
putting out an episode on tipping, and we're quite excited
for you to hear it. And we, in the interest
(34:21):
of full disclosure, we don't accept tips here because I mean,
other than good leads on stories, because I don't think
we have the technology to accept tips. That would get
kind of weird.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Right, but we would take them. I would take them.
You guys don't need them, I'll take them.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I will take them if they are in ancient currencies.
All I messing with now is outdated currencies. Black Monday
murders persuaded me sick. What do you guys think though,
have you, like, before we get into the episode on this,
let's just spend a little time here, have you all
encountered some kind of like escalation in tipping for lack
(34:59):
of a better have you seen it become more common
or more people asking.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I feel like we just talked about this, there was gosh,
I never know if it's on air or off here
when we talk about thanks, guys, there is an escalation
that is occurring because there's an awareness of what employees
of you know, in service industries go through, right, the
amount of money that they're paid on a regular basis,
and then how much they depend on tips often. So
now that there's a larger awareness from the societal perspective,
(35:27):
it feels as though everybody is okay with tipping a
little more. If we are going to go out and
go to a restaurant, go to a bar, do something
that requires a tip, because it's we're all more accustomed
to it now at this point, because we want to
support everybody. I think, I think that's what's happening.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
I think maybe also I've seen a little bit more
of a becoming a little more common for a gratuity
to be kind of built into a check for certain
sized parties or whatever, or for there to be a
little scale on the bottom that kind of tells you,
you know, what you should be tipping. And usually that
scale starts with twenty percent, and I was up to
I think even around thirty percent sometimes so, but it's
(36:04):
also still I think I did.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
I think it was on air.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Maybe I brought up the idea of like, you know,
I had a nice dinner with my partner in Nashville,
you know, a few weeks ago, and it was a
pricey dinner, but our server didn't really do anything, you
know that she wasn't bad. She gave us fine service.
But did she give us eighty five dollars worth of service?
And just because the bill is three hundred dollars or
(36:28):
whatever it was, I'm not saying that's what it was.
Whatever it was does she deserve twenty percent of that
large amount in tip? You know, when we were very quick,
we were actually on the way to a show, so
we did not linger, We were not extra, we did
not ask anything additional of this person, and she was
able to turn that table over and could have, you know,
(36:49):
had a massive party come behind us. It was actually
only a four top, so could have been massive, but
maybe a party that would have really lingered and ordered
more and more drinks and had an even larger bill.
I just I did it because custom you know, expects it.
But I did not necessarily feel that, you know, whatever
that twenty percent on that larger amount was had been
(37:10):
quote unquote earned. And maybe that's even like out of
date thinking. It used to be that, you know, the
idea of a tip was like, well, did you receive
excellent service and then therefore you tip accordingly, and but
God forbid you get maybe horrible service and don't tip
at all. You're a situations where someone will follow you
out to your car and be like what the hell
(37:32):
and understandably so this is a massive part of their income,
you know, but it's also with that they're sort of
a social contract, right of like I'm giving you something
for what you're tipping me outside. It is because you
don't tip fast food workers. You don't tip even sonic
car hops, but maybe you do. I think we actually
had this conversation too. I think some people do tip
(37:52):
sonic car hops as well. You should. They're two in
a whole little song and dance for you. But I
don't know. I'm rambling a little bit, but like it
is interesting to me, and I was wondering what y'all
think about the whole idea of the amount of the
check versus the amount of work that the person is doing,
and are they entitled to twenty percent of that larger
check even if they don't really do anything.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's exactly what Android is asking us or getting toward,
and that's that's the question imposing. I understand, like as
an entity that exercises empathy, I understand that there are
people livelihoods on the line here, and again it's it's
(38:32):
deeper than the individual interactions. It is the system. You
go to many other countries and there is already a
gratuity or service charge included, and the idea of tipping
would be rounding up to the nearest note you know
in some cultures, of course, tipping is considered offensive if
(38:53):
you're doing more than rounding up, like in many parts
of Japan.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Well, because the implication is that maybe they don't make
enough money and they they need your tip or something.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Right, exactly, very similar. That's one of the big pieces
and one of the reasons that I'm so excited aka
stoked for this Tipping is a conspiracy a foot episode
is because we're going to lean on you for help,
fellow conspiracy realists. We want to hear your input, your
(39:23):
reaction to Android's questions. The conversation that the five of
us are having now, it goes in a lot of directions.
You know, the question when tipping is appropriate. Here's another
interesting one. What is the line between tipping and a bribe? Right?
Because the people in Washington are arguably doing the same
(39:46):
thing that people do when they want to get a
nice table at a fancy restaurant.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
Well, you guys will also recall there was a time
where I think Lift always had the ability to tip,
but Uber did not implement the ability to tip into
their app for a lot time, and it wasn't until
kind of they were pressured to do so. You know,
and people just don't really carry cash, so it's hard
to tip your Uber driver if there's not a way
to do that within the app, or unless you go
(40:12):
the extra mile and do PayPal or you know, Venmo
or whatever. I think all three of us have shopped
at a at a wonderful grocery store in Atlanta called
the Your Decab farmers Market, which has a large proportion
of its staff is made up of immigrants, and there
is a you know, if you go to the deli
counter or the meat counter, there are very conspicuously laid
(40:35):
out signs that said that says that the employees are
not allowed to take your tips. That seems off to me.
I've always thought that seemed a little offt because they
are giving you extra service. You know, they're they're asking
you how thin or thick you want your your meat sliced,
or you know, they're they're giving you extra attention. You
should be able to tip them. But for whatever reason
it they will get in trouble if you if you
(40:57):
give them a tip and they won't accept it. And
only not saying that immigrants are inherently like always some
kind of like underserved or impoverished community. Or whatever, But
I mean do they often are and they often don't
get the same benefits, you know as other folks you
know who maybe are citizens or maybe they're on the
path to citizenship, but they haven't gotten there yet. I'm
(41:19):
not trying to throw the cab farmers market under the bus,
but who knows if maybe there's there being a little
bit tricky there, knowing that people won't fight back against
that because they need the employment, because maybe they're not
fully legal. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Well, there are also to that point, there are ton practices.
There are many institutions that clearly establish the employees are
not allowed to accept tips or compensation of any sort
past they're agreed upon compensation with their employers. Some grocery
stores are like that. I think public's practices that as well.
(41:56):
Some of those institutions will say, we don't need tipping
culture to enter because we have taken pains to pay
our employees a living wage an adequate amount. Right, They're
saying that we're not passing that responsibility on to you. Yeah,
that's what I'm saying. That's what they're saying. There's also
the cab farmers market, which I love and have been
(42:16):
a regular patron of for many men and many years.
They have a very interesting thing that you will probably
not encounter unless you happen to be in that little
bettle holler of Georgia, which is they practice a buddy system.
The employer has built out a paired system. This isn't
going to We've got other stuff to get to. I
(42:37):
just want everyone to know this. If you are at
the cabs farmer's market, you look at the name tags,
you'll see that there is a black dot or a
white dot on these name tags. That is due to
the employer's personality test that all employees take, which finds
whether you are yin or yang and you are paired
(42:57):
up with your opposite I have not test. Yeah, that's true,
that's true. Check it out again. Just like the toy
Bee tiles. There are secrets all around us. You just
have to dig a little. I think they still do that.
They are a private, privately owned company. So they also
don't accept credit card or board that they have to
(43:18):
reply to or Yeah, they also don't accept credit cards.
They do accept personal checks, which.
Speaker 4 (43:24):
Is also unusual. Everything there is kind of higgley piggley,
but it's a wonderful place and anyway, again not throwing
them under the bus. We love them, but they are
using them as an example, you.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Know, whereas as a let's call it a thought experiment,
and so would love to hear your thoughts folks on tipping.
Be aware that your your perspective, your your perspective, your
experiences may end up in some way in our upcoming
episode on tipping and whether or not there is an
(43:53):
escalation in requests and whether or not this is anomalous.
Can't wait to hear from you. You don't have to
be in the service industry to weigh in. All perspectives
are valid. I was thinking we could close out with
just some again wholesome family time. Matt. You did something
that I absolutely love when you shouted out animal photos
(44:15):
pet photos earlier in today's Listener mail segment, and I
think we just want to give a special shout out
to Fox, Molder and Bigfoot. They live with a human
called Sarah. Thank you for sending us your pet pictures.
Please send us more pet photos. We're always super down.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Then what's that term when the cat has extra digits
on their pause Polydactly?
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, I think that's what being polydactyl.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
I think that's what Bigfoot has. And Bigfoot's awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Bigfoot's a chunk man. We meant with great affection Bigfoot. Yeah,
Bigfoot's got that Hemyway Paul thing going on. And then
also this is this is something that we always enjoy doing.
We got a really cool letter from our old pal Samurai,
and Matt, you read this, Noel, you read this as well.
(45:12):
Here we go. Letter begins Samurai. Here, I would like
to ask a favor. My son is getting ready to
transition from elementary school to junior high. He's going out
with a bang, graduating from sixth grade with a four
point oh GPA, perfect attendance Principals list, and just received
the Mary Ortiz Award for Outstanding Citizenship. He's an exceptional kid.
(45:38):
If you can give him a shout out, use the
name GSW Gunter. So what do you say, Matt, Shout
out to Gunter.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
A major shout out to Gunter, and shout out to
father and son for going on awesome camping trips and
then writing about it so other people can learn and
explore with them.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, that's so cool. We read that one. Yeah, so
we wanted to end it there. We love shouting out
the community. We were talking about this a little bit earlier,
right at the open of the of this show. It
is nuts how many times people written in and put
in that line. I grew up watching your YouTube and
(46:21):
now now I'm graduating college. Oh boy, the time, how
it flies in a flat circle. Big big thanks to Android,
Big big thanks to disco Funk, our new favorite author,
Alex Crespo. Big thanks to Samurai, Big thanks to Sarah,
Big thanks to everybody who wrote in. If you want
(46:44):
to join the show, because we do this every week,
all you have to do is contact us. We have
any number of ways to get in contact with us, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, MySpace.
Now I'm kidding, We've got our Facebook group years where
it gets crazy. Conspiracy stuff show on Instagram, conspiracy stuff
(47:04):
on YouTube. You can also find us on TikTok and
if you do not sip the social meds no worries,
you can call us directly on your telephonic device.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Call this number one eight three three st DWYTK. It's
a voicemail system. You're gonna have three minutes when you
call in, say whatever you'd like. Please do include some
kind of nickname doesn't matter what it is. Just give
yourself a nickname and then let us know if we
can use your message on the air or not. It's
(47:36):
that simple. If you want to say more than can
fit in that three minutes, why not instead send us
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
the stuff they don't want you to know. This is
our it's our weekly time where we do an extended
(00:48):
thank you to all of our fellow conspiracy realists who
make this show possible. We're so grateful that you are
here and we cannot wait to share some messages from you.
In this week's listener mail segment, we're going to learn
about some fellow authors. We have many in the audience.
We're going to learn well, we're going to talk about
(01:11):
We're going to interrogate a very interesting conversational prompt about
the purpose and the design of humanity and the spread
of that species. And then I think we're going to
end with a little little grab bag some teasers for
some upcoming episodes that will strike a chord with you,
as well as just some friendly letters from our conspiratorial
(01:35):
home of stuff they don't want you to know. We
start today, right, we tease this idea. We love creative minds,
we love artists, we love musicians, we love authors. We're
all three of those. And Noel, we're talking about this
a little bit off air. We receive just a wonderful
(01:57):
piece of correspondence that I don't know about you guys,
but I found it touching and inspiring for sure.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
And this is a case where we can definitely use
this individual's government name because they are a published author.
Alex Crespo, subject of the email, You're in my book acknowledgments.
That's so cool, Thanks Alex, Matt Ben and nol Okay.
So I'm a traditionally published author and the subject line
kind of says it all. But here's a little background
(02:24):
for flavor. I started listening to the podcast in twenty
seventeen because I needed something to make my commute to
my boring nine to five job a little more bearable.
That ritual quickly became the highlight of the day, and
listening to you guys help me revive with the bizarre
imaginative part of my brain that had been atrophied by
corporate America derogatory in parentheses. All of my daydreamings solidified
(02:47):
eventually into a book idea, and Saint Juniper's Folly was born.
It's a young adult gothic mystery in which a straight
laced golden boy and a novice witch team up to
rescue a Mexican American team with a cryptic who's become
trapped inside a haunted mansion in Vermont. Wow, all the stuff.
I love it, and it's coming out June sixth. This
book is a patchwork of so many topics you guys
(03:09):
have discussed on the podcast, from ghost stories to which
trials and psychokinesis, and I truly feel like the show
had a hand in shaping it in the best way possible.
I've attached a pick of what I actually said in
the acknowledgments, but I want to thank you directly for
sharing the stories that you do and adding a little
extra wonder and mystery to everyone's lives in the process.
(03:31):
I'm a full time author now, so my commute is
walking ten feet from my bed to my desk and
I get to listen to the show as I travel
to signings and author events, which feels like a very
cool full circle moment. And now you guys are authors too,
but it's time.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
To be alive.
Speaker 4 (03:45):
Anyways, much love and if you want signed copies, I'd
be happy to send some over, yes please. Ps you
can feel free to read this on the air and
use my name if you want. And then he signs
it Alex and looking at let's see openly here because
we don't always open the attachments, but when they come
from trusted sources like published authors, we do do that thing.
(04:09):
So you see, oh goodness, we're yeah, we are sort of.
It reads as follows, thank you to Matt, Ben and
Nole the stuff they don't want you to know, who
supplemented so much of my supernatural research for this book
and have kept me company on every commute and long
haul flight for years. Man, we don't usually read emails
(04:30):
like kind of people just kind of big upping us
and expressing appreciation, but this one has felt a little
special because you know, these stories inspire us too, and
I think in our creative work as well outside of
the show, whether it be ben your fiction writing, my end,
Matt's kind of music writing, I think you can't not
(04:51):
be affected by this stuff. And to be able to
kind of be a platform that someone is getting any
kind of inspiration from, whether it be you know, literary
or other otherwise, it feels really really cool.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
I just want to point out, Alex, that whenever you
refer to us, the order should be Ben Matten Dole.
We have always said it that way, and that is
the way it shall stand, Alex. I demand to read whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
We're slaves to the alphabet. Yeah, it's funny because Alex,
I went and I went ahead and pre ordered Saint
Juniper's Folly, mainly because flattery gets you everywhere. Kidding. Like
Noel said, we we greatly appreciate this and hopefully, as
every longtime listener knows, it is very important to us
(05:38):
to support creativity in any in any form or fashion
you find it. Alex, just want to give you a
creepy heads up. I follow you on Twitter now, and
and it's it's fascinating to realize just how how connected
the world can be. I wish that I had already
(06:01):
read Saint Juniper's Folly before we before we got to
this listener mail, But I for one am excited Noela
Saire if we read just a little bit of the
like the blurb on the back, Oh yeah, please all right, So,
without spoiling too much, Alex, you're you're so kind to us.
(06:22):
We don't want to we don't want to spoil things.
Let's give one of the many reviews that you can
find on let's see this is Amazon. The bulletin for
the Center of Children's Books gave this a starred review.
This stood out particularly to them, and they said, teens
feeling stuck in various identification boxes, in the Sissaphian cycle
(06:46):
of school days or in the sometimes poisonous, sometimes nurturing
bounds of family will likely relate to Jamie. That's the
main character to Jamie's yearning for freedom, and this remarkable
debut novel carefully explores these struggles with grace and sympathy.
Theo jam and Taylor are unforgettable. That's kind of cool.
And again, like Alex said, like you said, Noel, we
(07:09):
haven't read the book yet, so we're kind of we're
kind of excited. June sixth, it's on the way. Let's see,
this will come out before the book is available, But
that's kind of cool. It makes me think. You know,
we've had some a lot of conversations off air about
the current resurgence and banning books in the United States.
(07:31):
If you guys have been reading about that too, Yeah, yeah, well.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, and it also goes back to, you know, the
topic that we kind of discussed and we didn't kind
of discussed. We totally discussed in the previous Strange News
episode the idea of banning certain types of concerts, you know,
in Mexico as a result of drug violence.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
And not to say that the.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
Two are exactly the same, but we kind of ended
that segment talking about how banning a thing is a
surefire way of spreading it further because you know, when
you ban something, it's just going to make people more
curious about what it is that they're missing. People do
not like to be told what to do, what to read,
what to listen to.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
So yeah, well you know what y'all are missing? Hmmm,
pictures of Hex.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, who was in the acknowledgments?
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yes there, pictures are adorable.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
We are fans. We are big fans of pet pictures.
And that's another reason why we love these weekly this
weekly Listener Mail segment, because we do get.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
To I don't know.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
It's not quite like the Letters from Home with Prairie
Home Companion or something like that. But we're we do
spend a lot of grateful time. You know. Matt is
always running point on the amazing voicemails we get. We
read every email we get, and we we try to
keep track of social media. It's a lot, but we're
(08:55):
we're very fortunate to be here. It is nuts, by
the way, to realize our age as a show when
we have people writing to us because they've had their
first kid, or they just you know, got married, or
they graduated, and there's always that line in there, you guys,
where they say, I grew up watching you on YouTube
(09:16):
And what's that old?
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (09:21):
David Byrne, I think about the passage of time?
Speaker 4 (09:24):
Was this song yeah, oh gosh, I don't know, maybe
once in a lifetime, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
Exactly, like singing in my Mouth.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Yeah, the one where he sings to the lampshade and
then this.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Out of context that sounds like a weird lyric.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
It was also the way he sings it because burn
is away away with the cadence of words, because oftentimes
the meaning of the words, the lyrics themselves are just
part of the equation, and the way that their song
and the rhythm and the tune is a big part
of it too, which is the same case for the
English language. You know, say, Shakespeare's just word put in order.
(10:00):
I think Mark from a Peep show had that to say,
very sarcastically, No, it wasn't, It wasn't. Actually it was
in Mitchellan Webb. It was the episode that's sort of
like lampooning Gordon Ramsey torturing a poor local chef who's
got a failing restaurant. But Shakespeare is indeed words just
put in order. But it's got to be the order.
(10:22):
You got to crack the code so that all you
authors out there who are putting words in order, we
we salute you.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
Do you think it's some kind of superpower, like if
the words are sung into your mouth, like you could
somehow capture them and then send them back out.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
And this is a little short, but I thought it
was it was worth worth talking and giving a little
shout out to one of our listeners that's also making
creative work out there. But I wanted to bring something
up just the tail end of this talking about the
power of words and the ubiquitous topic of conversation of
artificial intelligence and specifically AI art. A friend of mine,
a really really, really creative artist who you know, does
(11:02):
all kinds of analog art, you know, with paint brushes
and the like, and all kinds of you know, textures
and various things, and it was also an incredible musician,
has really been getting into AI art lately, and I
want to send you, guys really quickly a handful of
his pieces. And let's talk a little bit about the
power of words as it pertains to AI art, because
(11:25):
at the end of the day, AI art is all
about figuring out what prompts to give to this algorithm
to create something that no one else nor the algorithm
itself on its own, could ever possibly create.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
This.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Yes, you are castings, but I just texted this to
you guys, and these are some unsettling and gorgeous images.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
And again this is now the secret sauce. This guy,
Danny Carey Bailey. You can find him on Instagram as
his art and his music. He's a really really talented
dude here in Atlanta. I just am blown away by
some of the stuff that he's doing. Literally speaking these
things into existence.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Some of them are kind of in the style of
Hoeronymous Bosh. Some of them are like government buildings with
alien crafts landing outside, surrounded by a hooded figures, you know,
children wearing these bizarre masks. A lot of these just
really have these ritualistic vibes and well, I'm sure there's
a couple that he probably did say something about Hornymous
(12:31):
Basha in terms of the style. This is stuff that, like,
I think he probably had to learn learn how to
speak to this algorithm in such a way that the
idea in his head is more or less translated, you know,
onto the page or the screen. What do you guys
think of these?
Speaker 3 (12:50):
It's quite disturbing. They're really well done. I mean, you're right,
like he's gotten it correct to where I don't know
what editing has been done on these photos after they
were initially generated.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
I don't think much at all, if any, maybe some
color correction, but it certainly these are not composites. These
are singular creations of specifically of mid Journey.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Got you, I'd.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Be interested to sorry it took me a second to
get my phone. I would be interested in seeing the prompts, Danny.
Though I understand they may be proprietary, they are a
bit of a secret sauce. A lot of the forums
I participate in regarding this great challenging discourse, they do
hinge on on the idea of prompts, and a lot
(13:37):
of people have created their kind of their own system
for this stuff and they play it close to the chest,
which I completely understand. But Danny, very well done. Color
me impressed. Well.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
If you want to check out more of his work,
his name is Dan Carey Bailey. He's a composer and
an artist and you can find him on Instagram at
Dan Carrey Bailey or on his website Dan Carrie Bailey.
So with that, let's take a quick break and then
we'll be right back with some more messages from you.
Speaker 3 (14:12):
And we've returned. Guys, this is gonna be one of
those that I play a message for you. You're gonna hear,
maybe for the first time. Now we're gonna just chat
for a minute. You ready, It's gonna get weird. So stoked,
So stoked, bro, That's how I know you're super involved
and interested.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
Ben, all right, you can you can see me though,
you can see me on this on this remote platform
we're using the record, and I am staring at you
because I am indeed stoked, so stoked.
Speaker 5 (14:42):
All right, here we go, Hey, what's going on? Guys?
Just listening to your episode about faces species has had
kind of a thuck popping in my head on my
drive here, and so we talked about how humans have
essentially spread all sources of species all across the globe,
allowing them to invade areas where they were not intended
(15:07):
to be. But my thoughts are, what if we were,
in fact a byproduct of nature meant to spread all
of these animals, plants, etc. Think of just like how
certain vegetation as certain seeds that attached to fur or clothing,
and they are then spread all over the place. What
(15:29):
if we were designed to in fact spread everything, not
only across the globe, but into the stars. Maybe we
are put on here for that very reason to spread everything.
Just thought came to my mind. Love your guys, show
what which you do? You can use this if you
choose to. My name is disco Funk, and I have
(15:51):
hope you have a wonderful net.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, yeah, disco funk. Matt, what Strea out to you?
Speaker 3 (15:57):
About this, well, I thought it was a fascinating concept. Really,
That's why I wanted to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
You know what pop to me though, is who's to say,
we're not that thing that he's describing. You know, on
a certain evolutionary level, when you compare seeds and seed
pods and insects and the way they're able to spread
their seed across the land, we do that too, It's
just on a slightly different scale and with a different mechanism.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
Yeah, And it's evolutionarily fascinating to me because disco Funk
is taking us there to that place where many a
plant species uses birds to their advantage to spread their seeds.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
I mean, trees and squirrels get along real fine because
of the way they like to knock seeds and acorns
and all kinds of things off of trees. They ended
up the squirrels eat a lot of them, but some
of them get planted because of them squirrels, and they're
excited of ripping of things off of trees or you know,
(17:00):
flowers and bees. In that relationship and how it formed
right in the pollination process. It is interesting to think
about intelligence as something that has arisen from evolutionary processes,
maybe not purposefully accidentally, just through sheer force of will,
(17:20):
It's arisen as the thing that can function as a
spreader of seeds, a spreader of species, and theoretically a
spreader of itself of intelligence to other planets eventually, if
it can survive long enough. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
I agree, I agree, I agree with you guys totally,
because again we always have to say it louder once
again for the people in the back, there is no operative,
real definition of intelligence. The human brain studying itself finds
itself endlessly confusing. And what I like about what you're saying, Matt,
(17:57):
what this reminds me of is is maybe the argument
of intelligence if we keep it into practical methods, right,
which would be successfully reproducing and expanding through a number
of given environments, and that's one of the easiest, most
practical ways to define it. Then we look at the
(18:18):
constraints humans often think in terms of an individual instances intelligence.
Person A is quote unquote intelligent, person B is quote
unquote more or less intelligent. Right, So it's a weird
comparative game. But could we not argue that ant communities
(18:41):
are intelligent They successfully construct metropolis. Right, every time they
expand they have very sophisticated reproduction rituals, feeding rituals. They
practice agriculture, and I'll say the quiet part out loud.
A lot of ant species also practice slave What about
(19:01):
bees that, as a like a group mind is quite intelligent.
To the question that disco Funk is exploring here, which
I'm grateful for, is we would want to look at
the overall history of the most popular infamous primate, the
(19:22):
human species, and see whether there is a tipping point
or you'll love this, an inflection point after which they
stopped spreading different organisms and started killing more. Right, because
we're in the middle of the sixth mass extinction. But
(19:44):
before that, before this ongoing extinction, Yeah, man, a ton
of stuff plants and animals alike, spread because they went
with this human fad. It's so nuts to me when
I learned that the avocado should not exist in the
modern day. It only exists because of human beings us.
(20:08):
Great job. Everyone.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
Wasn't there a time where like the idea like the
avocado is sort of like maybe won't exist for forever.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
I mean, you could say that about a lot of things, unfortunately, right,
do you.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Soon to remember. There was our buddy Ramsey had a
podcast pitch for a show way back in the day,
You Will Miss, You Will Miss, and I believe the
first episode was about the humble avocado.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Well, I know there's a difficulty, or there's a very
difficult conversation coming up with humans regarding water use and agriculture.
Like very thirsty products such as almonds, they may pose
a threat to putable water for ordinary human beings. So
(20:51):
maybe that's part of it. But I remember what you mentioned,
I don't remember the specifics.
Speaker 4 (20:56):
Popped into my head. And another thing that popped into
my head with all this conversation about polutionary levels and
mechanisms of extinction and creation, is this quote that I've
read from Stanley Kubrick, the genius and cantankerous, notoriously difficult
film director, a bit of a nihilist. You can tell
(21:16):
by this sentiment here that he expresses, how would a
sentient ant view the foot that crushes his ant hill
as the action of another being on a higher evolutionary
scale in itself, or as the divinely terrible intercession of God.
I know that's not directly pertaining we're talking about, but
(21:37):
it just you know, it's all about levels and scale
and perception.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
You know, of the level above or.
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Beneath you, you know what I mean, dark tower, yeah,
or supersymmetry.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
I mean, it's a great question too because right now,
from Earth's experience, so far as is known, there's a
tremendous disadvantage in understanding intelligence, understanding sentience, sapiens life, because
there is a sample size of one. There's one planet
(22:10):
that people know of that is doing this one thing
that we collectively call life, and it's really interesting. I
can't remember if we ever talked about it, but I
had one of those mind blowing conversations with a biophysicist
many years ago and was about exploring space. We all
(22:30):
love space on the shows. Most of us listening today
are probably big fans of exploring outer space. It seems
to be the destiny of the human species. And this biophysicist,
whom I will not name, told me they did not
want to go to space, and their argument was that
(22:51):
life on Earth is designed for Earth, which I felt
was oddly conservative for this person. But the but I
still wrestle with it because it does feel like the job,
doesn't it capital t capital j The job of life
is to expand.
Speaker 4 (23:09):
It reminds me of that sentiment that William Shatner expressed,
I believe in his memoir about his trip to space
and describing kind of what's referred to, I think collectively
as the overview effect, that rather than being filled with
a sense of wonder and discovery, you know, seeing the
Earth from outer space, he was filled with a sense
of dread because exactly to your point, Ben, Earth was
(23:29):
meant for earth life, and it's sort of like, you know,
seeing it in the context of the greater vastness of
you know, suffocating black space filled him with a sense
of dread and sadness because of how this Earth and
this life might not be long for this universe, because
of the choices that you know, human beings have made.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Who guys, that's why I wanted to really thank you
for having this conversation already, because this is why I
wanted to talk about this stuff. Y'all think, for lack
of a better term, out there right just don't get
to talk with anybody else like this, So thank you, guys.
It does make me feel like from an evolutionary perspective,
it's not the humans have never been the endpoint. And
(24:13):
I think in even the argument here or in the
suggestion that we're getting from disco Funk, humans as we
stand right now are not that thing that's going to
go to the stars. And I don't think we ever
meant to be the things that go to the stars,
but we were meant to design the things that go
to the stars. And boys, I propose a massive conspiracy
(24:36):
behind all of it. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (24:38):
No? So ready?
Speaker 3 (24:40):
We talked recently about reproduction and changing out certain types
of DNA within human cells that make up that which
is a human.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
First part of this conspiracy talked about human cells enslaving
mitochondria for their own purposes. Proposed that that's the other
way round. Mitochondria enslaved the human cells to do their bidding,
to work for their purposes. Those same mitochondria, the tiny
(25:12):
little bacteriums that became mitochondria, are on a journey to
one day pilot metal beings into space.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
And so you're talking like sentient particles essentially, huh.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Sentient microscopic organisms, because that's where it all began.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Philosophers refer to these building blocks like I think it
was Descartes. Maybe I'm a little rusty on my philosophy,
but referring to monads and sort of like the precursor
to cells at least in terms of the description, and
these sort of like sentient building blocks of reality and
of you know, humanity. I love this idea that you
(25:54):
know that these are the ones that have the quote
unquote intelligent design.
Speaker 2 (25:59):
Again, it's tough to say intelligent design in an environment
where no one can really define intelligence, but I love
what you're conveying here. Matt good friend of the show.
Robert Lamb, creator and co host of Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, is all about these conversations, was kicking it
with him a while back and talking about this idea. Right,
(26:21):
and we've said this on the show years and years ago.
There is a fundamental lack of perspective in humanity, assuming
it is the end point.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
You know.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's kind of how a lot of people assume the
world is going to end in their lifetime when the
world ends for someone literally every day. There's a great
argument that humans are sort of, for lack of a
better word, I don't love the gendering of it, but
humans are sort of the midwives of the future, thing
that will explore the cosmos, And it's quite possible, at
(26:55):
least from what humans understand of life today, that the
first extraterrestrials met by Earthlings, whatever form they end up in,
is going to be the descendant of some other organic
thing from long ago, something that got purposely built to
withstand the terrifying demands and rigors of outer space and
(27:18):
gamma rays and radiation and so on and so on.
And I love that you're bringing up monads, Nol. I
think that comes from maybe I'm confused, it was Pythagorean
followers who originally thought of the monad as like the
supreme being, and then maybe it.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Was ah leaves correctness.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, but that's like that's an idea
of like the the concept of size is really what
defeats size in terms of three D space, but then
size in terms of timescale.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
So there.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I love this conspiracy that it's been mitochondria all along.
They took over it, took over these other cells way
way back in the day before humans, and now they're
steering the show because as we know, they outnumber human cells. Right,
we established that.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Yeah, that they've been they've been commandeering vehicles this whole time.
They've just been upgrading over and over and over, and
they upgrade their vehicle right because animal cells are just
they've been chilling with these mitochondria for I don't know,
millions of years, millions and millions of years. They've been around.
They know what's up, and they figured out that these humans,
(28:32):
they seem to be able to get a lot done
with those hands of theirs and those big old brains
that we are also a part of and steering. So
you know, once we can actually create the ships and
the machines that are powerful enough, we're good to go,
we can spread to the next giant sphere.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And then eventually we could mitochondria eyes just churchifying, I
love this language. We could mitochondria eyes of planet to
galaxy and move up on the Crushev scale. We should
also say, Matt, to add some further octane to your
beautiful conspiracy here, mikey, Caandria are present in plants and
(29:11):
oh yes, oh yeah, they've been running the whole game.
It was big and from the top.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
They've been riding evolution ever since it started. Man, they
started from the ooze. Now they're here, yeah, the Primorial boys.
Speaker 4 (29:25):
Yeah, yeah, when they went they emerged from said ooze.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
It's so it's so fascinating though to think about that,
because these kinds of conversations. Really what we're seeing disco
funk is that if you get far enough along the
horizon and the curve of known science, you very quickly
enter the realm of philosophy. If anyone works in the
(29:51):
rarefied airs of higher math physics stuff like that, or
even the rarefied air the very small stuff like examining
quantum behavior, than when you see the people who know
the most in the world about these fields, when you
see them interact together, their conversation becomes much like a
(30:11):
philosophical discourse from days of ancient human civilization.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
I think it's cool, correct me if I'm wrong. That's
why it's theoretical, right, because it's like we can't really
observe these things existing in nature. But there's a whole
lot of interesting conversation to be had around And I
know there's math and there's science behind theoretical physics. I
know it's not all just a bunch of conjecture and
like you know, brainstorming or whatever.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
But there is, to your.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
Point, been a certain philosophical core to these kinds of conversations.
I think that's really interesting and a very great observation.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
I would agree with it. You know, maybe we should
you know what, guys, maybe we should go have a
field trip and just just hang out at a local
university and see if we can see if we can
pay the boffins in I don't know, like beer, copies
of the books, or pizza to tell us about this stuff.
(31:06):
I used to.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
Offen currency right there, pizza and beer. It'll help us
move while they're at it.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
But I just want to get uh, you know, some
tabs on these mitochondria, Like we need to get some
wire taps. We need to figure out how to get
in there, figure out what these mitochondria are playing tags.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
It's gonna be a bunch of gurgling that we're gonna.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
That We're gonna figure it out. We're gonna crack this case. Guys.
All right, well that's it for now. Thank you so
much disco Funk for sending us to that thought experiment.
We will be right back with some shout outs and
some awesome stuff. You just wait, we'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Just you wait. We have returned. I hope you had
a good break. We're not at liberty to disclose everything
that happened to us, but we are legally required to
apologize if we have it any way misrepresented mitochondria. There's
literally nothing else we are allowed to say about that,
(32:14):
thanks to as always to our sponsor, Illumination Global Unlimited.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Yeah, I do hope that people understand, like we're having
fun with concepts, that we don't actually believe that mitochondria
are in control of everything, but it would be fun
if they were. But that's not what we're saying.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
We're legally required to tell you. That is not what
we are saying. So moving there, we wanted to we
wanted to have, you know, just a little a little
quick family time here, and before we do that, we're
going to have a bit of foreshadowing courtesy of someone
who's going by am droid, So Android says, Hi, guys,
(32:55):
I just wanted to see if you have any perspective
on the craziness of tipping in the US. For anybody
outside of the US, you probably know about this, this
editorialized on my part, just for background. Tipping is when
you give a certain amount of cash or a certain
amount of payment over the stated amount. Sometimes it is
(33:16):
in terms of absolute dollars. Sometimes it's in terms of
rounding up. Often it is in terms of some sort
of socially agreed upon percentage. And Droid says, I work
off tips, so I understand the need. I'm an independent contractor,
but I've been noticing and reading about how all sorts
of transactions are requesting tips now, retail stores, drive throughs,
(33:38):
online shopping, etc. I bought some colored contact lenses online
and they asked for tips. I've read about some places
asking for tips at a self service drink cooler and
even a self checkout, I think, says Android. It's just
another way for big companies to get away with paying
their employees less than living wages and putting some moral
(33:59):
dilemma on consumers since most of us tip out of obligation. Anyway.
Curious to hear your thoughts and love starting my day
listening to you guys. This is foreshadowing everyone. We are
putting out an episode on tipping, and we're quite excited
for you to hear it. And we, in the interest
(34:21):
of full disclosure, we don't accept tips here because I mean,
other than good leads on stories, because I don't think
we have the technology to accept tips. That would get
kind of weird.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
Right, but we would take them. I would take them.
You guys don't need them, I'll take them.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
I will take them if they are in ancient currencies.
All I messing with now is outdated currencies. Black Monday
murders persuaded me sick. What do you guys think though,
have you, like, before we get into the episode on this,
let's just spend a little time here, have you all
encountered some kind of like escalation in tipping for lack
(34:59):
of a better have you seen it become more common
or more people asking.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
I feel like we just talked about this, there was gosh,
I never know if it's on air or off here
when we talk about thanks, guys, there is an escalation
that is occurring because there's an awareness of what employees
of you know, in service industries go through, right, the
amount of money that they're paid on a regular basis,
and then how much they depend on tips often. So
now that there's a larger awareness from the societal perspective,
(35:27):
it feels as though everybody is okay with tipping a
little more. If we are going to go out and
go to a restaurant, go to a bar, do something
that requires a tip, because it's we're all more accustomed
to it now at this point, because we want to
support everybody. I think, I think that's what's happening.
Speaker 4 (35:43):
I think maybe also I've seen a little bit more
of a becoming a little more common for a gratuity
to be kind of built into a check for certain
sized parties or whatever, or for there to be a
little scale on the bottom that kind of tells you,
you know, what you should be tipping. And usually that
scale starts with twenty percent, and I was up to
I think even around thirty percent sometimes so, but it's
(36:04):
also still I think I did.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
I think it was on air.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Maybe I brought up the idea of like, you know,
I had a nice dinner with my partner in Nashville,
you know, a few weeks ago, and it was a
pricey dinner, but our server didn't really do anything, you
know that she wasn't bad. She gave us fine service.
But did she give us eighty five dollars worth of service?
And just because the bill is three hundred dollars or
(36:28):
whatever it was, I'm not saying that's what it was.
Whatever it was does she deserve twenty percent of that
large amount in tip? You know, when we were very quick,
we were actually on the way to a show, so
we did not linger, We were not extra, we did
not ask anything additional of this person, and she was
able to turn that table over and could have, you know,
(36:49):
had a massive party come behind us. It was actually
only a four top, so could have been massive, but
maybe a party that would have really lingered and ordered
more and more drinks and had an even larger bill.
I just I did it because custom you know, expects it.
But I did not necessarily feel that, you know, whatever
that twenty percent on that larger amount was had been
(37:10):
quote unquote earned. And maybe that's even like out of
date thinking. It used to be that, you know, the
idea of a tip was like, well, did you receive
excellent service and then therefore you tip accordingly, and but
God forbid you get maybe horrible service and don't tip
at all. You're a situations where someone will follow you
out to your car and be like what the hell
(37:32):
and understandably so this is a massive part of their income,
you know, but it's also with that they're sort of
a social contract, right of like I'm giving you something
for what you're tipping me outside. It is because you
don't tip fast food workers. You don't tip even sonic
car hops, but maybe you do. I think we actually
had this conversation too. I think some people do tip
(37:52):
sonic car hops as well. You should. They're two in
a whole little song and dance for you. But I
don't know. I'm rambling a little bit, but like it
is interesting to me, and I was wondering what y'all
think about the whole idea of the amount of the
check versus the amount of work that the person is doing,
and are they entitled to twenty percent of that larger
check even if they don't really do anything.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
It's exactly what Android is asking us or getting toward,
and that's that's the question imposing. I understand, like as
an entity that exercises empathy, I understand that there are
people livelihoods on the line here, and again it's it's
(38:32):
deeper than the individual interactions. It is the system. You
go to many other countries and there is already a
gratuity or service charge included, and the idea of tipping
would be rounding up to the nearest note you know
in some cultures, of course, tipping is considered offensive if
(38:53):
you're doing more than rounding up, like in many parts
of Japan.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
Well, because the implication is that maybe they don't make
enough money and they they need your tip or something.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
Right, exactly, very similar. That's one of the big pieces
and one of the reasons that I'm so excited aka
stoked for this Tipping is a conspiracy a foot episode
is because we're going to lean on you for help,
fellow conspiracy realists. We want to hear your input, your
(39:23):
reaction to Android's questions. The conversation that the five of
us are having now, it goes in a lot of directions.
You know, the question when tipping is appropriate. Here's another
interesting one. What is the line between tipping and a bribe? Right?
Because the people in Washington are arguably doing the same
(39:46):
thing that people do when they want to get a
nice table at a fancy restaurant.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
Well, you guys will also recall there was a time
where I think Lift always had the ability to tip,
but Uber did not implement the ability to tip into
their app for a lot time, and it wasn't until
kind of they were pressured to do so. You know,
and people just don't really carry cash, so it's hard
to tip your Uber driver if there's not a way
to do that within the app, or unless you go
(40:12):
the extra mile and do PayPal or you know, Venmo
or whatever. I think all three of us have shopped
at a at a wonderful grocery store in Atlanta called
the Your Decab farmers Market, which has a large proportion
of its staff is made up of immigrants, and there
is a you know, if you go to the deli
counter or the meat counter, there are very conspicuously laid
(40:35):
out signs that said that says that the employees are
not allowed to take your tips. That seems off to me.
I've always thought that seemed a little offt because they
are giving you extra service. You know, they're they're asking
you how thin or thick you want your your meat sliced,
or you know, they're they're giving you extra attention. You
should be able to tip them. But for whatever reason
it they will get in trouble if you if you
(40:57):
give them a tip and they won't accept it. And
only not saying that immigrants are inherently like always some
kind of like underserved or impoverished community. Or whatever, But
I mean do they often are and they often don't
get the same benefits, you know as other folks you
know who maybe are citizens or maybe they're on the
path to citizenship, but they haven't gotten there yet. I'm
(41:19):
not trying to throw the cab farmers market under the bus,
but who knows if maybe there's there being a little
bit tricky there, knowing that people won't fight back against
that because they need the employment, because maybe they're not
fully legal. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (41:36):
Well, there are also to that point, there are ton practices.
There are many institutions that clearly establish the employees are
not allowed to accept tips or compensation of any sort
past they're agreed upon compensation with their employers. Some grocery
stores are like that. I think public's practices that as well.
(41:56):
Some of those institutions will say, we don't need tipping
culture to enter because we have taken pains to pay
our employees a living wage an adequate amount. Right, They're
saying that we're not passing that responsibility on to you. Yeah,
that's what I'm saying. That's what they're saying. There's also
the cab farmers market, which I love and have been
(42:16):
a regular patron of for many men and many years.
They have a very interesting thing that you will probably
not encounter unless you happen to be in that little
bettle holler of Georgia, which is they practice a buddy system.
The employer has built out a paired system. This isn't
going to We've got other stuff to get to. I
(42:37):
just want everyone to know this. If you are at
the cabs farmer's market, you look at the name tags,
you'll see that there is a black dot or a
white dot on these name tags. That is due to
the employer's personality test that all employees take, which finds
whether you are yin or yang and you are paired
(42:57):
up with your opposite I have not test. Yeah, that's true,
that's true. Check it out again. Just like the toy
Bee tiles. There are secrets all around us. You just
have to dig a little. I think they still do that.
They are a private, privately owned company. So they also
don't accept credit card or board that they have to
(43:18):
reply to or Yeah, they also don't accept credit cards.
They do accept personal checks, which.
Speaker 4 (43:24):
Is also unusual. Everything there is kind of higgley piggley,
but it's a wonderful place and anyway, again not throwing
them under the bus. We love them, but they are
using them as an example, you.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
Know, whereas as a let's call it a thought experiment,
and so would love to hear your thoughts folks on tipping.
Be aware that your your perspective, your your perspective, your
experiences may end up in some way in our upcoming
episode on tipping and whether or not there is an
(43:53):
escalation in requests and whether or not this is anomalous.
Can't wait to hear from you. You don't have to
be in the service industry to weigh in. All perspectives
are valid. I was thinking we could close out with
just some again wholesome family time. Matt. You did something
that I absolutely love when you shouted out animal photos
(44:15):
pet photos earlier in today's Listener mail segment, and I
think we just want to give a special shout out
to Fox, Molder and Bigfoot. They live with a human
called Sarah. Thank you for sending us your pet pictures.
Please send us more pet photos. We're always super down.
Speaker 3 (44:36):
Then what's that term when the cat has extra digits
on their pause Polydactly?
Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, I think that's what being polydactyl.
Speaker 3 (44:44):
I think that's what Bigfoot has. And Bigfoot's awesome.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
Bigfoot's a chunk man. We meant with great affection Bigfoot. Yeah,
Bigfoot's got that Hemyway Paul thing going on. And then
also this is this is something that we always enjoy doing.
We got a really cool letter from our old pal Samurai,
and Matt, you read this, Noel, you read this as well.
(45:12):
Here we go. Letter begins Samurai. Here, I would like
to ask a favor. My son is getting ready to
transition from elementary school to junior high. He's going out
with a bang, graduating from sixth grade with a four
point oh GPA, perfect attendance Principals list, and just received
the Mary Ortiz Award for Outstanding Citizenship. He's an exceptional kid.
(45:38):
If you can give him a shout out, use the
name GSW Gunter. So what do you say, Matt, Shout
out to Gunter.
Speaker 3 (45:47):
A major shout out to Gunter, and shout out to
father and son for going on awesome camping trips and
then writing about it so other people can learn and
explore with them.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Yeah, that's so cool. We read that one. Yeah, so
we wanted to end it there. We love shouting out
the community. We were talking about this a little bit earlier,
right at the open of the of this show. It
is nuts how many times people written in and put
in that line. I grew up watching your YouTube and
(46:21):
now now I'm graduating college. Oh boy, the time, how
it flies in a flat circle. Big big thanks to Android,
Big big thanks to disco Funk, our new favorite author,
Alex Crespo. Big thanks to Samurai, Big thanks to Sarah,
Big thanks to everybody who wrote in. If you want
(46:44):
to join the show, because we do this every week,
all you have to do is contact us. We have
any number of ways to get in contact with us, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, MySpace.
Now I'm kidding, We've got our Facebook group years where
it gets crazy. Conspiracy stuff show on Instagram, conspiracy stuff
(47:04):
on YouTube. You can also find us on TikTok and
if you do not sip the social meds no worries,
you can call us directly on your telephonic device.
Speaker 3 (47:15):
Call this number one eight three three st DWYTK. It's
a voicemail system. You're gonna have three minutes when you
call in, say whatever you'd like. Please do include some
kind of nickname doesn't matter what it is. Just give
yourself a nickname and then let us know if we
can use your message on the air or not. It's
(47:36):
that simple. If you want to say more than can
fit in that three minutes, why not instead send us
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (48:04):
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
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