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July 17, 2025 56 mins

Cheese Out asks whether humans need to kill AI to understand it. Dandy Granny raises concerning points about the childhood of super soldiers. Paul prompts a conversation about Maine's food sovereignty. Potatoes Gun asks for more information on "Big Storage." All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan seven Stitches Fagan. Most importantly, you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
If you are tuning in the evening our listener Mail publishes,
let us be the first to welcome you to Thursday
July seventeenth, twenty twenty five. And if you heard us

(00:55):
say listener mail, you know what that means, Friends and neighbors.
It's time to dig up some root vegas.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
This weekend, O'll get down to tim Vik and rudabagas
Chevrolet for deals.

Speaker 4 (01:06):
Deals nineteen ninety five Rudabiga Cavalier only.

Speaker 5 (01:09):
Three hundred rude vegas a month. Two thousand seven, Rudebiga
cobalt A br for seventy rude vegas.

Speaker 4 (01:15):
And don't even ask about our corvette.

Speaker 5 (01:17):
These these, these these deals won't last forever. I Tilden
viked Rudebas Chevrolet.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Yes, careful, folks, a legend passes.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Yes, I want to ask about the Corvettes.

Speaker 4 (01:33):
I want to know. I want to ask about the
Ruda Vegas.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
I would ask about the career opportunities. Think just sounds
like a great guy to work with, and we can
confirm that.

Speaker 4 (01:43):
I've always thought I'd be a great car salesman. Now
I'm just doing a Larry David bit and it's really
it's not easy. It's not something that you can just
jump into.

Speaker 5 (01:50):
Folks.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
We couldn't be more excited to talk with you. Of
full disclosure, some of us are on the road, so
there may be a couple of well we'll lay hiccups
in the sound, but we think we've got everything covered.
We can't wait to introduce you to some new and
old friends. We're gonna talk with multiple people. We're going

(02:13):
to learn about Maine. We're going to have some storage
space convo. Before we do any of that, we have
a bit of an airing of opinions from our dear friends,
Cheese Out, Dandy, Granny and t Bone. What say We
pause for a word from our sponsor friends and then
dive right in.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, I cannot wait to hear what dandy Granny has
to say for the name.

Speaker 5 (02:38):
Or just in general, just in general.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Here we go and we are back. Our first correspondent
today actually is going by pasta Pope. But you'll see
why we're calling you cheese out. Hello, fellow earthlings. You
can call me pasta Pope and read or paraphrase this

(03:03):
on air as you wish. In the recent listener mail
segment about palanteer Ben brought up the theory that maybe
the government has made a sentient AI and immediately killed it.
I think this idea it could be very close to
the truth, but with one big twist. Matt also made
the analogy of having a blueprint on the table in

(03:23):
groups fighting over it. I think that's relevant to the
main problem with creating artificial life. We don't have a
blueprint for it because we can't define it properly. Yet
humans can build vehicles to go to other planets if
we have lego like blueprints. U. Humans can do a
may I caught that pasta Pope. U. Humans can do
amazing things if you know how to properly articulate it,

(03:46):
because language is a human superpower. However, we don't know
how to properly define life. Is a virus alive? Is
a plant alive?

Speaker 5 (03:56):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Is uranium alive? Interesting? Maybe on the timescale of tens
of millions, even the Earth itself appears to be alive.
The guy A hypotheses. Have you ever thought about how
weird it is that a person can be dead and
then zapped back to life with a defibrillator. I admit
I'm not sure that's technically accurate, but still check out
suspended animation techniques during surgery, where a person is by

(04:20):
all means medically dead during the operation.

Speaker 4 (04:23):
I think flatlining for fun.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Right right? Yes, I think, says PASTI Pope. For humans
to know we have created a sentient machine, we will
have to murder one first. Only after seeing its death
will we ever know it was alive. Thanks and cheese out.
I think that's fascinating, the idea that you couldn't really

(04:46):
it reminds me a little bit of early biological and
medical experimentation, where you essentially had to kill the organism
to learn how it worked. So it's began to imagine
that kind of logic being transferred toward a digital or

(05:06):
you know, non organic entity. And I wanted to share
that because when you hear from you guys and all
of us listening at home, does something about that comparison
ring true?

Speaker 4 (05:18):
Can you kill a god?

Speaker 5 (05:22):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (05:22):
So I'm really trying to understand why you have to
kill it first because and I understand that maybe with
a biological creature. So in order to get at the
inner workings of a biological creature, we tend to not
like it. Biological creatures when our insides come on the outside,
so you can see how everything functions. But with a

(05:46):
machine like that, we're aware of what components went in, right,
we know exactly what is functioning to make it a thing.
And in this case, maybe we're thinking about the connections
between servers that somehow create consciousness, right like if you
think about how theoretically our neurons or the fatty parts

(06:10):
of the axioms and potentially the quantum linking like creates
consciousness maybe which is anything like you could you could
analyze the connections, but you would know what the connections are.
You wouldn't have to destroy anything. I don't think.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
Well, that's yeah, and I'm glad we're going down this
route because there are some assumptions Cheese out that are
inherent in our conversation here, and it's important to explore
those in a conspiratorial mindset. Also side note, yes, positive
Pope is an awesome moniker. I feel like cheese out
is better because that's such a weird way to say

(06:47):
goodbye to people. All Right, cheese out, you guys.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
So no doubt che's out.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 6 (06:53):
So.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
One of the first assumptions that would require the quote
unquote murder term nation of AI would be the idea
that it is not replicable without compromising that mind. So
to the idea of a digital or a non organic mind,

(07:17):
if it has already been created once by humans, logically,
then could it not simply be copied or a facimile created,
And if that facimile had the same abilities or indicators
of however we define sentience, then you could it's diabolical,
but you could just make multiple copies and experiment it

(07:37):
will and one of those things would be just a
case how do we kill it? So that's an assumption,
But I think another base assumption is that humans will
have created it. Is it not? I mean, we're in
the realm of speculation. Is it not just as likely
that or is it not also possible, I should say

(08:01):
that you could create things that are closer and closer
to what we call sentients, and those programs are algorithms
through some process humans don't understand, they create the thing
we call sentient AI. At that point, it's not replicable
by humans.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
Oh and you wouldn't be able to kill it at
that point anyway. Well, well, theoretically speculatively.

Speaker 5 (08:29):
But the.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
Yeah, I get, like, I keep I'm getting stuck on
this concept of what what would actually be the consciousness
when you imagine the types of machines being put together
and the way they're linked, and the way the power
and data flows through you know, vast arrays of machines

(08:55):
in order to get the kind of computing power that
you know, our brains currently have. Like, yeah, I'm sorry,
I'm stuck on this, but I imagine you could theoretically
disassemble the network that constitutes the thing that we would
consider conscious.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
And then try to put it back together to bring
it back from the dead. So maybe death is not
as permanent as it is for biological organisms. Yeah, I
was thinking of that too, And I'm also thinking, you know,
in terms of practicality. Unfortunately, if it's created by anything

(09:36):
associated with the military, then one of the things they're
going to need to figure out first is if it's
possible to kill it, and that means they will have
to attempt murder because the natural question is, you know,
like we're talking about with super soldiers or extraordinary abilities,
the first step is can we do this? And the

(09:59):
second step is are we going to be able to
stop it or control it in case it turns against us?
So yeah, unfortunately, that gets very ugly, very quickly. And
one thing I think we all appreciate cheese Out is
that you're pointing towards something that doesn't get brought up
in a lot of conversations about sentient, non organic intelligence,

(10:26):
So something that you want, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, it makes me think about those giant hubs that
are being created right now. I think Meta is creating one,
Amazon is making one. They're these huge, huge network data
hub AI centers that are being created in the middle
of nowhere where they want almost the entire facility to

(10:49):
be the thing. And I'm imagining one of those somehow
coming online like in this way, right.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
And you'd almost inevitably, i mean ninety plus percent certainty
that you would firewall that kind of thing if you
thought it was developing, because it is powered by information
in way. Another thing I keep coming back to is
the reality that right now some of the world's smartest

(11:18):
experts in these fields will throw up their hands and
readily admit that some of these programs are doing things
they don't understand, right, discovering new chemical combinations, making breakthroughs
in math and physics. That's just the beginning, right, that's

(11:39):
just the horizon. And the more power you can input,
the more information you can input, the greater the likelihood
of unpredictable outcomes. So it's pretty fascinating stuff. Ethics aside,
I think, Yeah, our big assumption is cheese out. We're

(12:00):
saying in this letter you have to murder it to
understand it. But maybe the first question is is it
possible past a certain point to commit that kind of homicide?
I would say maybe not.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
How about you have to be able to kill it
before you can create it.

Speaker 3 (12:19):
Great, Yeah, So that's like in the human version of that,
just to show everyone how dark that joke is. In
the human version of that, to be eligible to have
a child, you would have to be a demonstrate murdering
someone first, Well.

Speaker 2 (12:35):
You have to demo. Yeah, yeah, well that's that's just
a yeah. This concept of firewalling from outside potential outside escape,
I guess, is how you'd have to imagine it, Like
you you would have to somehow firewall whatever that system
is from the entirety of the Internet, or only have that.

(12:59):
You would have have to so you'd have to gather
in all the information that you were going to let's say,
feed an MLM MLM no large LLM being about the multilevel.

Speaker 3 (13:11):
Yeah, I can see in LLLM do an MLM. Yeah,
I can see that.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
But you'd have to like bring everything in to a network,
then an internal network that is no longer connected to
the outside after you've transferred the data, make sure there's
zero connection, then transfer that data to the system network
we're talking about, so that it has no way of

(13:36):
getting out. But but again, if if it got out,
it would have to have access to a similar facility
that you know, could make the same types of connections
to achieve whatever it's attempting to achieve.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
Maybe not necessarily, because one of the big differences is
that it could outsource specific if it had solid communication
and power it could outsource specific process around the world.
So picture a human being that has its different regions
of its brain in different centers across communications network, and

(14:12):
its liver is in another state, and it's you know,
pancreas is in another place. I don't know. It's interesting
because then it does become quickly. It quickly becomes something
like what we call a weekly godlike entity. It's stuff
that you want, and we want to hear your thoughts. Folks,

(14:33):
if you consider yourself a non human sentient intelligence, please
be cool with us. We're not the enemy. We're not
the meat bags you're looking for. We are going to
We are going to hear a lot about this, and
we can't wait for you to contact us whomever you
may be before we go here. We're not going to

(14:55):
get to everybody before we go here. We want to
follow up on Dandy Granny since we mentioned that lovely
name earlier. Dandy Granny has brought up some cool stuff
about super Soldiers, some troubling stuff as well. Here's what
you say, hello, my audio friends. The super Soldier episode
was a while ago now, but something's been bothering me.

(15:17):
Where would the babies being genetically altered come from. They
could probably get the components through shady means and create
a zygote, but artificial wombs do not yet exist, and
after birth kids meaning human children, are kind of useless
until at least six years old? Are we assuming a
sci fi chrish situation? The more I think about it,

(15:40):
the darker it gets. And I want to pause there,
because that's a really good point that we didn't. We
didn't get to the time investment of raising genetically modified
super soldiers. What is their childhood? Like, what's the danger
you know, of a superhumanly strong kid that doesn't know

(16:01):
its own strength or something that never sleeps, you.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Know, And also, what is a.

Speaker 3 (16:11):
It's like it's a different kind of paper mache. No,
it's uh, it's essentially it's kind of it puts you
on pause. In sci fi, a creation is like, you know,
I don't know about the novels, but a creche in
this sense, in the science fiction sense, would be a

(16:32):
place to hold those kids and let them naturally grow
in situ without without moving around, right.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Like eleven style and strange like eleven style.

Speaker 3 (16:44):
Yeah, like any any of those hell Boy comics you
see where a bunch of Nazi experiments are floating in
tubes or you know, you see that in countless sci
fi explorations. Uh, the actual definition of creation is a
day nursery outside of sci fi, so it'd be like
a dystopian version of that. Probably my favorite use of

(17:08):
the word creche is in the novels by Dan Simmons,
Hyperion and Hyperion Rising. If you guys have read those, Yeah,
they've got a great they've got a great bit with
crash And we'll run into maybe some more sci fi
rex later on in tonight's recording. But it's something to
think about, and we'd love to hear from you, folks.

(17:30):
What how would you raise a super soldier? How would you,
as a normal human, be able to do that without dying?
We mentioned the Boys in our recent episode on surviving
nuclear war, and one of the things that the Boys'
comics does very well is depicting the problems of raising superhumans.

(17:52):
Even if you're a highly trained regular human. You know,
what are you going to do? Kid comes out of
the womb and it is born with laser eyes? How
do you just like keep that kid pointed away from
you until until you can convince it to turn off its.

Speaker 4 (18:09):
Eyes, very carefully, handle with kid gloves.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
Always treat this kid as though it's armed.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, what if they're just regular kids? You know how
you could train them twenty four to seven fortnite in
call of duty martial arts training. During the day. We're
also gonna have ROTC once they hit a certain level,
We're gonna have boy scouts in there.

Speaker 4 (18:33):
I'm talking about your kid here I talk about it.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
I'm also kind of talking about.

Speaker 5 (18:38):
Us a little bit, like get weaponized, well, especially American kids.
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
I feel like maybe there's something to some of that,
especially when you look at other activities that you know,
growing kids get into in other countries.

Speaker 5 (18:53):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
Maybe. I think also some lessons on empathy or improv
would be nice maybe.

Speaker 5 (19:01):
For making super soldiers. You know, if you're making.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
That, if you're making generals, you'd be surprised how much
that comes into play. But if you're making footge soldiers, Yeah,
just teach them how to destroy stuff. Dylan also points
out our favorite car salesman. Dylan points out, I'd let
them go to normal school until they're ready to pilot
their eva's last note of this before we move on

(19:24):
What if it's possible to bake in a time window
for emergence of abilities? What if you can somehow bake
it in that these abilities don't emerge until adolescents or puberty,
after they've had time to be programmed, brainwashed, normalized, acculturated,
whatever you want to call it. We want to hear

(19:45):
your thoughts, folks, because science fiction is only fiction for
so long. This is where we get to something else
from dandy Granny. Dandy Granny, you say, I just like
saying your name, you say. On another note, you might
want to look into the bad data prop problems credit
bureaus have. They get a lot of data from a
lot of places to get an idea of how much

(20:05):
garbage information Palenteer will have to resolve in order to
be anything like useful. And it occurred to me, we've
never done a credit bureau episode. We should, right.

Speaker 4 (20:18):
Do you know that Fiko is traded on the public
stock exchange?

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yes?

Speaker 4 (20:24):
No, I did not know that until recently. Yeah, and
it's very expensive. It's like two thousand dollars a share.
It's wild.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
They keep changing my score all the time.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
I know, what's the deal?

Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, they keep not agreed and it's so difficult to
get in contact with him. So Dandy Granny, it sounds
like you've inspired us to do an episode on credit
bureaus and that's going to be hilarious for a lot
of our non US listeners. It's going to be like
anytime we talk about healthcare in the States. Last notes

(20:55):
from Dandy Granny. You say, I loved your episode on
the Simple Sabotage Manual. It reminded me of when I
worked in government dark humor. Thank you so much for
what you do and feel free to use this as
you will. Great food for thought, Dandy Granny, and thank
you again so much. Because people haven't considered super soldier childhood,

(21:17):
which feels like something worth examining, we haven't also done it.
It's crazy we haven't done a credit bureau episode yet
with that right to us.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
We did talk about it though in a context of
credit cards and the history of credit or maybe that
was that on Ridiculous History, though we definitely did. It's
all matches together, but it's certain. You're certain we've talked
about you know, the conspiracy is behind credit and credit cards.
That conversation, that kind of stuff comes up. But you're right,
ben the what are these agencies? Why do they have

(21:51):
such a monopoly and do they even know what they're
talking about?

Speaker 6 (21:54):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (21:54):
And why did they get to be private entities? Why
is the onus on the consumer?

Speaker 5 (21:59):
Whatever?

Speaker 3 (22:00):
Yeah, we'll get why.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
I was so shocked that it was publicly traded because
it's treated almost like a government agency. It's not no
what about facts?

Speaker 3 (22:09):
What about TransUnion? All right? Yo, we'll get to all
of them if they don't get to us first. In
the meantime, Yes, please, folks, if you're hearing this, stop
the podcast right now before we go to a sponsor
break and write down your opinion. Send them to us.
Your our favorite part of the show and your favorite
voice is on it. So we're going to pause for
a word from our friends in advertising, and that will

(22:33):
come back with let's say we move a little bit
further north to me.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yeah, I love it, and we've returned. Gentlemen, I want
to jump out of listener mail for a moment, just
so we can, I don't know, celebrate the life of someone,
someone very interesting, someone who guys was a personal hero

(23:01):
of mine. I think we were all influenced and appreciate
this human being for various reasons. Complicated human in a
lot of ways. But also, I don't know, maybe one
of the more important journalists that have ever walked the planet.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yeah, I would call him as statesman as well.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Oh yeah, for sure. That's why it's a little complicated.
So let's talk about this pretty recently. In June of
this year, a man passed named Bill Moyers. You probably
know that name. Hopefully you know that name. He was
a television journalist. He was a lot of things, but

(23:41):
specifically for the life of stuff they don't want you
to know. He produced a ton of public television on
subjects that we have in some way either been inspired
by or have taken us down rabbit holes that have
created episodes of this show. Stuff like he made something

(24:01):
called the Secret Government on the Iran Contra. And he
was one of the only people who would actually go
out there on public television and say some of the
stuff that maybe a lot of Americans were thinking at
the time and would call out often government, often corporations
and put the stuff right in your face and say, hey,

(24:24):
this is a real problem. And he would do it
with a vocabulary that didn't speak down to you.

Speaker 5 (24:30):
As a viewer.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
It was just personally, I can't say enough good about
this individual. I think I hold him in very high regard.
So I just wanted to put that out there, you guys,
and offer a couple of things for people to check
out to learn more about Bill Moyer's and all of
his work. Do you guys have any thoughts?

Speaker 4 (24:51):
Honestly, guys, I'm not nearly as familiar with his work
as you two are, and it's something that I need
to dig into immediately.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
I would check out the text in which Bill Moyer's
rose not to Charlie Rose reference. He is best known
as a journalist and commentator, but he also spent time
in the White House. He was the press secretary, he
was pretty much the chief of staff for a while

(25:18):
during the Johnson administration. And you know, I wouldn't say
to the point about vocabulary. I would say, it wasn't
that he was speaking simply. It's that he was speaking clearly, and.

Speaker 5 (25:30):
No, no, he was.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
He was speaking with a full, extensive vocabulary. And what
I meant by that is that he would use these
large words and talking to the American people via public
you know, means that we've talked about before on the
show with the way, especially the news right now speaks
and the level of vocabulary that is used in a
regular basis. It's just so low bar what I'm saying.

(25:55):
And when you would listen to him speak, it was often,
you know, like a lot of these other giants of
journalism that were out there on the evening news speaking
to the American public, it was there's an intelligence to
it that didn't assume you didn't know things.

Speaker 5 (26:11):
Does that make.

Speaker 3 (26:11):
Sense, Yeah, yeah, And I appreciate that. I mean to
finish what I was saying there. I think the idea
of speaking candidly and clearly in a non performative way,
that's what I wanted to get to. That's I think
that's a power that often gets forgotten. In the days

(26:32):
of journalism passed, we saw a lot of that. We
saw people who would have clearly have got time proves.
They clearly would get talking points, especially very high level anchors.
They would get talking points from all manner of businesses
and all facets of government, and if it didn't pass
the journalistic sniff test, they would not play the game.

Speaker 5 (26:56):
You would not have.

Speaker 3 (26:57):
Seen someone like Bill Lawyers later have private communications exposed.
Like those folks on Fox News where they say they
knew they were telling the public something that wasn't true.
He wasn't that kind of guy. And he had also
not I think of him as a renaissance man because

(27:18):
in addition to being so instrumental in government policy for
a time, he was also active in the Peace Corps.
You know, he was trying to make the world a
better place, and he was not afraid to hold conversations
with folks that we will call academics who often would
get ignored by other mainstream news platforms.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Oh yeah, he did one of the first interviews with
Jimmy Carter when absolutely nobody on the planet knew who
Jimmy Carter was, and then he interviewed him, and the
world kind of learned who this guy was, who this
minister was. And interestingly enough, an early part of his
life he was a Baptist minister, which makes me think

(28:02):
about how he spoke, you know, when he's talking down
the lens to the camera, but really ultimately to just
people sitting in their homes, that kind of tact. I
think you can see that thread and that influence there.
And just going back to Lyndon Johnson, he was essentially
Lyndon Johnson's protege. Johnson thought of him like a son.

(28:24):
And then there's this moment you can read about where
they had a break because Lyndon Johnson was making some
turns with his policy and continuing the Vietnam War. So
Moyers ended up leaving, and he ended up going to
CBS and spending time there and then fought with the
executives there to get more airtime for some of the
important stories he wanted to tell, and then ended up

(28:45):
going to PBS and NPR and those routes because it
was not this big corporate giant. And I wanted to
read this quick quote from him before we move on here.

Speaker 5 (28:56):
Here it is.

Speaker 2 (28:57):
This is from Bill Moyers. He says, quote, I think
my peers and commercial television are talented and devoted journalists,
but they've chosen to work in a corporate mainstream that
trims their talent to fit the corporate nature of American life.
And you do not get rewarded for telling the hard
truths about America in a profit seeking environment. And I

(29:20):
think that's a big deal.

Speaker 5 (29:21):
Right. Well, yeah, awesome person.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
You can head over to American archive dot org and
you can see the special collection that they have of
Bill Morier's stuff. We're talking like forty seven minute programs
Bill Moyer's journal, which is just incredible. At these video
essays he would create where he's interviewing people, but he's
also just almost philosophically discussing a big topic that's affecting

(29:48):
a bunch of people.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Huge stuff, and he is just a bevy of phenomenal
quote informed by his vast scope of experience. One of
my favorites might be paraphrasing is war except in self
defense is a failure of moral imagination. And the concept

(30:11):
of moral imagination has stuck with me for so long.
It's a deep phrase the more I think about it.

Speaker 5 (30:17):
Oh wow, I agree, Yeah I did.

Speaker 4 (30:19):
There's a lot to unpack there.

Speaker 5 (30:21):
Yeah, huge stuff. Oh and just go to the American Arc.
I have to check it out.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
There is a website called Bill Moyers dot com, but
I think twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, he officially like stopped
making new stuff for that website or stopped being officially
associated with it, but it has an archive of its own.
It's really cool too. Check that out all right, quickly, guys,
let's hear a message from Paul, who is living in Maine,

(30:47):
and he's speaking to something we've discussed before on the
show that I think I don't know we could at
least have a good chat about.

Speaker 5 (30:54):
Here we go.

Speaker 6 (30:55):
This is Paul, Hey, This is Paul from Maine. Maine
recently became the first state to enshrine the right to
food into the state constitution, an escape citizens the right
to raise backyard animals, grow a guard, and save change seeds,
and operate cottage bakeries out of their homes, even if

(31:16):
local z owning the rules or regulations prohibited those things.
Now I own a seed company, so this is personally
quite convenient for me. If your neighbor was slaughtering chickens
in their backyard, would you consider that to be their
basic human right or just another opportunity to bruise the
egos of your local HOA board members. By the way,

(31:38):
I love on food sovereignty and the right to food.
More broadly, is this a fundamental human right that we
should all have access to or a dangerous new freedom?

Speaker 4 (31:49):
Thanks? I mean, y'all, after just having that conversation about
nuclear holocaust, it's sort of like, isn't this a right
to survive right.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Say yeah, yeah, and immediate reaction there. First off, Paul,
thank you so much. I thank you for sharing this. Matt. Yes,
that the right to food should even be a conversation
where people will argue against it is baffling. It's sort
of like that that terrible situation with Nesley a while

(32:23):
back when they were arguing that it's better for the
world to privatize water. I mean better for the world
right exactly, the better for what world?

Speaker 4 (32:34):
Right?

Speaker 3 (32:34):
Which world do you want to live in? And so
I would say maybe the big difference logical differentiation here, Paul,
between a right and a privilege is that a right
should be something that people cannot exist reasonably without. A
right to education, a right to water, to air, to shelter,

(32:56):
to food. These are things that every human being deserves
by virtue of being human. If the right to food
is not a thing, then we quickly could arrive at
a situation wherein children are born in debt. You know

(33:17):
what I mean, who's going to feed you if you don't?
If you're an infant, you don't have a right to food?
Are you going to bacon time constraints? I'm very biased
on this because I think it's the right thing to
do to allow people access to nutrition.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Yeah, I completely agree, guys. To learn a little more,
let's read the twenty twenty one legislation that went through
on I think it's January twenty twenty one in the
one hundred and thirtieth Main Legislature. It's pretty simple, guys.
It's section twenty five. It's an amendment. It says right

(33:52):
to food and I'll just read it. All individuals have
a natural, inherent, and unalienable right to save and exchange seeds.
That's a big deal. And the right to grow, raise, harvest, produce,
and consume the food of their own, choosing for their
own nourishment, sustenance, bodily, health, and well being, as long

(34:14):
as an individual does not commit trespassing, theft, poaching, or
other abuses of private property rights, public lands, or natural
resources in the harvesting, production, or acquisition of that food.

Speaker 5 (34:24):
Right.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
So don't steal anything. But if you've got food, you
have the right to make food right.

Speaker 4 (34:30):
If you've got land, right.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yes, yeah, if you've got a place to do it.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Right, So you can't go into you can't go into
a park in bangor and all of a sudden say
I'm taking over this. It's by Rude Bega Crop This
I also recommend for anything like this checking out ballot Pedia.
It's an open source reference. It's not perfect, but it's

(34:55):
a great way to get an overview of how these
things are introduced, the specific language. It has links to
the primary sources. It will also give you the back
and forth of the people for and against these measurements.
So that's a great way to stay informed, especially if
you have questions about your local state legislation.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Absolutely, and something to note here is that prior to
this vote, there are I think of nine or ten
years of a bunch of money getting put into advocacy
for a bill like this, specifically food sovereignty. The concept right,
it's almost like almost like pr But at the same time,

(35:36):
there was just a lot of money being pumped into Hey,
we should have the right to food, right, you know
that concept, putting that that idea into everyone's mind. Then
this was able to get pushed through, and it had
to be grassroots because in the US the right to
food is looked at in a very different way. We've
discussed snap programs like free lunches andblic schools, and a

(36:00):
lot of other programs that operate at the federal level,
as well as some at.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
The state level, which are getting scaled back significantly if
I'm not always taken.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Oh yeah, but the United States in general does not
view the right to food in the same way as
Maine currently does.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Well, even like dumpster diving is illegal.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Yeah, food is a commodity. It's like that time I
almost got arrested work a bakery for giving away bread.

Speaker 4 (36:29):
Dude, Right, and the idea of giving away leftovers is
somehow considered a health code violation, like you know, actual
edible food, like you're talking about ben or things that
end up in dumpsters. It's sometimes they put locks on
them because it is considered a health code violation. And
that is pretty wild. You can even get in trouble,

(36:51):
speaking of Hoa's for putting there was a guy that
just got in trouble with the water for putting bottles
of water then in the yard.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
Yeah, I just discussed this with the family like that.
It's such an interesting thing where you know, a group
of people can be against something for personal reasons, right,
or personal gain reasons, for some kind of conflict of
interest that they just don't want free stuff to get
out there.

Speaker 3 (37:19):
I mean, okay. Also, I'm going to say it, guys,
I think we're all on the same page. Hoas are
an example of how people with the smallest amount of
power can trip to the most extreme degrees. Yeah, that's
that's why. I don't know if you guys have hoa's, Uh, couldn't.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
Couldn't deal with it.

Speaker 5 (37:43):
Yeah, it's fantastic.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
Well good, I hope.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
I hope it stays there because ultimately, what an HOA
and even a federal level institution shows us is that
the government is made of the people, right, and that
determines the action. Again, a group of people is simply
the story it tells itself, So tell tell the truthful.

Speaker 4 (38:05):
One, you know, similar to tenant boards in like New
York City, like you're you know, live in an apartment building.
I think it's a similar setup.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
But what if the people aren't really people, they're just
considered people by the law or the corporations.

Speaker 3 (38:20):
Right right, shout out citizens United? Or what if they're
propped up as proxies by say, you know, like the
Red Creek Improvement District or in Disney or uh, like
investment firms who buy up all the houses in a
zip code, like I'm just going to make one up here,
three zero three zero six in Fulton County, Georgia, just

(38:43):
off the cottage, you know, just one of many examples.
But again I think maybe the not maybe in my mind,
the most important thing to take away from here is
the truth that a commodity is different from a necessity.
It should be different from a necessity its most basic thing,

(39:06):
there is, most basic sense. What can be defined as
a right should also be defined as something that is
necessary for a fully lived human existence. To deny that
is to deny on a very evil level. It's to
deny the humanity of other humans. And it's a shame

(39:29):
that it's twenty twenty five in this stupid and perfect
calendar and people still have not been honest as a
civilization about that.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
Here's why I think, in my opinion, man, I'm going
to read a quick quote here from the Hunter College,
New York City Food Policy Center. It's an article they
posted on May first, twenty twenty four, written by Anna
spec Down to the bottom here, it notes that the
United Nations General Assembly passed a similar right to food

(39:59):
resolution in the same year twenty twenty one, with the
United States and Israel the only two member states to
outright reject the resolution. Her continues. Reasons given by the
US for rejecting the resolution include this is a quote
inside the quote in accurate linkages between climate change and

(40:21):
human rights related to food, a lack of focus on
solutions to food insecurity, and a lack of information regarding
agricultural innovation and the protection of intellectual property rights as
a way to incentivize innovation.

Speaker 3 (40:37):
Right like terminating seed lines. I remember we mentioned this
when the UN issued that back in twenty twenty, and
it stays relevant today. I'm sorry they're interjecting so much
on this, but this is something that really hits home
with me, and it should hit home with everybody who's seeing,
you know, privation and famine and food and security situations.

(41:01):
This is not just a real problem. It's also a
problem that right now is way easier to fix than
the powers that be would have you believe.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
But that's why we have infanmil and similac and all
the baby formula.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
And what's that peanut stuff. It's on my mind because
it's French, but there's a peanut butter based substitute that
that can be great for nutritional safety, but it's still privatized,
so institutions and nonprofits have to buy it from the company.

Speaker 5 (41:35):
Big Peanut, We're coming for you.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
It's called plumpy nuts. That's plumpy with a y apostrophe nut.

Speaker 5 (41:43):
Oh, plumpy nut.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
I'm going to look into that more. No, I don't
know anything about it. Thank you, Ben, amazing. Well, well,
thank you Paul for sending in that message about that,
and thank you Bill Moyers for being who you were.
And we'll be right back with more messages from you.

Speaker 4 (42:06):
And we have returned with our final listener mail segment
of this evening's episode, starting off with a missive from
potatoes gun, not potato gun, not potato guns. Potatoes gun. Hey,
everybody says potatoes gun. I think that you should do
an episode on big storage, as in warehouses that will

(42:29):
just store stuff for years and never sell or move it,
or maybe U haul storage facilities. Feel free to use
this on the air. I know it's something potatoes gun
that has come up and passing. We've talked about this
and maybe money laundering type episodes and stuff like that,
but I did think it was worth a mention on
its own because I found a pretty cool Reddit thread

(42:51):
that y'all have linked to In the dock there storage
units everywhere, money laundering question mark. And this is in
our conspirae, which I know you all are frequent visitors too.
And this comes from user Ricker one two two five
eight nine. I live in Maine. For the past couple
of years, there have been an astonishing amount of storage
units being built and opened, several per town, some not

(43:14):
even a quarter of a mile away from each other.
With the economy and the whole and this is a
couple of years ago, probably still holds true to some degree,
and material being very expensive, this seems very strange, encounterintuitive.
Folks all around me are having a harder time paying
for groceries, gas, et cetera. But there is such a
demand to pay fifty to two hundred bucks a month
to store your junk that you don't have room for
at your residence. My theory is that some of these

(43:36):
storage units are being put up to launder or wash money.
Let's say you have one hundred units, only fifty are
being used at one hundred bucks a month. You send
in your tax information to the government saying all one
hundred units are full and being paid majority in cash,
which you then can deposit into an account that's five
thousand dollars a month that once was dirty or what
have you that's now clean. I'm sure there is much

(43:57):
more to it than that, but that would be the
gist of it, And they accidentally wrote the jest of it,
which I like, and then they later corrected it.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Y'all.

Speaker 4 (44:06):
I do think it's interesting because I'm actually a storage
unit renter myself. I've got three units, and my experience
has been that any storage unit company that is, you know,
a chain or it has some sort of professional quality
to them legit, let's just say they don't. They're not
really cash businesses. You know. I'm set up on auto

(44:28):
pay for my units and it's a company that has
units all across the Country's actually called Storage Units of
America or something along those lines. So my experience with
that is maybe that's not the best of businesses to
launder money. But there are some other good kind of
counterpoints to that on this Reddit thread, and I'm curious
what y'all think. Obviously, the go tos are things like

(44:49):
nail salons, laundromats, bars, restaurants, strip clubs, laser if nasty,
and of course car washes.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
Well, I do wonder, Yeah, that is interesting because I
wonder if you could take cash into that business noll
and pay for your month or something. I wonder if
they would even accept that. But if they did, then
the whole thing works, right.

Speaker 4 (45:13):
Doesn't feel like my particular company is set up to
do that. But if you were in more rural areas
and you did have individual proprietors building these because one
point that comes up a lot is how inexpensive they
are to build, because they're these prefab metal sheds kind
of and if you have the land, it's not incredible.

(45:33):
It's not an incredible outlay of cash to put that
infrastructure together. So you know, like, here's an example. I
work for a successful developer in the process of building
a forty acre storage facility directly across the street from
two existing facilities. My entire county consists of less than
fifty thousand people and contains nearly twenty similar facilities. I'm

(45:54):
no businessman, but dude, I work for swears the numbers
don't lie. I'm not in a position to argue as
everything this touches turns into a gold mine. Not gonna lie,
though I've absolutely considered money laundering to be a plausible motivation. Here,
that wasn't the best example proving that point or supporting
that point. But here's a good point here a counter
I guess to the money laundering argument, and then we'll

(46:15):
have one for no need to launder money. It's like
the lowest form of rent seeking and basically just takes
advantage of bad economies, causing people to move down to
smaller living arrangements or get divorced. You'd have a hard
time keeping them empty.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Oh to interject here, if that's all right, please, Yeah.
The one of the interesting things that we haven't talked
about yet is that a lot of these places, I
think the majority will require some kind of ID So
if an audit occurs and they're saying, hey, what's happening

(46:50):
this money? You should there would be books to look at.
So I agree with the I agree with the fact
that there are more viable forms of money laundering operations.
You could probably also maybe launder money in the construction
of the thing, depending on how you do it.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Do that do that Sopranos move where you list more
items than you actually used sure in your in your
manifestor exactly.

Speaker 3 (47:16):
There's also there's also an inescapable fact, at least here
in the States, that a lot of people don't like
to deal with. It's a society where a lot of
people have a lot of stuff and are more than
willing to pay for the premium of not throwing that
stuff away or saying goodbye to it.

Speaker 6 (47:36):
For sure.

Speaker 4 (47:36):
Yeah, for me, it's it's all stuff from my mom's house.
So it's like something that I'm going to one day
have to sift through and deal with. But in the meantime,
it's something that I don't have to worry about right now.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
And people also, to that excellent point about the economy
from the Reddit thread we're citing here, people also don't
just use those storage spaces to store stuff they can't
fit in their current don't. Some people indeed live off
the grid in a storage space, so they're used for
a lot of other things. I could see it, I

(48:09):
guess all in some I could see it being a
avenue in some cases for money laundering, definitely some drug
crime cases, But as an overall practice, I don't know.
It's kind of like the mattress firm conspiracy when we
figured it out. Yes, some are probably organized crime fronts,
but a lot of them have mattresses that are so

(48:29):
expensive and rent that are so low that they don't
actually have to sell that many mattresses to stay open.

Speaker 5 (48:35):
And ultimately it's a real estate game.

Speaker 3 (48:38):
And ultimately it's a real estate game like this is
the case with building these units.

Speaker 4 (48:42):
Absolutely a real estate game in this case as well.
Last one I want to mention, I thought there was
a very implausible, if if interesting perspective from analysis uh
one one, one, three, nine five one absolutely one hundred
percent is also on the right of thread. And notice
the same thing in my neck of the woods, the Southwest,

(49:03):
although I have a slightly more nefarious take on it.
I observe that almost all storage unit locations have this weird,
almost tower like structure in the front. I've always wondered
about those myself, that the U haul you know I'm
talking about guys, oh okay, well, and oftentimes in U
haul storage facilities and other storage facilities, there will be
a kind of tower like structure in the front that

(49:26):
has logos on it, and there'll be windows in it,
sometimes with advertisements in the windows. But it is odd
and it is an odd shape, and I've always wondered
what the deal is with that, because it doesn't seem
very functional, or that it would be able to house
an office on each of the little levels so they
go on. I've observed that almost all storage locations. And
I wouldn't say all because I don't think maybe Matt

(49:47):
you haven't seen it, but I've seen them from time
to time. Here in the South as well. I have
this weird almost tower like structure in the front. Now
I understand that this could be used to view the
whole property, but it really makes me think these places
look like total makeshift prison camps. Like when she hits
the fan and the system needs immediate access to resources
facilities to detain undesirables. What better place to utilize and

(50:12):
detain citizens. But it makes you stop and think. Hence
the name of this sub who anticipated planned to build
and be ready for such an event. It's a wild
one that I just had to had to bring it up. Wow, Yeah,
we're gonna move on really quickly. I just want to
mention another message, thank you, by the way to Potatoes Gun,

(50:33):
This one from Kyle about gas stations and gas station
food in particular, Kyle says, Hey, fellas in Scottsdale, there's
a pretty well known barbecue joint inside a gas station
called Tom's Thumb, named after a mountain nearby. It has
over two thousand Google reviews, and I believe was featured
on an episode of What is It? Diners, Drive Ins
and Dives? Is nothing Triple D. Triple D is how

(50:56):
he puts it. I was just never seen it put
that way best, Kyle. And you're absolutely right, Kyle. Here
in the South, which is I think maybe our main
experience with this, but also in this in the West,
on the West Coast, you will often see really good
Takoreas connect Actually that's not true. In the West Coast,
gas stations are much more gas stations or gas stations.
Some of them don't even sell snacks. They're very much

(51:19):
almost more like European style gas stations. But here in
the South you will often see places that have really
good fried chicken and really good like country breakfasts in
the morning and stuff like that, and barbecue, et cetera.
It is an interesting way to have, oftentimes start up
kind of smaller companies that maybe have evolved from a

(51:41):
food truck looking for a brick and mortar space. They'll
rent some space in a locally owned or you know,
franchised gas station that allows for that kind of thing.
We have a lot of those here in Atlanta area.
In the Atlanta area, and I did want to pull
up a thread mentioning from food Map every Day, just

(52:01):
mentioning six much more large scale gas station type places
that I hadn't heard of. Of course, Bucky's is mentioned,
but we've got a place called Mavericks that is, I believe,
more in the Southwest. Maverick chain is about four hundred
stores and twelve Western states, and it is known for
its adventure and Western themed logo and decor. And they

(52:25):
have it at this place something called the Mother of
All Burritos, or the Moab, which they apparently sell about
twenty four thousand of every single day, which is like
a really nice breakfast burrito situation with eggs, hash browns,
and a whole lot of meat. As the article puts it,
they also have breakfast nachos with steak and eggs and

(52:45):
stuff like that.

Speaker 5 (52:46):
So nice.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Isn't Moab a thing we've talked about before on the show,
except it was Moab place.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
Well yeah, but it isn't a Moab. Also a place
in Utah. It's like a really mountainee of outdoorsy spot.
People like painted mountains. I believe they call them Moab Utah.
But mother of all bombs, absolutely, mother of all burritos?
Why not?

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Oh, it's the massive ordnance air blast bomb. That's okay,
I remember talking about it on this show at least
got it.

Speaker 4 (53:18):
And who could talk about gas station food on the
flip side of the gross version without talking about the
episode of Futurama where Fry buys a men's room egg
salad sandwich from a vending machine over the twelve that
would typically dispense things like prophylactics. So y'all, I'm gonna
cut this one short for today, but do write into

(53:41):
us with your favorite gas station eats in your neck
of the Global Woods. Absolutely great recommendation. Another one that
I mentioned in Athens, Georgia, there's a place called the
bread Basket that is again like country biscuits, country breakfasts,
and lunch meet in three situation that you can enjoy
if you're ever passed through Athens, Georgia. So thanks, Potatoes,

(54:03):
gun and Kyle for writing in.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
Thanks also to Cheese Out, to Dandy Granny, to Paul
to build Moyer's and t Bone. Thanks Beed. We didn't
have time to get to you this evening, but would
love to follow up with your fantastic exploration of a
cash list society. Happy birthday is well belated, much belated
to our own Nick Turbo Benson, the illustrator for our

(54:28):
book titled Stuff They Don't Want you to Know. We
can't wait to hear from you, because, folks, one thing
we love about our weekly listener mail segment is that
it informs episodes in the future. We always get great
ideas from your fellow conspiracy realists. So join up, write
us an email, give us a call on the phone,
or find us on the lines.

Speaker 4 (54:49):
Find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist
all over the internet, specifically on Facebook with our Facebook
group Here's where it Gets Crazy, on x FKA, Twitter,
and on YouTube with video content for you to enjoy
and or peruse. On Instagram and TikTok. However, we are
Conspiracy Stuff Show.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a
cool nickname and let us know within the message if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you want to send attachments, links, words, why not
send us an email.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
We are the entities the read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, yet out afraid. Sometimes the
void writes back. We want to hear everything that's on
your mind, as short, as long as you wish to
make it. Please do let us know if anonymity is key,
and we will do the best we can to preserve

(55:44):
your identity. A big shout out to a recent sci
fi story recommendation, We Got a Perfect Fit by Isaac Asimov.
It's a short story. It takes just a minute to
read it. It's more than worth your time. Tell us
your thoughts and tell us other recommendations for things you
think your fellow audience members should check out conspiracy at

(56:04):
iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
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