December 19, 2024 • 53 mins
Outlier prompts an investigation of China's fascinating -- and, objectively, terrifying! -- "pork skyscrapers." Oz Woman shares first-hand experience with Project Blackjack, "Star Wars," and former President Ronald Reagan. Sarah explores the therapeutic benefits of EMDR. In Letters From Home, the guys receive a surprising co-sign from the folks at PETA. 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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nola.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Andrew Treforce Howard. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. If you are hearing our listener
mail the evening it comes out, please allow us to
be the first to welcome you to December nineteenth, twenty
(00:51):
twenty four. Now full disclosure, we're recording this on December eleventh. However,
we have so many stories to get to. One of
the best parts of our weekly listener mail endeavor is
that we get to hear from the most important part
of the show, which is you, specifically you. We're talking
(01:12):
about Wes Outlier, We're talking about some folks from oz
We're talking about a hopefully awesome therapist. Before we do
any of this, guys, this is one of our last
listener mail programs before the end of what humans call
twenty twenty four so hoping we could just get a
(01:34):
quick vibe check. How are you guys feeling about twenty
twenty four overall? How'd we do? That's fine. I think
we did great. I think we did good.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
I'm proud of the work we've done in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Are there?
Speaker 4 (01:48):
You know, it's been ups and downs, you know, in
terms of the state of affairs of the world, though,
I would argue, you.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Know, guys, I mentioned to you to have a friend
who has been experiencing some UAP stuff. Yes, list I
got a call from him very recently, and you know,
take this with however many grains of salt you wish.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
To I'll say three, one for each of us.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Okay. I don't necessarily believe this. He doesn't necessarily believe this,
but he feels as though he has been contacted in
some way by some intelligence and the message that was
relayed was one of essentially f around and find out
with humanity because because allegedly a few craft have been
(02:32):
shot down by government entities, and it's this whole thing,
and it's making me a little nervous about twenty twenty five.
But I'm also super excited that we might actually get
our independence stay moment, you.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Know, ah, yes, yes, not just July fourth for the US,
but a sort of July fourth for the world. Matt,
this is it's so funny that you say this, and
funny and not nahaha, but in a way because I
have been receiving similar communications, not from the great abroad,
(03:06):
but more from people identifying as humans you never really
know online anymore, right, and whatever twenty twenty five may
indeed bring, we are collectively so grateful that you have
joined our strange, continuing mission to find all the stuff
(03:27):
they don't want you to know. As a matter of fact,
we're the type of guys who like to walk the
walk over talking the talk. And that's why we're pausing
for a word from our sponsors, and then we're gonna
hear directly from you.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And we are back, and let us begin with a
message from an amazing person named oz Woman or going
by oz Woman. We heard from oz Woman a while
back when we talked about some of the strange frequencies
emitting from I think it was a guy who had
a PS four or something and maybe a strange thing,
and she gave us some advice on that. And now
(04:07):
she's calling in with some very personal stories about her life,
some tales from what she's been through, what she's seen
and done. And I just was so happy. This is
two voice messages kind of smashed together into a mix.
Mix them up.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Oh and OZ Woman, it's great to hear from you again.
I really appreciated the PlayStation comments too.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Oh yeah, for sure. Always something interesting to say and
a very interesting person. So this is a mashup. There's
several concepts ideas in here and stories. Let's just listen
to the whole thing and then talk about what we
want to.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Talk about right on.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
This is oz Woman in Idaho. I joined Project Blackjack
five and yes you can use this Blackjack five In
nineteen eighty nine nineteen ninety six, we were doing an
interstellar laser or a laser guided missile system that would
(05:08):
bounce off of satellites very much the same way Iron
Dome warks. And we were doing this for the United
States of America as well as for outer space. It
was a program that you guys know as star Wars.
That's right. I was in Star Wars from nineteen eighty
nine to nineteen ninety six. And give you some weird
(05:30):
context in twenty sixteen, I got a Christmas card from
Trump thanking me for my service. Anyway. I worked for
Maxwell Labs, and for SAIC and for you guessed at
Lockheed stum Corks. So I'm just letting you guys know
that as far as I know, there's nothing up there. Okay,
(05:56):
but what do I know. I'm just a little peon
and a big cob that still has their secret or
better clearance that could be called back. Just within the
last couple of years, I went to my closest airbase
and said, Hey, I'd like to get access to the
base on this person data DA And they said, oh, yes,
(06:16):
we still have you in our system. You still have
a secret or better clearance and you can be on
recall at any time to come back and to go
to Los Alamos. And I was like, oh, Jay, thanks
a lot, really appreciate So far, have not been recalled
so far, nothing that I know of are sketchy on
the moon other than China. But yeah, and the fact
(06:39):
that we did try and Blackjack five was on Fox
News I don't know decades ago with a couple of
missiles that were coming in toward a US Navy terrier
and they had our system on board and were able
to die fuse those missiles before they hit. Just wanted
(06:59):
to keep you a little headset that. That's my story,
and I will tell you one more. When I was
working at Balbo Labs in San Diego, I used to
have to stay until three or four in the morning
Pacific time to get out my report to the White House.
Ronald Reagan liked reading my reports because I wrote them
(07:20):
in plain English, not all this scientific bull craft, as
you put it. I'll leave it that way. And so
one week I came in after General came down, met me,
you know, met all of us. I'm just a lowly
administrative assistant. And the next week I got a pound
of cappuccino, jelly bellies and a pizza with everything on
(07:43):
it from Pizza Hut, and a two liter bottle of
Pepsi for me at the security gate because Reagan knew
that I was the only one working and he wanted
to give me a little oop to get my report
in a little early so he didn't have to read
it over breakfast. And there was just no way I
could do that. But anyway, those are my stories. I
(08:05):
hope you guys are having a good holiday, have a
good Thanksgiving. Yeah, I love your show. Been watching on YouTube.
I'm a long time conspiracy realist and yeah, just love
your show. Thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
By Yeah, whoa so many stories in there. Guys. First
of all, look, I don't know if anybody else is
stuck on this, but I am cappuccino jelly bellies.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
So yeah, there's a bit of a I'm sure you
know this, Matt. We talked about it in previous I
almost have previous administrations in previous episodes and strange news
and listener mail. Everybody likes to have a little signature
soft move in politics. And the jelly bellies, the specific
(08:56):
kinds of jelly bellies are thing that Reagan was known for.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, I just mean cappuccino jelly bellies. Bring me some
where can I find it? I will buy that they're around.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Have you ever had the buttered popcorn jelly bellies? That's
always been a favorite of mine. It literally tastes like
the movie theater popcorn sludge in a jelly bean form.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Also for Reagan, the interest, or at least the way
the public narrative went in the nineteen eighties was that
Reagan got into jelly beans as a way to get
himself off the tobacco dragon. So he stopped chasing that
pipe dragon and started eating those jelly beans. I think
(09:40):
a lot of it goes back to the Hermann gullitzcandy company.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Nice. I didn't know any of this. I just didn't
know there were cappuccino jelly bellies and now I need some.
But also pizza hut. Come on, send somebody a pizza hut.
Back in the what in the eighties nine power mow Mo. Yeah,
that was an amazing pizza pagnames.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
That was back when they had the classy sit down
restaurants with the red cups and the stained glass like
old table type of.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Chandelier, that mafioso lighting, Personal Pan Personal Pan pizzas PPP's.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
BOOKT also shout out to BOOKT.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, pizza party, PPPs at your pizza party.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
But uh, guys, the most important there are really important
things that are in there. First of all, just the
personal The personal connection to Ronald Reagan is cool, no
matter how you feel about any president, having this close
connection to a president nido, especially as an ADMIN assistant
and you're like writing reports and then the President's like, hey,
(10:49):
I got a vested interest in what you're doing right now.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
To cemb sing Yeah, for your work to be appreciated,
that's massive.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Super cool. I didn't know much about Balboa Labs.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I looked up a lot of these things also in
their os Woman mentions SAIC, which is Science Applications International Corporation,
a big deal, right along the likes of you know, Lockheed,
Maxwell Labs, all these places that are doing different defense research,
other stuff that's not so defensive, a little more offensive.
(11:26):
It's all defense. It's all defense. Star Wars was defense, sure,
that is something we have to remember Project Blackjack. The
fact that there was I guess a Fox News segment
at some point talking about a specific time when missiles
were headed towards a Navy carrier, but this system was
used to diffuse them. Very cool. You may not really
(11:48):
understand or have a work in context of what that means,
as I did not before coming into this. But let's
just briefly go over Star Wars, not the franchise that
was rebooted and will be rebooted again. We're talking about
a very specific program that well, Ronald Reagan introduced it
(12:09):
by giving a speech at one point that you can
go and check out. It's really interesting. It's called quote
addressed to the Nation on Defense and National Security. It
was back in March of nineteen eighty three when that happened,
so just before I was born, at least, and it
was known as Star Wars.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
People called it star Wars, sometimes derisively.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yes, exactly, well, I would say often like at least
at the beginning, they're like, oh, this Star Wars thing.
But it was known as the SDI or Strategic Defense Initiative.
It is linked to things like Missile Defense Shield that
the Project for an American Century talked about and kept wanting,
you know, the United States to invest billions and billions
(12:52):
of dollars in. But it actually, you may in my head,
at least back a while ago, I thought of it
as a system of missiles somehow set up, you know,
around the country to defend us. But really what this
was was countermeasures two strategic missiles like ICBMs that could
(13:13):
be launched by an enemy, and then this system would
make those missiles inert again, diffuse them, as was noted
by our amazing collar there os woman, or to blow
them up, you know, while they're in the atmosphere. Flying
around towards a target, and the concepts that were put
(13:35):
forward for technology and advances to technology that could potentially
make a missile inert were fascinating, amazing stuff that conceptually,
at least, you're talking about lasers that can fire from
the ground, extremely high powered. Different types of lasers shoot
from the ground, hit a satellite that strategically placed somewhere
(13:57):
up there essentially a mirror that then direct that beam
onto a missile that's flying super fast through the air,
or you know, and vice versa. You could have a
satellite that has the laser hits a mirror of the ground,
then it gets targeted basically.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
And os woman to your earlier point, I just want
to take a moment and say your comparison to the
Iron Dome program is ten ten, and thank you so
much for that.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, oh yeah, exactly. So the Iron Dome program, you've
likely seen a video or two or heard about it
mostly used right now in Israel. That's where you've seen
it deployed, where it's a system of essentially extremely rapid
fire machine guns that are large caliber that can fire
from the ground. You can hear them. It almost sounds
like those warthog airplanes, the fighter planes.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
But it does.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Ye man, that's what you hear, and again, fascinating and
extremely effective when you've got a a bunch of those
laid out well. I mean, it seems to be a
fact at least maybe that's propaganda that I've fallen prey to,
but from what I've seen, missile barrages will at least
head towards Israel and then they will get obliterated in
(15:13):
the sky.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
But for the most part, also at that point, without
getting too into the weeds, this is not an episode
on Iron Dome, but we have to keep in mind
that often Iron Dome is mitigating things like Hassan rockets Qassam,
which are not the highly guided ICBMs we're talking about
(15:39):
with the SDI Strategic Defense Initiative.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
One hundred percent. If you're if you've ever played Call
of Duty or something, you may imagine like an RPG rocket,
like a rocket propelled grenade or something or something that's
twice that size, right, that's kind of what we're describing here,
lower tech missiles grenades that are you know, highly explosive
and extremely dangerous, but are fired you know, usually from
the ground, traveling across the air not that far, and
(16:06):
you know they don't trave they don't travel that fast.
But if you're talking about an ICBM where some of
these missiles that have like a nuclear payload, which is
what star Wars and SDI was about, right, those are
things that are rockets. I mean they're they're full on
rockets that have nukes inside them.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
They you know, they're like Jeff bezos. They go to
space a little bit, yeah, just enough to do you like,
how to walk down the street just to just to
crap on Jeff a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You don't have to walk down the street for that,
just the skim for a moment and then come yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, but it's super dangerous, and it is to your point, Matt,
it is a vital thing. To your point, os woman.
The SDI, yeah, was called star Wars, right, and it
was often called star Wars by its detractors. But it is,
if nothing else, and vitibly ambitious and well intentioned idea.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yes, I mean it's a very good idea. The point
that President Reagan makes in that speech is actually kind
of beautiful. I'll give you a little bit of a quote.
I'll do this fast, guys, and then we'll move on
to the next thing.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Can you do it in a voice?
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I don't know that.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
I can't even know if I know what Reagan sounded like.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
It's hard to be a hard actor.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
To me.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
He sounds like somebody who's very adamant and connecting with
his audience. Through the camera, you can see the actor
and here you feel it and it feels good. So
I wasn't even born yet, but I can imagine if
this was the president talking to me, I would feel
assured and comforted. And I don't know, Well, you are.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
The American people, Matt, I mean, he's he's talking to
you and all your cohorts.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Well, he's the gipper. Is win one for him?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
He says things like this, and he said this in
his speech. Let me share with you a vision of
the future which offers hope. It is that we embark
on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat
with measures that are defensive. What if free people could
live secure in the knowledge that their security did not
rest upon the threat of instant US retaliation to deter
(18:16):
a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic
ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil, or that
of our allies. I clearly recognize that defensive systems have
limitations and raise certain problems and ambiguities. If paired with
offensive systems, they can be viewed as fostering and aggressive policy,
(18:37):
and no one wants that. But with these considerations firmly
in mind, I call upon the scientific community in our country,
those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their dark
yes to skunkworks, to turn their great talents now to
the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us
the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Shout out to the speech writer, by the way, who
was not the Gipper. And there's nothing wrong with that.
That's not a dang on Brecon. Most presidents in the
United States post about the nineteen seventies or so have
not written their speeches. They've had some ideas, and then
they've got a crew of pros who go in. But
(19:22):
we have to interrogate the language here a little bit,
because it's so cold war. Render the missiles impotent, you know?
The impotent is definitely a linguistic weaponized choice.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Who's that aimed at?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Hey, Russia? Sorry your penis doesn't work? Is kind of
what they're going for, this highly ambitious thing, which again
was incredibly inevitably profitable for defense corporations, right, the quasi
private public partnership that has powered the US military since
(19:59):
early in the World Wars. What we see here, though,
is something kind of a political Regardless of whether you
were a big fan of Reagan or a big opponent
of Reagan, and what that coalition represented domestic lean abroad,
we can say there is there is quite a lot
(20:21):
of validity to the argument that we like. The implication
there in the excerpt from that speech, and I remember
this speech, mat is, the implication is we don't need
to send the world's most dangerous military boots on the ground.
We know other countries, even allies, may have serious problems
(20:44):
with US incursion. So what if we nip the problem
in the bud in space in lower orbit and we
are able to not have our military invade you to
quote unquote protect you. We are able to protect you
without any of those other problematic steps. And that is
(21:06):
a noble idea.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
It is, but it is pretty close to wanting to
have godlike powers, right.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
The same thing. I wouldn't even say close.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
It's as close as humanity can current could get especially
at that point, and it was something in the future
that we could maybe achieve. And now there's stuff up
there that we don't know about that's happening. Did you
guys remember hearing a thing back in the late nineteen
sixties when a lot I was there, well, when a
lot of the UAP reports were coming out, there were
(21:37):
stories about UAP disabling warheads, specifically over bases. There were
a bunch of talking about that, Rihanna, Yeah, there are
a bunch of them.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
These are stories the idea that they were benevolent in
trying to disarm us, to keep us from blowing ourselves up.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Right, Yes, and I think this SDI program does just
speaking of the nobility of it, Ben, that you're talking
about there, I think there is this concept potentially out
there that the real good, the good force, whatever it is,
whatever you know, country is the good force, whatever people's whatever, extraterrestrials,
the good force is the one that prevents some kind
(22:16):
of nuclear, all out nuclear war on this planet, right,
which is really interesting to me. And we've even projected
those thoughts out to outside force or potential possible possibly
non existent outside forces. Again in my head. It's just
connecting that concept of God to this stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I am become death, destroyer of worlds and who could
save us from that?
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (22:44):
True?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
And people don't people Whether whatever group of project genre
the humans take, whether that be a religion, a state,
a family, a tribe, a corporation, usually usually the ideas
you want to be seen as the benevolent force on
(23:06):
the earth. There are very throughout the span of human civilization,
there are very few socioeconomic or socio spiritual groups that
describe themselves without qualification as the bad guys. There are
a couple, I'm gonna be honest, there are a couple,
for sure. I'm glad they're gone.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Well, I mean, it's like the Evil Empire that it
was a name bestowed on the Soviet Union by others.
They didn't come right out and put that in their
press release.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Welly' all, there's so much a thing about there. If
you've got thoughts, make sure you send them to us.
We'll tell you how to contact us at the end
of the episode. Thank you so much, Oz Woman in Idaho.
Hope you're doing well and hope you get to work
on something at Los Alamos. Someday and you get called back.
I think that'd be awesome. What if you're part of
the secret team that makes something just amazing that you
(23:54):
have to tell us about in like twenty fifty least
right to us. All right, we'll be right back afterword
from our sponsors.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And we have returned. And Matt, I'm gonna I'm gonna
match you. May not raise you, but seeing your expert,
insider opinion and perspective with one about psychology and in
certain types of advanced therapy, and Matt, you actually brought
this story that this listener mail pertains to on a
recent Strange News episode about the practice of ed m R,
(24:30):
which stands for imovement, desensitization and reprocessing, which is a
I guess I would say relatively modern psychotherapy technique that
allows folks to revisit and reprocess traumatic memories. I think
that came from Valerie, Isn't that right? Matt?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Oh, yes, e m d R. We had no idea
what it was, and I think in the episode we
like went to some website that was sounded officials like
e MDR dot com.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
That's right, and I've seen it printed as d m R.
I think it's what I just said a minute ago.
But the EMDR I believe is most accurate we heard
from on the subject. A listener who is in the
psychotherapy field goes by hopeful Sarah, so let's just jump
right in. I think this is very interesting. I think
it was me on that segment mat that maybe was
struggling a little bit with how this type of therapy works,
(25:17):
and I may have drawn a few faults equivalencies. So
I copped to that right here, and let's get schooled
by hopeful Sarah. I'm a mental health therapist and I
was just listening to your December fifth episode in which
you talk about EMDR. I've been trained in EMDR, and
I could tell you were having a hard time seeing
how this works. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, stimulating the body
(25:39):
on one side and then the other to reprocess trauma.
The most common techniques are the eyes moving from right
to left a number of times, tones in one ear
and then the other a number of times, or taps
on one hand then the other. The theory is that
bilateral stimulation gets the part of the brain that processes,
the part that makes sense of events and memories to
(26:01):
start processing a client and therapist identify a target memory,
usually something traumatic, and the client thinks of that while
the therapist starts the bilateral stimulation. Most often it's eye
movement because it seems to work the best. As the
client thinks of the traumatic event and the brain starts processing,
it can actually reprocess the event slash memory and make
(26:25):
different sense of it. Just like the body tries to
heal itself when it's injured, the brain also strives towards healing.
When it can reprocess past stuff, it tends to try
to make sense of it in a more positive way.
For example, I've seen abuse victims work through really terrifying
memories and get to the point that the memories are
barely uncomfortable and they recognize what happened wasn't their fault.
(26:46):
It doesn't mean they are unlovable, it doesn't mean they're defective,
slash bad, etc. Sometimes I can almost see the light
bulb go on. It's pretty cool. It works well with
PTSD because the brain is both trying to avoid thinking
about the painful or terrifying trauma, but it also keeps
going back to it in an attempt to understand what happened.
(27:07):
I have worked with people who would take longer routes
to work so they don't have to drive past a
neighborhood that holds bad memories, but they also have regular
flashbacks of what happened there. EMDR exposes them to the
memories enough that they deal with them instead of constantly
avoiding them. That exposure makes them less reactive to the memory,
and therapy itself helps them change the meaning of the
(27:28):
original event. The goal is that memory doesn't feel threatening anymore,
and if something triggers the memory, they don't feel much
distress when it comes to mind. Hopefully that helps EMDR
make a little more sense.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yes, it does.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Feel free to use this in the podcast, as long
as you correct any grammar mistakes or simplify any too
complicated run on sentences. Absolutely not, you did great, happy
researching all the cool stuff you research. Sarah the hopefully
awesome therapist, Well, I would say definitely awesome therapist. This
was such a helpful layman's way of breaking this down
(28:03):
and understanding you know the value of this kind of therapy.
And also, guys, I couldn't help but think back to
our recent discussions of the bicameral mind and the idea
of processing things, you know, on the left side versus
the right side, and how the two sides kind of
interact with one another, and it seems like this technique
really kind of takes advantage of that.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, I really wish I knew about this several years back,
and I will just leave that there, guys, But yeah,
just this sounds amazing, and you know, I.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Mean, the proof is obviously in the pudding for individuals
who go through this therapy and you know, find it
to benefit them. And it sounds like from Sarah's experience
that she's you know, seen plenty of success stories. So
I actually, I think what came up when I was
trying to make sense of this during your segment, Matt,
was that in a previous therapy situation for me, I
(28:54):
had a therapist suggest something along this line of work. Rather,
it wasn't this exactly, but it was a form of reprocessing.
And I guess, I don't know if you just want
a very good therapist or what, But when I started
going down that road, he almost was like, yeah, I
don't think what happened to you was traumatic enough to
qualify for this, So I guess gets good.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
But also I.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Felt a little dismissed. So I do have a new
therapist now, who I like a lot, and stuff like this.
It's not like a magic bullet. You obviously have to
have a practitioner that can help pull those ideas and
those thoughts and those memories out of you and then
help you to reprocess them.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
You know, it's not just like a machine doing the work.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
It is a technique that aids in having the real
work of a great therapist kind of take hold.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Isn't it strange? Perplexing even that theoretically just touching your
hand on one side of your body and then touching
your other hand could actually cause your brain to function differently.
Isn't that weird? We've talked about mind hacks a lot
over the course of gosh ten twelve years, some of
(30:00):
your brain on what were the ones been, your brain
on drugs, or your brain on love, your brain on hate,
your brain on all kinds of different things, and right,
just the weird stuff that happens as signals travel from
one sector to another, and as memory is accessed while
visuals are being accessed. Just weird.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, And I appreciate you bringing that up, Matt
and Sarah, I want to thank you again for taking
the time to share this with us and more importantly,
with your fellow listeners. In full disclosure, we have heard
from other folks in the therapy community, other professionals who
have their own takes on this type of therapy. In particular,
(30:46):
I would argue that this shows us again the therapy
is an ongoing collaborative science, and as I had previously
said in our earlier segment, you have to find what
works for you.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Yeah, it's definitely not a one size fits all thing,
whether that be medication. I mean, we know that certain
like antidepressants, they cause people to have even worse symptoms
of their you know, anxiety or depression, and you have
to kind of like try different ones and see what
works for you, and hopefully, with the help of a
good psychiatrist and a good therapist, you kind of land
on a combination. But to your point, been the therapy
(31:23):
itself and the methods, it really is all about that
interpersonal connection. Like I'm just really grateful and lucky that
I've in the last six months found somebody that I
just absolutely relate to who kind of fills a certain
role of a type of figure in my life. That
maybe I was missing, and it has made the work
that we've been doing together like all the more kind
(31:44):
of relevant and meaningful for me. I can't. I mean,
I've done therapy for years and I haven't made the
kinds of strides that I personally have feel like I've
been making with this person. So, you know, a huge
shout out to anybody out there, Sarah, yourself included, who
chooses to take this career path, because it takes a
lot of kind of mental stamina to be able to
(32:07):
just be kind of invested but also somewhat disconnected in
a way from somebody's problems, Like you want to help them,
you're there for them, but then you also don't want
to take it home with you. I know I personally
would really struggle with that, and I know a lot
of people who would also do that. So it really
is a valuable service and we really do appreciate you.
And with that, let's just make this one a little
(32:27):
bit sure. I think so much of the information was
just in Sarah's awesome email, And to Ben's point, anybody
with any other perspectives on this or other types of
therapy techniques, please do write us at a conspiracy at
iHeartRadio dot com. We're gonna take a quick pause here
we're from our sponsor, and then come back with one
last segment of messages from you.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
And we have returned. Good evening, fellow conspiracy realist. They
called me Ben from earlier. We are going to hear
from a person we'll call Outlier with just a beautiful
story that I think all of us will enjoy. Enjoys
a specific word, and then we'll have a letter from home.
(33:13):
Outlier writes with the following, Gentlemen, I'm a longtime listener,
first time writer, and you can call me outlier if
you read this on air. Haha, spoiler Outlier, we do sometimes.
The Void writes back. Listening to your strange news segment
from December second about the poultry industry, you'll call that
(33:33):
Matt reminded me of something I discovered over the weekend,
pork skyscrapers. Now let's pause here, guys, have you ever
heard of pork skyscraper?
Speaker 4 (33:44):
I saw this email come through and I was riveted.
I know it has to do with mega mega processing
facilities for pork, and I believe Asia, but that's.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
All I know.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I'm going to go ahead and say that's not a thing.
I don't believe it.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
But of course, of course the mind immediately goes to
is it a skyscraper made of pork carcasses or something.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
That's the visual that I get right, or is it
a British insult you.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
You polk skyscraper, or it could be a compliment for
someone with very well in doubt.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Oh Outlier continues and says it was mentioned in paragraph
fourteen of the article China quest for the Holy Grail
of Meat. Outlier says, the article is about ways China
is trying to produce enough protein for the diets of
its population. While they are apparently exploring meat alternatives, they
are also upping production of traditional sources, but in ways
(34:45):
that are counter to everything developed countries are attempting to
achieve in terms of humane animal treatment. Pork skyscrapers, the
article says, where pigs are housed, fed and slaughtered on
an industry real scale. An outlier, you continue, you say so.
After reading that, I googled and found an article on
(35:05):
the Guardian from Friday, November twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.
An excerpt is the following China's get this Guy's twenty
six story pig skyscraper is ready to slaughter one million
pigs a year. With alleged photos of the site, Outlier,
you say, I shouldn't be surprised that the workers are
also mistreated. The article says the workers at this facility
(35:28):
don't get to leave the building until their next break,
reportedly once a week. Outlier, you point out, I don't
even want to think what it smells like. I love
your show, Thanks for putting it out there. I look
forward to each new episode. My kid calls this the
six finger podcast.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Thank you, Outlier. I mean, this sounds like the kind
of stuff that Upton Sinclair wrote about in the Jungle,
like back, you know what I mean. I don't know
if the regulations over the just different that allow them
to do this. I don't think we all should necessarily
live under any kind of illusions that any sort of
meat processing is quote unquote perfectly humane. But this just
(36:13):
sounds like the next level escalation of that.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, and this is a true story. It's it's not
one the livestock Jedi will tell you. As they say
in Star Wars or in SDI, this is very much
a real thing. There is not just one but there
are multiple pork producing skyscrapers, pig farms, vertical pig farms.
(36:40):
The one that I believe we're referring to here outlier
is a twenty six story pig farm operating in the
Hubei province of China. I don't know why I said that.
With a Maryland axit moving on for a while. The
proponents of this back in let's say twenty twenty two,
twenty twenty three, they said, look, this is an environmentally
(37:03):
friendlier approach to livestock production. However, as we can tell,
there were a lot of people who said, what about
the risk of zodotic disease? What about the quality of
life for these porcine individuals? Or sign is just the
fancy way of saying pig. This one when it was
(37:24):
made in China, it was the largest of its kind
in the world. It wasn't a million pigs a year outlier.
It turned out to be a one point two million
pigs slaughtered per year, and it was entirely to address
the nation of China's growing demand for pork. Pork is
(37:44):
by far the most popular meat in the entire country,
and let's remember that's also one of the most populous
countries on the planet, and I wouldn't have thought that.
I don't know why, but that's interesting to me for
some of what would you have thought.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
I don't know what I would have thought. I guess
I just wouldn't have pork. I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
There's no real reason. Yeah, I mean it'd be weird
of it was something else, if it was like their
favorite meat is parrot.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
I don't know, maybe beef, I guess, But now that
I think about it, I mean pork as they're certainly
it's it's an ingredient I think of being in plenty
of you know, Chinese dishes.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
So yeah, I can see that. We know the government
has to be involved first off, because it's China and
Uncle Ji doesn't like stuff happening without us, say so.
The company behind the farm, which is the Joan Shing
Cali Modern Farming, they were actually new to the livestock
sector and new to poresign raising in particular. They previously
(38:44):
were in the cement industry, and then they shifted when
the cement industry went bad, when it collapsed. I would
argue part of that is because China finally got into
trouble for building those he huge ghost cities to launder money,
remember that for sure.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
But like with this pork skyscraper and I guess facilities
like it, these would have been custom built, right, not
like a repurposed building that was used for other things.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Right, great question, great question. Yeah, these are custom built.
Now to your point, they probably already had the infrastructure
to at least get the concrete, right, they already had
the toys for that. But we have to remember in
twenty eighteen there was a swine fever outbreak in the nation,
and this put a very hungry country into a very
(39:38):
dangerous food security crisis. They want to have a domestic
pork production at a not just a continually stable rate,
but at a continually growing rate. And I'd like to
take a second and make space for you guys and ask.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Is this a good idea? Is this solving the right problem?
Being a problem related to population, Yeah, to the.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Problem of food security or the problem of food safety.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Resources as well, just in general, because I mean, is
China also experiencing a decline in population like Japan or
is it not the case over there?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
The specter of the one child policy of old is
coming right. The consequences. The bill is coming due, but
this is not a switch that gets flipped overnight. And
to be totally honest, the more you dig into the
story of these pigs skyscrapers, the more you see that
(40:48):
it's not a perfect solution. Stuff sucks for the pigs.
Just to be clear, pigs are about as intelligent as
what you would say a three or four year old
human being. Yeah, they're smart enough to know when their
life sucks.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, I'm really sad that it is the protein that's
getting the vertical farm treatment.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
I really thin vegetables right.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Well, yeah, the grains and the vegetable and some of
those things, because I again we talked about this pretty
recently on the show, but that was the dream maybe
that I bought into ten years ago or something.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Vertical farming, Yeah, just as.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
A potential answer to these problems, because again, it just
felt like, oh, well, we could build those humans are
pretty great at building skyscrapers. We could make this happen.
But the thought of cramming all of those pigs in
like that and as you said, been giving them a
terrible life. It does solve that problem at least somewhat
of food insecurity especially if you made a dozen of them,
(41:50):
twenty of them.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
We know that there are a handful. But also do
we if we are to assume the perspective of the PRC,
if we were to exercise empathy, then we also have
to ask, quite realistically, in the mission to solve one
or two immediate problems, are we not potentially creating new problems?
Speaker 4 (42:17):
Absolutely, It's like the cobra and the mongoose or whatever problem, right,
And maybe it wasn't the mongoose, you know what I'm
talking about, man, Yeah, but I do wonder why they
went with protein to your point, Matt, and not like grain.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
I mean, rice is.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
Also incredibly popular over there and consumed and also takes
checks off a lot of nutritional boxes. So why the pig?
Why the pork? But yeah, I just wonder why not tofu?
Speaker 3 (42:44):
You know?
Speaker 4 (42:44):
And I'm not even doing this from the perspective of
like an anti meat person. I mean, I eat plenty
of meat, and it's something I certainly want to think
about a little more intentionally. But to have it be
pork and have it be these horrific conditions just seems unnecessary.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Well then, also, like another statement from some people living
in China. Wow, that pig has a better life than me, right, Like,
what about saving the people who are unhoused, et cetera,
et cetera. These are dilemmas to wrestle with.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Well, and it it's kind of messed up, guys. It's
not even really the pork processor company's fault that they
have to make this pork, because the pork's the thing
that's in the demand. The pork's the thing that's going
to make them profit. The pork is the thing that
everybody wants.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
If tofu was in demand in the same way that
pork was, then it would be a Tofu skyscraper.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Sure, right, Right. We also have to remember, and I
appreciate that point, We also have to remember that there
has been an acceleration in the rise of quality of
life in this country. A lot of people have now
these attainable aspirational goals. Right. I want to eat well.
I want my kids to have a better life. Right,
(44:00):
and if that means the fancy meal is the like
better than the you know, the grains I had to eat,
then so be it. You know, forget larger problems here.
I have a problem Thursday. I got to solve for that,
we get it, and we also want to recommend again
you mentioned this outlier. The Guardian articles on this are
(44:24):
pretty great. South China Morning Post also has some good stuff.
Keep in mind they are state run media. I hope
everybody gets a chance to check out some of these
stories because they also go into the vast surveillance applied
to this. Because remember whether or not regardless of the
(44:46):
life forms living in a skyscraper, it's still a skyscraper.
There are a lot of pigs in there, there are
a lot of people, and it is very much a factory.
So the level of monitoring applied to the things. Just
to respond to our friends in China who had apartment envy,
I don't think you want to be surveilled on this level. Hmm. Interesting.
(45:12):
I mean also also there are people worried about whether
or not this will again create a new problem. Could
this be a vector or a a breeding ground for
dangerous pseudotic infections? As Dirk Feiffer, the chair Professor at
(45:33):
City University or One Health at City University of Hong
Kong said, quote, the higher density of animals, the higher
risk of infectious pathogen spread and amplification, as well as
the potential for mutation. What do you guys think, is
that a little too doom and gloom or is there
(45:53):
validity to that concern. I think there's validity.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
I also maybe take this opportunity to to talk about
how when we were discussing with Jenner first, you know,
the idea of other possible alternatives for the COVID nineteen outbreak.
You know, it's not to say that these mutations couldn't
take place in a situation like a wet market or
something like this type of factory farming. I just personally
(46:19):
found some of the arguments that were made in that
documentary to be pretty compelling and interesting. Not to mention
that we recently saw a story about another lab leak
of some really virulent pathogens here in the United States.
So I just wanted to take the opportunity to say, absolutely,
these things can happen, and it can happen as a
result of poor monitoring and regulation of these.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Types of facilities. And I'd like to, in that spirit,
take the opportunity to think all of you are fellow
conspiracy realists who responded to us as a group or
as individuals with your thoughts on our interview with Jenner
first again in the documentary is thank you Doctor Foul.
Please do check it out. Likewise, I was, I was
(47:06):
fascinated by this. We'd love to hear your thoughts. And
speaking of hearing your thoughts, as we close every listener
mail segment here, we like to have a letter from home.
We talked about it a little bit. I think have
just enough time to share a letter that really, I
don't know inspired all of us, I would say. From
(47:27):
a guy named Wes working with Peta. Wes says, Hi, Ben, Matt,
and Noel. We caught last Thursday's listener mail segment and
wanted to thank you for sharing anonymous owls, many wonderful
tips for helping wildlife, and for pointing listeners to our
web page with state by state resources. We also have
(47:48):
a page with detailed steps for rescuing wild animals in
need that you're welcome to share. We were also delighted
to hear you point out how bizarre it is that
humans kill some animals, including cows, but love and protect others,
whether they're the companions we share our homes with or
the wildlife we encounter outside. Thank you, Wes. That's always
(48:12):
really bugged me and I think bugged all of us
after all, Wes continues, cows feel love, joy, pain, and
fear exactly as cats and dogs do, and i'd add pigs.
This is an example of speciism, the misguided belief that
some species are inherently superior to or more worthy of
consideration than others. And then PETA sends us a helpful
(48:35):
link to learn more about speciism, says thank you again,
and if there's ever any way we can serve as
a resource for you about this or any other animal topic,
please don't hesitate to contact us. Kind regards West Burdett,
the press officer of PETA. I can't believe you wrote
to us, Wes.
Speaker 5 (48:54):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
That's the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, right, yes, yes, yeah,
and just yeah. We certainly there's certainly been campaigns spearheaded
by PETA that maybe have perhaps been a little bit inflammatory,
and some people might have issue with some of the
lines that they take on things, or maybe some of
(49:15):
the extreme perspectives. But I think every bit of information
that Wes wrote to us is absolutely accurate and appropriate,
and I thought it was really really thoughtful, and I
really appreciate the resources.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah, if you want to find those, you can search
PETA and then locating a wildlife rehabilitator or the other
resource that was sent. You could search for PEDA wildlife emergencies,
how to help and when not to interfere.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
Yeah, and thank you for that, Matt, Thank you for that, Wes.
I also wanted to note, yes, obviously we are aware
PETA as an organization. It's been around for a while.
It has encountered its share of controversy over the years,
and this happens with any organization of that size. Yet
(50:04):
I hold firm I will stand on this hill omnivores
dilemma aside. Shout out to the author, Michael Poland. The
idea of speciism is very real and it is impacting
a world that is still wrestling with the dwindling biodiversity
(50:24):
on the planet right now. It is quite possible if
things keep going the way they are, that when you
have grandchildren, if you're human, you will sound like a
crazy guy when you say, oh, there used to be
animals in the wild. You could just be in the
woods and he just run into something and they'll say, ah,
(50:46):
you're crazy man. Next thing you're going to say you
had to use your hands to access the Internet.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Makes me think of Aloy and the robot animals of
the Horizon series.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Nice. Nice, We're going to call it here, folks. Thank you,
as always so much for tuning in to our listener
mail program. Please tune in as we approach the end
of the new year. We have such wonders to show you.
Big thanks to oz Woman, Big thanks to Sarah, Big
thanks to also all the other therapists who have contacted
(51:19):
us regarding that specific type of therapy. Big big thanks
to Outlier, Big thanks to WESB and in advance, if
we could get by with a little help from our friends.
Big thanks to you, fellow conspiracy realist, for contacting us
right now. But wait, how do you do it? Do
(51:39):
you do you send an email? Do you call on
the phone? Do you do you go online? Well, gosh, Ben,
I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
There's multiple ways to contact us, including on your social
media platform of choice where we are conspiracy stuff on
x FKA, Twitter, on Facebook where we have our Facebook
group here is where it gets crazy. And on YouTube,
where we have video content galore for YouTube enjoy on
TikTok and Instagram. However, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
We have a phone number. You can call it. Use
your phone, or your computer, or your voice, whatever you got.
Call one eight three three std WYTK as soon as
you call, or even better, write before you call. Put
that number in your phone as a contact just in
case it gives you a ring back when you do
call in. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us
(52:25):
know if we can use your name and message on
the air. If you've got more to say than can
fit in a three minute voicemail, why not instead send
us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. You don't have to have more to say.
You can just say your regular stuff. We will devour
the correspondence. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid sometimes the
void writes back. Give us your suggestions for new episodes
you believe your fellow conspiracy realist will enjoy or you know.
(52:56):
Give us weird puns, give us bad jokes, humorous hair eight.
You've set the bar pretty low. Join us out here
in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
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 this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nola.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Andrew Treforce Howard. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here That makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. If you are hearing our listener
mail the evening it comes out, please allow us to
be the first to welcome you to December nineteenth, twenty
(00:51):
twenty four. Now full disclosure, we're recording this on December eleventh. However,
we have so many stories to get to. One of
the best parts of our weekly listener mail endeavor is
that we get to hear from the most important part
of the show, which is you, specifically you. We're talking
(01:12):
about Wes Outlier, We're talking about some folks from oz
We're talking about a hopefully awesome therapist. Before we do
any of this, guys, this is one of our last
listener mail programs before the end of what humans call
twenty twenty four so hoping we could just get a
(01:34):
quick vibe check. How are you guys feeling about twenty
twenty four overall? How'd we do? That's fine. I think
we did great. I think we did good.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
I'm proud of the work we've done in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Are there?
Speaker 4 (01:48):
You know, it's been ups and downs, you know, in
terms of the state of affairs of the world, though,
I would argue, you.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Know, guys, I mentioned to you to have a friend
who has been experiencing some UAP stuff. Yes, list I
got a call from him very recently, and you know,
take this with however many grains of salt you wish.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
To I'll say three, one for each of us.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Okay. I don't necessarily believe this. He doesn't necessarily believe this,
but he feels as though he has been contacted in
some way by some intelligence and the message that was
relayed was one of essentially f around and find out
with humanity because because allegedly a few craft have been
(02:32):
shot down by government entities, and it's this whole thing,
and it's making me a little nervous about twenty twenty five.
But I'm also super excited that we might actually get
our independence stay moment, you.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Know, ah, yes, yes, not just July fourth for the US,
but a sort of July fourth for the world. Matt,
this is it's so funny that you say this, and
funny and not nahaha, but in a way because I
have been receiving similar communications, not from the great abroad,
(03:06):
but more from people identifying as humans you never really
know online anymore, right, and whatever twenty twenty five may
indeed bring, we are collectively so grateful that you have
joined our strange, continuing mission to find all the stuff
(03:27):
they don't want you to know. As a matter of fact,
we're the type of guys who like to walk the
walk over talking the talk. And that's why we're pausing
for a word from our sponsors, and then we're gonna
hear directly from you.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
And we are back, and let us begin with a
message from an amazing person named oz Woman or going
by oz Woman. We heard from oz Woman a while
back when we talked about some of the strange frequencies
emitting from I think it was a guy who had
a PS four or something and maybe a strange thing,
and she gave us some advice on that. And now
(04:07):
she's calling in with some very personal stories about her life,
some tales from what she's been through, what she's seen
and done. And I just was so happy. This is
two voice messages kind of smashed together into a mix.
Mix them up.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Oh and OZ Woman, it's great to hear from you again.
I really appreciated the PlayStation comments too.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Oh yeah, for sure. Always something interesting to say and
a very interesting person. So this is a mashup. There's
several concepts ideas in here and stories. Let's just listen
to the whole thing and then talk about what we
want to.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Talk about right on.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
This is oz Woman in Idaho. I joined Project Blackjack
five and yes you can use this Blackjack five In
nineteen eighty nine nineteen ninety six, we were doing an
interstellar laser or a laser guided missile system that would
(05:08):
bounce off of satellites very much the same way Iron
Dome warks. And we were doing this for the United
States of America as well as for outer space. It
was a program that you guys know as star Wars.
That's right. I was in Star Wars from nineteen eighty
nine to nineteen ninety six. And give you some weird
(05:30):
context in twenty sixteen, I got a Christmas card from
Trump thanking me for my service. Anyway. I worked for
Maxwell Labs, and for SAIC and for you guessed at
Lockheed stum Corks. So I'm just letting you guys know
that as far as I know, there's nothing up there. Okay,
(05:56):
but what do I know. I'm just a little peon
and a big cob that still has their secret or
better clearance that could be called back. Just within the
last couple of years, I went to my closest airbase
and said, Hey, I'd like to get access to the
base on this person data DA And they said, oh, yes,
(06:16):
we still have you in our system. You still have
a secret or better clearance and you can be on
recall at any time to come back and to go
to Los Alamos. And I was like, oh, Jay, thanks
a lot, really appreciate So far, have not been recalled
so far, nothing that I know of are sketchy on
the moon other than China. But yeah, and the fact
(06:39):
that we did try and Blackjack five was on Fox
News I don't know decades ago with a couple of
missiles that were coming in toward a US Navy terrier
and they had our system on board and were able
to die fuse those missiles before they hit. Just wanted
(06:59):
to keep you a little headset that. That's my story,
and I will tell you one more. When I was
working at Balbo Labs in San Diego, I used to
have to stay until three or four in the morning
Pacific time to get out my report to the White House.
Ronald Reagan liked reading my reports because I wrote them
(07:20):
in plain English, not all this scientific bull craft, as
you put it. I'll leave it that way. And so
one week I came in after General came down, met me,
you know, met all of us. I'm just a lowly
administrative assistant. And the next week I got a pound
of cappuccino, jelly bellies and a pizza with everything on
(07:43):
it from Pizza Hut, and a two liter bottle of
Pepsi for me at the security gate because Reagan knew
that I was the only one working and he wanted
to give me a little oop to get my report
in a little early so he didn't have to read
it over breakfast. And there was just no way I
could do that. But anyway, those are my stories. I
(08:05):
hope you guys are having a good holiday, have a
good Thanksgiving. Yeah, I love your show. Been watching on YouTube.
I'm a long time conspiracy realist and yeah, just love
your show. Thanks guys.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
By Yeah, whoa so many stories in there. Guys. First
of all, look, I don't know if anybody else is
stuck on this, but I am cappuccino jelly bellies.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
So yeah, there's a bit of a I'm sure you
know this, Matt. We talked about it in previous I
almost have previous administrations in previous episodes and strange news
and listener mail. Everybody likes to have a little signature
soft move in politics. And the jelly bellies, the specific
(08:56):
kinds of jelly bellies are thing that Reagan was known for.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Well, I just mean cappuccino jelly bellies. Bring me some
where can I find it? I will buy that they're around.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
Have you ever had the buttered popcorn jelly bellies? That's
always been a favorite of mine. It literally tastes like
the movie theater popcorn sludge in a jelly bean form.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Also for Reagan, the interest, or at least the way
the public narrative went in the nineteen eighties was that
Reagan got into jelly beans as a way to get
himself off the tobacco dragon. So he stopped chasing that
pipe dragon and started eating those jelly beans. I think
(09:40):
a lot of it goes back to the Hermann gullitzcandy company.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Nice. I didn't know any of this. I just didn't
know there were cappuccino jelly bellies and now I need some.
But also pizza hut. Come on, send somebody a pizza hut.
Back in the what in the eighties nine power mow Mo. Yeah,
that was an amazing pizza pagnames.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
That was back when they had the classy sit down
restaurants with the red cups and the stained glass like
old table type of.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Chandelier, that mafioso lighting, Personal Pan Personal Pan pizzas PPP's.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
BOOKT also shout out to BOOKT.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, pizza party, PPPs at your pizza party.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
But uh, guys, the most important there are really important
things that are in there. First of all, just the
personal The personal connection to Ronald Reagan is cool, no
matter how you feel about any president, having this close
connection to a president nido, especially as an ADMIN assistant
and you're like writing reports and then the President's like, hey,
(10:49):
I got a vested interest in what you're doing right now.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
To cemb sing Yeah, for your work to be appreciated,
that's massive.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Super cool. I didn't know much about Balboa Labs.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
I looked up a lot of these things also in
their os Woman mentions SAIC, which is Science Applications International Corporation,
a big deal, right along the likes of you know, Lockheed,
Maxwell Labs, all these places that are doing different defense research,
other stuff that's not so defensive, a little more offensive.
(11:26):
It's all defense. It's all defense. Star Wars was defense, sure,
that is something we have to remember Project Blackjack. The
fact that there was I guess a Fox News segment
at some point talking about a specific time when missiles
were headed towards a Navy carrier, but this system was
used to diffuse them. Very cool. You may not really
(11:48):
understand or have a work in context of what that means,
as I did not before coming into this. But let's
just briefly go over Star Wars, not the franchise that
was rebooted and will be rebooted again. We're talking about
a very specific program that well, Ronald Reagan introduced it
(12:09):
by giving a speech at one point that you can
go and check out. It's really interesting. It's called quote
addressed to the Nation on Defense and National Security. It
was back in March of nineteen eighty three when that happened,
so just before I was born, at least, and it
was known as Star Wars.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
People called it star Wars, sometimes derisively.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yes, exactly, well, I would say often like at least
at the beginning, they're like, oh, this Star Wars thing.
But it was known as the SDI or Strategic Defense Initiative.
It is linked to things like Missile Defense Shield that
the Project for an American Century talked about and kept wanting,
you know, the United States to invest billions and billions
(12:52):
of dollars in. But it actually, you may in my head,
at least back a while ago, I thought of it
as a system of missiles somehow set up, you know,
around the country to defend us. But really what this
was was countermeasures two strategic missiles like ICBMs that could
(13:13):
be launched by an enemy, and then this system would
make those missiles inert again, diffuse them, as was noted
by our amazing collar there os woman, or to blow
them up, you know, while they're in the atmosphere. Flying
around towards a target, and the concepts that were put
(13:35):
forward for technology and advances to technology that could potentially
make a missile inert were fascinating, amazing stuff that conceptually,
at least, you're talking about lasers that can fire from
the ground, extremely high powered. Different types of lasers shoot
from the ground, hit a satellite that strategically placed somewhere
(13:57):
up there essentially a mirror that then direct that beam
onto a missile that's flying super fast through the air,
or you know, and vice versa. You could have a
satellite that has the laser hits a mirror of the ground,
then it gets targeted basically.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
And os woman to your earlier point, I just want
to take a moment and say your comparison to the
Iron Dome program is ten ten, and thank you so
much for that.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Yeah, oh yeah, exactly. So the Iron Dome program, you've
likely seen a video or two or heard about it
mostly used right now in Israel. That's where you've seen
it deployed, where it's a system of essentially extremely rapid
fire machine guns that are large caliber that can fire
from the ground. You can hear them. It almost sounds
like those warthog airplanes, the fighter planes.
Speaker 4 (14:51):
But it does.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
Ye man, that's what you hear, and again, fascinating and
extremely effective when you've got a a bunch of those
laid out well. I mean, it seems to be a
fact at least maybe that's propaganda that I've fallen prey to,
but from what I've seen, missile barrages will at least
head towards Israel and then they will get obliterated in
(15:13):
the sky.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
But for the most part, also at that point, without
getting too into the weeds, this is not an episode
on Iron Dome, but we have to keep in mind
that often Iron Dome is mitigating things like Hassan rockets Qassam,
which are not the highly guided ICBMs we're talking about
(15:39):
with the SDI Strategic Defense Initiative.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
One hundred percent. If you're if you've ever played Call
of Duty or something, you may imagine like an RPG rocket,
like a rocket propelled grenade or something or something that's
twice that size, right, that's kind of what we're describing here,
lower tech missiles grenades that are you know, highly explosive
and extremely dangerous, but are fired you know, usually from
the ground, traveling across the air not that far, and
(16:06):
you know they don't trave they don't travel that fast.
But if you're talking about an ICBM where some of
these missiles that have like a nuclear payload, which is
what star Wars and SDI was about, right, those are
things that are rockets. I mean they're they're full on
rockets that have nukes inside them.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
They you know, they're like Jeff bezos. They go to
space a little bit, yeah, just enough to do you like,
how to walk down the street just to just to
crap on Jeff a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You don't have to walk down the street for that,
just the skim for a moment and then come yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, but it's super dangerous, and it is to your point, Matt,
it is a vital thing. To your point, os woman.
The SDI, yeah, was called star Wars, right, and it
was often called star Wars by its detractors. But it is,
if nothing else, and vitibly ambitious and well intentioned idea.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yes, I mean it's a very good idea. The point
that President Reagan makes in that speech is actually kind
of beautiful. I'll give you a little bit of a quote.
I'll do this fast, guys, and then we'll move on
to the next thing.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Can you do it in a voice?
Speaker 2 (17:18):
I don't know that.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
I can't even know if I know what Reagan sounded like.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
It's hard to be a hard actor.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
To me.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
He sounds like somebody who's very adamant and connecting with
his audience. Through the camera, you can see the actor
and here you feel it and it feels good. So
I wasn't even born yet, but I can imagine if
this was the president talking to me, I would feel
assured and comforted. And I don't know, Well, you are.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
The American people, Matt, I mean, he's he's talking to
you and all your cohorts.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
Well, he's the gipper. Is win one for him?
Speaker 2 (17:53):
He says things like this, and he said this in
his speech. Let me share with you a vision of
the future which offers hope. It is that we embark
on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat
with measures that are defensive. What if free people could
live secure in the knowledge that their security did not
rest upon the threat of instant US retaliation to deter
(18:16):
a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic
ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil, or that
of our allies. I clearly recognize that defensive systems have
limitations and raise certain problems and ambiguities. If paired with
offensive systems, they can be viewed as fostering and aggressive policy,
(18:37):
and no one wants that. But with these considerations firmly
in mind, I call upon the scientific community in our country,
those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their dark
yes to skunkworks, to turn their great talents now to
the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us
the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
Speaker 3 (19:01):
Shout out to the speech writer, by the way, who
was not the Gipper. And there's nothing wrong with that.
That's not a dang on Brecon. Most presidents in the
United States post about the nineteen seventies or so have
not written their speeches. They've had some ideas, and then
they've got a crew of pros who go in. But
(19:22):
we have to interrogate the language here a little bit,
because it's so cold war. Render the missiles impotent, you know?
The impotent is definitely a linguistic weaponized choice.
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Who's that aimed at?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
Hey, Russia? Sorry your penis doesn't work? Is kind of
what they're going for, this highly ambitious thing, which again
was incredibly inevitably profitable for defense corporations, right, the quasi
private public partnership that has powered the US military since
(19:59):
early in the World Wars. What we see here, though,
is something kind of a political Regardless of whether you
were a big fan of Reagan or a big opponent
of Reagan, and what that coalition represented domestic lean abroad,
we can say there is there is quite a lot
(20:21):
of validity to the argument that we like. The implication
there in the excerpt from that speech, and I remember
this speech, mat is, the implication is we don't need
to send the world's most dangerous military boots on the ground.
We know other countries, even allies, may have serious problems
(20:44):
with US incursion. So what if we nip the problem
in the bud in space in lower orbit and we
are able to not have our military invade you to
quote unquote protect you. We are able to protect you
without any of those other problematic steps. And that is
(21:06):
a noble idea.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
It is, but it is pretty close to wanting to
have godlike powers, right.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
The same thing. I wouldn't even say close.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
It's as close as humanity can current could get especially
at that point, and it was something in the future
that we could maybe achieve. And now there's stuff up
there that we don't know about that's happening. Did you
guys remember hearing a thing back in the late nineteen
sixties when a lot I was there, well, when a
lot of the UAP reports were coming out, there were
(21:37):
stories about UAP disabling warheads, specifically over bases. There were
a bunch of talking about that, Rihanna, Yeah, there are
a bunch of them.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
These are stories the idea that they were benevolent in
trying to disarm us, to keep us from blowing ourselves up.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
Right, Yes, and I think this SDI program does just
speaking of the nobility of it, Ben, that you're talking
about there, I think there is this concept potentially out
there that the real good, the good force, whatever it is,
whatever you know, country is the good force, whatever people's whatever, extraterrestrials,
the good force is the one that prevents some kind
(22:16):
of nuclear, all out nuclear war on this planet, right,
which is really interesting to me. And we've even projected
those thoughts out to outside force or potential possible possibly
non existent outside forces. Again in my head. It's just
connecting that concept of God to this stuff.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
I am become death, destroyer of worlds and who could
save us from that?
Speaker 5 (22:42):
Right?
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (22:44):
True?
Speaker 3 (22:44):
And people don't people Whether whatever group of project genre
the humans take, whether that be a religion, a state,
a family, a tribe, a corporation, usually usually the ideas
you want to be seen as the benevolent force on
(23:06):
the earth. There are very throughout the span of human civilization,
there are very few socioeconomic or socio spiritual groups that
describe themselves without qualification as the bad guys. There are
a couple, I'm gonna be honest, there are a couple,
for sure. I'm glad they're gone.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Well, I mean, it's like the Evil Empire that it
was a name bestowed on the Soviet Union by others.
They didn't come right out and put that in their
press release.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Welly' all, there's so much a thing about there. If
you've got thoughts, make sure you send them to us.
We'll tell you how to contact us at the end
of the episode. Thank you so much, Oz Woman in Idaho.
Hope you're doing well and hope you get to work
on something at Los Alamos. Someday and you get called back.
I think that'd be awesome. What if you're part of
the secret team that makes something just amazing that you
(23:54):
have to tell us about in like twenty fifty least
right to us. All right, we'll be right back afterword
from our sponsors.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
And we have returned. And Matt, I'm gonna I'm gonna
match you. May not raise you, but seeing your expert,
insider opinion and perspective with one about psychology and in
certain types of advanced therapy, and Matt, you actually brought
this story that this listener mail pertains to on a
recent Strange News episode about the practice of ed m R,
(24:30):
which stands for imovement, desensitization and reprocessing, which is a
I guess I would say relatively modern psychotherapy technique that
allows folks to revisit and reprocess traumatic memories. I think
that came from Valerie, Isn't that right? Matt?
Speaker 2 (24:48):
Oh, yes, e m d R. We had no idea
what it was, and I think in the episode we
like went to some website that was sounded officials like
e MDR dot com.
Speaker 4 (24:57):
That's right, and I've seen it printed as d m R.
I think it's what I just said a minute ago.
But the EMDR I believe is most accurate we heard
from on the subject. A listener who is in the
psychotherapy field goes by hopeful Sarah, so let's just jump
right in. I think this is very interesting. I think
it was me on that segment mat that maybe was
struggling a little bit with how this type of therapy works,
(25:17):
and I may have drawn a few faults equivalencies. So
I copped to that right here, and let's get schooled
by hopeful Sarah. I'm a mental health therapist and I
was just listening to your December fifth episode in which
you talk about EMDR. I've been trained in EMDR, and
I could tell you were having a hard time seeing
how this works. EMDR uses bilateral stimulation, stimulating the body
(25:39):
on one side and then the other to reprocess trauma.
The most common techniques are the eyes moving from right
to left a number of times, tones in one ear
and then the other a number of times, or taps
on one hand then the other. The theory is that
bilateral stimulation gets the part of the brain that processes,
the part that makes sense of events and memories to
(26:01):
start processing a client and therapist identify a target memory,
usually something traumatic, and the client thinks of that while
the therapist starts the bilateral stimulation. Most often it's eye
movement because it seems to work the best. As the
client thinks of the traumatic event and the brain starts processing,
it can actually reprocess the event slash memory and make
(26:25):
different sense of it. Just like the body tries to
heal itself when it's injured, the brain also strives towards healing.
When it can reprocess past stuff, it tends to try
to make sense of it in a more positive way.
For example, I've seen abuse victims work through really terrifying
memories and get to the point that the memories are
barely uncomfortable and they recognize what happened wasn't their fault.
(26:46):
It doesn't mean they are unlovable, it doesn't mean they're defective,
slash bad, etc. Sometimes I can almost see the light
bulb go on. It's pretty cool. It works well with
PTSD because the brain is both trying to avoid thinking
about the painful or terrifying trauma, but it also keeps
going back to it in an attempt to understand what happened.
(27:07):
I have worked with people who would take longer routes
to work so they don't have to drive past a
neighborhood that holds bad memories, but they also have regular
flashbacks of what happened there. EMDR exposes them to the
memories enough that they deal with them instead of constantly
avoiding them. That exposure makes them less reactive to the memory,
and therapy itself helps them change the meaning of the
(27:28):
original event. The goal is that memory doesn't feel threatening anymore,
and if something triggers the memory, they don't feel much
distress when it comes to mind. Hopefully that helps EMDR
make a little more sense.
Speaker 3 (27:41):
Yes, it does.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
Feel free to use this in the podcast, as long
as you correct any grammar mistakes or simplify any too
complicated run on sentences. Absolutely not, you did great, happy
researching all the cool stuff you research. Sarah the hopefully
awesome therapist, Well, I would say definitely awesome therapist. This
was such a helpful layman's way of breaking this down
(28:03):
and understanding you know the value of this kind of therapy.
And also, guys, I couldn't help but think back to
our recent discussions of the bicameral mind and the idea
of processing things, you know, on the left side versus
the right side, and how the two sides kind of
interact with one another, and it seems like this technique
really kind of takes advantage of that.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
Yeah, I really wish I knew about this several years back,
and I will just leave that there, guys, But yeah,
just this sounds amazing, and you know, I.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
Mean, the proof is obviously in the pudding for individuals
who go through this therapy and you know, find it
to benefit them. And it sounds like from Sarah's experience
that she's you know, seen plenty of success stories. So
I actually, I think what came up when I was
trying to make sense of this during your segment, Matt,
was that in a previous therapy situation for me, I
(28:54):
had a therapist suggest something along this line of work. Rather,
it wasn't this exactly, but it was a form of reprocessing.
And I guess, I don't know if you just want
a very good therapist or what, But when I started
going down that road, he almost was like, yeah, I
don't think what happened to you was traumatic enough to
qualify for this, So I guess gets good.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
But also I.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
Felt a little dismissed. So I do have a new
therapist now, who I like a lot, and stuff like this.
It's not like a magic bullet. You obviously have to
have a practitioner that can help pull those ideas and
those thoughts and those memories out of you and then
help you to reprocess them.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
You know, it's not just like a machine doing the work.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
It is a technique that aids in having the real
work of a great therapist kind of take hold.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Isn't it strange? Perplexing even that theoretically just touching your
hand on one side of your body and then touching
your other hand could actually cause your brain to function differently.
Isn't that weird? We've talked about mind hacks a lot
over the course of gosh ten twelve years, some of
(30:00):
your brain on what were the ones been, your brain
on drugs, or your brain on love, your brain on hate,
your brain on all kinds of different things, and right,
just the weird stuff that happens as signals travel from
one sector to another, and as memory is accessed while
visuals are being accessed. Just weird.
Speaker 3 (30:22):
Yeah, yeah, And I appreciate you bringing that up, Matt
and Sarah, I want to thank you again for taking
the time to share this with us and more importantly,
with your fellow listeners. In full disclosure, we have heard
from other folks in the therapy community, other professionals who
have their own takes on this type of therapy. In particular,
(30:46):
I would argue that this shows us again the therapy
is an ongoing collaborative science, and as I had previously
said in our earlier segment, you have to find what
works for you.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Yeah, it's definitely not a one size fits all thing,
whether that be medication. I mean, we know that certain
like antidepressants, they cause people to have even worse symptoms
of their you know, anxiety or depression, and you have
to kind of like try different ones and see what
works for you, and hopefully, with the help of a
good psychiatrist and a good therapist, you kind of land
on a combination. But to your point, been the therapy
(31:23):
itself and the methods, it really is all about that
interpersonal connection. Like I'm just really grateful and lucky that
I've in the last six months found somebody that I
just absolutely relate to who kind of fills a certain
role of a type of figure in my life. That
maybe I was missing, and it has made the work
that we've been doing together like all the more kind
(31:44):
of relevant and meaningful for me. I can't. I mean,
I've done therapy for years and I haven't made the
kinds of strides that I personally have feel like I've
been making with this person. So, you know, a huge
shout out to anybody out there, Sarah, yourself included, who
chooses to take this career path, because it takes a
lot of kind of mental stamina to be able to
(32:07):
just be kind of invested but also somewhat disconnected in
a way from somebody's problems, Like you want to help them,
you're there for them, but then you also don't want
to take it home with you. I know I personally
would really struggle with that, and I know a lot
of people who would also do that. So it really
is a valuable service and we really do appreciate you.
And with that, let's just make this one a little
(32:27):
bit sure. I think so much of the information was
just in Sarah's awesome email, And to Ben's point, anybody
with any other perspectives on this or other types of
therapy techniques, please do write us at a conspiracy at
iHeartRadio dot com. We're gonna take a quick pause here
we're from our sponsor, and then come back with one
last segment of messages from you.
Speaker 3 (32:51):
And we have returned. Good evening, fellow conspiracy realist. They
called me Ben from earlier. We are going to hear
from a person we'll call Outlier with just a beautiful
story that I think all of us will enjoy. Enjoys
a specific word, and then we'll have a letter from home.
(33:13):
Outlier writes with the following, Gentlemen, I'm a longtime listener,
first time writer, and you can call me outlier if
you read this on air. Haha, spoiler Outlier, we do sometimes.
The Void writes back. Listening to your strange news segment
from December second about the poultry industry, you'll call that
(33:33):
Matt reminded me of something I discovered over the weekend,
pork skyscrapers. Now let's pause here, guys, have you ever
heard of pork skyscraper?
Speaker 4 (33:44):
I saw this email come through and I was riveted.
I know it has to do with mega mega processing
facilities for pork, and I believe Asia, but that's.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
All I know.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
I'm going to go ahead and say that's not a thing.
I don't believe it.
Speaker 4 (34:02):
But of course, of course the mind immediately goes to
is it a skyscraper made of pork carcasses or something.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
That's the visual that I get right, or is it
a British insult you.
Speaker 4 (34:15):
You polk skyscraper, or it could be a compliment for
someone with very well in doubt.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Oh Outlier continues and says it was mentioned in paragraph
fourteen of the article China quest for the Holy Grail
of Meat. Outlier says, the article is about ways China
is trying to produce enough protein for the diets of
its population. While they are apparently exploring meat alternatives, they
are also upping production of traditional sources, but in ways
(34:45):
that are counter to everything developed countries are attempting to
achieve in terms of humane animal treatment. Pork skyscrapers, the
article says, where pigs are housed, fed and slaughtered on
an industry real scale. An outlier, you continue, you say so.
After reading that, I googled and found an article on
(35:05):
the Guardian from Friday, November twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.
An excerpt is the following China's get this Guy's twenty
six story pig skyscraper is ready to slaughter one million
pigs a year. With alleged photos of the site, Outlier,
you say, I shouldn't be surprised that the workers are
also mistreated. The article says the workers at this facility
(35:28):
don't get to leave the building until their next break,
reportedly once a week. Outlier, you point out, I don't
even want to think what it smells like. I love
your show, Thanks for putting it out there. I look
forward to each new episode. My kid calls this the
six finger podcast.
Speaker 4 (35:49):
Thank you, Outlier. I mean, this sounds like the kind
of stuff that Upton Sinclair wrote about in the Jungle,
like back, you know what I mean. I don't know
if the regulations over the just different that allow them
to do this. I don't think we all should necessarily
live under any kind of illusions that any sort of
meat processing is quote unquote perfectly humane. But this just
(36:13):
sounds like the next level escalation of that.
Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah, and this is a true story. It's it's not
one the livestock Jedi will tell you. As they say
in Star Wars or in SDI, this is very much
a real thing. There is not just one but there
are multiple pork producing skyscrapers, pig farms, vertical pig farms.
(36:40):
The one that I believe we're referring to here outlier
is a twenty six story pig farm operating in the
Hubei province of China. I don't know why I said that.
With a Maryland axit moving on for a while. The
proponents of this back in let's say twenty twenty two,
twenty twenty three, they said, look, this is an environmentally
(37:03):
friendlier approach to livestock production. However, as we can tell,
there were a lot of people who said, what about
the risk of zodotic disease? What about the quality of
life for these porcine individuals? Or sign is just the
fancy way of saying pig. This one when it was
(37:24):
made in China, it was the largest of its kind
in the world. It wasn't a million pigs a year outlier.
It turned out to be a one point two million
pigs slaughtered per year, and it was entirely to address
the nation of China's growing demand for pork. Pork is
(37:44):
by far the most popular meat in the entire country,
and let's remember that's also one of the most populous
countries on the planet, and I wouldn't have thought that.
I don't know why, but that's interesting to me for
some of what would you have thought.
Speaker 4 (37:58):
I don't know what I would have thought. I guess
I just wouldn't have pork. I don't know why.
Speaker 3 (38:01):
There's no real reason. Yeah, I mean it'd be weird
of it was something else, if it was like their
favorite meat is parrot.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
I don't know, maybe beef, I guess, But now that
I think about it, I mean pork as they're certainly
it's it's an ingredient I think of being in plenty
of you know, Chinese dishes.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
So yeah, I can see that. We know the government
has to be involved first off, because it's China and
Uncle Ji doesn't like stuff happening without us, say so.
The company behind the farm, which is the Joan Shing
Cali Modern Farming, they were actually new to the livestock
sector and new to poresign raising in particular. They previously
(38:44):
were in the cement industry, and then they shifted when
the cement industry went bad, when it collapsed. I would
argue part of that is because China finally got into
trouble for building those he huge ghost cities to launder money,
remember that for sure.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
But like with this pork skyscraper and I guess facilities
like it, these would have been custom built, right, not
like a repurposed building that was used for other things.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Right, great question, great question. Yeah, these are custom built.
Now to your point, they probably already had the infrastructure
to at least get the concrete, right, they already had
the toys for that. But we have to remember in
twenty eighteen there was a swine fever outbreak in the nation,
and this put a very hungry country into a very
(39:38):
dangerous food security crisis. They want to have a domestic
pork production at a not just a continually stable rate,
but at a continually growing rate. And I'd like to
take a second and make space for you guys and ask.
Speaker 4 (39:57):
Is this a good idea? Is this solving the right problem?
Being a problem related to population, Yeah, to the.
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Problem of food security or the problem of food safety.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Resources as well, just in general, because I mean, is
China also experiencing a decline in population like Japan or
is it not the case over there?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
The specter of the one child policy of old is
coming right. The consequences. The bill is coming due, but
this is not a switch that gets flipped overnight. And
to be totally honest, the more you dig into the
story of these pigs skyscrapers, the more you see that
(40:48):
it's not a perfect solution. Stuff sucks for the pigs.
Just to be clear, pigs are about as intelligent as
what you would say a three or four year old
human being. Yeah, they're smart enough to know when their
life sucks.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah, I'm really sad that it is the protein that's
getting the vertical farm treatment.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
I really thin vegetables right.
Speaker 2 (41:12):
Well, yeah, the grains and the vegetable and some of
those things, because I again we talked about this pretty
recently on the show, but that was the dream maybe
that I bought into ten years ago or something.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
Vertical farming, Yeah, just as.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
A potential answer to these problems, because again, it just
felt like, oh, well, we could build those humans are
pretty great at building skyscrapers. We could make this happen.
But the thought of cramming all of those pigs in
like that and as you said, been giving them a
terrible life. It does solve that problem at least somewhat
of food insecurity especially if you made a dozen of them,
(41:50):
twenty of them.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
We know that there are a handful. But also do
we if we are to assume the perspective of the PRC,
if we were to exercise empathy, then we also have
to ask, quite realistically, in the mission to solve one
or two immediate problems, are we not potentially creating new problems?
Speaker 4 (42:17):
Absolutely, It's like the cobra and the mongoose or whatever problem, right,
And maybe it wasn't the mongoose, you know what I'm
talking about, man, Yeah, but I do wonder why they
went with protein to your point, Matt, and not like grain.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
I mean, rice is.
Speaker 4 (42:31):
Also incredibly popular over there and consumed and also takes
checks off a lot of nutritional boxes. So why the pig?
Why the pork? But yeah, I just wonder why not tofu?
Speaker 3 (42:44):
You know?
Speaker 4 (42:44):
And I'm not even doing this from the perspective of
like an anti meat person. I mean, I eat plenty
of meat, and it's something I certainly want to think
about a little more intentionally. But to have it be
pork and have it be these horrific conditions just seems unnecessary.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Well then, also, like another statement from some people living
in China. Wow, that pig has a better life than me, right, Like,
what about saving the people who are unhoused, et cetera,
et cetera. These are dilemmas to wrestle with.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Well, and it it's kind of messed up, guys. It's
not even really the pork processor company's fault that they
have to make this pork, because the pork's the thing
that's in the demand. The pork's the thing that's going
to make them profit. The pork is the thing that
everybody wants.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
Right.
Speaker 2 (43:33):
If tofu was in demand in the same way that
pork was, then it would be a Tofu skyscraper.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
Sure, right, Right. We also have to remember, and I
appreciate that point, We also have to remember that there
has been an acceleration in the rise of quality of
life in this country. A lot of people have now
these attainable aspirational goals. Right. I want to eat well.
I want my kids to have a better life. Right,
(44:00):
and if that means the fancy meal is the like
better than the you know, the grains I had to eat,
then so be it. You know, forget larger problems here.
I have a problem Thursday. I got to solve for that,
we get it, and we also want to recommend again
you mentioned this outlier. The Guardian articles on this are
(44:24):
pretty great. South China Morning Post also has some good stuff.
Keep in mind they are state run media. I hope
everybody gets a chance to check out some of these
stories because they also go into the vast surveillance applied
to this. Because remember whether or not regardless of the
(44:46):
life forms living in a skyscraper, it's still a skyscraper.
There are a lot of pigs in there, there are
a lot of people, and it is very much a factory.
So the level of monitoring applied to the things. Just
to respond to our friends in China who had apartment envy,
I don't think you want to be surveilled on this level. Hmm. Interesting.
(45:12):
I mean also also there are people worried about whether
or not this will again create a new problem. Could
this be a vector or a a breeding ground for
dangerous pseudotic infections? As Dirk Feiffer, the chair Professor at
(45:33):
City University or One Health at City University of Hong
Kong said, quote, the higher density of animals, the higher
risk of infectious pathogen spread and amplification, as well as
the potential for mutation. What do you guys think, is
that a little too doom and gloom or is there
(45:53):
validity to that concern. I think there's validity.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
I also maybe take this opportunity to to talk about
how when we were discussing with Jenner first, you know,
the idea of other possible alternatives for the COVID nineteen outbreak.
You know, it's not to say that these mutations couldn't
take place in a situation like a wet market or
something like this type of factory farming. I just personally
(46:19):
found some of the arguments that were made in that
documentary to be pretty compelling and interesting. Not to mention
that we recently saw a story about another lab leak
of some really virulent pathogens here in the United States.
So I just wanted to take the opportunity to say, absolutely,
these things can happen, and it can happen as a
result of poor monitoring and regulation of these.
Speaker 3 (46:41):
Types of facilities. And I'd like to, in that spirit,
take the opportunity to think all of you are fellow
conspiracy realists who responded to us as a group or
as individuals with your thoughts on our interview with Jenner
first again in the documentary is thank you Doctor Foul.
Please do check it out. Likewise, I was, I was
(47:06):
fascinated by this. We'd love to hear your thoughts. And
speaking of hearing your thoughts, as we close every listener
mail segment here, we like to have a letter from home.
We talked about it a little bit. I think have
just enough time to share a letter that really, I
don't know inspired all of us, I would say. From
(47:27):
a guy named Wes working with Peta. Wes says, Hi, Ben, Matt,
and Noel. We caught last Thursday's listener mail segment and
wanted to thank you for sharing anonymous owls, many wonderful
tips for helping wildlife, and for pointing listeners to our
web page with state by state resources. We also have
(47:48):
a page with detailed steps for rescuing wild animals in
need that you're welcome to share. We were also delighted
to hear you point out how bizarre it is that
humans kill some animals, including cows, but love and protect others,
whether they're the companions we share our homes with or
the wildlife we encounter outside. Thank you, Wes. That's always
(48:12):
really bugged me and I think bugged all of us
after all, Wes continues, cows feel love, joy, pain, and
fear exactly as cats and dogs do, and i'd add pigs.
This is an example of speciism, the misguided belief that
some species are inherently superior to or more worthy of
consideration than others. And then PETA sends us a helpful
(48:35):
link to learn more about speciism, says thank you again,
and if there's ever any way we can serve as
a resource for you about this or any other animal topic,
please don't hesitate to contact us. Kind regards West Burdett,
the press officer of PETA. I can't believe you wrote
to us, Wes.
Speaker 5 (48:54):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (48:54):
That's the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, right, yes, yes, yeah,
and just yeah. We certainly there's certainly been campaigns spearheaded
by PETA that maybe have perhaps been a little bit inflammatory,
and some people might have issue with some of the
lines that they take on things, or maybe some of
(49:15):
the extreme perspectives. But I think every bit of information
that Wes wrote to us is absolutely accurate and appropriate,
and I thought it was really really thoughtful, and I
really appreciate the resources.
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah, if you want to find those, you can search
PETA and then locating a wildlife rehabilitator or the other
resource that was sent. You could search for PEDA wildlife emergencies,
how to help and when not to interfere.
Speaker 3 (49:43):
Yeah, and thank you for that, Matt, Thank you for that, Wes.
I also wanted to note, yes, obviously we are aware
PETA as an organization. It's been around for a while.
It has encountered its share of controversy over the years,
and this happens with any organization of that size. Yet
(50:04):
I hold firm I will stand on this hill omnivores
dilemma aside. Shout out to the author, Michael Poland. The
idea of speciism is very real and it is impacting
a world that is still wrestling with the dwindling biodiversity
(50:24):
on the planet right now. It is quite possible if
things keep going the way they are, that when you
have grandchildren, if you're human, you will sound like a
crazy guy when you say, oh, there used to be
animals in the wild. You could just be in the
woods and he just run into something and they'll say, ah,
(50:46):
you're crazy man. Next thing you're going to say you
had to use your hands to access the Internet.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Makes me think of Aloy and the robot animals of
the Horizon series.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
Nice. Nice, We're going to call it here, folks. Thank you,
as always so much for tuning in to our listener
mail program. Please tune in as we approach the end
of the new year. We have such wonders to show you.
Big thanks to oz Woman, Big thanks to Sarah, Big
thanks to also all the other therapists who have contacted
(51:19):
us regarding that specific type of therapy. Big big thanks
to Outlier, Big thanks to WESB and in advance, if
we could get by with a little help from our friends.
Big thanks to you, fellow conspiracy realist, for contacting us
right now. But wait, how do you do it? Do
(51:39):
you do you send an email? Do you call on
the phone? Do you do you go online? Well, gosh, Ben,
I'm glad you brought that up.
Speaker 4 (51:45):
There's multiple ways to contact us, including on your social
media platform of choice where we are conspiracy stuff on
x FKA, Twitter, on Facebook where we have our Facebook
group here is where it gets crazy. And on YouTube,
where we have video content galore for YouTube enjoy on
TikTok and Instagram. However, we are Conspiracy Stuff Show.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
We have a phone number. You can call it. Use
your phone, or your computer, or your voice, whatever you got.
Call one eight three three std WYTK as soon as
you call, or even better, write before you call. Put
that number in your phone as a contact just in
case it gives you a ring back when you do
call in. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us
(52:25):
know if we can use your name and message on
the air. If you've got more to say than can
fit in a three minute voicemail, why not instead send
us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (52:34):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. You don't have to have more to say.
You can just say your regular stuff. We will devour
the correspondence. Be well aware, yet I'm afraid sometimes the
void writes back. Give us your suggestions for new episodes
you believe your fellow conspiracy realist will enjoy or you know.
(52:56):
Give us weird puns, give us bad jokes, humorous hair eight.
You've set the bar pretty low. Join us out here
in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (53:23):
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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