August 25, 2021 • 55 mins
What makes people think 'conspiracy' is a bad word? How do we apply critical thinking in what has so often been called a post-truth world? In this episode, the guys hit the road for the first time since the pandemic, traveling to record a panel on critical thought and conspiracy live during Podcast Movement in Nashville, Tennessee.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to this
(00:25):
special show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. But this is a
very special thing that we're incredibly happy to share with you.
(00:49):
As Matt said, uh, this is not your normal show,
you see. We uh we posted up together not too
long ago and attended a thing called Podcast Movement in Nashville, Tennessee,
and we were pretty safe about it, as it said. Yeah, Well,
as we've said on the show before, we have all
(01:11):
been vaccinated, we take COVID tests, things like that. But
this was a window of time where it seemed like
we might be on getting to the other side of
a pandemic. So I don't know if we'll be able
to be live again, but it was great to have
our first, our first live show in more than a year.
It was nice. Yeah, and it couldn't have been a
(01:33):
more apropos topic, I think, given the climate that we
live in right now, in terms of being able to
kind of sift through a lot of the fake news
and a lot of the sensationalized news and kind of
really just figure out where the grain of truth and
all this stuff is. It's honestly been the mission of
the show from the start, and we did a panel
on that very thing. Yeah, so what you're about to
(01:55):
hear is a conversation between the three of us and
an awesome audience moderated by our very own Lauren Vogelbam.
You will you will recognize her voice from all the
things and appearances on this show. Uh, And it really
is about what this show is kind of right, I
mean that's this is almost like, in a lot of ways,
(02:16):
just an episode about stuff they don't want you to
know and why we do what we do and how
we do it. So we hope you find that valuable.
I know I certainly did. Sitting there listening to you
guys as we were talking the time, the time flew
by for us candidly. Uh and we yeah, we wanna
thank the audience, uh, and thank everybody who checked it
(02:37):
out think, of course, our our moderator and long suffering
friend of the show, uh, Lauren Vogel Bob, just like
Doc Admission Control. She has been far too kind putting
up with us for so long. And with that, let's
head into the show, the real one, not this one,
the one that you're in. This show. Yeah, yeah, So
(02:57):
I am your friendly neighborhood and moderator. My name is
Laura vocal Bomb. I'm with I Heart Media. Oh, thank you,
thank you. Um uh. And we have with us today. Yes,
the guys from Stuff they Don't Want You to Know?
This is Ben Bollen and Noel Brown and Matt Frederick. Uh,
you're you and you're here. Thank you so much for
being here. Um uh. This this panel is called the
Conspiracy Panel Critical Thinking in a Post truth World. Um.
(03:20):
And if you guys aren't familiar with the show, it
is a conspiracy is show. Um. Stuff they Don't Want
You To Know actually started in UM as an iTunes
video podcast and I haven't thought about that phrase in
a very long time. Um. It was also yeah yeah,
it was also a YouTube channel, UM and then yes
(03:40):
has grown into one of the most popular podcasts in
the world about uh everything strange um conspiracy to allegations
of the paranormal government cover ups, true crime. They cover
all of this stuff. You've probably heard it, but they're
here today to talk about what they call conspiracy realism,
being the idea that, through um, the lens of critical thinking.
(04:03):
Huh um uh, we can successfully separate facts from fiction
in this our strange world of misinformation and bizarre claims
and just cheer outright falsehoods. Um, yeah, you nailed it. Yeah, well,
I'm reading off the notes that you gave me. Thanks
(04:28):
so so so that so that post truth thing and
the title of this panel, What what do y'all mean
when you describe today's society as a post truth world? Yeah? So,
the fancy way to say it, the definition of this
that has a tie on and goes out to nice
restaurants is something like secuitous. Their secuitous sort of recursive
(04:49):
slipping of objective truth into selective criticism or problems of
that truth. You'll hear people often say one must question everything.
The best media question to that is why. And then
we also find ourselves in situations where people tend to
selectively question things that do not agree with their pre
(05:12):
existing narrative. This is hardwired into human beings. It happens,
I would argue, in almost every aspect of human civilization,
not just like you know, you always hear about it
with politics or maybe with religion, but it happens in
sports games. You've seen You've seen a sports fan have
a problem with the ref's call. Not not because it
was objective. It's not about objective truth. It's about their
(05:34):
perception of like, you know, some sort of witchcraft scenario
that maybe caused the events to happen because the ref
did a hex of some kind. Is that about right?
Or you're like, I hate the Patriots, therefore that was
about Yeah. There's this dude named Jake Hanrahan who we
really like a lot and has a podcast called Q
Clearance Um about Q and on, and we had him
(05:56):
on the podcasts UH earlier this year, and he is
the first person I think I heard use post truth
and like kind of a sentence and it really hit me.
And then now it's like you kind of hear it
all over the place. But it's just this idea that
because of the way the news is reported and information
is disseminated, it's all about the receiver of the information
(06:17):
as to whether something is or is not true. And
that's sort of a problem, you know, if we objectively
can't separate truth from fiction. And it depends on like
your opinion what I used to mean a thing, an opinion, narrative,
your narrative. But that can create some real sticky situations. Well,
I wonder how many people are here but like actually
have a problem deciphering what they feel is true when
(06:41):
you're reading the news or on your social media fees,
like you like, it's a problem. It is. It's a
problem for us. We're we get paid to do this
and and it is. It's not great, y'all. It makes
you feel a little bad about society overall, and like
where we're heading, how we got here. But you know,
(07:02):
that's that's what this show was all about in an
attempt to do that, right, Yeah, And I would I
would just dovetail on what we're saying here by by
noting what's happening now is that we are in the
midst of one of the greatest technological revolutions in history,
full stop, no caveats. And what that means is that
every day we are inundated with some sort of push
(07:26):
toward our opinion. If you want to play a very
depressing game. When you wake up tomorrow, try to count
how many logos or advertisements you see between when you
wake up and when you go to sleep. You'll lose
count around two d and fifty and it'll still be
pretty early in the day. It'll be in this building Matt's.
Matt was up late last night doing this, and so
(07:48):
we um. What we want to do is we want
to find ways too. We want to find ways to
empower ourselves with knowledge and at least be aware of
what's happening. There is literally too much information coming from
too many sources for a human brain to even a
human brain that didn't sleep that that's twenty four hours
a day to just digest this. It's still too much information.
(08:12):
And when that happens, our brains, which are have evolved
to recognize patterns, tend to prioritize the things that fit
the pattern we have already discovered or invented in our
minds makes us feel really good about ourselves. And you know, yeah,
but but what is it specifically about conspiracies that is
(08:33):
so appealing to human people? Like, what is it that
hooks us. They're rarely comforting in some ways. I mean,
the idea that there's some unseen force like pulling the
strings you know, that you have no control over. It
makes you, even though it's about not having control, it
makes you feel like at least is a little bit
of rhyme or reason as to why the world so
up um better than chaos? Right exactly. Yeah, it's something
(08:56):
right that we can grab onto, Like you said, I mean,
I think that's literally what it is to to my mind,
it's the comfort when you don't know something but you
know for sure A and you know for sure F.
You know those things are objective facts, but you're trying
to figure out why the heck B through D or
(09:17):
something or E, and you just don't understand, but you
make up a conspiracy theory that kind of fits your
your your worldview to connect those things together. Often it
doesn't mean it's always false. Sometimes people get it right
when they make a conspiracy theory, which is kind of
scary at the same time because they like happen upon
it accidentally discovered something. Um. But but just going back
(09:40):
to Ben Ben has a saying that we always hear
of what is this saying about conspiracy theories. Uh, is
it that speculation thrives in the absence of transparency. That's it,
that's the one. But but it's also this idea, like
the phrase conspiracy theory is what we often referred to
as like a thought terminating cliche. It's a thing, it's
(10:01):
a label you can slap on something that delegitimizes it
instantly by calling it a conspiracy theory when in fact
it's it could well just be an actual conspiracy. And
those exist. I mean, there's no question about it. They
exist all over the place. Yeah, that's I I absolutely agree.
Like we see, um, we see this shortcut. So language
(10:22):
itself is a technology. It's a profoundly powerful technology because
it is invented by humans, right like other forms of technology.
And what we often forget when we're hearing again, in
this age of ubiquitous information, we're hearing things condensed down,
concentrated down to three to five minutes right on your
(10:43):
local afternoon news if you're someone who hasn't yet cut
the cable cord. And the reality is those three to
five minutes are very much and very much a cliff notes, right,
and they leave out our readers digest. If I'm not
dating myself here, read is digest version of a novel.
Both of those they do, Yeah, yeah, they do. But
(11:05):
the point is that when we hear, when we hear
this language, the next time you the next time you
hear the news, whether it's something you know is very slanted,
whether it's a very opinionated YouTube piece, whether it's something
that UH prizes itself on being objective. UH. Note how
many times the things that Noel mentioned thought terminating cliches
(11:26):
are used. They're not. But you're not gonna hear a
phrase like UH truthers explained because it's taken that you
will know what that term means and that it refers
to people who do not believe in the official conclusions
of the attack in New York City on September nine,
two September eleven, two thousand and one. We're working life,
(11:51):
so so with that, like the language, the power here
is that it can push people toward UH, push push
people toward a confirmation bias. It can push people toward
without consciously knowing it, agreeing with something, whether or not
it's objectively true. It's like I remember when a friend
of mine told me what Twitter was, and I was like,
(12:13):
that's never gonna be a thing. That's absurd. That's not
enough words to express an idea. And it's true, it's
not enough words to properly explain or express an idea.
But it's what you said, Ben, it's condensed ideas. And
therefore that's why everything's about headlines. That's why everything is
about click bay. People so often get their news from
the headlines. This is all obvious, but like get their
(12:34):
news from the headlines rather than actually reading the piece itself,
let alone doing their own homework and looking at multiple sources.
You know, Twitter turns out as totally a thing. Oh yeah,
spoiler alert. Um uh is this is this question of language. Um,
why y'all call yourselves conspiracy realists instead of conspiracy theorists.
(12:56):
We just got honestly, we we just got tired of
being lumped in with like Alex Jones and David Ike
and you know, the the great the greatest hits of
non objective explorations of ideas, right, so we um going
back to what Matt said, you know, the truth of
the matter is that you can look at the idea
of something as a conspiracy in three rough categories completely
(13:21):
made up right flat earth. There's pretty solid evidence that
that's bunk. Birds aren't real, Birds aren't real, taken off
on the internet, hopefully no one actually buys into it,
and they're terrifying or or terrifying partially true stuff like
the um the atrocities of the Tuskegee experiments where in
the US government told people that they were going told
(13:43):
disadvantaged people that they were going to treat them for
syphilis and then just didn't and that is that is horrific,
and that is true. That happened, and with the game
of telephone, that is history over the decades, that became
like the base cyst the grain of truth for a
larger pearl of conspiracy. And then unfortunately, there are, like
(14:06):
Matt said, there are conspiracies that do turn out to
be true. But we can assure you in the vast
majority of cases, those things that we would call real
conspiracies rather than theories, are usually involving a group of
people who have a lot, who have a lot of power,
but they want more and they're super down to do
anything illegal to get it. That's where you see things
(14:28):
like banking cartels like uh HSBC did launder drug money,
four cartels. Uh. And when you use the phrase going
back to what you said, No, when you use the
phrase conspiracy theory to describe that, you're associating it with
things in the in the audience's mind, you're associating with
things like, um, Queen Elizabeth is somehow part alien lizard
(14:52):
and for some reason is super into not talking about that.
I don't like it. Seems like that that would be
the most interesting thing about it, right, I want to
jump back to the drug trafficking thing. I'm sorry to
keep pulling, y'all. I'm just gonna pull the audience the
whole night. So, uh, the most important part of the show. So,
(15:15):
I wonder how many people here think the Central Intelligence
Agency or another intelligence agency within the United States had
anything to do with the crack epidemic within the United States,
or if they were actually trafficking drugs or bringing them
into you. Yeah, I'll do it. We'll see. Now. Well,
here's here's the thing. Like I I raise my hand
(15:35):
here for a lot of reasons, because it's this weird
conspiracy theory territory where you can prove things that the
government was involved with, like the Nicaraguan contrast, you can
prove that, uh as a fact and object an objective fact,
just part of the larger Yes, and that's real and
we we did that, or we the government did that,
(15:58):
but it wasn't me. Jeez, I knew it. Um. But
then but then you can get into something like, um,
is it Freeway Rick Ross, you know, who's alleging that
he was working directly with intelligence agencies and they taught
him how to to sell in, how to make money,
and how to launder that money. But you know, then
you're you're kind of taking one person's um, one person,
(16:21):
what one person says as fact because you can't verify
that from the intelligence you know, people that he may
or may not have been working with, and they're never
going to talk. I mean well, I mean sometimes they
retire and they do talk a little bit. Well, but
then then there's journalists who have died weird mysterious deaths
who are looking into stuff that has to do with this.
So it just becomes weird territory where if we if
(16:42):
we all as a society decide the term conspiracy theory
is bad and we can't talk about it, we're gonna
be in in I think we're gonna be We're gonna
have a big problem because things will happen in the
future where we're not allowed to talk about it. But
there's alternate theories that may be real. There's this, there's
this other part with that too. There are there are
(17:02):
basic facts. Again, this is why it's important to do
the boring stuff and to look at the primary resources
and you like, look into look into the court transcripts. Yes,
like ten pages if it will be like why am
I here? I should check Instagram? What am I doing?
But but when you get into this, you'll you'll see
(17:23):
these naked statements of fact and uh. There are also
basic points of fact that do not get um do
not get the coverage they should. And some of these
conversations about narrative the last three to five minutes, and
one of those, to your point, Matt about the crack
cocaine epidemic, is there is not a single coca field
(17:45):
in the US. It's not grown here, and it has
a really it's in a in The crack epidemic occurs
in a place that has a very tight border with
a history of corruption on the part of the people
guarding that border, right from from the UH from the
importation of drugs. So that's one of my first questions.
(18:08):
We'll have people who want to, um, I want to say, oh,
this is hyperbolic, or oh the c I A Has
a spotless record. I'm sorry, I'll do that again with
a straight face. But the the idea here is that, yeah,
the idea here is that the danger first of treating
these kind of things in a dismissive way is that
(18:30):
we're missing important facts, and then by dismissing those facts,
we're also setting ourselves up to be increasingly incorrect in
the future, because we're building on a cracked foundation. If
(18:52):
you put yourself in the headspace where you're believing, well,
it's not even believing if you are aware of the
stuff that's kind of hidden from us in the history
books on purpose, because it's just not really tidy stuff
that maybe, you know, we all want to learn as kids,
and we want our kids to learn about because I mean,
there's there's a lot to be ashamed about, and especially
(19:12):
history of this country. Gosh, I don't even like saying that,
but it's true, and gosh, I'm just um, I don't
even I don't even wanna finish this thought because I
don't like where my mind was going. But really it's like,
um m hmm, I'm gonna need somebody else to pick it,
pick this up, because it really, it really does bother
(19:34):
me that uh, I'm sorry, it really does bother me
that I learned about this stuff because I decided with
Ben to make a show a long time ago that
we just wanted to explore it. And it's the only
reason why I know it and the only reason why
I have time to do this is because it's my job.
It's hard to walk walk it back, you know. Well, yeah,
(19:56):
and there's a danger that if you start to know it,
then your mind and maybe more inclined to go a
little bit further and then start believing things that are
not provable in any way, and you're very likely not true,
and you've got to be so careful with that when
you're even thinking about these things. That's what this whole
conversation is just largely about. I mean, we're at a
(20:17):
place right now where that stuff is like weaponized and
like super super dangerous with things like you and on
and things like you know. The technology that you're talking about,
the Internet is language and is you know, increasing in
terms of speed and efficiency and the ability to spread
dumb ideas very very quickly. And then we had this
crazy pandemic thing where all of a sudden, a bunch
of board you know, housewives and people that were out
(20:39):
of work. I guess we're like clicking around and like, oh,
this Q and on stuff is is for me because
it like kind of does that confirmation bias thing where
it's a grain of something they already believe, whether it
was a racist attitude or whatever, pick your poison. I mean,
the whole thing is so bonkers and there's so much
wrapped up in it. It was all about that the
ability to appeal to the basest instincts of certain people
(21:03):
and then they just disappeared and became different people. Well
that's that's something else too, Like Lauren, thank you for
your patients, because I know you asked us a question
and then we're like, I guys, you know, so twenty
minutes later, but but real quick, uh, because I was
dunking on the media earlier. I want to bring up
something really important. How many people heard about what happened
(21:25):
in Tulsa before they saw the HBO series Watchman? How many? Great?
And thank you for Thank you to everybody who who
admits that was new information, because again we're seeing this
idea that the past can be malleable, that it can
become a conversation, that can be you, like the cliches,
(21:47):
history is written by the winners. Unfortunately, a lot of
cliches become cliches because they are at some point true.
And that's what we are. That's what we endeavor to
do with this show. We want to I want to
first examine the sources of something to see whether there's
a grain of truth, and if there is not, or
if there is, to see how that evolved. Because conspiracies
(22:11):
are modern folklore, that's really what they are. It's the
same kind of you hear the same iterations of stories
from the past. The first usage of the word conspiracy
dates back to around the early eighteen hundreds, uh in
in Europe, if not before, not slightly before. But it
(22:33):
really hit the American zeitgeist in the wake of the
assassination of President Kennedy and then this became this, this
term became weaponized and I'm not gonna ascribe motive to
the organizations that did weaponize it. Sorry, no, I'm just
but but but we we do think. We do think
(22:56):
it's important, especially now, because if you meet someone and
you feel like, and I know, we'll talk about this
in a second. But if you meet someone a loved one,
a relative on purpose and you think that, um, and
you think they're just too far gone to talk about
right there, talk too, and you're like, look, there is
there is a Wikipedia page on microchips. There is a
(23:17):
Wikipedia page on vaccines. Read the first paragraph of both.
You know you don't have to do that much and
they still won't listen to you. Then we have to
figure out how to how to speak with these people
and in a way that doesn't feel alienating, you know,
in a way that can help. Socratic method, I guess
(23:39):
is part of it. I'm getting ahead of us. But no, no,
this is really good. Um yeah, sorry, okay, I can
just leave, that's fine. Please don't please, don't leave. Um.
One of the hardest things to do right now that
you've probably experienced is either having an eternal, you know,
conversation with yourself a monologue, or talking to a loved
(23:59):
one that is either super skeptical of everything that you
may believe or extremely believing in something that you just
don't find to be true at all. And and it's
the bubbles that we find ourselves in. We're so we
have so many people in our social media feeds in
other places that are confirming exactly what we believe in
(24:19):
what we think, that it's really tough to break out
of that. For me, it's tough to break out of that.
That's why I don't have any social media anymore actually,
uh so that I could just talk with these guys
and and everybody else just to have actual conversation rather
than somebody telling me that I'm right or stupid for
what I think. And that's the point. People's motivations are.
They're well intentioned, you know what I mean. Nobody's like
(24:43):
very few people are waking up and thinking, you know
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna I'm gonna ruin somebody's
day on Facebook, I'm gonna I'm gonna find so I'm
just gonna that's who I am. I don't believe that
people that wake up and I say, the majority of
people like even if they seem really far gone or
they're well intentioned, you know, and there and from their
perspective when they're speaking with someone that they're trying to
(25:04):
persuade to follow a certain belief set or piece of folklore,
modern mythology. They see themselves as Promethean, they see themselves
as illuminators, and you know they're bringing understanding anyway. Well,
but so there's two things here, and one is one
is you know, like most of us are getting our
initial news a lot from either social media or from
(25:26):
word of mouth. UM, and so how do we ourselves,
um sort out the misinformation that we're constantly given a
stream of. And then also how do you talk to
the people who are spreading that information, Like how how
do you have a conversation with them? We have a
pretty good case study for this that we were just
talking about today. UM. In Atlanta, where we're from, there's
(25:50):
been a lot of to do made online about there
being a serial killer. Yeah, like I got I got
this text from a friend and she was like, hey,
don't go walking alone and there's a serial killer. And
I was like, this is the first I have heard
of this uh viral Instagram post that probably many people
in the audience have seen. UM because it's sexy. It's
(26:11):
the thing that people want. I mean, I mean in
terms of like it is the Koreans nature of it,
it's a lot cooler to share and be the one
the lightbringer that says, hey, there's a psychopath out there
mutilating corpses in the park. You know, watch out. As
opposed to there's been one admittedly violent crime, there's two.
(26:32):
I mean there there there were three, but like they're
not even necessarily connected. My point is the one that
people have been really focusing on was a stabbing, and
there was another one there was a shoot. You'll never
know the truth, well anything, it's too late. It's sorry,
it's true. Like there there are there are real human
beings at stake, real human lives, irreplaceable. And people were
(26:55):
again with the best of intentions, posting something that they
thought would help other people, would help their loved ones.
But we see what we see what happened to be
um to be specific, there was there was the horrific
murder of a thirty nine year old named Katie Uh
Janice Jenness, and then in uh in another area in
(27:17):
the Atlanta metro there was the homicide the murder of
a nineteen year old named Tory Lang. This the the
FBI defines a serial killer, which is a relatively rare phenomenon.
In the real world, they define a serial killer as
at least three murders, typically with a dormant period in between.
(27:39):
So if you're making the social media post and you
want to make the claim that there is an there
is a serial murderer on the loose, you need number three.
And if you look at that social media post, that's
where no, that's where it breaks down number. There are
a lot of details about numbers one and two because unfortunately, tragically,
those people did both die. No. Three is a third
(28:01):
murder in Norcross. Norcross is the most specific part of
that statement. Norcross is a place with a population of
thousands and thousands, and there's no detail about that third
person because they're trying to create We went past recognizing patterns,
which is the reason humans evolve to this level, and
went to creating them, whether consciously or not. And that's
(28:25):
a danger and it's also massively, massively offensive to the
family and not not only that, And what I was
getting on before was one of the big viral posts.
Outside of a few tweets that said serial killer on
the loose, watch out, there was literally a screenshot of
somebody anonymous source and some very very very grizzly details
(28:46):
about things that were done in the first crime, in
the stabbing, things that have been reported absolutely nowhere. Um.
I think man. We saw an article on our local
TV station where a quote unquote crime scene expert employed
by television station said something the effect of posed these
questions what if there was necrophilia? But I'm saying it
(29:08):
was just a series of these And so all of
a sudden, now someone is posting things about these very
specific details that are not in the record anywhere. Now
it's certainly possible this might be an insider who has
some kind of scoop that we don't and blowing the
whistle or something, but it's not verified at all. And
the only information that's come officially from the chief of
(29:28):
police of the a p D is it was a
gruesome scene. That's all we know. That's all we've heard. Yes, Um,
And it's crazy to think if if you get most
of your news, whether it's good or not, from a
social media feed or just from hearing from others, you're
gonna believe that it's fully true if you just watch
your local news channel, like, uh, you know, my parents
(29:51):
and and a lot of people do they just watch
a local news channel, they read a newspaper, You're very
likely to believe that it's completely not true. If you
were just a rational thinker, you understand that the FBI
and any police department does not share any pertinent details
for an ongoing investigation. So nobody, no journalist unless they've
got an exact inside track with somebody who's you know,
(30:13):
a CSI person, like all the people that are on
the other side of this convention center by the way,
fascinating stuff. Yeah it's a different it's a different convention,
but it's true. But but then probably have podcasts to them.
But what I'm thinking is we we won't know those
details for a long time unless you know, somebody gets caught,
unless there's a trial, less you know, time goes on
for a little while. So we kind of exist in
(30:34):
this weird space of not being able to know the
full story at all times, want to so badly that
we're willing to share the thing that Again, I used
the terms sex here there and it was probably inappropriate,
but I just mean in terms of like grabby, this
is the thing that makes me feel the most smart,
the most empowered, the one that has the inside scoop
that nobody else has. But everyone feels that way. It's
(30:55):
the easiest thing in the world to see something really
terrible and terrifying. You want to be the one that
hips everyone to that thing. You know. Yeah, I would
say there's social pressure too with social media, you know
what I mean, Like, there's there's um the lowest form
of this probably is on Facebook, where it's like innocuous live, laugh,
(31:17):
lovesh statement if you agree share, I bet ten people won't.
And then, you know, for a long time people were like, well, I,
by god, I'm gonna be number eight. I think people
should live, I think they should laugh, and you know what,
I think they should love. And then this evolved into
this into this pressure thing. There are people in the
(31:38):
case of this, uh, this this rumor that still, as
Matt said, has a lot of questions to be answered
in Atlanta that is going on right now. In the
case of that rumor, it is not unfair to assume
there were people who said, I may not have all
the facts, but I have people in my life that
I want to protect. Therefore, I am a good person
(32:03):
if I share this, and I am a callous person
if I do not. And that pressure doesn't always have
to be conscious, but it is ever present. And maybe
if you think, you know, you think that if you
share the one with the grizzliest details, whether or not
they're true, it'll freak people out enough to make them
do something and to actually act as opposed to another homicide.
(32:24):
There's lots of homicides in Atlanta every every day everywhere. Um,
but when you start seeing things like that, it starts
the other. But then you hear the FBI is involved,
which is true, and so why you know, let's go there, like,
I mean, you don't bring the FBI in. It is
a violent crime, but I mean, so it is a shooting,
you know, I just don't it's a little fishy. I
think that the FBI is involved, but yeah, we we
(32:45):
just don't have all the facts. So I mean, it'll
we will find out eventually. But I just think that
it's an interesting case study for exactly what we're talking about.
I think so too. And looking, I don't want to
go all the way down this route on this stage
right now, but what if that kind that same kind
of thing we're an anonymous sore is telling you that
the government is fully corrupt and and what we have
(33:05):
to do is fight back against this government right now.
And the only way to do this is we gotta
rise up, we gotta start organizing and talking to each other.
And you know, if but if it's coming from a
place of just a an anonymous source that for some
reason everybody inside this one particular bubble believes it. One
blonde dude kind of did a thing that I don't
know what you're talking about, but I just know that
(33:26):
it's I. It is potentially very dangerous because we want
everybody wants, like Ben said, to be the good person,
to share the important stuff, to help other people, and
to do the right thing that is the right thing
for them. There's anarchists though, and just want to like
so chaos and disinformation, and that's part of the equation too.
We can't forget about that dehumanizing like Dunbar's numbers, you know,
(33:49):
still not the best science, but there is a dehumanization
that occurs. You know, you're talking to an avatar or
your your I don't know. It's just very easy to
bring people in because there's this arms link distance one feels.
You know, if you look, if you talk in person
(34:09):
to people, whould consider themselves online um, proponents of the
Q and on ideas, and talk to them in person.
They're gonna be like, hey, here's a funny meme, you
know what I mean. They're not gonna be like, let's
go burn down Nashville because that's the seat of the
deep state. I think, I don't know. I haven't been
(34:30):
throughout the whole resort yet, so maybe, but um, but yes,
So we think we think this is important, and we
think it's also important to be approachable and to be
transparent and clear about this. There's nothing there's nothing wrong
with admitting when you do not know an answer. In fact,
I would say it is our responsibility and often neglected
(34:50):
responsibility to say that when it is true, especially when
we're talking about important things. So takeaways, real quick takeaways
are watch out when somebody is phrasing things as leading
questions that happens on ghost shows or ancient aliens all
the time. You know where they're they're keeping the question
and the answer, and they're like, well, like, they can't
(35:12):
say this pyramid was built by an alien because it's untrue.
But what they can do is be like, well, you
know what if pyramid was built by an alien cut
to commercial or is that like when they answer the
question they wished you had asked them. Oh, yeah, we're
talking about that you actually asked. That's in politics. And
then another one is watch how for anonymous sources. Uh,
(35:32):
They're they're quite successful. Anonymous source is like one of
the most prolifically quoted, uh sources in all of Media's
unfortunately because it works both ways, because a lot of
times you have the need for anonymous sources because people
in government, if they don't stay anonymous, they'll get like,
you know, totally ruined. So it's hard, right, That's the
(35:54):
That's another hard part about like do you trust anonymous sources.
I feel like if people are just constantly using anonymous
source is than maybe it's a little suspect sources journalists.
But also there's probably there's seven There are more than
seven point eight billion people in the world. It is
not impossible that there is like one guy whose government
name is anonymous sources and his life must be such
(36:17):
a hassle. An anonymous source told me we might take
some questions. Do you guys want to do that? Actually? Hey,
so I can keep not asking you guys questions, um,
and letting you talk forever, or we can open up
the floor and see if y'all want to let them
(36:38):
talk for does does anyone does anyone out here have Okay,
I'll bring the microphone to you, guys. Everybody can hear
every So that's John. That's give it up, guys, and
your most discinct manic could really quickly paraphrase what they say.
Because we're broadcasting. This sure not the long question, long question,
so I'm not sure it's going to go. I had
two questions, but I'll keep it to one. UM. I
(36:59):
actually really wanted to hear your guys feedback on the
movie Utopia. I don't know if you have seen it
or not. The movie Utopia, Utopia, Utopia. I love it.
The prefer the British version very much. So the question,
since we're live, I got your shown. So the question
is what do you guys think about the series Utopia,
(37:22):
which is a yeah, a dear near future sci fi series.
UM spoiler alert, here be spoilers regarding a vaccination program
that will lead to a radical, malenthusiant approach to population control. Right,
So that's phrasing the question. I dug it, I dug
(37:43):
it honestly, I don't. I mean just organizationally, the human
species has a tough time with like twelve people deciding
a verdict or six people ordering pizza. So that level
of cooperation on a global scale is a tall milk
shake for what's going right now. Some of the issues
people have with me man data to get a vaccine
(38:04):
or do anything, or share medical history and all of
that stuff. So it's interesting in that respect for sure.
What is going on over there? Somebody's singing, Oh we
sing over here too. Sorry, that's mass opinion on utopia, folks. Yeah,
(38:25):
you know, Utopia freaked me the heck out, and it
was the British versions too, because I'd known about that
for a while and was aware of everything as it
started happening in real life. The only thing that makes
me happy is that there are so many different companies
vuying to make a vaccine that I don't think all
of them would be working together to uh, you know,
sterilize me personally. It's nothing about conspiracy theories, right with Like,
(38:47):
when it's it gets so complex like that, what are
the chances that you're going to have that level of
cooperation among competing entities? Kind of you know what, but
you never know. Well, I'm just saying, like, what if everybody,
what if we all had a pizza party and we
all had to fit thro out what? I think that's
a great idea. I think we do that next year.
But yes, how about read if we redefines the same thing?
(39:10):
Thank you? Alright, they're in answer as well. So you
guys mentioned earlier about you know, questioning media, and obviously
that's something that's going on in our world right now,
and everyone's got their different barometer knowing that you know,
every organization has funding behind it, right, no one is
absolutely pure. Where do you draw your own line in
what you absolutely believe to be true versus or you
(39:33):
have to take with a grain of salt? So the
question is where do we draw the line between what
sources I would sources we take to be true versus
sources with a grain of salt. Um, I think all
three of us are adding salt to every source, honestly,
because there there's always some kind of agenda, even if
(39:54):
that agenda is phrased as uh we are. Agenda is
to be as objective as possible, like you'll see, like, um,
I'll say it, when is the Washington Post gonna say
something bad about Jeff Bezos now that he owns it.
You know, it's an interesting question. It's I mean, and
you know, the company that we make podcasts for is
a giant company. But we can honestly say we are
(40:16):
never told what to talk about or not talk about,
or or given parameters around what we should do ever
our bosses in the crowd, and and we're also allowed
to you know, read ads for any company that comes
our way, and we don't have to say no ever.
It's it's kind of just how we do our thing.
And people criticize us for that, but we don't have
(40:38):
to say yes. We don't have to say yes. We
don't have to say no, we can we get to
decide and we just say yes because we're we think
it's hilarious that we're a conspiracy show and McDonald's is like,
here's some money, and we're like, okay, we're going to
do an episode on you. But okay, but yeah, yeah,
you have to think that way. Um. But no, but really,
every every source, um, it's tough. It's really really tough. Uh.
(41:00):
The The only good thing is that there are still
journalists in this world that have integrity that work for
companies that seem to have integrity, and you know, you
can only assume that they do because there's an editorial
process and there are people who will get in major
trouble if that process isn't followed. And it's like, even
if NPR isn't even beyond reproach, they had some weird
(41:21):
political nastiness that was going on behind the scenes there.
So it's a it's a level system or Um, what
what do you say? We use a barometer for as
I mean, it really is for every single thing in
any given moment, and it's I think we're failing the
definition of succinct. But real, real, real quick. Just always
reconflicting sources. Find one that argues for, find one that
(41:42):
argues against. Triangulate that's your best bet. So I know,
it's really easy to be cynical right now in terms
of like the course of the next five to ten
to fifteen years. Um, do you guys feel, Because the
point that I would make is is, I I find
I'm almost I'm almost thirty, and I find kids that
are in high school and growing up are like already
(42:03):
being grown with with phones in their hand and maybe
hopefully they're getting a better understanding of like what's bull
from the web versus what is and so do you
guys find over the course from a generational point of
view over the next ten years, like are we just
or do you think that there's going to be a
point at which we go like, oh, like we've been
in this for so long now that we we kind
(42:23):
of have at least a better barometer of what's what's
good and what isn't. So, so, the question is, are
people who are growing up native to a digital environment? Uh?
Are they? Uh? So? The so uh? The answer is
the magic a ball answer is it's it's unclear. It's
tough to tell their parents are a part of it
(42:45):
because there's a discrepancy between the parents. Um, like you
grew up when the inter the handheld internet was already
kind of a thing. And then also, uh, legislation lags
so far behind innovation, and it's a delay. And that's
what That's what I would say. It does feel cliche
to say it's on the parents, but it's on the
It is on the community. As as a parent of
(43:07):
a twelve year old, you know who is absolutely glued
to her her device, Mainly, I think it's cool that
the stuff that she learns and the stuff that she
gathers from the Internet, she is the curator of her
own experience. I do not feel like she's being sold
a bill of goods with the stuff that she's experience
that she's interacting with on the Internet. That that's just
my part. I mean, I think there's too much information
(43:28):
out there, and it can make things confusing, It can
make things feel overwhelming at times. The sheer volume of
that accessed information that kids have these days, I think
can be anxiety inducing. But I think they're smart and
if their parents are honest and open you know, about it,
then I think they can navigate it um and it's
easier for them to discern truth from fiction most of
(43:50):
the time. In my opinion my experiences, I unfortunately am
on that pessimism path. Uh, it's gonna get worse until
the singularity and and you know then, well see what
happens at that point and is being funny here? Not really? Nope? Hello,
So talking about you know, conflicting information, seeing things from
so many different angles, do you ever just feel so
(44:14):
frustrated by it and want to throw in the towel
and say I'm never going to know the truth because
I find myself in that a lot. And so I'm
wondering what you guys think. I'm gonna be candid. The
question is do you ever get so yeah, we're Do
you ever get so frustrated with trying to get through
the noise right and find like some sources purposely obstuc
(44:38):
you hate themselves and sound as though they're legit journalism,
but it turns out no, no, they're not. Um I
will I will say honestly, there are times when I
go to these guys or whomever is unfortunate enough to
be in the room with me and say this, this
is this is a Gordon knot and I'm not sure
(44:59):
like we can it cut it in half? We have to.
In that case, what I do is I try to
specify or constrain, like what I can find, what I
can quantify, and what I can verify or disprove. Uh.
That's that's my approach. And it doesn't solve the whole
It doesn't solve the whole horizon there, but you do
(45:19):
what you can. I haven't thrown in the towel yet,
but what day is it? I don't. Well, I think
we're okay. I know. Yeah, A little bit of positivity
goes a long way, and specificity, as Ben said, is
the way to go. If you're ever feeling super overwhelmed,
do you have a particular issue or case where you
(45:41):
feel that way about where you really are? Like, I
don't know, Um, there there are So the question is
follow up, do we ever run into something where we genuinely,
genuinely encounter that head against the wall moments? Why did
I get involved in the show? I could have been
(46:01):
a lawyer kind of things like like the the answer
I can't speak for everybody, but I know some of
the answers for us are gonna be things that are bigger,
uh sometimes bigger, more abstract questions like uh, you know
is the universal simulation that is? That's super fun to
talk about at three in the morning, but like how
(46:23):
do you how do you prove it? And then how
and then what do you do with that knowledge? Um?
There are other things that are um. Sadly, there are
a lot of things that are lost to history, and
with that because there are brilliant people working around the
clock to find more primary sources to dig into stories
(46:43):
that sometimes uh, people don't want told. Then we we
have to be ready for new information. We always have
to be ready to change our minds. Uh So, I
would say universe is a simulation that's a trippy one.
I would say there are some scary future based things
that we just we don't want to be alarmist about,
(47:03):
but we can't really guess at you know, um and
those those are tough because they become thought experiments and
just have to try to make sure you're doing your
best and you're being transparent when you know that that
is itself an experimental endeavor to guess what the world
will be like two hund and fifty years from now,
you know, can't can't tell your mind. It's the whole
(47:25):
U a p UFO thing because there's so much purposeful
disinformation that's been released over all these decades since the
nineteen forties by the government to cover up the you know,
the experiments that they're doing on on craft and the
secret stuff that they have to have a technological advantage
over other countries. And it's really hard to know what
(47:46):
is that, like, what part of it is just that
still happening now in and how much of it is
actually something that we cannot confirm, And why is the
Navy telling me that it's real? And how much money
do we pay the government to just throw up its
hands and say like, well, I don't know how it's
billions of dollars that went missing in a rock. Oh sorry,
(48:07):
that's a whole other thing. Well, unfortunately, guys, that's our time. Um,
thank you all for being here, Thank you all for
being here so much. Thank you so much, everybody. Thanks Lauren,
Thanks Lauren bo bo okay. And now we're out of
the live the live show, the panel. We hope that
you enjoyed it. We're still in We're in the other
(48:28):
part of the show. This is the other like mutrol
of this show. This is the outro, right, we're on
the outro of this guy's the time flew by again. Wow, man,
my dog is trying to get my attention. That's how
you can tell this is the real world. But yeah,
I give now that you've heard all of that. There
there were so many great questions there at the end.
(48:50):
We wonder what you think about those questions that were asked.
I cannot recall them all in this moment, as we
are fully meta at this point. But you know, we'd
love to hear your thoughts on anything we discussed or
especially those questions at the end. Yeah, there is one note.
There's a part there where we talk about the fact
(49:10):
that there are no coca fields in the mainland United
States in the in the Continental forty eight. There is
one company that's legally allowed to manufacture and sell pharmaceutical
grade cocaine. They're located in New Jersey, and that was
the fact that stuck with me that I felt like
we should have pointed out on the ship. And they
(49:31):
are pharmaceutical related very much. So. Yeah, because there's always
an exception if you if you uh have access to
the right pockets to grease. I mention grease and pockets.
What do the problems think just tossing onion rings in
those pockets? That's what I do. Well, you say, I
(49:52):
got to save it for later, and you know, I
mean it pocket snacks those I you know what, I
have no judgment when I love it when I see
and when casually pull out like an odd piece of
food or sustenance, you know, and they and they just
start eating it in public. Like I I love it
when I see someone who's like, oh, I just got
an apple in my pocket. I always think, like, I
(50:14):
don't know, I feel like there's something wholesome about it. Yeah,
but it's seriously like an onion ring, like a fully
large onion ring. Is it Is it fresh? Is it
like it's been in the pocket for a minute, It's
been in there for a while. It wasn't it. You know,
it was anticipated that it would be consumed much faster
(50:34):
than it was. It reminds me of I went to
a movie theater um for the first time in a
long time to see the Anthony Bourdain documentary and I
saw a guy take out what I believed to be
a burrito, like before the lights went down. He had
(50:55):
clearly gotten this burrito and had did the pocket move
and get it out, and we got to do it.
I was like, yeah, man, remember, reminder reminds me of that.
I think you should leave sketch or he's got a
hot dog hidden in his sleeve. Yeah, yeah, And uh,
and we were not eating on stage. We were trying
(51:16):
to be professional. Uh. But I hope you enjoyed it
and can't wait to do more live things in the future.
Hopefully we can Hopefully we can talk doc and mission
Control and A and a couple other folks compatriots into
joining us. What do you think, guys, think we'll ever
go on tour again? Oh my god, yes, I mean
you know, obviously we're entering another kind of watch out
(51:38):
stage right now with all this Delta business. But hopefully
the next kind of Delta will be involved and will
be Delta Airlines. Baby. So so let us let us
know your questions that you wished were asked at the panel.
Let us know your thoughts on the concept of conspiracy
(51:59):
in a so called post truth world. As always, we
cannot wait to hear from you. Um. We'll also tell
us the weirdest stuff you've ever stuck into a movie theater.
It's just just interesting. We'd just like to know Charlie
Charlie day On always sunny, spaghetti in a bag that's sunny,
that's unacceptable, the squishiness, and this this the smells. No,
(52:20):
that's not that's four jbc's. It's a junior bacon cheeseburger,
a junior bacon cheese because when you're that deep in
the JBC game, you don't have time to say the
whole name. That's right, man, No frosties. This time, But
that was that was my favorite one that I've ever done.
I like to sneak those little um kind of like
(52:41):
cheese sticks wrapped in gobba gool You know you ever
seen those? They come, then they come shrink wrapped so
there they don't smell, and then you know, you just
pound those suckers. So that's pepperoni. Uh I. I used
to do lunchables, I'll be honest, all right's lassie? Yeah,
once you go to lunchable ben real quick, like a
(53:04):
little what's you go to lunchable? Do you like the
little weird cold pizzas? Those were always very strange to me. Yeah,
the pizza, I think it was more of a novelty
for people. You know, kids love them, kids love them.
I just don't like the idea of cold tomato sauce.
It makes me kind of puke in my mouth a
little bit scross. Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a
weird thing. But you know what, let's let us know
(53:25):
what what do you sneak into movie theaters? Uh? All today?
What have you been like slowly learning to uh make
rotisserie chicken at home? And you're like, as soon as
I go to see a movie. I'm bringing the chicken
with me because because if you're out there, you are
(53:46):
a legend. Well, if you're out there, we want to
hear from you. You can find us on the internet.
Catch us on the usual internet places of note. We
are conspiracy Stuff on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, Conspiracy Stuff
show on Instagram. Yes, and we have a phone number.
You can use your mouth to talk into your phone
and it will come to us. Our number is one
(54:07):
eight three three s t d W y t K.
You'll have three minutes. Give yourself a really cool nickname,
whatever you want it to be. That's fine. Let us
know if we can use your voice and a message
on the air in one of these listener Maile episodes
that we make. And uh, if you've got too much
to say in three minutes you want to send us
links or anything else like that, please instead send us
(54:31):
a good old fashioned email. Our addresses conspiracy at i
heeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want you to
(54:56):
Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to this
(00:25):
special show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Alexis code named Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. But this is a
very special thing that we're incredibly happy to share with you.
(00:49):
As Matt said, uh, this is not your normal show,
you see. We uh we posted up together not too
long ago and attended a thing called Podcast Movement in Nashville, Tennessee,
and we were pretty safe about it, as it said. Yeah, Well,
as we've said on the show before, we have all
(01:11):
been vaccinated, we take COVID tests, things like that. But
this was a window of time where it seemed like
we might be on getting to the other side of
a pandemic. So I don't know if we'll be able
to be live again, but it was great to have
our first, our first live show in more than a year.
It was nice. Yeah, and it couldn't have been a
(01:33):
more apropos topic, I think, given the climate that we
live in right now, in terms of being able to
kind of sift through a lot of the fake news
and a lot of the sensationalized news and kind of
really just figure out where the grain of truth and
all this stuff is. It's honestly been the mission of
the show from the start, and we did a panel
on that very thing. Yeah, so what you're about to
(01:55):
hear is a conversation between the three of us and
an awesome audience moderated by our very own Lauren Vogelbam.
You will you will recognize her voice from all the
things and appearances on this show. Uh, And it really
is about what this show is kind of right, I
mean that's this is almost like, in a lot of ways,
(02:16):
just an episode about stuff they don't want you to
know and why we do what we do and how
we do it. So we hope you find that valuable.
I know I certainly did. Sitting there listening to you
guys as we were talking the time, the time flew
by for us candidly. Uh and we yeah, we wanna
thank the audience, uh, and thank everybody who checked it
(02:37):
out think, of course, our our moderator and long suffering
friend of the show, uh, Lauren Vogel Bob, just like
Doc Admission Control. She has been far too kind putting
up with us for so long. And with that, let's
head into the show, the real one, not this one,
the one that you're in. This show. Yeah, yeah, So
(02:57):
I am your friendly neighborhood and moderator. My name is
Laura vocal Bomb. I'm with I Heart Media. Oh, thank you,
thank you. Um uh. And we have with us today. Yes,
the guys from Stuff they Don't Want You to Know?
This is Ben Bollen and Noel Brown and Matt Frederick. Uh,
you're you and you're here. Thank you so much for
being here. Um uh. This this panel is called the
Conspiracy Panel Critical Thinking in a Post truth World. Um.
(03:20):
And if you guys aren't familiar with the show, it
is a conspiracy is show. Um. Stuff they Don't Want
You To Know actually started in UM as an iTunes
video podcast and I haven't thought about that phrase in
a very long time. Um. It was also yeah yeah,
it was also a YouTube channel, UM and then yes
(03:40):
has grown into one of the most popular podcasts in
the world about uh everything strange um conspiracy to allegations
of the paranormal government cover ups, true crime. They cover
all of this stuff. You've probably heard it, but they're
here today to talk about what they call conspiracy realism,
being the idea that, through um, the lens of critical thinking.
(04:03):
Huh um uh, we can successfully separate facts from fiction
in this our strange world of misinformation and bizarre claims
and just cheer outright falsehoods. Um, yeah, you nailed it. Yeah, well,
I'm reading off the notes that you gave me. Thanks
(04:28):
so so so that so that post truth thing and
the title of this panel, What what do y'all mean
when you describe today's society as a post truth world? Yeah? So,
the fancy way to say it, the definition of this
that has a tie on and goes out to nice
restaurants is something like secuitous. Their secuitous sort of recursive
(04:49):
slipping of objective truth into selective criticism or problems of
that truth. You'll hear people often say one must question everything.
The best media question to that is why. And then
we also find ourselves in situations where people tend to
selectively question things that do not agree with their pre
(05:12):
existing narrative. This is hardwired into human beings. It happens,
I would argue, in almost every aspect of human civilization,
not just like you know, you always hear about it
with politics or maybe with religion, but it happens in
sports games. You've seen You've seen a sports fan have
a problem with the ref's call. Not not because it
was objective. It's not about objective truth. It's about their
(05:34):
perception of like, you know, some sort of witchcraft scenario
that maybe caused the events to happen because the ref
did a hex of some kind. Is that about right?
Or you're like, I hate the Patriots, therefore that was
about Yeah. There's this dude named Jake Hanrahan who we
really like a lot and has a podcast called Q
Clearance Um about Q and on, and we had him
(05:56):
on the podcasts UH earlier this year, and he is
the first person I think I heard use post truth
and like kind of a sentence and it really hit me.
And then now it's like you kind of hear it
all over the place. But it's just this idea that
because of the way the news is reported and information
is disseminated, it's all about the receiver of the information
(06:17):
as to whether something is or is not true. And
that's sort of a problem, you know, if we objectively
can't separate truth from fiction. And it depends on like
your opinion what I used to mean a thing, an opinion, narrative,
your narrative. But that can create some real sticky situations. Well,
I wonder how many people are here but like actually
have a problem deciphering what they feel is true when
(06:41):
you're reading the news or on your social media fees,
like you like, it's a problem. It is. It's a
problem for us. We're we get paid to do this
and and it is. It's not great, y'all. It makes
you feel a little bad about society overall, and like
where we're heading, how we got here. But you know,
(07:02):
that's that's what this show was all about in an
attempt to do that, right, Yeah, And I would I
would just dovetail on what we're saying here by by
noting what's happening now is that we are in the
midst of one of the greatest technological revolutions in history,
full stop, no caveats. And what that means is that
every day we are inundated with some sort of push
(07:26):
toward our opinion. If you want to play a very
depressing game. When you wake up tomorrow, try to count
how many logos or advertisements you see between when you
wake up and when you go to sleep. You'll lose
count around two d and fifty and it'll still be
pretty early in the day. It'll be in this building Matt's.
Matt was up late last night doing this, and so
(07:48):
we um. What we want to do is we want
to find ways too. We want to find ways to
empower ourselves with knowledge and at least be aware of
what's happening. There is literally too much information coming from
too many sources for a human brain to even a
human brain that didn't sleep that that's twenty four hours
a day to just digest this. It's still too much information.
(08:12):
And when that happens, our brains, which are have evolved
to recognize patterns, tend to prioritize the things that fit
the pattern we have already discovered or invented in our
minds makes us feel really good about ourselves. And you know, yeah,
but but what is it specifically about conspiracies that is
(08:33):
so appealing to human people? Like, what is it that
hooks us. They're rarely comforting in some ways. I mean,
the idea that there's some unseen force like pulling the
strings you know, that you have no control over. It
makes you, even though it's about not having control, it
makes you feel like at least is a little bit
of rhyme or reason as to why the world so
up um better than chaos? Right exactly. Yeah, it's something
(08:56):
right that we can grab onto, Like you said, I mean,
I think that's literally what it is to to my mind,
it's the comfort when you don't know something but you
know for sure A and you know for sure F.
You know those things are objective facts, but you're trying
to figure out why the heck B through D or
(09:17):
something or E, and you just don't understand, but you
make up a conspiracy theory that kind of fits your
your your worldview to connect those things together. Often it
doesn't mean it's always false. Sometimes people get it right
when they make a conspiracy theory, which is kind of
scary at the same time because they like happen upon
it accidentally discovered something. Um. But but just going back
(09:40):
to Ben Ben has a saying that we always hear
of what is this saying about conspiracy theories. Uh, is
it that speculation thrives in the absence of transparency. That's it,
that's the one. But but it's also this idea, like
the phrase conspiracy theory is what we often referred to
as like a thought terminating cliche. It's a thing, it's
(10:01):
a label you can slap on something that delegitimizes it
instantly by calling it a conspiracy theory when in fact
it's it could well just be an actual conspiracy. And
those exist. I mean, there's no question about it. They
exist all over the place. Yeah, that's I I absolutely agree.
Like we see, um, we see this shortcut. So language
(10:22):
itself is a technology. It's a profoundly powerful technology because
it is invented by humans, right like other forms of technology.
And what we often forget when we're hearing again, in
this age of ubiquitous information, we're hearing things condensed down,
concentrated down to three to five minutes right on your
(10:43):
local afternoon news if you're someone who hasn't yet cut
the cable cord. And the reality is those three to
five minutes are very much and very much a cliff notes, right,
and they leave out our readers digest. If I'm not
dating myself here, read is digest version of a novel.
Both of those they do, Yeah, yeah, they do. But
(11:05):
the point is that when we hear, when we hear
this language, the next time you the next time you
hear the news, whether it's something you know is very slanted,
whether it's a very opinionated YouTube piece, whether it's something
that UH prizes itself on being objective. UH. Note how
many times the things that Noel mentioned thought terminating cliches
(11:26):
are used. They're not. But you're not gonna hear a
phrase like UH truthers explained because it's taken that you
will know what that term means and that it refers
to people who do not believe in the official conclusions
of the attack in New York City on September nine,
two September eleven, two thousand and one. We're working life,
(11:51):
so so with that, like the language, the power here
is that it can push people toward UH, push push
people toward a confirmation bias. It can push people toward
without consciously knowing it, agreeing with something, whether or not
it's objectively true. It's like I remember when a friend
of mine told me what Twitter was, and I was like,
(12:13):
that's never gonna be a thing. That's absurd. That's not
enough words to express an idea. And it's true, it's
not enough words to properly explain or express an idea.
But it's what you said, Ben, it's condensed ideas. And
therefore that's why everything's about headlines. That's why everything is
about click bay. People so often get their news from
the headlines. This is all obvious, but like get their
(12:34):
news from the headlines rather than actually reading the piece itself,
let alone doing their own homework and looking at multiple sources.
You know, Twitter turns out as totally a thing. Oh yeah,
spoiler alert. Um uh is this is this question of language. Um,
why y'all call yourselves conspiracy realists instead of conspiracy theorists.
(12:56):
We just got honestly, we we just got tired of
being lumped in with like Alex Jones and David Ike
and you know, the the great the greatest hits of
non objective explorations of ideas, right, so we um going
back to what Matt said, you know, the truth of
the matter is that you can look at the idea
of something as a conspiracy in three rough categories completely
(13:21):
made up right flat earth. There's pretty solid evidence that
that's bunk. Birds aren't real, Birds aren't real, taken off
on the internet, hopefully no one actually buys into it,
and they're terrifying or or terrifying partially true stuff like
the um the atrocities of the Tuskegee experiments where in
the US government told people that they were going told
(13:43):
disadvantaged people that they were going to treat them for
syphilis and then just didn't and that is that is horrific,
and that is true. That happened, and with the game
of telephone, that is history over the decades, that became
like the base cyst the grain of truth for a
larger pearl of conspiracy. And then unfortunately, there are, like
(14:06):
Matt said, there are conspiracies that do turn out to
be true. But we can assure you in the vast
majority of cases, those things that we would call real
conspiracies rather than theories, are usually involving a group of
people who have a lot, who have a lot of power,
but they want more and they're super down to do
anything illegal to get it. That's where you see things
(14:28):
like banking cartels like uh HSBC did launder drug money,
four cartels. Uh. And when you use the phrase going
back to what you said, No, when you use the
phrase conspiracy theory to describe that, you're associating it with
things in the in the audience's mind, you're associating with
things like, um, Queen Elizabeth is somehow part alien lizard
(14:52):
and for some reason is super into not talking about that.
I don't like it. Seems like that that would be
the most interesting thing about it, right, I want to
jump back to the drug trafficking thing. I'm sorry to
keep pulling, y'all. I'm just gonna pull the audience the
whole night. So, uh, the most important part of the show. So,
(15:15):
I wonder how many people here think the Central Intelligence
Agency or another intelligence agency within the United States had
anything to do with the crack epidemic within the United States,
or if they were actually trafficking drugs or bringing them
into you. Yeah, I'll do it. We'll see. Now. Well,
here's here's the thing. Like I I raise my hand
(15:35):
here for a lot of reasons, because it's this weird
conspiracy theory territory where you can prove things that the
government was involved with, like the Nicaraguan contrast, you can
prove that, uh as a fact and object an objective fact,
just part of the larger Yes, and that's real and
we we did that, or we the government did that,
(15:58):
but it wasn't me. Jeez, I knew it. Um. But
then but then you can get into something like, um,
is it Freeway Rick Ross, you know, who's alleging that
he was working directly with intelligence agencies and they taught
him how to to sell in, how to make money,
and how to launder that money. But you know, then
you're you're kind of taking one person's um, one person,
(16:21):
what one person says as fact because you can't verify
that from the intelligence you know, people that he may
or may not have been working with, and they're never
going to talk. I mean well, I mean sometimes they
retire and they do talk a little bit. Well, but
then then there's journalists who have died weird mysterious deaths
who are looking into stuff that has to do with this.
So it just becomes weird territory where if we if
(16:42):
we all as a society decide the term conspiracy theory
is bad and we can't talk about it, we're gonna
be in in I think we're gonna be We're gonna
have a big problem because things will happen in the
future where we're not allowed to talk about it. But
there's alternate theories that may be real. There's this, there's
this other part with that too. There are there are
(17:02):
basic facts. Again, this is why it's important to do
the boring stuff and to look at the primary resources
and you like, look into look into the court transcripts. Yes,
like ten pages if it will be like why am
I here? I should check Instagram? What am I doing?
But but when you get into this, you'll you'll see
(17:23):
these naked statements of fact and uh. There are also
basic points of fact that do not get um do
not get the coverage they should. And some of these
conversations about narrative the last three to five minutes, and
one of those, to your point, Matt about the crack
cocaine epidemic, is there is not a single coca field
(17:45):
in the US. It's not grown here, and it has
a really it's in a in The crack epidemic occurs
in a place that has a very tight border with
a history of corruption on the part of the people
guarding that border, right from from the UH from the
importation of drugs. So that's one of my first questions.
(18:08):
We'll have people who want to, um, I want to say, oh,
this is hyperbolic, or oh the c I A Has
a spotless record. I'm sorry, I'll do that again with
a straight face. But the the idea here is that, yeah,
the idea here is that the danger first of treating
these kind of things in a dismissive way is that
(18:30):
we're missing important facts, and then by dismissing those facts,
we're also setting ourselves up to be increasingly incorrect in
the future, because we're building on a cracked foundation. If
(18:52):
you put yourself in the headspace where you're believing, well,
it's not even believing if you are aware of the
stuff that's kind of hidden from us in the history
books on purpose, because it's just not really tidy stuff
that maybe, you know, we all want to learn as kids,
and we want our kids to learn about because I mean,
there's there's a lot to be ashamed about, and especially
(19:12):
history of this country. Gosh, I don't even like saying that,
but it's true, and gosh, I'm just um, I don't
even I don't even wanna finish this thought because I
don't like where my mind was going. But really it's like,
um m hmm, I'm gonna need somebody else to pick it,
pick this up, because it really, it really does bother
(19:34):
me that uh, I'm sorry, it really does bother me
that I learned about this stuff because I decided with
Ben to make a show a long time ago that
we just wanted to explore it. And it's the only
reason why I know it and the only reason why
I have time to do this is because it's my job.
It's hard to walk walk it back, you know. Well, yeah,
(19:56):
and there's a danger that if you start to know it,
then your mind and maybe more inclined to go a
little bit further and then start believing things that are
not provable in any way, and you're very likely not true,
and you've got to be so careful with that when
you're even thinking about these things. That's what this whole
conversation is just largely about. I mean, we're at a
(20:17):
place right now where that stuff is like weaponized and
like super super dangerous with things like you and on
and things like you know. The technology that you're talking about,
the Internet is language and is you know, increasing in
terms of speed and efficiency and the ability to spread
dumb ideas very very quickly. And then we had this
crazy pandemic thing where all of a sudden, a bunch
of board you know, housewives and people that were out
(20:39):
of work. I guess we're like clicking around and like, oh,
this Q and on stuff is is for me because
it like kind of does that confirmation bias thing where
it's a grain of something they already believe, whether it
was a racist attitude or whatever, pick your poison. I mean,
the whole thing is so bonkers and there's so much
wrapped up in it. It was all about that the
ability to appeal to the basest instincts of certain people
(21:03):
and then they just disappeared and became different people. Well
that's that's something else too, Like Lauren, thank you for
your patients, because I know you asked us a question
and then we're like, I guys, you know, so twenty
minutes later, but but real quick, uh, because I was
dunking on the media earlier. I want to bring up
something really important. How many people heard about what happened
(21:25):
in Tulsa before they saw the HBO series Watchman? How many? Great?
And thank you for Thank you to everybody who who
admits that was new information, because again we're seeing this
idea that the past can be malleable, that it can
become a conversation, that can be you, like the cliches,
(21:47):
history is written by the winners. Unfortunately, a lot of
cliches become cliches because they are at some point true.
And that's what we are. That's what we endeavor to
do with this show. We want to I want to
first examine the sources of something to see whether there's
a grain of truth, and if there is not, or
if there is, to see how that evolved. Because conspiracies
(22:11):
are modern folklore, that's really what they are. It's the
same kind of you hear the same iterations of stories
from the past. The first usage of the word conspiracy
dates back to around the early eighteen hundreds, uh in
in Europe, if not before, not slightly before. But it
(22:33):
really hit the American zeitgeist in the wake of the
assassination of President Kennedy and then this became this, this
term became weaponized and I'm not gonna ascribe motive to
the organizations that did weaponize it. Sorry, no, I'm just
but but but we we do think. We do think
(22:56):
it's important, especially now, because if you meet someone and
you feel like, and I know, we'll talk about this
in a second. But if you meet someone a loved one,
a relative on purpose and you think that, um, and
you think they're just too far gone to talk about
right there, talk too, and you're like, look, there is
there is a Wikipedia page on microchips. There is a
(23:17):
Wikipedia page on vaccines. Read the first paragraph of both.
You know you don't have to do that much and
they still won't listen to you. Then we have to
figure out how to how to speak with these people
and in a way that doesn't feel alienating, you know,
in a way that can help. Socratic method, I guess
(23:39):
is part of it. I'm getting ahead of us. But no, no,
this is really good. Um yeah, sorry, okay, I can
just leave, that's fine. Please don't please, don't leave. Um.
One of the hardest things to do right now that
you've probably experienced is either having an eternal, you know,
conversation with yourself a monologue, or talking to a loved
(23:59):
one that is either super skeptical of everything that you
may believe or extremely believing in something that you just
don't find to be true at all. And and it's
the bubbles that we find ourselves in. We're so we
have so many people in our social media feeds in
other places that are confirming exactly what we believe in
(24:19):
what we think, that it's really tough to break out
of that. For me, it's tough to break out of that.
That's why I don't have any social media anymore actually,
uh so that I could just talk with these guys
and and everybody else just to have actual conversation rather
than somebody telling me that I'm right or stupid for
what I think. And that's the point. People's motivations are.
They're well intentioned, you know what I mean. Nobody's like
(24:43):
very few people are waking up and thinking, you know
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna I'm gonna ruin somebody's
day on Facebook, I'm gonna I'm gonna find so I'm
just gonna that's who I am. I don't believe that
people that wake up and I say, the majority of
people like even if they seem really far gone or
they're well intentioned, you know, and there and from their
perspective when they're speaking with someone that they're trying to
(25:04):
persuade to follow a certain belief set or piece of folklore,
modern mythology. They see themselves as Promethean, they see themselves
as illuminators, and you know they're bringing understanding anyway. Well,
but so there's two things here, and one is one
is you know, like most of us are getting our
initial news a lot from either social media or from
(25:26):
word of mouth. UM, and so how do we ourselves,
um sort out the misinformation that we're constantly given a
stream of. And then also how do you talk to
the people who are spreading that information, Like how how
do you have a conversation with them? We have a
pretty good case study for this that we were just
talking about today. UM. In Atlanta, where we're from, there's
(25:50):
been a lot of to do made online about there
being a serial killer. Yeah, like I got I got
this text from a friend and she was like, hey,
don't go walking alone and there's a serial killer. And
I was like, this is the first I have heard
of this uh viral Instagram post that probably many people
in the audience have seen. UM because it's sexy. It's
(26:11):
the thing that people want. I mean, I mean in
terms of like it is the Koreans nature of it,
it's a lot cooler to share and be the one
the lightbringer that says, hey, there's a psychopath out there
mutilating corpses in the park. You know, watch out. As
opposed to there's been one admittedly violent crime, there's two.
(26:32):
I mean there there there were three, but like they're
not even necessarily connected. My point is the one that
people have been really focusing on was a stabbing, and
there was another one there was a shoot. You'll never
know the truth, well anything, it's too late. It's sorry,
it's true. Like there there are there are real human
beings at stake, real human lives, irreplaceable. And people were
(26:55):
again with the best of intentions, posting something that they
thought would help other people, would help their loved ones.
But we see what we see what happened to be
um to be specific, there was there was the horrific
murder of a thirty nine year old named Katie Uh
Janice Jenness, and then in uh in another area in
(27:17):
the Atlanta metro there was the homicide the murder of
a nineteen year old named Tory Lang. This the the
FBI defines a serial killer, which is a relatively rare phenomenon.
In the real world, they define a serial killer as
at least three murders, typically with a dormant period in between.
(27:39):
So if you're making the social media post and you
want to make the claim that there is an there
is a serial murderer on the loose, you need number three.
And if you look at that social media post, that's
where no, that's where it breaks down number. There are
a lot of details about numbers one and two because unfortunately, tragically,
those people did both die. No. Three is a third
(28:01):
murder in Norcross. Norcross is the most specific part of
that statement. Norcross is a place with a population of
thousands and thousands, and there's no detail about that third
person because they're trying to create We went past recognizing patterns,
which is the reason humans evolve to this level, and
went to creating them, whether consciously or not. And that's
(28:25):
a danger and it's also massively, massively offensive to the
family and not not only that, And what I was
getting on before was one of the big viral posts.
Outside of a few tweets that said serial killer on
the loose, watch out, there was literally a screenshot of
somebody anonymous source and some very very very grizzly details
(28:46):
about things that were done in the first crime, in
the stabbing, things that have been reported absolutely nowhere. Um.
I think man. We saw an article on our local
TV station where a quote unquote crime scene expert employed
by television station said something the effect of posed these
questions what if there was necrophilia? But I'm saying it
(29:08):
was just a series of these And so all of
a sudden, now someone is posting things about these very
specific details that are not in the record anywhere. Now
it's certainly possible this might be an insider who has
some kind of scoop that we don't and blowing the
whistle or something, but it's not verified at all. And
the only information that's come officially from the chief of
(29:28):
police of the a p D is it was a
gruesome scene. That's all we know. That's all we've heard. Yes, Um,
And it's crazy to think if if you get most
of your news, whether it's good or not, from a
social media feed or just from hearing from others, you're
gonna believe that it's fully true if you just watch
your local news channel, like, uh, you know, my parents
(29:51):
and and a lot of people do they just watch
a local news channel, they read a newspaper, You're very
likely to believe that it's completely not true. If you
were just a rational thinker, you understand that the FBI
and any police department does not share any pertinent details
for an ongoing investigation. So nobody, no journalist unless they've
got an exact inside track with somebody who's you know,
(30:13):
a CSI person, like all the people that are on
the other side of this convention center by the way,
fascinating stuff. Yeah it's a different it's a different convention,
but it's true. But but then probably have podcasts to them.
But what I'm thinking is we we won't know those
details for a long time unless you know, somebody gets caught,
unless there's a trial, less you know, time goes on
for a little while. So we kind of exist in
(30:34):
this weird space of not being able to know the
full story at all times, want to so badly that
we're willing to share the thing that Again, I used
the terms sex here there and it was probably inappropriate,
but I just mean in terms of like grabby, this
is the thing that makes me feel the most smart,
the most empowered, the one that has the inside scoop
that nobody else has. But everyone feels that way. It's
(30:55):
the easiest thing in the world to see something really
terrible and terrifying. You want to be the one that
hips everyone to that thing. You know. Yeah, I would
say there's social pressure too with social media, you know
what I mean, Like, there's there's um the lowest form
of this probably is on Facebook, where it's like innocuous live, laugh,
(31:17):
lovesh statement if you agree share, I bet ten people won't.
And then, you know, for a long time people were like, well, I,
by god, I'm gonna be number eight. I think people
should live, I think they should laugh, and you know what,
I think they should love. And then this evolved into
this into this pressure thing. There are people in the
(31:38):
case of this, uh, this this rumor that still, as
Matt said, has a lot of questions to be answered
in Atlanta that is going on right now. In the
case of that rumor, it is not unfair to assume
there were people who said, I may not have all
the facts, but I have people in my life that
I want to protect. Therefore, I am a good person
(32:03):
if I share this, and I am a callous person
if I do not. And that pressure doesn't always have
to be conscious, but it is ever present. And maybe
if you think, you know, you think that if you
share the one with the grizzliest details, whether or not
they're true, it'll freak people out enough to make them
do something and to actually act as opposed to another homicide.
(32:24):
There's lots of homicides in Atlanta every every day everywhere. Um,
but when you start seeing things like that, it starts
the other. But then you hear the FBI is involved,
which is true, and so why you know, let's go there, like,
I mean, you don't bring the FBI in. It is
a violent crime, but I mean, so it is a shooting,
you know, I just don't it's a little fishy. I
think that the FBI is involved, but yeah, we we
(32:45):
just don't have all the facts. So I mean, it'll
we will find out eventually. But I just think that
it's an interesting case study for exactly what we're talking about.
I think so too. And looking, I don't want to
go all the way down this route on this stage
right now, but what if that kind that same kind
of thing we're an anonymous sore is telling you that
the government is fully corrupt and and what we have
(33:05):
to do is fight back against this government right now.
And the only way to do this is we gotta
rise up, we gotta start organizing and talking to each other.
And you know, if but if it's coming from a
place of just a an anonymous source that for some
reason everybody inside this one particular bubble believes it. One
blonde dude kind of did a thing that I don't
know what you're talking about, but I just know that
(33:26):
it's I. It is potentially very dangerous because we want
everybody wants, like Ben said, to be the good person,
to share the important stuff, to help other people, and
to do the right thing that is the right thing
for them. There's anarchists though, and just want to like
so chaos and disinformation, and that's part of the equation too.
We can't forget about that dehumanizing like Dunbar's numbers, you know,
(33:49):
still not the best science, but there is a dehumanization
that occurs. You know, you're talking to an avatar or
your your I don't know. It's just very easy to
bring people in because there's this arms link distance one feels.
You know, if you look, if you talk in person
(34:09):
to people, whould consider themselves online um, proponents of the
Q and on ideas, and talk to them in person.
They're gonna be like, hey, here's a funny meme, you
know what I mean. They're not gonna be like, let's
go burn down Nashville because that's the seat of the
deep state. I think, I don't know. I haven't been
(34:30):
throughout the whole resort yet, so maybe, but um, but yes,
So we think we think this is important, and we
think it's also important to be approachable and to be
transparent and clear about this. There's nothing there's nothing wrong
with admitting when you do not know an answer. In fact,
I would say it is our responsibility and often neglected
(34:50):
responsibility to say that when it is true, especially when
we're talking about important things. So takeaways, real quick takeaways
are watch out when somebody is phrasing things as leading
questions that happens on ghost shows or ancient aliens all
the time. You know where they're they're keeping the question
and the answer, and they're like, well, like, they can't
(35:12):
say this pyramid was built by an alien because it's untrue.
But what they can do is be like, well, you
know what if pyramid was built by an alien cut
to commercial or is that like when they answer the
question they wished you had asked them. Oh, yeah, we're
talking about that you actually asked. That's in politics. And
then another one is watch how for anonymous sources. Uh,
(35:32):
They're they're quite successful. Anonymous source is like one of
the most prolifically quoted, uh sources in all of Media's
unfortunately because it works both ways, because a lot of
times you have the need for anonymous sources because people
in government, if they don't stay anonymous, they'll get like,
you know, totally ruined. So it's hard, right, That's the
(35:54):
That's another hard part about like do you trust anonymous sources.
I feel like if people are just constantly using anonymous
source is than maybe it's a little suspect sources journalists.
But also there's probably there's seven There are more than
seven point eight billion people in the world. It is
not impossible that there is like one guy whose government
name is anonymous sources and his life must be such
(36:17):
a hassle. An anonymous source told me we might take
some questions. Do you guys want to do that? Actually? Hey,
so I can keep not asking you guys questions, um,
and letting you talk forever, or we can open up
the floor and see if y'all want to let them
(36:38):
talk for does does anyone does anyone out here have Okay,
I'll bring the microphone to you, guys. Everybody can hear
every So that's John. That's give it up, guys, and
your most discinct manic could really quickly paraphrase what they say.
Because we're broadcasting. This sure not the long question, long question,
so I'm not sure it's going to go. I had
two questions, but I'll keep it to one. UM. I
(36:59):
actually really wanted to hear your guys feedback on the
movie Utopia. I don't know if you have seen it
or not. The movie Utopia, Utopia, Utopia. I love it.
The prefer the British version very much. So the question,
since we're live, I got your shown. So the question
is what do you guys think about the series Utopia,
(37:22):
which is a yeah, a dear near future sci fi series.
UM spoiler alert, here be spoilers regarding a vaccination program
that will lead to a radical, malenthusiant approach to population control. Right,
So that's phrasing the question. I dug it, I dug
(37:43):
it honestly, I don't. I mean just organizationally, the human
species has a tough time with like twelve people deciding
a verdict or six people ordering pizza. So that level
of cooperation on a global scale is a tall milk
shake for what's going right now. Some of the issues
people have with me man data to get a vaccine
(38:04):
or do anything, or share medical history and all of
that stuff. So it's interesting in that respect for sure.
What is going on over there? Somebody's singing, Oh we
sing over here too. Sorry, that's mass opinion on utopia, folks. Yeah,
(38:25):
you know, Utopia freaked me the heck out, and it
was the British versions too, because I'd known about that
for a while and was aware of everything as it
started happening in real life. The only thing that makes
me happy is that there are so many different companies
vuying to make a vaccine that I don't think all
of them would be working together to uh, you know,
sterilize me personally. It's nothing about conspiracy theories, right with Like,
(38:47):
when it's it gets so complex like that, what are
the chances that you're going to have that level of
cooperation among competing entities? Kind of you know what, but
you never know. Well, I'm just saying, like, what if everybody,
what if we all had a pizza party and we
all had to fit thro out what? I think that's
a great idea. I think we do that next year.
But yes, how about read if we redefines the same thing?
(39:10):
Thank you? Alright, they're in answer as well. So you
guys mentioned earlier about you know, questioning media, and obviously
that's something that's going on in our world right now,
and everyone's got their different barometer knowing that you know,
every organization has funding behind it, right, no one is
absolutely pure. Where do you draw your own line in
what you absolutely believe to be true versus or you
(39:33):
have to take with a grain of salt? So the
question is where do we draw the line between what
sources I would sources we take to be true versus
sources with a grain of salt. Um, I think all
three of us are adding salt to every source, honestly,
because there there's always some kind of agenda, even if
(39:54):
that agenda is phrased as uh we are. Agenda is
to be as objective as possible, like you'll see, like, um,
I'll say it, when is the Washington Post gonna say
something bad about Jeff Bezos now that he owns it.
You know, it's an interesting question. It's I mean, and
you know, the company that we make podcasts for is
a giant company. But we can honestly say we are
(40:16):
never told what to talk about or not talk about,
or or given parameters around what we should do ever
our bosses in the crowd, and and we're also allowed
to you know, read ads for any company that comes
our way, and we don't have to say no ever.
It's it's kind of just how we do our thing.
And people criticize us for that, but we don't have
(40:38):
to say yes. We don't have to say yes. We
don't have to say no, we can we get to
decide and we just say yes because we're we think
it's hilarious that we're a conspiracy show and McDonald's is like,
here's some money, and we're like, okay, we're going to
do an episode on you. But okay, but yeah, yeah,
you have to think that way. Um. But no, but really,
every every source, um, it's tough. It's really really tough. Uh.
(41:00):
The The only good thing is that there are still
journalists in this world that have integrity that work for
companies that seem to have integrity, and you know, you
can only assume that they do because there's an editorial
process and there are people who will get in major
trouble if that process isn't followed. And it's like, even
if NPR isn't even beyond reproach, they had some weird
(41:21):
political nastiness that was going on behind the scenes there.
So it's a it's a level system or Um, what
what do you say? We use a barometer for as
I mean, it really is for every single thing in
any given moment, and it's I think we're failing the
definition of succinct. But real, real, real quick. Just always
reconflicting sources. Find one that argues for, find one that
(41:42):
argues against. Triangulate that's your best bet. So I know,
it's really easy to be cynical right now in terms
of like the course of the next five to ten
to fifteen years. Um, do you guys feel, Because the
point that I would make is is, I I find
I'm almost I'm almost thirty, and I find kids that
are in high school and growing up are like already
(42:03):
being grown with with phones in their hand and maybe
hopefully they're getting a better understanding of like what's bull
from the web versus what is and so do you
guys find over the course from a generational point of
view over the next ten years, like are we just
or do you think that there's going to be a
point at which we go like, oh, like we've been
in this for so long now that we we kind
(42:23):
of have at least a better barometer of what's what's
good and what isn't. So, so, the question is, are
people who are growing up native to a digital environment? Uh?
Are they? Uh? So? The so uh? The answer is
the magic a ball answer is it's it's unclear. It's
tough to tell their parents are a part of it
(42:45):
because there's a discrepancy between the parents. Um, like you
grew up when the inter the handheld internet was already
kind of a thing. And then also, uh, legislation lags
so far behind innovation, and it's a delay. And that's
what That's what I would say. It does feel cliche
to say it's on the parents, but it's on the
It is on the community. As as a parent of
(43:07):
a twelve year old, you know who is absolutely glued
to her her device, Mainly, I think it's cool that
the stuff that she learns and the stuff that she
gathers from the Internet, she is the curator of her
own experience. I do not feel like she's being sold
a bill of goods with the stuff that she's experience
that she's interacting with on the Internet. That that's just
my part. I mean, I think there's too much information
(43:28):
out there, and it can make things confusing, It can
make things feel overwhelming at times. The sheer volume of
that accessed information that kids have these days, I think
can be anxiety inducing. But I think they're smart and
if their parents are honest and open you know, about it,
then I think they can navigate it um and it's
easier for them to discern truth from fiction most of
(43:50):
the time. In my opinion my experiences, I unfortunately am
on that pessimism path. Uh, it's gonna get worse until
the singularity and and you know then, well see what
happens at that point and is being funny here? Not really? Nope? Hello,
So talking about you know, conflicting information, seeing things from
so many different angles, do you ever just feel so
(44:14):
frustrated by it and want to throw in the towel
and say I'm never going to know the truth because
I find myself in that a lot. And so I'm
wondering what you guys think. I'm gonna be candid. The
question is do you ever get so yeah, we're Do
you ever get so frustrated with trying to get through
the noise right and find like some sources purposely obstuc
(44:38):
you hate themselves and sound as though they're legit journalism,
but it turns out no, no, they're not. Um I
will I will say honestly, there are times when I
go to these guys or whomever is unfortunate enough to
be in the room with me and say this, this
is this is a Gordon knot and I'm not sure
(44:59):
like we can it cut it in half? We have to.
In that case, what I do is I try to
specify or constrain, like what I can find, what I
can quantify, and what I can verify or disprove. Uh.
That's that's my approach. And it doesn't solve the whole
It doesn't solve the whole horizon there, but you do
(45:19):
what you can. I haven't thrown in the towel yet,
but what day is it? I don't. Well, I think
we're okay. I know. Yeah, A little bit of positivity
goes a long way, and specificity, as Ben said, is
the way to go. If you're ever feeling super overwhelmed,
do you have a particular issue or case where you
(45:41):
feel that way about where you really are? Like, I
don't know, Um, there there are So the question is
follow up, do we ever run into something where we genuinely,
genuinely encounter that head against the wall moments? Why did
I get involved in the show? I could have been
(46:01):
a lawyer kind of things like like the the answer
I can't speak for everybody, but I know some of
the answers for us are gonna be things that are bigger,
uh sometimes bigger, more abstract questions like uh, you know
is the universal simulation that is? That's super fun to
talk about at three in the morning, but like how
(46:23):
do you how do you prove it? And then how
and then what do you do with that knowledge? Um?
There are other things that are um. Sadly, there are
a lot of things that are lost to history, and
with that because there are brilliant people working around the
clock to find more primary sources to dig into stories
(46:43):
that sometimes uh, people don't want told. Then we we
have to be ready for new information. We always have
to be ready to change our minds. Uh So, I
would say universe is a simulation that's a trippy one.
I would say there are some scary future based things
that we just we don't want to be alarmist about,
(47:03):
but we can't really guess at you know, um and
those those are tough because they become thought experiments and
just have to try to make sure you're doing your
best and you're being transparent when you know that that
is itself an experimental endeavor to guess what the world
will be like two hund and fifty years from now,
you know, can't can't tell your mind. It's the whole
(47:25):
U a p UFO thing because there's so much purposeful
disinformation that's been released over all these decades since the
nineteen forties by the government to cover up the you know,
the experiments that they're doing on on craft and the
secret stuff that they have to have a technological advantage
over other countries. And it's really hard to know what
(47:46):
is that, like, what part of it is just that
still happening now in and how much of it is
actually something that we cannot confirm, And why is the
Navy telling me that it's real? And how much money
do we pay the government to just throw up its
hands and say like, well, I don't know how it's
billions of dollars that went missing in a rock. Oh sorry,
(48:07):
that's a whole other thing. Well, unfortunately, guys, that's our time. Um,
thank you all for being here, Thank you all for
being here so much. Thank you so much, everybody. Thanks Lauren,
Thanks Lauren bo bo okay. And now we're out of
the live the live show, the panel. We hope that
you enjoyed it. We're still in We're in the other
(48:28):
part of the show. This is the other like mutrol
of this show. This is the outro, right, we're on
the outro of this guy's the time flew by again. Wow, man,
my dog is trying to get my attention. That's how
you can tell this is the real world. But yeah,
I give now that you've heard all of that. There
there were so many great questions there at the end.
(48:50):
We wonder what you think about those questions that were asked.
I cannot recall them all in this moment, as we
are fully meta at this point. But you know, we'd
love to hear your thoughts on anything we discussed or
especially those questions at the end. Yeah, there is one note.
There's a part there where we talk about the fact
(49:10):
that there are no coca fields in the mainland United
States in the in the Continental forty eight. There is
one company that's legally allowed to manufacture and sell pharmaceutical
grade cocaine. They're located in New Jersey, and that was
the fact that stuck with me that I felt like
we should have pointed out on the ship. And they
(49:31):
are pharmaceutical related very much. So. Yeah, because there's always
an exception if you if you uh have access to
the right pockets to grease. I mention grease and pockets.
What do the problems think just tossing onion rings in
those pockets? That's what I do. Well, you say, I
(49:52):
got to save it for later, and you know, I
mean it pocket snacks those I you know what, I
have no judgment when I love it when I see
and when casually pull out like an odd piece of
food or sustenance, you know, and they and they just
start eating it in public. Like I I love it
when I see someone who's like, oh, I just got
an apple in my pocket. I always think, like, I
(50:14):
don't know, I feel like there's something wholesome about it. Yeah,
but it's seriously like an onion ring, like a fully
large onion ring. Is it Is it fresh? Is it
like it's been in the pocket for a minute, It's
been in there for a while. It wasn't it. You know,
it was anticipated that it would be consumed much faster
(50:34):
than it was. It reminds me of I went to
a movie theater um for the first time in a
long time to see the Anthony Bourdain documentary and I
saw a guy take out what I believed to be
a burrito, like before the lights went down. He had
(50:55):
clearly gotten this burrito and had did the pocket move
and get it out, and we got to do it.
I was like, yeah, man, remember, reminder reminds me of that.
I think you should leave sketch or he's got a
hot dog hidden in his sleeve. Yeah, yeah, And uh,
and we were not eating on stage. We were trying
(51:16):
to be professional. Uh. But I hope you enjoyed it
and can't wait to do more live things in the future.
Hopefully we can Hopefully we can talk doc and mission
Control and A and a couple other folks compatriots into
joining us. What do you think, guys, think we'll ever
go on tour again? Oh my god, yes, I mean
you know, obviously we're entering another kind of watch out
(51:38):
stage right now with all this Delta business. But hopefully
the next kind of Delta will be involved and will
be Delta Airlines. Baby. So so let us let us
know your questions that you wished were asked at the panel.
Let us know your thoughts on the concept of conspiracy
(51:59):
in a so called post truth world. As always, we
cannot wait to hear from you. Um. We'll also tell
us the weirdest stuff you've ever stuck into a movie theater.
It's just just interesting. We'd just like to know Charlie
Charlie day On always sunny, spaghetti in a bag that's sunny,
that's unacceptable, the squishiness, and this this the smells. No,
(52:20):
that's not that's four jbc's. It's a junior bacon cheeseburger,
a junior bacon cheese because when you're that deep in
the JBC game, you don't have time to say the
whole name. That's right, man, No frosties. This time, But
that was that was my favorite one that I've ever done.
I like to sneak those little um kind of like
(52:41):
cheese sticks wrapped in gobba gool You know you ever
seen those? They come, then they come shrink wrapped so
there they don't smell, and then you know, you just
pound those suckers. So that's pepperoni. Uh I. I used
to do lunchables, I'll be honest, all right's lassie? Yeah,
once you go to lunchable ben real quick, like a
(53:04):
little what's you go to lunchable? Do you like the
little weird cold pizzas? Those were always very strange to me. Yeah,
the pizza, I think it was more of a novelty
for people. You know, kids love them, kids love them.
I just don't like the idea of cold tomato sauce.
It makes me kind of puke in my mouth a
little bit scross. Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a
weird thing. But you know what, let's let us know
(53:25):
what what do you sneak into movie theaters? Uh? All today?
What have you been like slowly learning to uh make
rotisserie chicken at home? And you're like, as soon as
I go to see a movie. I'm bringing the chicken
with me because because if you're out there, you are
(53:46):
a legend. Well, if you're out there, we want to
hear from you. You can find us on the internet.
Catch us on the usual internet places of note. We
are conspiracy Stuff on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, Conspiracy Stuff
show on Instagram. Yes, and we have a phone number.
You can use your mouth to talk into your phone
and it will come to us. Our number is one
(54:07):
eight three three s t d W y t K.
You'll have three minutes. Give yourself a really cool nickname,
whatever you want it to be. That's fine. Let us
know if we can use your voice and a message
on the air in one of these listener Maile episodes
that we make. And uh, if you've got too much
to say in three minutes you want to send us
links or anything else like that, please instead send us
(54:31):
a good old fashioned email. Our addresses conspiracy at i
heeart radio dot com. Stuff they Don't Want you to
(54:56):
Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more
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