August 31, 2026 • 72 mins
CIA head John Ratcliffe visited Moscow in a trip Uncle Sam wanted to keep quiet -- but why? A Chinese robot breaks Usain Bolt's 100-meter sprint world record in the recent humanoid bot games. Meta agrees to an 18 billion dollar settlement over online child safety... though the end result may not be what it seems. Also: cyborg cockroaches. Tune in for all this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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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 iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
My name is Norm. They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We're joined, as always, with our super producer, Max the
Freight Train Williams. Most importantly, you are you. You are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
It's time for some strange news. So if you're tuning
in to our strange news program, The Evening It Publishes, welcome,
friends and neighbors, to the very end of August. Guys,
(00:54):
it is August 10th. I'm kind of going to miss August,
but I'm looking forward to September.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
September's my favorite. I love September. That's your number one?
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Can you guys wake me up when September ends?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Okay. Yeah, because we have to get on the road
in October, so that'll give you time to warm up.
I can't believe September's your favorite month, Matt.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Really?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, I love it because we're transitioning into fall, and
I really do enjoy that. feeling all the scorching heat
and everything, and then moving towards that cooling off. Oh,
and then it's almost jacket time. When we get to
jacket time, I just flourish, you guys, as a person.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
It's autumnal. I love it. You know, you can feel
Halloween getting closer. It's a great time to reread something wicked.
This Way Comes, one of the best autumnal novels ever.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Have I mentioned that Birthday Boys sketch about September Santa? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's me, who, who, who, September Santa. I don't know
this one.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Mitch from the Birthday Boys, or I'm sorry, from Doughboys
was a member of the Birthday Boys.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
That's why I was confusing those things.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
He plays September Santa who climbs through the window and
the people in.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
The house are like, is that a thing? What are you?
Why do you exist?
Speaker 5 (02:15):
And it gets real specific about, I represent that time between,
you know, it's very funny. It's like not quite Halloween season.
It's still borderline summer. He doesn't really have a real
reason to exist. And yet there he is. Isn't that
just how it be sometimes, y'all?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Well, you don't have to justify existing, folks. We're glad
you're here. Santa's superhumans and normals alike. We do want
to have a couple of quick things here at the
top of our strange news program. The first is for
people tuning into our episode on Vladimir Putin's very weird,
(02:56):
very real conspiracy to live forever. We mentioned a famous
international comedy moment wherein a guy was speaking through a translator.
to a group of very important Japanese people. And this
guy didn't speak Japanese. And he made a joke that
(03:17):
he thought killed everybody, cackled like mad. And later, the
guy thought that he had just been awesome at comedy.
But it turns out the translator in Japanese said, this
guy made a joke. And so now you have to laugh.
And everybody just obeyed what the translator said. That man
(03:39):
was former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. And he did not
know that his joke didn't land. But Jimmy, you got
a lot of heart.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Ben, you know who else tried really hard?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Who was that?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
All us consumers that wanted companies and still want companies
to make machines that'll last for a long time and
not just have manufactured obsolescence. What is the term? Is
that the right term?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Planned obsolescence. Shut out the Phoebus cartel.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, well, there's been a giant victory, you guys, in Ireland,
in the EU, and all across the land in Europe,
as a new set of laws has just come to fruition.
You can read about it in the Irish Times, the BBC,
all over the place. The one in the Irish Times
that came out on August 24th is titled, Right to
Repair Law Takes Effect in Bid to Extend Lifespan of
(04:29):
Household Goods. And guys, it's everything. Washing machines, phones, vacuum cleaners,
All kinds of new things that are now, it's codified.
Companies have to manufacture them in ways that they can
be repaired easily by consumers, you know, sometimes through an
official repair system, depending on the company, but also through
(04:51):
a brand new thing that the EU has where you
go to a website and you find out how to
get parts to repair your thing, and you can even
do it on your own.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
Right? Agreed.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
That's amazing. Yeah, we've been talking about the end of ownership.
We've been talking about right to repair laws. Matt, I
think you and Noel and Freight Train and I can
unanimously congratulate the good people across the pond. That is huge.
(05:24):
We talked about this before, but Do you think we'll
ever see some kind of right to repair law of
that magnitude here in the States?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, actually, Ben, one of the main stories I'm going
to talk about today I think could be one of
the cracks in the system that will get us there eventually.
It's just going to take us a lot longer.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Guys, I'm excited. Let's say we take a break for
a word from our sponsors and get into it.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
All i want to do is repair my john deere
that you're right with my hands.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Dude can you guys imagine if you really could repair
those tractors that cost good lord how much do we
say they cost when we did our episode on on
that ben it was like a crazy amount of money
for a tractor it's it's.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
It's a Egregious amount, and I don't want to sound
too Larry David about it, but I think also, Matt
and Noel, when we previously discussed this, we were also
discussing how controversial it was that John Deere was putting
in corporate-level, manufacturer-level safeguards that would not allow you to
(06:43):
repair something on your own, the price of a tractor. Uh,
we've got to figure it out, but it's also kind
of like how, uh, you know, the reason that used vehicles,
used cars in the United States are at such a
premium now is because we've all figured out. We don't
want all the bells and whistles that new cars are
(07:05):
putting in. You know what I mean? Give me an
old stick shift, a pickup truck that's been beat to
hell and back from the 1980s. You know, exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
By the way, I just went to allmachines.com and found out- Ooh,
that's a sexy URL.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Can I just say?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
We've got John Deere models from the teeniest, tiniest that
range from around $ 3, 000 US to the big boys that
you might use in a large farm, like a factory
farm situation.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
A fresher.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Up to 1.26 million. Whoa.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Sound like a combine harvester.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, like the big, big boys.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
That's it, a combine.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
A thresher, that's my, yeah, that's from the olden days
on the farm from when I was a lad.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
But in Lilburn, you can get a John Deere 1025R
for $ 22, 000. And that's just like a riding lawnmower that's
really big and bulky.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Can I just say, every time I hear the name Lilburn,
I just think, aw. That's a cute little thing.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Oh, like Lilburn?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Lilburn.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Oh, there's Lilburn. Lilburn.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Okay, guys, we're talking about manufacturers of consumer goods, because
I think you can throw a John Deere riding lawnmower
in there as a consumer good. We've also been talking
a lot about AI companies, what they're doing. Let's jump to,
because we've kind of forgot about them, the social media organizations,
(08:37):
the companies that peddle in our attention all day long.
Not that we have forgotten about them, we talk about
them all the time, but We haven't focused on him
in a minute, right? Yeah. A big thing has been
happening today as we record on Thursday, August 27th. This
news came out on the 22nd of August from The Guardian.
(08:59):
I'm not going to say the title of it until later,
so I'm just going to begin reading directly from this article.
Here we go. In a trial that opened on Tuesday,
August 18th, California and 28 other states reported accused the
company Meta of designing addictive sites and violating laws protecting
(09:19):
children's privacy. According to Megan O'Neill, an attorney for the
state of California, prosecuting the world's largest social media company,
Meta's businesses can be boiled down to four words that
begin with the letter H. Here it is. Hook.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Hold.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Harvest. Hide.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Ooh. Harvest. Hide.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Let's get into those young minds.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
It hits home so much for us, just as folks
who have been talking about this and looking at this
for so long. And we hope that it hits home
with you because it feels very accurate. She goes on
to say the owner of Facebook and Instagram. hooks in users,
holds them on their platforms as long as possible, harvests
all of their data while they're there, and then hides
(10:10):
the truth from the public. She says Meta's business model
works especially well for kids.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Hide the truth from the public, meaning hide the priorities
of those first three H's, right?
Speaker 6 (10:26):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Not just like they want you to know they're there.
They need you to know they're there and to be
using them all the time. They're hiding their intention, essentially, right? Hey,
come in, meet your friends, hang out, like your stuff,
maybe even make some money.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
It's the whole thing we always said and that we
didn't like coin or anything. But like if you're getting
something for free, then you're probably the product.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I remember.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I do. I remember. Guys, the lawsuit is continuing to read. Oh,
and the title of the lawsuit is hook, hold, harvest
and hide. Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week
of landmark trial. Oh, come on.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
First off, alleged?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
You know what I mean? That's what the attorney said.
Here's why it maybe doesn't matter that an attorney said
that in a court of law and why it won't
hold and set any kind of precedent. But let's continue here.
The lawsuit centers on allegations that the company violated U.S.
federal child privacy laws and state-level consumer protection laws by
(11:30):
collecting data on children under the age of 13 and
without their parental permission. The threat to Meta here is existential.
If the company is found liable, damages could be as
high as 200 billion US dollars. 200 billion, guys. That's
an amount equivalent to the company's 2025 annual revenue. That's
(11:54):
not their profit. That is the annual money going in, right?
That's not the stuff that you get on top after
all your operating expenses and things like that. That's just
all the money they made last year.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
And folks, to put it in perspective, we try to
mention this every time we talk about a billion as
a concept because it gets thrown around so often these days.
If you looked at a million seconds, that would be
about 11 and a half days. That's a million seconds.
(12:27):
But if you look at a billion seconds, that's about
31.7 years. There was a huge difference between a billion
and a million. And what you're saying here, Matt, is
this could be a billion, 31.7 years times 200. So
this is a big enough fee to even, you know,
(12:48):
even give Meta a little rap on the knuckles or
a smack on the tuchus.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yes. If they are found liable. within the confines of
this particular lawsuit. This particular individual. Sorry, keep watching and
thinking about idiocracy.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Which one goes in your butt and which one goes
in your mouth?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I don't know. I think it's that one. So let's
just continue on here just so we can keep our
story going. The states, because we mentioned there are many
states involved here, many a state attorney general, The states
are also asking that Meta be forced to change the
design of its products to make them safer for children,
(13:29):
which would have permanent effects on the company's business model
and how its social media platforms operate. Meta, for its part,
has denied all of these allegations. And now this trial,
the one that just began and was reported on here
on the 22nd of August, is expected to last six
to eight weeks. That is pretty fast. Now jump to.
(13:55):
Oh, wait. This is coming from The Guardian. On August 26th, yesterday,
as we record... What does it say here? Meta agrees
to major changes to Facebook and Instagram as it settles U.S.
trial over teen addiction for up to $ 18 billion.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
I feel like there's an asterisk on the way.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
There's so many asterisks to this, guys. So... many asterisks.
Here's the wonderful thing. This is a potential positive for
all the kids out there and now becoming adults who
have been affected by social media and some of the
nefarious things that they do. Again, see Bo Burnham, welcome
to the internet and really listen. There's a good thing
(14:42):
because changes are going to be made to these sites,
to these apps, at least for children For teens, for
kids who have been directly affected, and that's a good thing.
It's not going to change for us adults, at least
right now. There's no incentive.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
It's not going to change the way Gen Z is
as human people.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
That's true. That's very true.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
I don't mean to. I'm not besmirching the– I mean there's– look,
we also know, Matt, that like a lot of these
negative things– there's an evolution that comes along with it. Like,
I mean, there's definitely harm that was done, but it's
not like Gen Z is like somehow like wrecked for
life either.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Like, I just think there's a certain amount of adaptation
that went along with these ultimately nefarious things that were
being done to these kids, right?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Oh yeah. Against their knowledge for a time. And then
as people began to understand, the children still didn't fully
understand what was happening to them. And as we know,
This is horrible. And trigger warning, there has been a
lot of self-harm. There's been a lot of lives that
have been taken. There have been a lot of eating
(15:55):
disorders and all kinds of horrible things that have been
attributed through other lawsuits that Meta has gotten in trouble for,
that has actually been found liable for. But not in
this case. Not in this case. They have not been
found liable for anything because this is a payout.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
So they're trying to do what we call getting in
front of it.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
That's exactly what it is. I'm going to have to
read a little bit of this from The Guardian, August 26th.
Meta agreed to significant changes to its app. They agreed
to them on Wednesday, August 26th, so mere days after
the trial began or the lawsuit began. Dozens of U.S.
states accused the tech giant of addicting and harming children
(16:40):
with their dangerous products. which is, gosh, just a way
to say that. Social media is dangerous products. The agreement
curtails a major trial in California will require the social
media company to pay up to $ 18 billion. It agreed
to establish safeguards for teen users, including daily usage limits
and blocks on nighttime use nationwide. It's the first time,
(17:02):
and this is why I said maybe this is a crack.
This is the first time in the United States that
Meta has been forced to change any feature, like key features,
of the experience for everyday users. It's the first time
they've had to actually change their platform. In the EU,
in many other countries outside of the US, they have
already done this to better protect users from the dang
(17:26):
thing they are using, right? From the app itself and
from its addictiveness and from some of the other things
that are harmful. This is a key thing, Ben, that
you brought up. $ 18 billion, that's the settlement they're paying
out to all of these states. It's going to be
divided between the states, and it's going to be paid
(17:47):
out over a period of a decade, 10 years. And
it's still subject to court approval for all the things
that will be paid out. California is going to get
somewhere between $ 1. 5 and $ 2 billion. Colorado is going to
get $ 615 million. Is this in some way to supplement
the mental health.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Toll or the, like the, the resources that have been taxed,
like where, how does this money benefit the victims?
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I'm curious.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Where does, where does the money actually go? And then
another for anybody playing at home, uh, I believe the
net profit of meta back in 2025 and last year was, uh,
almost 60.5 billion. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
That's the profit, right? That's the, the stuff on top.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Of everything that they had to spend. But still 60
billion freaking dollars. Good God. Let's do a little math there.
That's a dent. That's a big old dent. A bigger
dent that we usually see. Simply because it's in the
billions of dollars. Not a lot of companies could take
that hit. Meta though. They made a choice.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And it's way better than being found liable. For harming children.
because they've already been in separate lawsuits, one that they lost,
brought by the Attorney General of New Mexico, that state
was gifted, was forced to pay nearly a billion dollars
for allowing child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Think about that.
(19:26):
This company that we're talking about already had to pay
a billion dollars for that. There was another trial where
Meadow was found liable for deliberately designing addictive products that
hooked one young woman and they had to pay her
more than $ 4 million. Again, $ 4 million, Ben, difference between
that and a billion or $ 18 billion, massive. I just
(19:47):
want to bring this to all of our attention just
to imagine that it is possible to take these tech
giants to task and potentially find a better way forward
that isn't so addictive, that isn't so harmful. And maybe
we could become more human again.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
I'm going to like your post.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Oh, but that's another thing they did. They disabled likes
on teen accounts. And unless a parent goes in to
like change that, you just can't see who is liking
and how many people are liking posts.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Well, because that's the dopamine casino of it all, where
you're like farming for likes because it gives you that hit,
you know, to your nervous system that is. genuinely what
equates it to almost a drug-like experience you.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
Know 100 yeah and also i just want to walk
not walk back what i said but i just want
to make it clear that like you know in with
my kid and their friends and all this stuff like
i've seen these instances of self-harm i've seen like the
you know eating disorder and all of these horrific kind.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
Of things like firsthand and i've heard stories about it
from my kid and you know i i didn't i
wasn't trying to say that like these kids are going
to be fine. They haven't been harmed. You know, they
absolutely have. But what I was also saying is just
giving them credit for resilience against this PSYOP.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
For sure, man. And we also have to, we also,
as is our remit, have to walk this out a
little bit because the next question, just to get in
front of all the emails and the voicemails, folks, the
next question is, how this will be enforced. A lot
of us listening tonight, Matt, are doubtlessly recalling how easy
(21:32):
it is or has been in the past to go
to an adult website and get a little button that says,
are you 18 or over, right? It's very easy for
a 13-year-old or what have you to just click on
that button. The immediate question therefore becomes, how this could
(21:53):
be enforced, how these curfews or this time limit on
a human child's account could be, how you could actually
make it happen. Does that lead us to further de-anonymization
of the internet?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I mean, in the case of younger people, See, it's
so tough because there's so many things you could argue.
You want it to be anonymous so that a bad person,
a bad actor can't identify somebody, right? Somebody just with
their email or their phone number has signed up for
(22:35):
an account and now they're permanently attached to that, right?
If you know how to get to that information, you
could identify somebody. But if it's a teen, a young person,
good God, you don't want that. You don't want a
bad actor to find them and know who they are. Um, but,
and yet they can, right. Even if there are things
in place to prevent them from doing that, it's possible
(22:57):
for that to occur, which is potentially really dangerous. So
you don't, but I don't know. I, I, we talked
about so many times, I feel like I'm more and
more on the side of making everything that happens on
the internet, at least in a public space, be identifiable.
You're a human being attached to an account that does things.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
I mean, You have to do that when you get credit.
You have to do that when you apply for a loan.
I mean I'm not– those things are necessarily one-to-one. But
it's like there are so many things that require like
real identification. And now, I mean a lot of states
have laws around accessing pornographic websites where you have to
enter real identifications. You know, obviously there are ways around
(23:40):
that using VPNs and obviously there would be a way
around any kind of removal of anonymization. We know the
moment you tell people you can't do a thing, they're
going to figure it out. Maybe things will go more
into a dark web type situation, but I.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Just, I'm with you, Matt. It feels like the move.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
I've got to say, you know, Matt, one thing you
brought up just a second ago that really stands out
to me as a very good legal argument is is
the idea of public space. So for a long time
in the United States and in indeed much of the
Western world, we know that there is no expectation of
(24:21):
privacy in the public square, whatever that may be. So
for instance, in the States, if you are in your house,
your private area, you're not supposed to be able to
be surveilled by any Johnny Blue Jeans or Katie Come Lately,
which I made up, but I think that phrase works.
(24:43):
But the idea then of social media being the same
thing as walking down Main Street means that you can
be identified, right? You can be surveilled. So maybe that
is a precedent that we as a civilization should hold to.
I think I'm writing it down. I think that's an
excellent way to look at it.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, guys, we're going to jump out of this and
move on. The last article comes from The Guardian. It's
an opinion piece. An $ 18 billion settlement is a drop
in the ocean for Meta, but the tide will still
come for it. Written by Chris Stokel Walker, August 27th.
There's just one little thing he put in here that
makes so much sense to me. because they did settle.
(25:28):
This is a settlement. This is not, you know, winning
or losing a trial or a lawsuit. This is a settlement.
He says settlements without admission of fault. Don't set precedents
while court judgments absolutely do in a way that could
quickly spiral out of control for meta's product offering, which
is just, he's trying to say, this is why they
chose this. Even though it's $ 18 billion, it's better than
(25:51):
having a precedent set where a court can come in
and say, Hey, you have to change your product. Um,
This is a way of protecting its core business proposition
as a company.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
You're cauterizing the wound to save the financial body so
you don't bleed out profits.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yes. I would just argue that I think it is
about time that we have to somehow regulate these things
a little bit more. And I know, oh, God, I
want regulation. Matt's kind of commie is in here. I
do feel like it's important to, again, humanity. IEC Bill
Gates warning about AI. It just came out. Bill freaking Gates,
(26:32):
like screaming from the hilltop about AI and how dangerous
it is. Just think on it. That's it for now.
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
And we're back with more stories of our modern techno dystopia.
This time it's a little more on the entertaining side,
at least, you know, on first base. blush is that
a thing that people say um though the further down
the line implications are you know more on the dark
side but i thought we could at least lead off
by having a shared moment of mirth let's watch a
(27:12):
clip of a humanoid robot training for the world humanoid
robot games in china uh in a somewhat unusual exercise.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Look at him go.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Look at him go. Look at him go.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Look at him go. Look at him go.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Oh, no. That's insane.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Is that what he's supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
It's just going to repeat.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
I don't think that was the intent.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Okay. What are you?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
So it's this robot.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
This is the audio only version of the show for
this strange news episode, but it's a very spry looking
little fella, little robot running, running, running, giving it all
he's got. And then smashing headlong into a big blue wall, uh,
falling over backwards after a bit of a stagger, uh,
and erupting in sparks.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
And then just kind of, just kind of like, like
he's got X's on his eyes.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
It's just like, it's like, this is robot death. Um, Ben,
it's a thing to behold.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Ben and Noel. I also have a video from another race. No,
I want you to see the similarities.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
I don't think I've seen it.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
There's some similarities with this one. Here we go. Hopefully
they have volume two. Here we go.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Oh, I remember this one.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Look at him scoot.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
I love the.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Way they run. Watch, watch.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Here we go.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Another angle.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Oh, that one is going for a slide.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Okay, maybe I need to read more about this particular thing.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
This was the clip that kind of went viral. Is
that what it's supposed to do?
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Yeah, that's where they have the wall there.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
To what end?
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Because it's hard to figure out the curvature.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
It's hard to stop them once they get that speech.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
No, no, it's not meant to run into the wall.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
It is.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
That's why they set the wall up there. That's why
multiple ones just sort of shoot out like bullets instead
of curving left.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I don't understand what I'm looking at, man.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
This is described as being a training exercise, but it
sure seemed like it bricked the robot. So, I mean,
these things can't be cheap. Is this really.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
The best way to go about it, I just, I
don't know.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
I don't understand. That That part is neither here nor there.
I just thought that was funny. This World Humanoid Robot Games,
an Olympic style competition that is having its second year
in Beijing.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
And it is, you know, it's like a.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Sporting event mixed with like a technology con kind of thing,
you know, where China's able to showcase all of the
sick robots that they make there in what is described
by the Associated Press as an intensifying technology rivalry with
the U.S.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Bit of a robot race, right?
Speaker 5 (30:10):
So the Tiangong Ultra humanoid robot beat its own record
of 9.39 seconds that it had just said just a
few days prior. This record exceeds the men's 100-meter world
record of 9.58 seconds by a little Jamaican sprinter by
(30:33):
the name of Usain Bolt.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Talk about nominative determinism.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
I got to say, though, it's like, you know, I
get that they're trying to showcase this technology, but, like,
beating like what are we what are we doing here
like we've got robots like playing you know.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Ping pong and stuff and like you know um.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Running these foot races uh doing long jumps i'm not
joking literal table tennis ballroom dancing 51 different events 1300
competitions involving more than 2000 robots and My buddy Jonesy,
a friend of the show, I think we all have
listened to his Weird AF News podcast from time to time,
stolen more than my fair share of stories from him,
(31:18):
had the comment that like, why don't we like fight
them to the death or something like that? I mean,
we've got these like robots that can lift like tons,
you know, like superhuman strength, you know, can lift a
freaking garbage truck over their heads, I guess. And yet
we've got them playing pickleball. Like, it just seems like
a real underutilization, a really underwhelming display of this We've
(31:40):
also got housekeeper and caregiver robots that are being demonstrated.
It just feels more like a kind of a industry
facing events, you know, to kind of make news headlines
rather than.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Anything of real value.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
And I feel like this clip of this robot just
smashing headlong into a wall is kind of a perfect
metaphor for it in many ways. It's like this is
just all flex and not much use case.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
I hear you, man. We have to realize that this
definitely is a flex. Sixteen countries are involved. But I
would compare it to an exhibition of decades past.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Like the World's Fair.
Speaker 7 (32:21):
Right.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Just so. Like the idea is saying here is an
interesting concept. Maybe we can– like if we can figure
out these abilities or these capabilities, then later down the line,
we can find specific applications.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Right.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
Right?
Speaker 4 (32:39):
So one thing we did early on with the, or
we clocked, I think, as a group early on with
the robo-dogs was that it was only a matter of
time before they got weaponized, right? And I remember recently
I was at a flying car thing, basically, that was
(33:00):
advertising different uses of flying car technology, which right now
is still very much out of the reach of the
vast majority of people, but my flying car, Ben, I'm
not the, uh, I'm, I'm actually kind of anti flying car.
Cause it'll mean every vehicle has to be autonomous, but what?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Well, the logistics of it.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Right. Right.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
But I think it's a fair comparison because when we're
seeing these robots running and there's another great clip of
a robot, he's doing a great job running, but it's
running like this with its hands, uh, shaking around in
a very, it's like if you've ever seen Olympic speed walking,
it's doing that times 100. It's very sassy, I would say.
(33:45):
When we see that, what we're ultimately seeing is, as
you said, a flex, Noel. We're seeing these countries and
these manufacturers saying, okay, put the silliness aside. No, this
is drawing board stuff, right? And just imagine that what
we could do with something that can go this fast reliably.
(34:07):
So that's the, I think that's the ultimate draw.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
Cause they get, I get it. I do get it.
I'm not trying to poopoo it entirely. I just think
the whole, like.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
It's faster than Usain Bolt. It's like, are we going
to start competing humans? Is this like going to be
a John Henry kind of situation? Like against robots.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
You know, like, is that what this is intimating or
what the next step in the evolution of this is like,
are we going to have like, you know, people challenging
these robots to race to foot races or.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Just, no, just real quick. They're mainly competing for investment
at this.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
They are.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
But what are the, what are truly the end goals guys?
I think we know a couple of them at least one. Why,
why would you want maximum articulation and speed and dexterity
in a robot?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Security humanoid soldiers.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Potentially, but also efficiency, because ultimately what the corporation wants
is robotic workers that you don't have to pay any
more things into. You just make one and that is
your overhead cost done. You don't have to ever deal
with HR with these dang robots. You don't have to
ever deal with any of the bad stuff that comes with,
(35:19):
you know, having to pay medical care and all these
other things. You got the fastest, most dexterous, most articulated
thing that can lift anything, that can run any machine.
The other, I think, end goal is so that billionaires,
and I'm saying that on purpose, billionaires and the intellectual
(35:41):
and moneyed elite can eventually transfer their consciousness into one
of these things. I think that is an end goal.
And if you can become faster than Usain Bolt... In
everyday life, this is just what you are now. You're
in the top model robot. That is a thing that
I think is really desired.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
It's not lost on me, guys, that my perspective here
is very like old man yells at cloud. And I
totally understand that's how I'm coming off. And I'm doing
it a little bit for effect. Matt, those are excellent
points and certainly not lost on me. But it's just
the way it's packaged today. like some sort of sporting event.
It just, it's odd. And it almost, you know what,
(36:22):
the more I talk it through and think about it
with you, it's almost a way of neutering some of
those concerns and being like, no, look, it's harmless. They're
just playing ping pong with one another and doing ballroom dancing.
You have nothing to worry about, factory workers, auto workers.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Frontline soldiers.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Frontline soldiers. Frontline soldiers. Though I think we'd be cool
with that. Okay, let's unpack that. I'm sorry. Let's unpack
that aspect of it.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
Do we, if there were a world where we had
automated soldiers, wouldn't that save lives?
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Wouldn't that save, you know, humans from having to be
on the front lines?
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Potentially, you know, losing their lives?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
It's still a war, though. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at with the
idea that this would, maybe replace human soldiers because then
you would not have to worry about the backlash of
a war abroad when human soldiers are dying. It becomes
a financial cost rather than a blood cost. And Matt,
to your phenomenal point there, I would say before we
(37:34):
get to full quote unquote conscious transplants or consciousness transplants,
think about it, you guys. the Achilles heel of the
billionaire bunker industry is that they are relying on human
staff currently, right? So you are in a place where you're,
you know, Mark Zuckerberg or what have you, and you
(37:56):
have your bunker in Hawaii and everything goes sideways. And
at some point, inevitably, the people you pay for maintenance
and security are going to say, oh, wait, money doesn't matter.
There are more of us than there are of this
guy because If your staff is entirely robotic, then everything
you just said, Matt, about workers being replaced exacerbates here
(38:20):
because now my security staff is robotic. I don't have
to worry about giving them my precious water. I don't
have to worry about feeding them or them rising up
in mutiny, and they'll never form a union, right, unless
we create AGI. So again, like we were saying, just
like the World's Fair, is a science fair for emergent technology.
(38:45):
These funny runners have a lot of stuff on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Look what just happened in Nepal and Tibet, and we
keep seeing things like that. Massive floods that are killing hundreds,
if not thousands, still missing. Earthquakes that are devastating areas
of the world. We just talked about the ocean being
the hottest it's ever been. We just talked about July
being the hottest month on record. I mean.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
We are kind of getting to a place where we
are starting to kind of almost censor at least me personally.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Like, I don't know if we talked about this story.
This is a month's old story.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
But did you guys hear about the suburb in Atlanta
where all these Waymo cars just descended and like circled
these cul-de-sacs and they had to like put like little
those little child, uh, placard things or what are you
like a little sandwich board shaped like a small child
to get them to like move or, or block their way. Like,
I mean the footage of it, the last podcast on
(39:40):
the left guys were talking about it recently on a
an Instagram clip that I saw, and it just looks
like attack of the robot cars, man. And it's like,
I just, we are so not far from, from this
level of dystopian robot invasion kind of scenario. Even if like,
you know, the Waymo thing is goofy and, and, and
(40:02):
an example of the technology that ain't doing quite what.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
It's supposed to.
Speaker 5 (40:06):
It's still giving that same feeling as, as does looking
at these silly robots and watching them slam into the wall.
Is that a way of being like, Oh, look at
him scoot. They run so funny and he's slamming into
the wall. We're not scared of them. They are robot friends.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I think it's really hard to slow it down once
it gets going that fast.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Well, they need to work on that. It's like a,
that seems like something they should fix guys.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
I know we ran long on this one, as I
imagine we would, there's a lot to unpack with these
kinds of things, but y'all, um, really, really, really, really
great points.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
And thank you for entertaining my old man perspective on this.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
Um, but I just wanted to add really quickly, another
slightly old story that I teased to you guys off air, um,
in Wisconsin, a couple of months ago, uh, a man
was held at knife point in a bathroom, um, and forcibly, uh, well,
at least intended this, this kidnapper or hostage taker tried
to get him to glue.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
His hands to the floor.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
Um, his demands were, uh, Multiple psychics to be delivered
on scene to this grocery store. A struggle ensued where
the man who was being, you know, assaulted the victim
took his belt off and gave this guy quite the
lashing and chased him through the aisles of this grocery store,
(41:22):
at which point the police arrived. made their move, and
it looked like that the man who had this knife,
the assailant, was about to raise his knife up and
attack the victim again. And the police officer shot at him,
but they blew the victim's thumb off. And you can't
(41:43):
make this stuff up, guys. It's just like, it's the
stuff of pratfall comedy. I feel for this guy. I mean,
what a horrible day. I can't imagine much worse of
a day, but you can't help but.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Find it a little amusing. Hypnotists? Did I say psychics? Yeah, hypnotists.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yes. Even weirder. Even weirder.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Well, you got to wonder what the end game was.
If you get enough hypnotists, could they have, was he
thinking they could hypnotize law enforcement into letting them get away?
Speaker 5 (42:18):
You know, that's where my head went.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
That's probably not what happened. But yeah, yep. It's 2026.
We are in a post-comedy world. Everything is terrible and
everything gives you a chuckle.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
We sure are. And I'm not joking.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
I wasn't even generalizing that much when I said what
I said. He requested specifically multiple hypnotists, not specific ones,
not a specific number, multiple. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
the hostage taker was a 21-year-old man by the name
of Anthony Lehman who called 9-1-1 before 6 p.m. saying
(42:55):
that he had taken a hostage into the men's room
of a Meijer Superstore. I don't know. It is kind
of a grocery store, I think. Maybe a little bit
of a big box store that does all the things
like a Walmart, but we don't have those around here.
And that he wanted to speak to a hostage negotiator.
The guy who was being taken hostage was 59 years old,
really gave this young lad a run for his money.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
And the last.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
Detail that I thought was particularly stuff they don't want
you to know was Lehman claiming to the dispatcher that
he had a dead man switch on him. And I
just wanted to unpack briefly what that would mean in
this situation. Wouldn't that potentially mean a bomb? Like a
switch that if his hand released the device that it
would explode?
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Typically, it would mean that if it's a switch, right? Otherwise,
it would mean an insurance policy of releasing sensitive information.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Releasing documents. Yeah. Got it.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
But for this one, yeah. Like you would see that
in fiction where someone has a thing that says, oh,
if my heartbeat stops, then the whole plane explodes. But yeah,
it was really interesting. For sure.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Or even just a little grippy handle thing, right?
Speaker 6 (44:04):
Right.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
That you, like, have a holding on to, and if
you get shot, you release it, and then, of course,
it goes boom. Like in Speed, the movie, with Dennis Hopper.
But yeah, Lehman was taken to the hospital with critical injuries,
where he allegedly asked the police and staff if he
was on the news. Charged with first-degree reckless injury, false imprisonment,
(44:25):
making terroristic threats, and three counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
That's all for me, guys. Wanted to end on a
little bit of a, you know, stupid.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
criminal kind of story so let's take a quick break
here we're from our sponsor and then come back with
our final piece of strange news.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
And we have returned shout out to all our friends
and neighbors fellow conspiracy realist on the road uh and
in the skies you may have noticed a story that
we didn't get to earlier. This is going to be
our main thing for this part. Not too, too long ago,
(45:10):
there was a mysterious flight from the United States to Russia.
This was, we talked a little bit about this off air.
This was initially billed as a mystery flight because it
was a military aircraft, right? It wasn't your average Airbus
(45:34):
or Boeing just dropping by Moscow. We recently learned that
this thing definitely did happen. The passenger traveling to Moscow
via this military craft was none other than the director
of the CIA from earlier your boy John Ratcliffe now
(45:59):
did did we all hear about this I think it
started to make the rounds no.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah this is it's a weird one in particular because
of previous things that heads of CIA have done with
Russia right Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
So this is, okay, so to set the stage for
the conspiracy we're going to construct here, the speculation, first
thing you should know, folks, is that the director of
the CIA is often going to be like a king
in chess, as in they're usually going to stay on
(46:37):
their side of the board pretty often. It's anomalous. for
the actual spymaster to travel that far away. Usually they
have somebody else to do that work for them. Or
to our earlier point, maybe one day they'll just have
robots do it. But we can confirm, thanks to our
(46:58):
friends at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal,
that the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was indeed in Moscow
and the U.S. had not announced his trip. They only
went public with it thanks to open source flight tracking data.
(47:21):
So big thanks to all our fellow aviation and sky nerds,
all our plane watchers who started going, hey, what the
heck is this aircraft doing over here? This was a U.S.
government transport plane. It left from Joint Base Andrews which
is on the outskirts of Washington. It traveled to the
(47:43):
Russian capital, and it was there for about eight and
a half hours, right? So long enough for a fun meeting.
It was on a little bit of a layover, and
then it flew back to the U.S.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Donezo, right?
Speaker 4 (48:00):
No other problems. At this point, we only have reports
from journalists, and then we have a report from the
president of the United States, who made a famous cameo
in Home Alone 2, Lost in New York, downplaying this.
The people speaking for the CIA, the Pentagon, and the U.S.
(48:20):
Air Force have, so far as we record, on Thursday,
August 27th, declined to comment. All the sources that our
journalists are getting Or again, speaking on the condition of
anonymity and Matt and Noel, we talked about it before.
We always love those terms. People familiar with the matter.
(48:43):
A source close to the investigation.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
This idea of secret sources, like it's now being used
as a way.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
To discredit people. I mean, not now.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
It's probably been done in the past as well, but
it seems now more than ever. Anytime there's an anonymous
source involved, it seems to be the talking point that
it calls the whole story into question.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
A hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Okay, I don't know a ton about Ratcliffe. I'm looking
at his wiki right now. The best source, he said jokingly. There, again,
we love Wikipedia because it cites sources. in order to
put stuff on there. There needs to be a source
attached usually, and you can find that source, then look at,
you know, the thing. Well, in here, it's noting that,
(49:30):
you know, previously, before he became CIA director, what was
his other role in the government?
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Yeah, he was a congressman for Texas.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
He was? he was also the director of national intelligence
for a bit. Yes.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
And he was also a mayor for a while. This
guy's in the game.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
When he was director of national intelligence back in 2020,
he did this thing where there's a guy named Michael Flynn,
that if you had been following news and politics back
in the day, this, uh, he's a retired, he was
high up in the army. I think a Lieutenant something,
Lieutenant general, maybe, uh, He had been meeting with a
Russian diplomat, and this is the guy, Ratcliffe is the
(50:11):
guy who decided to declassify some conversations between a high-level
army official and a Russian diplomat. He decided that. And
then he went on to say, hey, guys, Russia isn't
a big threat to our elections at all. The people
you need to be looking at instead are China and Iran.
(50:32):
So I'm just wondering what information does he have? Being
at the heights, you know, director of national intelligence, that's
pretty big. And now as the director of the CIA,
does this have anything to do with this different relationship
that we're seeing emerge between the U.S. and Russia over
the past, I don't know, been 10 years? It's a
(50:52):
different relationship now, right?
Speaker 4 (50:54):
Yeah, it's a perfect structure there, Matt. I wish I
had had time. You know, you guys know I'm on
the road, but I have a perfect wall back here
and I just needed some red string. but we didn't
have it in the budget. They won't though. They'll prosecute
me if I draw on the wall, but I thought
about it. So the, uh, this is, this is the,
(51:16):
the perfect umami that we're setting up here. So Ratcliffe, yes,
very deep in the game, uh, director of the CIA
traveling to a foreign country, especially Russia of all places.
Is that anomalous? Yes. Uh, despite the fact that the, U.S.
officials haven't confirmed this trip the way that they typically
(51:38):
should have. Despite that fact, we do know that a
spokesperson for the Kremlin talked about this. A guy named
Dmitry Peskov said in a briefing that Ratcliffe did not
meet with Daddy V himself, didn't meet with Putin himself,
but instead that there were contacts, there were conversations conducted
(52:02):
through intelligence service channel. And then he did not expand
anymore on the purpose of that visit. And then the
absence of transparency, speculation thrives. So we've got another piece
of red string to draw here. The United States has earlier,
(52:22):
quite recently, once again declined to join a collective United
Nations statement condemning Russia's strikes on Ukraine. in that continual
quagmire of a war. We also know that things are
heating up again with Iran, right? The, the U S
and Iran have both been giving crazily different statements about
(52:47):
the conflict at the straight of Hormuz.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Uh, the, what, what the American territory of the straight
of Hormuz, right?
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
Uh, taxation, taxation without representation. And thanks to our callers
who had talked a little bit about that. I'm thinking
of you, code name BoxBoy. The last time a CIA
director visited Moscow, you guys, was in November of 2021.
(53:16):
This was under the Biden administration, lest you think we're
picking on somebody more than someone else. The director at
that time was a guy named William J.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Burns.
Speaker 4 (53:26):
He was visiting Moscow to warn the Putin administration not
to attack Ukraine. And again, this is under the Biden folks, right?
This director, when he went to Moscow and said, don't
stir stuff up in Ukraine, he spelled out what the
consequences would be. And we don't know the full substance
(53:51):
of that conversation from 2021, but after the spymaster left,
Within weeks, Moscow invaded Ukraine. And now there are these
long-range strikes into Russia from Ukrainian powers. You can read
about that at your leisure. Ratcliffe's visit may have something
(54:14):
to do with that, maybe an attempt, a Hail Mary,
to de-escalate that conflict. But also, more interestingly, guys, I
keep thinking about the time that our president earlier this
summer had to do a sneak bait and switch on
a food cart to fly out a turkey or turkey,
(54:37):
excuse me. And I'm wondering, I'm not alone in this.
I'm wondering if we sent Ratcliffe over to Russia to
try to get Russia to side with us in the
Hormuz war. like to try to– or I should say conflict,
to try to get Russia on our side or at
(55:00):
least get them to stop supporting Iran.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
Wasn't one of the newest pieces of news we've seen
coming out of that region something along the lines of
China stating that they're not going to penalize Iran any further?
Like China saying no, like the further actions you're trying
to take against Iran, West We are not going to
align with those actions.
Speaker 4 (55:24):
100%.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
So the U.S. does need a strong ally. So that
would check out in my mind at least, Ben.
Speaker 4 (55:34):
I mean it's a sneaky thing to do, right? Because
you're going to put it– I mean these countries don't
have friends, right? But to put it in like a
friend dynamic situation, this is like beefing with– two guys
that knew each other who were boys and then going
(55:54):
behind one of them, going behind their back and saying, hey,
team up with me against your boy. Or hey, let
me just beat your guy up a little bit. And
I love that point about China because they had a
strong message where they said, look, we don't approve of
what you're doing. And internally, at least from what we
(56:17):
can tell, the Chinese government finds it somewhat offensive or
at least presumptuous that the United States would try to
dictate China's foreign policy. So we still don't know what
they meant about.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
No, we don't. When it comes to motivations and that role, Ben,
the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, there's history there
you can look up. It used to be the director
of Central Intelligence, I think, until that That new name
was brought about. But in the end, we're talking about
the CIA the whole time. It's just there's a new name,
(56:56):
a new title. I'm wondering about people who get appointed
to that position, because in my mind, you would need
to be a high level military person with lots and
lots of experience, like Michael Hayden, who formerly was the
head of the CIA. David Petraeus, you know, these are
generals like starred generals. And that makes sense to me.
(57:20):
Or somebody who's been in the intelligence game for a long,
long time has that experience wisdom to be at the
top and make the big decisions. It doesn't make sense
to me when it is more of a political appointee.
So somebody, as you said, Ben, is a mayor, is
in the Congress, then gets moved up towards these intelligence
(57:40):
roles for one reason or another. But it ends up
being a political appointment rather than a strategic appointment. Or
maybe it's strategically political.
Speaker 5 (57:51):
Well, haven't we seen a ton of weird crossover with that,
with like kind of cleaning house and getting rid of
a lot of generals that seemed to represent the old
guard or something like that and installing sort of maybe more,
I don't know, sycophantic.
Speaker 4 (58:06):
Fealty, cronyism.
Speaker 3 (58:07):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 5 (58:08):
And also, guys, I mean, I don't mean to derail,
but this just totally ties into that.
Speaker 3 (58:12):
Did you see what the Homeland Security social media posted
the other day?
Speaker 5 (58:18):
It was an image of Trump, uh, under an umbrella,
sort of looking coyly at the camera and said, did
you remain loyal.
Speaker 4 (58:25):
To like a wireless or to like the person?
Speaker 2 (58:27):
Yeah, dude.
Speaker 3 (58:28):
No, it's, it's like the kind of, it's like some 1984.
Speaker 5 (58:30):
I mean, it's like a poster you would see in
a dystopian world where it's like big brothers watching.
Speaker 3 (58:37):
Did you remain loyal? And that's right. I bring that up.
And cause of the, um, what was the term you used?
Speaker 4 (58:43):
Cronyism.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
Cronyism. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (58:45):
Yeah. I've got a, I've got a, um, I've got
to admit that's a crazy thing. You have to wonder
what Washington and Lincoln and so on et al. would
think about social media in general. I mean Ben Franklin
would kill it, Twitter. I think we can all agree
on that.
Speaker 5 (59:03):
But yeah but but it's totally his format a little
aphorism aphorism.
Speaker 4 (59:08):
Yes yeah poor richard uh but there there's one other
thing i've got a string out here guys man i
wish i drew this on the wall whatever uh this
is something that A lot of people need to be
thinking more about, so NATO is endangered.
Speaker 3 (59:26):
The U.S.
Speaker 4 (59:27):
Relationship with NATO is on a sharp decline for various reasons.
Some of that is the cronyism and the compromise of
the U.S. government, which is in a very weak position
at this point. I'm wondering, I've been talking with some
folks about this, I'm wondering if we sent our big
(59:47):
daddy of the CIA out over to Moscow to talk
about the rumors that Russia is going to be testing NATO.
Right now, we think there are maybe three different areas
where Russia will launch something that will not be strong
(01:00:07):
enough to trigger World War III or something, but will
be strong enough to test whether the United States is
has the back of NATO countries to see what Uncle
Sam will do, right, if the Baltics get pushed on.
So maybe the CIA went to Moscow and said, please
(01:00:33):
don't do this. Or maybe the CIA went to Moscow
and said, we're publicly going to say this is a problem,
but just so you know, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Guys, have you heard this?
Speaker 5 (01:00:46):
Conspiracy theory that, like, maybe it's entirely possible that Trump,
in an effort to have this legacy of being the
toughest and strongest and most, you know, strong man kind
of president, is sort of setting the stage for a
situation where he has to push the nuclear button?
Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
Ooh.
Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
I mean.
Speaker 5 (01:01:09):
It's a thing that's floating around. I mean, it's obviously conjecture,
but it's in keeping with his.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Things that would work as an October surprise. Russia testing NATO. Oops,
a nuke. Oh, dang it. What else? What's on our list, guys?
What could be a great October surprise for this midterm election?
Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
Oh, a natural disaster that's manufactured. Maybe a, oh, of course,
you know, stick with the oldies, right? Do a false
flag on U.S. soil. You know what I mean? That's
a great way to shore up a vote.
Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Aliens?
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Aliens, why not?
Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
Throw it in.
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
I think we already got that one out of the
way and it was a bit of a womp.
Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
We just didn't do the rollout correctly, I think.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
That's fair.
Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
But we do know this is the kind of stuff
that people in power don't want you to pay attention to,
which is why we are bringing it up. I know
that I'm on record getting some hot takes from some
of our fellow listeners by saying that I am increasingly
(01:02:15):
convinced that aspects of the U.S. government have been compromised
by foreign actors. I'll say it, by Russia, right? And
to a degree, by China. Check out all the news
that seems to break every month or so about Chinese spies, right?
Like Christine Fang and that congressman who just had a
(01:02:40):
bad situation.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
I would say we certainly have seen a lot of
different folks and factions trying to compromise people in the U.S.
Speaker 6 (01:02:48):
Government.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
You know, I like you a lot, Qatar, but dang,
that's kind of weird with the jet thing. You know,
there's just a lot of people out there doing stuff,
a lot of gifts going around, a lot of favors
being done.
Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
Exactly. And we're getting to the point where We have
to hear from you folks. Please, please, please let us know. Also,
if you were the pilot on that plane, and if
you're cool with it, no pressure, email us. Even if
it's just to tell us what snacks are on the plane,
(01:03:25):
we didn't want to end with some terrible questions, but
we do want your opinion on them. We're not going
to get to a story about the Speaking of social
media going wrong, we're not going to get to the
story about the Indian teenager who was murdered for his
testicles due to a fake social media claim that they
(01:03:48):
were worth 100,000 British pounds. But please do check out
the Arab Times for more on that.
Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Are testicles transplantable? I guess anything is, right?
Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:04:01):
How much does a pair of testicles go on the
black market, Ben? On the red market, rather.
Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
Yeah. Or the gray market? Testicles are kind of gray.
Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Oh, gosh. Wait, what?
Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
Yeah, testicles are kind of like, you know, you ever
seen prairie oysters? They're kind of gray.
Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
Okay, yes. I'm with you.
Speaker 5 (01:04:18):
Sorry, I was just talking about naming colors of markets. But,
I mean, surely you could get some amount of coin
for a good pair of testicles.
Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Maybe not a hundred grand, but... I'm curious what they
go for in the open market.
Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
Yeah, and unfortunately, this kid died.
Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
That story's gnarly.
Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
I don't mean to make light.
Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
It's a gnarly story.
Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
He was 17 years old. It's a story you'll have
to read more about, folks. We're happy, as always, to
give you sources if you want to check in with us.
I thought if it's okay, we could end on that.
A nice bookend to our earlier point about exhibiting technology, right,
(01:05:03):
and finding a use for it later. This is either
terrifying news or it's good news. I would say it's
a little bit of both. Let's set it up this way. Guys,
do you remember how we've talked about crazy wackadoo ideas
to turn animals into cyborgs, like cat spies and bat moms?
Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
So kind of partially organic still, like giving them some
implants or add-ons.
Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
Yes, exactly. So the second question here is we're setting
it up. You guys, are you big fans of cockroaches?
Are you big anti-cockroach guys?
Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
I respect them, but I don't want them in my house. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
What about you, Matt? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
I respect that. How can you not respect their resilience?
Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
And like, it's, I have been on a thing where
for gosh, the past several years, I haven't been killing them.
And I know even if you get them and you
throw them or you move them away, they're going to
find their way back in. I know that about them,
but I still don't want to kill them because they
seem way more intelligent than they have any right to be.
Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
I always try to, you know, this is dumb of me,
but it's, it's cool to be dumb sometimes. Uh, I
always try to give them a little pep talk, you know,
like the older guy in the neighborhood who checks in
and says like, hey, young blood, you don't have to,
what are you doing skirting around here? There's plenty of
food outside. You know, I used to be, yeah, I
(01:06:35):
used to be just like you, that kind of thing. Well,
the good news here is that we're back in the
cyborg game, baby. Cyborg cockroaches have been designed with tiny
syringes to join, uh, SNR search and rescue teams to
help find people in the wake of major disasters like
(01:06:57):
the floods in Nepal or like the, uh, earthquakes in Japan. Uh,
they are giant burrowing cockroaches. They have cameras and quote,
medical injectors, end quote. They're being tested as first responders
in earthquakes. So shout out to the Australian associated press. Uh,
(01:07:20):
But what do you guys think? The idea of, they're
calling them paraborgs, by the way. The idea of these
guys having syringes to inject you with is freakish to me.
Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Stop it.
Speaker 4 (01:07:32):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Dude. Ugh.
Speaker 3 (01:07:34):
Dystopia.
Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Ugh. As long as it's not full of cordyceps, we'll
be fine.
Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
There we go. We'll give you... I just want you
guys to see this.
Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
More likely to be full of fentanyl or something.
Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
Jeez.
Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Assassination. I'm sorry, man. What do you think they're going
to be doing? Vitamins?
Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
Well, here's what one of them looks like.
Speaker 6 (01:07:55):
With cyborg insects, because of their small size, their agility,
we hope that we can easily release them into a
collapse structure. They can go deep under the rubble to
search for victims. With that information, sending back to the
first responder, hopefully... we can identify where the.
Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
Wait a minute, but why do they have syringes? Is
it sort of like the St.
Speaker 5 (01:08:15):
Bernard with the thing of booze under its neck to
revive fallen hikers in the Alps?
Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
What are we talking here? Are there dual purposes to
these things?
Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
Yeah, we're going to have to learn more about this.
Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
I didn't mention the syringes. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Maybe.
Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
Maybe you can have the syringe contain a specific sort
of medicine or maybe you can customize what the syringe
can ingest.
Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Certainly.
Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Do you know what I'm talking about, Ben?
Speaker 4 (01:08:54):
Yeah, with the sapronauts.
Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
Warms them up.
Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
With a little, like a tiny baby keg. A little cork. Yeah. Yeah,
we've got to recommend this article. Please check it out.
We just saw the photographs of the cockroaches in question
strapped up. I think it's happening. I think we're going
to see more cyborg And I think we're going to
(01:09:21):
see that in conjunction with the new research into increasingly
humanoid robots. Not the way we wanted this one to end,
but paraborgs. That's our word of the day. I don't know.
Any final thoughts before we wrap, guys?
Speaker 7 (01:09:40):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
Leave it at paraborgs.
Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
We'll leave it at paraborgs.
Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
We must be assimilated.
Speaker 4 (01:09:46):
All right. Well, folks, please be safe out there. Thank you,
as always, so much for tuning in. We cannot wait
to hear your thoughts. There are a number of ways
to find us and you don't need a cyborg cockroach
to do it.
Speaker 5 (01:10:00):
I mean, send them our way if you got them,
just preferably not full of any, you know.
Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
Poisonous substances.
Speaker 5 (01:10:07):
You can find the heck out of us on the
internet by reaching out to the Handle Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on which one of those brain
poisoning social media platforms you go out for.
Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
We also have a phone number that you can call
and leave a voicemail. It's 1-833-STD-WYTK. Guys, I just want
to take one moment here just to recognize the passing
this past week of Dolly Parton, Tim Curry and and
now Peter Cullen. Peter Cullen.
Speaker 6 (01:10:38):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
The voice of the original Predator, the voice of the
original Mogwai, the voice of Eeyore, and freaking Optimus Prime himself.
Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
Gotta add to that as well, Matt, Yayoi Kusama, the
incredibly important artist who's known for those pumpkins and the
infinity mirror rooms and just an incredible human being. 97
years old. seems to have had a great and fascinating
and super cool life.
Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Absolutely. And just to put that out there, if you
have any thoughts on those folks or things that we
should be thinking about with them or remembering them, why
don't you call us and tell us about that or
anything we talked about today on the show. If you
don't like using your phone, instead, maybe you want to
write something down and send it our way, why don't
you do that? You can. We are.
Speaker 4 (01:11:24):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive
be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
And Matt, I know we're talking off air about the
passage of Dolly Parton, just a phenomenal, inspiring person. One
thing that you can do, folks, in that case in particular—
(01:11:47):
is visit donate.imaginationlibrary.com. This has changed the lives of so
many kids and given them the gift of literacy, which
is a gift you really cannot put a price on.
So thank you as always so much for tuning in.
We'd love to hear your thoughts. We'd love to hear
your random facts. We'd love to hear what you think
(01:12:09):
the next John Henry moment is going to be. Conspiracy
at iHeartRadio.com.
Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
My name is Norm. They call me Ben.
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We're joined, as always, with our super producer, Max the
Freight Train Williams. Most importantly, you are you. You are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
It's time for some strange news. So if you're tuning
in to our strange news program, The Evening It Publishes, welcome,
friends and neighbors, to the very end of August. Guys,
(00:54):
it is August 10th. I'm kind of going to miss August,
but I'm looking forward to September.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
September's my favorite. I love September. That's your number one?
Speaker 5 (01:04):
Yeah, man.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Can you guys wake me up when September ends?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Okay. Yeah, because we have to get on the road
in October, so that'll give you time to warm up.
I can't believe September's your favorite month, Matt.
Speaker 5 (01:19):
Really?
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Yeah, I love it because we're transitioning into fall, and
I really do enjoy that. feeling all the scorching heat
and everything, and then moving towards that cooling off. Oh,
and then it's almost jacket time. When we get to
jacket time, I just flourish, you guys, as a person.
Speaker 4 (01:37):
It's autumnal. I love it. You know, you can feel
Halloween getting closer. It's a great time to reread something wicked.
This Way Comes, one of the best autumnal novels ever.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
Have I mentioned that Birthday Boys sketch about September Santa? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
It's me, who, who, who, September Santa. I don't know
this one.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Mitch from the Birthday Boys, or I'm sorry, from Doughboys
was a member of the Birthday Boys.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
That's why I was confusing those things.
Speaker 5 (02:06):
He plays September Santa who climbs through the window and
the people in.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
The house are like, is that a thing? What are you?
Why do you exist?
Speaker 5 (02:15):
And it gets real specific about, I represent that time between,
you know, it's very funny. It's like not quite Halloween season.
It's still borderline summer. He doesn't really have a real
reason to exist. And yet there he is. Isn't that
just how it be sometimes, y'all?
Speaker 4 (02:33):
Well, you don't have to justify existing, folks. We're glad
you're here. Santa's superhumans and normals alike. We do want
to have a couple of quick things here at the
top of our strange news program. The first is for
people tuning into our episode on Vladimir Putin's very weird,
(02:56):
very real conspiracy to live forever. We mentioned a famous
international comedy moment wherein a guy was speaking through a translator.
to a group of very important Japanese people. And this
guy didn't speak Japanese. And he made a joke that
(03:17):
he thought killed everybody, cackled like mad. And later, the
guy thought that he had just been awesome at comedy.
But it turns out the translator in Japanese said, this
guy made a joke. And so now you have to laugh.
And everybody just obeyed what the translator said. That man
(03:39):
was former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. And he did not
know that his joke didn't land. But Jimmy, you got
a lot of heart.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Ben, you know who else tried really hard?
Speaker 4 (03:50):
Who was that?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
All us consumers that wanted companies and still want companies
to make machines that'll last for a long time and
not just have manufactured obsolescence. What is the term? Is
that the right term?
Speaker 4 (04:03):
Planned obsolescence. Shut out the Phoebus cartel.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, well, there's been a giant victory, you guys, in Ireland,
in the EU, and all across the land in Europe,
as a new set of laws has just come to fruition.
You can read about it in the Irish Times, the BBC,
all over the place. The one in the Irish Times
that came out on August 24th is titled, Right to
Repair Law Takes Effect in Bid to Extend Lifespan of
(04:29):
Household Goods. And guys, it's everything. Washing machines, phones, vacuum cleaners,
All kinds of new things that are now, it's codified.
Companies have to manufacture them in ways that they can
be repaired easily by consumers, you know, sometimes through an
official repair system, depending on the company, but also through
(04:51):
a brand new thing that the EU has where you
go to a website and you find out how to
get parts to repair your thing, and you can even
do it on your own.
Speaker 5 (05:00):
Right? Agreed.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
That's amazing. Yeah, we've been talking about the end of ownership.
We've been talking about right to repair laws. Matt, I
think you and Noel and Freight Train and I can
unanimously congratulate the good people across the pond. That is huge.
(05:24):
We talked about this before, but Do you think we'll
ever see some kind of right to repair law of
that magnitude here in the States?
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Well, actually, Ben, one of the main stories I'm going
to talk about today I think could be one of
the cracks in the system that will get us there eventually.
It's just going to take us a lot longer.
Speaker 3 (05:46):
Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
Guys, I'm excited. Let's say we take a break for
a word from our sponsors and get into it.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
All i want to do is repair my john deere
that you're right with my hands.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Dude can you guys imagine if you really could repair
those tractors that cost good lord how much do we
say they cost when we did our episode on on
that ben it was like a crazy amount of money
for a tractor it's it's.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
It's a Egregious amount, and I don't want to sound
too Larry David about it, but I think also, Matt
and Noel, when we previously discussed this, we were also
discussing how controversial it was that John Deere was putting
in corporate-level, manufacturer-level safeguards that would not allow you to
(06:43):
repair something on your own, the price of a tractor. Uh,
we've got to figure it out, but it's also kind
of like how, uh, you know, the reason that used vehicles,
used cars in the United States are at such a
premium now is because we've all figured out. We don't
want all the bells and whistles that new cars are
(07:05):
putting in. You know what I mean? Give me an
old stick shift, a pickup truck that's been beat to
hell and back from the 1980s. You know, exactly.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
By the way, I just went to allmachines.com and found out- Ooh,
that's a sexy URL.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
Can I just say?
Speaker 2 (07:23):
We've got John Deere models from the teeniest, tiniest that
range from around $ 3, 000 US to the big boys that
you might use in a large farm, like a factory
farm situation.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
A fresher.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Up to 1.26 million. Whoa.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
Sound like a combine harvester.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Yeah, like the big, big boys.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
That's it, a combine.
Speaker 5 (07:47):
A thresher, that's my, yeah, that's from the olden days
on the farm from when I was a lad.
Speaker 6 (07:53):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
But in Lilburn, you can get a John Deere 1025R
for $ 22, 000. And that's just like a riding lawnmower that's
really big and bulky.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
Can I just say, every time I hear the name Lilburn,
I just think, aw. That's a cute little thing.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
Oh, like Lilburn?
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Lilburn.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Oh, there's Lilburn. Lilburn.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Okay, guys, we're talking about manufacturers of consumer goods, because
I think you can throw a John Deere riding lawnmower
in there as a consumer good. We've also been talking
a lot about AI companies, what they're doing. Let's jump to,
because we've kind of forgot about them, the social media organizations,
(08:37):
the companies that peddle in our attention all day long.
Not that we have forgotten about them, we talk about
them all the time, but We haven't focused on him
in a minute, right? Yeah. A big thing has been
happening today as we record on Thursday, August 27th. This
news came out on the 22nd of August from The Guardian.
(08:59):
I'm not going to say the title of it until later,
so I'm just going to begin reading directly from this article.
Here we go. In a trial that opened on Tuesday,
August 18th, California and 28 other states reported accused the
company Meta of designing addictive sites and violating laws protecting
(09:19):
children's privacy. According to Megan O'Neill, an attorney for the
state of California, prosecuting the world's largest social media company,
Meta's businesses can be boiled down to four words that
begin with the letter H. Here it is. Hook.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Hold.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Harvest. Hide.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
Ooh. Harvest. Hide.
Speaker 4 (09:43):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Let's get into those young minds.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
It hits home so much for us, just as folks
who have been talking about this and looking at this
for so long. And we hope that it hits home
with you because it feels very accurate. She goes on
to say the owner of Facebook and Instagram. hooks in users,
holds them on their platforms as long as possible, harvests
all of their data while they're there, and then hides
(10:10):
the truth from the public. She says Meta's business model
works especially well for kids.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Hide the truth from the public, meaning hide the priorities
of those first three H's, right?
Speaker 6 (10:26):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Not just like they want you to know they're there.
They need you to know they're there and to be
using them all the time. They're hiding their intention, essentially, right? Hey,
come in, meet your friends, hang out, like your stuff,
maybe even make some money.
Speaker 5 (10:42):
It's the whole thing we always said and that we
didn't like coin or anything. But like if you're getting
something for free, then you're probably the product.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I remember.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (10:53):
I do. I remember. Guys, the lawsuit is continuing to read. Oh,
and the title of the lawsuit is hook, hold, harvest
and hide. Meta's alleged strategy laid out in first week
of landmark trial. Oh, come on.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
First off, alleged?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
You know what I mean? That's what the attorney said.
Here's why it maybe doesn't matter that an attorney said
that in a court of law and why it won't
hold and set any kind of precedent. But let's continue here.
The lawsuit centers on allegations that the company violated U.S.
federal child privacy laws and state-level consumer protection laws by
(11:30):
collecting data on children under the age of 13 and
without their parental permission. The threat to Meta here is existential.
If the company is found liable, damages could be as
high as 200 billion US dollars. 200 billion, guys. That's
an amount equivalent to the company's 2025 annual revenue. That's
(11:54):
not their profit. That is the annual money going in, right?
That's not the stuff that you get on top after
all your operating expenses and things like that. That's just
all the money they made last year.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
And folks, to put it in perspective, we try to
mention this every time we talk about a billion as
a concept because it gets thrown around so often these days.
If you looked at a million seconds, that would be
about 11 and a half days. That's a million seconds.
(12:27):
But if you look at a billion seconds, that's about
31.7 years. There was a huge difference between a billion
and a million. And what you're saying here, Matt, is
this could be a billion, 31.7 years times 200. So
this is a big enough fee to even, you know,
(12:48):
even give Meta a little rap on the knuckles or
a smack on the tuchus.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yes. If they are found liable. within the confines of
this particular lawsuit. This particular individual. Sorry, keep watching and
thinking about idiocracy.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
Which one goes in your butt and which one goes
in your mouth?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
I don't know. I think it's that one. So let's
just continue on here just so we can keep our
story going. The states, because we mentioned there are many
states involved here, many a state attorney general, The states
are also asking that Meta be forced to change the
design of its products to make them safer for children,
(13:29):
which would have permanent effects on the company's business model
and how its social media platforms operate. Meta, for its part,
has denied all of these allegations. And now this trial,
the one that just began and was reported on here
on the 22nd of August, is expected to last six
to eight weeks. That is pretty fast. Now jump to.
(13:55):
Oh, wait. This is coming from The Guardian. On August 26th, yesterday,
as we record... What does it say here? Meta agrees
to major changes to Facebook and Instagram as it settles U.S.
trial over teen addiction for up to $ 18 billion.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
I feel like there's an asterisk on the way.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
There's so many asterisks to this, guys. So... many asterisks.
Here's the wonderful thing. This is a potential positive for
all the kids out there and now becoming adults who
have been affected by social media and some of the
nefarious things that they do. Again, see Bo Burnham, welcome
to the internet and really listen. There's a good thing
(14:42):
because changes are going to be made to these sites,
to these apps, at least for children For teens, for
kids who have been directly affected, and that's a good thing.
It's not going to change for us adults, at least
right now. There's no incentive.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
It's not going to change the way Gen Z is
as human people.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
That's true. That's very true.
Speaker 5 (15:06):
I don't mean to. I'm not besmirching the– I mean there's– look,
we also know, Matt, that like a lot of these
negative things– there's an evolution that comes along with it. Like,
I mean, there's definitely harm that was done, but it's
not like Gen Z is like somehow like wrecked for
life either.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Like, I just think there's a certain amount of adaptation
that went along with these ultimately nefarious things that were
being done to these kids, right?
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Oh yeah. Against their knowledge for a time. And then
as people began to understand, the children still didn't fully
understand what was happening to them. And as we know,
This is horrible. And trigger warning, there has been a
lot of self-harm. There's been a lot of lives that
have been taken. There have been a lot of eating
(15:55):
disorders and all kinds of horrible things that have been
attributed through other lawsuits that Meta has gotten in trouble for,
that has actually been found liable for. But not in
this case. Not in this case. They have not been
found liable for anything because this is a payout.
Speaker 4 (16:13):
So they're trying to do what we call getting in
front of it.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
That's exactly what it is. I'm going to have to
read a little bit of this from The Guardian, August 26th.
Meta agreed to significant changes to its app. They agreed
to them on Wednesday, August 26th, so mere days after
the trial began or the lawsuit began. Dozens of U.S.
states accused the tech giant of addicting and harming children
(16:40):
with their dangerous products. which is, gosh, just a way
to say that. Social media is dangerous products. The agreement
curtails a major trial in California will require the social
media company to pay up to $ 18 billion. It agreed
to establish safeguards for teen users, including daily usage limits
and blocks on nighttime use nationwide. It's the first time,
(17:02):
and this is why I said maybe this is a crack.
This is the first time in the United States that
Meta has been forced to change any feature, like key features,
of the experience for everyday users. It's the first time
they've had to actually change their platform. In the EU,
in many other countries outside of the US, they have
already done this to better protect users from the dang
(17:26):
thing they are using, right? From the app itself and
from its addictiveness and from some of the other things
that are harmful. This is a key thing, Ben, that
you brought up. $ 18 billion, that's the settlement they're paying
out to all of these states. It's going to be
divided between the states, and it's going to be paid
(17:47):
out over a period of a decade, 10 years. And
it's still subject to court approval for all the things
that will be paid out. California is going to get
somewhere between $ 1. 5 and $ 2 billion. Colorado is going to
get $ 615 million. Is this in some way to supplement
the mental health.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
Toll or the, like the, the resources that have been taxed,
like where, how does this money benefit the victims?
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I'm curious.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
Where does, where does the money actually go? And then
another for anybody playing at home, uh, I believe the
net profit of meta back in 2025 and last year was, uh,
almost 60.5 billion. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
That's the profit, right? That's the, the stuff on top.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Of everything that they had to spend. But still 60
billion freaking dollars. Good God. Let's do a little math there.
That's a dent. That's a big old dent. A bigger
dent that we usually see. Simply because it's in the
billions of dollars. Not a lot of companies could take
that hit. Meta though. They made a choice.
Speaker 5 (19:01):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And it's way better than being found liable. For harming children.
because they've already been in separate lawsuits, one that they lost,
brought by the Attorney General of New Mexico, that state
was gifted, was forced to pay nearly a billion dollars
for allowing child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Think about that.
(19:26):
This company that we're talking about already had to pay
a billion dollars for that. There was another trial where
Meadow was found liable for deliberately designing addictive products that
hooked one young woman and they had to pay her
more than $ 4 million. Again, $ 4 million, Ben, difference between
that and a billion or $ 18 billion, massive. I just
(19:47):
want to bring this to all of our attention just
to imagine that it is possible to take these tech
giants to task and potentially find a better way forward
that isn't so addictive, that isn't so harmful. And maybe
we could become more human again.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
I'm going to like your post.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Oh, but that's another thing they did. They disabled likes
on teen accounts. And unless a parent goes in to
like change that, you just can't see who is liking
and how many people are liking posts.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
Well, because that's the dopamine casino of it all, where
you're like farming for likes because it gives you that hit,
you know, to your nervous system that is. genuinely what
equates it to almost a drug-like experience you.
Speaker 7 (20:33):
Know 100 yeah and also i just want to walk
not walk back what i said but i just want
to make it clear that like you know in with
my kid and their friends and all this stuff like
i've seen these instances of self-harm i've seen like the
you know eating disorder and all of these horrific kind.
Speaker 5 (20:49):
Of things like firsthand and i've heard stories about it
from my kid and you know i i didn't i
wasn't trying to say that like these kids are going
to be fine. They haven't been harmed. You know, they
absolutely have. But what I was also saying is just
giving them credit for resilience against this PSYOP.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
For sure, man. And we also have to, we also,
as is our remit, have to walk this out a
little bit because the next question, just to get in
front of all the emails and the voicemails, folks, the
next question is, how this will be enforced. A lot
of us listening tonight, Matt, are doubtlessly recalling how easy
(21:32):
it is or has been in the past to go
to an adult website and get a little button that says,
are you 18 or over, right? It's very easy for
a 13-year-old or what have you to just click on
that button. The immediate question therefore becomes, how this could
(21:53):
be enforced, how these curfews or this time limit on
a human child's account could be, how you could actually
make it happen. Does that lead us to further de-anonymization
of the internet?
Speaker 2 (22:15):
I mean, in the case of younger people, See, it's
so tough because there's so many things you could argue.
You want it to be anonymous so that a bad person,
a bad actor can't identify somebody, right? Somebody just with
their email or their phone number has signed up for
(22:35):
an account and now they're permanently attached to that, right?
If you know how to get to that information, you
could identify somebody. But if it's a teen, a young person,
good God, you don't want that. You don't want a
bad actor to find them and know who they are. Um, but,
and yet they can, right. Even if there are things
in place to prevent them from doing that, it's possible
(22:57):
for that to occur, which is potentially really dangerous. So
you don't, but I don't know. I, I, we talked
about so many times, I feel like I'm more and
more on the side of making everything that happens on
the internet, at least in a public space, be identifiable.
You're a human being attached to an account that does things.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
I mean, You have to do that when you get credit.
You have to do that when you apply for a loan.
I mean I'm not– those things are necessarily one-to-one. But
it's like there are so many things that require like
real identification. And now, I mean a lot of states
have laws around accessing pornographic websites where you have to
enter real identifications. You know, obviously there are ways around
(23:40):
that using VPNs and obviously there would be a way
around any kind of removal of anonymization. We know the
moment you tell people you can't do a thing, they're
going to figure it out. Maybe things will go more
into a dark web type situation, but I.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Just, I'm with you, Matt. It feels like the move.
Speaker 4 (23:58):
I've got to say, you know, Matt, one thing you
brought up just a second ago that really stands out
to me as a very good legal argument is is
the idea of public space. So for a long time
in the United States and in indeed much of the
Western world, we know that there is no expectation of
(24:21):
privacy in the public square, whatever that may be. So
for instance, in the States, if you are in your house,
your private area, you're not supposed to be able to
be surveilled by any Johnny Blue Jeans or Katie Come Lately,
which I made up, but I think that phrase works.
(24:43):
But the idea then of social media being the same
thing as walking down Main Street means that you can
be identified, right? You can be surveilled. So maybe that
is a precedent that we as a civilization should hold to.
I think I'm writing it down. I think that's an
excellent way to look at it.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Yeah, guys, we're going to jump out of this and
move on. The last article comes from The Guardian. It's
an opinion piece. An $ 18 billion settlement is a drop
in the ocean for Meta, but the tide will still
come for it. Written by Chris Stokel Walker, August 27th.
There's just one little thing he put in here that
makes so much sense to me. because they did settle.
(25:28):
This is a settlement. This is not, you know, winning
or losing a trial or a lawsuit. This is a settlement.
He says settlements without admission of fault. Don't set precedents
while court judgments absolutely do in a way that could
quickly spiral out of control for meta's product offering, which
is just, he's trying to say, this is why they
chose this. Even though it's $ 18 billion, it's better than
(25:51):
having a precedent set where a court can come in
and say, Hey, you have to change your product. Um,
This is a way of protecting its core business proposition
as a company.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
You're cauterizing the wound to save the financial body so
you don't bleed out profits.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yes. I would just argue that I think it is
about time that we have to somehow regulate these things
a little bit more. And I know, oh, God, I
want regulation. Matt's kind of commie is in here. I
do feel like it's important to, again, humanity. IEC Bill
Gates warning about AI. It just came out. Bill freaking Gates,
(26:32):
like screaming from the hilltop about AI and how dangerous
it is. Just think on it. That's it for now.
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 5 (26:49):
And we're back with more stories of our modern techno dystopia.
This time it's a little more on the entertaining side,
at least, you know, on first base. blush is that
a thing that people say um though the further down
the line implications are you know more on the dark
side but i thought we could at least lead off
by having a shared moment of mirth let's watch a
(27:12):
clip of a humanoid robot training for the world humanoid
robot games in china uh in a somewhat unusual exercise.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Look at him go.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
Look at him go. Look at him go.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Look at him go. Look at him go.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Oh, no. That's insane.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
Is that what he's supposed to do?
Speaker 2 (27:33):
It's just going to repeat.
Speaker 4 (27:38):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
I don't think that was the intent.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
Okay. What are you?
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
So it's this robot.
Speaker 5 (27:45):
This is the audio only version of the show for
this strange news episode, but it's a very spry looking
little fella, little robot running, running, running, giving it all
he's got. And then smashing headlong into a big blue wall, uh,
falling over backwards after a bit of a stagger, uh,
and erupting in sparks.
Speaker 3 (28:03):
And then just kind of, just kind of like, like
he's got X's on his eyes.
Speaker 4 (28:08):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
It's just like, it's like, this is robot death. Um, Ben,
it's a thing to behold.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
Ben and Noel. I also have a video from another race. No,
I want you to see the similarities.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
I don't think I've seen it.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
There's some similarities with this one. Here we go. Hopefully
they have volume two. Here we go.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
Oh, I remember this one.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Look at him scoot.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
I love the.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Way they run. Watch, watch.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Here we go.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
Another angle.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Oh, that one is going for a slide.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
Okay, maybe I need to read more about this particular thing.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
This was the clip that kind of went viral. Is
that what it's supposed to do?
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Yeah, that's where they have the wall there.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
To what end?
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Because it's hard to figure out the curvature.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
It's hard to stop them once they get that speech.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
No, no, it's not meant to run into the wall.
Speaker 4 (29:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:08):
It is.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
That's why they set the wall up there. That's why
multiple ones just sort of shoot out like bullets instead
of curving left.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
I don't understand what I'm looking at, man.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
This is described as being a training exercise, but it
sure seemed like it bricked the robot. So, I mean,
these things can't be cheap. Is this really.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
The best way to go about it, I just, I
don't know.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
I don't understand. That That part is neither here nor there.
I just thought that was funny. This World Humanoid Robot Games,
an Olympic style competition that is having its second year
in Beijing.
Speaker 3 (29:44):
And it is, you know, it's like a.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
Sporting event mixed with like a technology con kind of thing,
you know, where China's able to showcase all of the
sick robots that they make there in what is described
by the Associated Press as an intensifying technology rivalry with
the U.S.
Speaker 3 (30:07):
Bit of a robot race, right?
Speaker 5 (30:10):
So the Tiangong Ultra humanoid robot beat its own record
of 9.39 seconds that it had just said just a
few days prior. This record exceeds the men's 100-meter world
record of 9.58 seconds by a little Jamaican sprinter by
(30:33):
the name of Usain Bolt.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Talk about nominative determinism.
Speaker 5 (30:38):
I got to say, though, it's like, you know, I
get that they're trying to showcase this technology, but, like,
beating like what are we what are we doing here
like we've got robots like playing you know.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Ping pong and stuff and like you know um.
Speaker 5 (30:56):
Running these foot races uh doing long jumps i'm not
joking literal table tennis ballroom dancing 51 different events 1300
competitions involving more than 2000 robots and My buddy Jonesy,
a friend of the show, I think we all have
listened to his Weird AF News podcast from time to time,
stolen more than my fair share of stories from him,
(31:18):
had the comment that like, why don't we like fight
them to the death or something like that? I mean,
we've got these like robots that can lift like tons,
you know, like superhuman strength, you know, can lift a
freaking garbage truck over their heads, I guess. And yet
we've got them playing pickleball. Like, it just seems like
a real underutilization, a really underwhelming display of this We've
(31:40):
also got housekeeper and caregiver robots that are being demonstrated.
It just feels more like a kind of a industry
facing events, you know, to kind of make news headlines
rather than.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Anything of real value.
Speaker 5 (31:57):
And I feel like this clip of this robot just
smashing headlong into a wall is kind of a perfect
metaphor for it in many ways. It's like this is
just all flex and not much use case.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (32:09):
I hear you, man. We have to realize that this
definitely is a flex. Sixteen countries are involved. But I
would compare it to an exhibition of decades past.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Like the World's Fair.
Speaker 7 (32:21):
Right.
Speaker 4 (32:21):
Just so. Like the idea is saying here is an
interesting concept. Maybe we can– like if we can figure
out these abilities or these capabilities, then later down the line,
we can find specific applications.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Right.
Speaker 5 (32:38):
Right?
Speaker 4 (32:39):
So one thing we did early on with the, or
we clocked, I think, as a group early on with
the robo-dogs was that it was only a matter of
time before they got weaponized, right? And I remember recently
I was at a flying car thing, basically, that was
(33:00):
advertising different uses of flying car technology, which right now
is still very much out of the reach of the
vast majority of people, but my flying car, Ben, I'm
not the, uh, I'm, I'm actually kind of anti flying car.
Cause it'll mean every vehicle has to be autonomous, but what?
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Well, the logistics of it.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Right. Right.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
But I think it's a fair comparison because when we're
seeing these robots running and there's another great clip of
a robot, he's doing a great job running, but it's
running like this with its hands, uh, shaking around in
a very, it's like if you've ever seen Olympic speed walking,
it's doing that times 100. It's very sassy, I would say.
(33:45):
When we see that, what we're ultimately seeing is, as
you said, a flex, Noel. We're seeing these countries and
these manufacturers saying, okay, put the silliness aside. No, this
is drawing board stuff, right? And just imagine that what
we could do with something that can go this fast reliably.
(34:07):
So that's the, I think that's the ultimate draw.
Speaker 5 (34:10):
Cause they get, I get it. I do get it.
I'm not trying to poopoo it entirely. I just think
the whole, like.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
It's faster than Usain Bolt. It's like, are we going
to start competing humans? Is this like going to be
a John Henry kind of situation? Like against robots.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
You know, like, is that what this is intimating or
what the next step in the evolution of this is like,
are we going to have like, you know, people challenging
these robots to race to foot races or.
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Just, no, just real quick. They're mainly competing for investment
at this.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
That's fair.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
They are.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
But what are the, what are truly the end goals guys?
I think we know a couple of them at least one. Why,
why would you want maximum articulation and speed and dexterity
in a robot?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
Security humanoid soldiers.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
Potentially, but also efficiency, because ultimately what the corporation wants
is robotic workers that you don't have to pay any
more things into. You just make one and that is
your overhead cost done. You don't have to ever deal
with HR with these dang robots. You don't have to
ever deal with any of the bad stuff that comes with,
(35:19):
you know, having to pay medical care and all these
other things. You got the fastest, most dexterous, most articulated
thing that can lift anything, that can run any machine.
The other, I think, end goal is so that billionaires,
and I'm saying that on purpose, billionaires and the intellectual
(35:41):
and moneyed elite can eventually transfer their consciousness into one
of these things. I think that is an end goal.
And if you can become faster than Usain Bolt... In
everyday life, this is just what you are now. You're
in the top model robot. That is a thing that
I think is really desired.
Speaker 5 (36:00):
It's not lost on me, guys, that my perspective here
is very like old man yells at cloud. And I
totally understand that's how I'm coming off. And I'm doing
it a little bit for effect. Matt, those are excellent
points and certainly not lost on me. But it's just
the way it's packaged today. like some sort of sporting event.
It just, it's odd. And it almost, you know what,
(36:22):
the more I talk it through and think about it
with you, it's almost a way of neutering some of
those concerns and being like, no, look, it's harmless. They're
just playing ping pong with one another and doing ballroom dancing.
You have nothing to worry about, factory workers, auto workers.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Of the world.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Frontline soldiers.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
Frontline soldiers. Frontline soldiers. Though I think we'd be cool
with that. Okay, let's unpack that. I'm sorry. Let's unpack
that aspect of it.
Speaker 5 (36:54):
Do we, if there were a world where we had
automated soldiers, wouldn't that save lives?
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Wouldn't that save, you know, humans from having to be
on the front lines?
Speaker 4 (37:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Potentially, you know, losing their lives?
Speaker 2 (37:07):
It's still a war, though. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:09):
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at with the
idea that this would, maybe replace human soldiers because then
you would not have to worry about the backlash of
a war abroad when human soldiers are dying. It becomes
a financial cost rather than a blood cost. And Matt,
to your phenomenal point there, I would say before we
(37:34):
get to full quote unquote conscious transplants or consciousness transplants,
think about it, you guys. the Achilles heel of the
billionaire bunker industry is that they are relying on human
staff currently, right? So you are in a place where you're,
you know, Mark Zuckerberg or what have you, and you
(37:56):
have your bunker in Hawaii and everything goes sideways. And
at some point, inevitably, the people you pay for maintenance
and security are going to say, oh, wait, money doesn't matter.
There are more of us than there are of this
guy because If your staff is entirely robotic, then everything
you just said, Matt, about workers being replaced exacerbates here
(38:20):
because now my security staff is robotic. I don't have
to worry about giving them my precious water. I don't
have to worry about feeding them or them rising up
in mutiny, and they'll never form a union, right, unless
we create AGI. So again, like we were saying, just
like the World's Fair, is a science fair for emergent technology.
(38:45):
These funny runners have a lot of stuff on the horizon.
Speaker 2 (38:50):
Look what just happened in Nepal and Tibet, and we
keep seeing things like that. Massive floods that are killing hundreds,
if not thousands, still missing. Earthquakes that are devastating areas
of the world. We just talked about the ocean being
the hottest it's ever been. We just talked about July
being the hottest month on record. I mean.
Speaker 5 (39:11):
We are kind of getting to a place where we
are starting to kind of almost censor at least me personally.
Speaker 3 (39:16):
Like, I don't know if we talked about this story.
This is a month's old story.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
But did you guys hear about the suburb in Atlanta
where all these Waymo cars just descended and like circled
these cul-de-sacs and they had to like put like little
those little child, uh, placard things or what are you
like a little sandwich board shaped like a small child
to get them to like move or, or block their way. Like,
I mean the footage of it, the last podcast on
(39:40):
the left guys were talking about it recently on a
an Instagram clip that I saw, and it just looks
like attack of the robot cars, man. And it's like,
I just, we are so not far from, from this
level of dystopian robot invasion kind of scenario. Even if like,
you know, the Waymo thing is goofy and, and, and
(40:02):
an example of the technology that ain't doing quite what.
Speaker 3 (40:05):
It's supposed to.
Speaker 5 (40:06):
It's still giving that same feeling as, as does looking
at these silly robots and watching them slam into the wall.
Is that a way of being like, Oh, look at
him scoot. They run so funny and he's slamming into
the wall. We're not scared of them. They are robot friends.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
I think it's really hard to slow it down once
it gets going that fast.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
Well, they need to work on that. It's like a,
that seems like something they should fix guys.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
I know we ran long on this one, as I
imagine we would, there's a lot to unpack with these
kinds of things, but y'all, um, really, really, really, really
great points.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
And thank you for entertaining my old man perspective on this.
Speaker 5 (40:40):
Um, but I just wanted to add really quickly, another
slightly old story that I teased to you guys off air, um,
in Wisconsin, a couple of months ago, uh, a man
was held at knife point in a bathroom, um, and forcibly, uh, well,
at least intended this, this kidnapper or hostage taker tried
to get him to glue.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
His hands to the floor.
Speaker 5 (41:00):
Um, his demands were, uh, Multiple psychics to be delivered
on scene to this grocery store. A struggle ensued where
the man who was being, you know, assaulted the victim
took his belt off and gave this guy quite the
lashing and chased him through the aisles of this grocery store,
(41:22):
at which point the police arrived. made their move, and
it looked like that the man who had this knife,
the assailant, was about to raise his knife up and
attack the victim again. And the police officer shot at him,
but they blew the victim's thumb off. And you can't
(41:43):
make this stuff up, guys. It's just like, it's the
stuff of pratfall comedy. I feel for this guy. I mean,
what a horrible day. I can't imagine much worse of
a day, but you can't help but.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Find it a little amusing. Hypnotists? Did I say psychics? Yeah, hypnotists.
Speaker 2 (42:05):
Yes. Even weirder. Even weirder.
Speaker 4 (42:08):
Well, you got to wonder what the end game was.
If you get enough hypnotists, could they have, was he
thinking they could hypnotize law enforcement into letting them get away?
Speaker 5 (42:18):
You know, that's where my head went.
Speaker 4 (42:21):
That's probably not what happened. But yeah, yep. It's 2026.
We are in a post-comedy world. Everything is terrible and
everything gives you a chuckle.
Speaker 3 (42:33):
We sure are. And I'm not joking.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
I wasn't even generalizing that much when I said what
I said. He requested specifically multiple hypnotists, not specific ones,
not a specific number, multiple. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
the hostage taker was a 21-year-old man by the name
of Anthony Lehman who called 9-1-1 before 6 p.m. saying
(42:55):
that he had taken a hostage into the men's room
of a Meijer Superstore. I don't know. It is kind
of a grocery store, I think. Maybe a little bit
of a big box store that does all the things
like a Walmart, but we don't have those around here.
And that he wanted to speak to a hostage negotiator.
The guy who was being taken hostage was 59 years old,
really gave this young lad a run for his money.
Speaker 3 (43:15):
And the last.
Speaker 5 (43:16):
Detail that I thought was particularly stuff they don't want
you to know was Lehman claiming to the dispatcher that
he had a dead man switch on him. And I
just wanted to unpack briefly what that would mean in
this situation. Wouldn't that potentially mean a bomb? Like a
switch that if his hand released the device that it
would explode?
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (43:37):
Typically, it would mean that if it's a switch, right? Otherwise,
it would mean an insurance policy of releasing sensitive information.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Releasing documents. Yeah. Got it.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
But for this one, yeah. Like you would see that
in fiction where someone has a thing that says, oh,
if my heartbeat stops, then the whole plane explodes. But yeah,
it was really interesting. For sure.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Or even just a little grippy handle thing, right?
Speaker 6 (44:04):
Right.
Speaker 5 (44:04):
That you, like, have a holding on to, and if
you get shot, you release it, and then, of course,
it goes boom. Like in Speed, the movie, with Dennis Hopper.
But yeah, Lehman was taken to the hospital with critical injuries,
where he allegedly asked the police and staff if he
was on the news. Charged with first-degree reckless injury, false imprisonment,
(44:25):
making terroristic threats, and three counts of second-degree recklessly endangering safety.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
That's all for me, guys. Wanted to end on a
little bit of a, you know, stupid.
Speaker 5 (44:34):
criminal kind of story so let's take a quick break
here we're from our sponsor and then come back with
our final piece of strange news.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
And we have returned shout out to all our friends
and neighbors fellow conspiracy realist on the road uh and
in the skies you may have noticed a story that
we didn't get to earlier. This is going to be
our main thing for this part. Not too, too long ago,
(45:10):
there was a mysterious flight from the United States to Russia.
This was, we talked a little bit about this off air.
This was initially billed as a mystery flight because it
was a military aircraft, right? It wasn't your average Airbus
(45:34):
or Boeing just dropping by Moscow. We recently learned that
this thing definitely did happen. The passenger traveling to Moscow
via this military craft was none other than the director
of the CIA from earlier your boy John Ratcliffe now
(45:59):
did did we all hear about this I think it
started to make the rounds no.
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah this is it's a weird one in particular because
of previous things that heads of CIA have done with
Russia right Yes, yes, sir.
Speaker 4 (46:15):
So this is, okay, so to set the stage for
the conspiracy we're going to construct here, the speculation, first
thing you should know, folks, is that the director of
the CIA is often going to be like a king
in chess, as in they're usually going to stay on
(46:37):
their side of the board pretty often. It's anomalous. for
the actual spymaster to travel that far away. Usually they
have somebody else to do that work for them. Or
to our earlier point, maybe one day they'll just have
robots do it. But we can confirm, thanks to our
(46:58):
friends at the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal,
that the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, was indeed in Moscow
and the U.S. had not announced his trip. They only
went public with it thanks to open source flight tracking data.
(47:21):
So big thanks to all our fellow aviation and sky nerds,
all our plane watchers who started going, hey, what the
heck is this aircraft doing over here? This was a U.S.
government transport plane. It left from Joint Base Andrews which
is on the outskirts of Washington. It traveled to the
(47:43):
Russian capital, and it was there for about eight and
a half hours, right? So long enough for a fun meeting.
It was on a little bit of a layover, and
then it flew back to the U.S.
Speaker 1 (47:59):
Donezo, right?
Speaker 4 (48:00):
No other problems. At this point, we only have reports
from journalists, and then we have a report from the
president of the United States, who made a famous cameo
in Home Alone 2, Lost in New York, downplaying this.
The people speaking for the CIA, the Pentagon, and the U.S.
(48:20):
Air Force have, so far as we record, on Thursday,
August 27th, declined to comment. All the sources that our
journalists are getting Or again, speaking on the condition of
anonymity and Matt and Noel, we talked about it before.
We always love those terms. People familiar with the matter.
(48:43):
A source close to the investigation.
Speaker 5 (48:48):
This idea of secret sources, like it's now being used
as a way.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
To discredit people. I mean, not now.
Speaker 5 (48:55):
It's probably been done in the past as well, but
it seems now more than ever. Anytime there's an anonymous
source involved, it seems to be the talking point that
it calls the whole story into question.
Speaker 4 (49:05):
A hundred percent.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Okay, I don't know a ton about Ratcliffe. I'm looking
at his wiki right now. The best source, he said jokingly. There, again,
we love Wikipedia because it cites sources. in order to
put stuff on there. There needs to be a source
attached usually, and you can find that source, then look at,
you know, the thing. Well, in here, it's noting that,
(49:30):
you know, previously, before he became CIA director, what was
his other role in the government?
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Yeah, he was a congressman for Texas.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
He was? he was also the director of national intelligence
for a bit. Yes.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
And he was also a mayor for a while. This
guy's in the game.
Speaker 2 (49:49):
When he was director of national intelligence back in 2020,
he did this thing where there's a guy named Michael Flynn,
that if you had been following news and politics back
in the day, this, uh, he's a retired, he was
high up in the army. I think a Lieutenant something,
Lieutenant general, maybe, uh, He had been meeting with a
Russian diplomat, and this is the guy, Ratcliffe is the
(50:11):
guy who decided to declassify some conversations between a high-level
army official and a Russian diplomat. He decided that. And
then he went on to say, hey, guys, Russia isn't
a big threat to our elections at all. The people
you need to be looking at instead are China and Iran.
(50:32):
So I'm just wondering what information does he have? Being
at the heights, you know, director of national intelligence, that's
pretty big. And now as the director of the CIA,
does this have anything to do with this different relationship
that we're seeing emerge between the U.S. and Russia over
the past, I don't know, been 10 years? It's a
(50:52):
different relationship now, right?
Speaker 4 (50:54):
Yeah, it's a perfect structure there, Matt. I wish I
had had time. You know, you guys know I'm on
the road, but I have a perfect wall back here
and I just needed some red string. but we didn't
have it in the budget. They won't though. They'll prosecute
me if I draw on the wall, but I thought
about it. So the, uh, this is, this is the,
(51:16):
the perfect umami that we're setting up here. So Ratcliffe, yes,
very deep in the game, uh, director of the CIA
traveling to a foreign country, especially Russia of all places.
Is that anomalous? Yes. Uh, despite the fact that the, U.S.
officials haven't confirmed this trip the way that they typically
(51:38):
should have. Despite that fact, we do know that a
spokesperson for the Kremlin talked about this. A guy named
Dmitry Peskov said in a briefing that Ratcliffe did not
meet with Daddy V himself, didn't meet with Putin himself,
but instead that there were contacts, there were conversations conducted
(52:02):
through intelligence service channel. And then he did not expand
anymore on the purpose of that visit. And then the
absence of transparency, speculation thrives. So we've got another piece
of red string to draw here. The United States has earlier,
(52:22):
quite recently, once again declined to join a collective United
Nations statement condemning Russia's strikes on Ukraine. in that continual
quagmire of a war. We also know that things are
heating up again with Iran, right? The, the U S
and Iran have both been giving crazily different statements about
(52:47):
the conflict at the straight of Hormuz.
Speaker 3 (52:50):
Uh, the, what, what the American territory of the straight
of Hormuz, right?
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
Uh, taxation, taxation without representation. And thanks to our callers
who had talked a little bit about that. I'm thinking
of you, code name BoxBoy. The last time a CIA
director visited Moscow, you guys, was in November of 2021.
(53:16):
This was under the Biden administration, lest you think we're
picking on somebody more than someone else. The director at
that time was a guy named William J.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Burns.
Speaker 4 (53:26):
He was visiting Moscow to warn the Putin administration not
to attack Ukraine. And again, this is under the Biden folks, right?
This director, when he went to Moscow and said, don't
stir stuff up in Ukraine, he spelled out what the
consequences would be. And we don't know the full substance
(53:51):
of that conversation from 2021, but after the spymaster left,
Within weeks, Moscow invaded Ukraine. And now there are these
long-range strikes into Russia from Ukrainian powers. You can read
about that at your leisure. Ratcliffe's visit may have something
(54:14):
to do with that, maybe an attempt, a Hail Mary,
to de-escalate that conflict. But also, more interestingly, guys, I
keep thinking about the time that our president earlier this
summer had to do a sneak bait and switch on
a food cart to fly out a turkey or turkey,
(54:37):
excuse me. And I'm wondering, I'm not alone in this.
I'm wondering if we sent Ratcliffe over to Russia to
try to get Russia to side with us in the
Hormuz war. like to try to– or I should say conflict,
to try to get Russia on our side or at
(55:00):
least get them to stop supporting Iran.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
Wasn't one of the newest pieces of news we've seen
coming out of that region something along the lines of
China stating that they're not going to penalize Iran any further?
Like China saying no, like the further actions you're trying
to take against Iran, West We are not going to
align with those actions.
Speaker 4 (55:24):
100%.
Speaker 2 (55:26):
So the U.S. does need a strong ally. So that
would check out in my mind at least, Ben.
Speaker 4 (55:34):
I mean it's a sneaky thing to do, right? Because
you're going to put it– I mean these countries don't
have friends, right? But to put it in like a
friend dynamic situation, this is like beefing with– two guys
that knew each other who were boys and then going
(55:54):
behind one of them, going behind their back and saying, hey,
team up with me against your boy. Or hey, let
me just beat your guy up a little bit. And
I love that point about China because they had a
strong message where they said, look, we don't approve of
what you're doing. And internally, at least from what we
(56:17):
can tell, the Chinese government finds it somewhat offensive or
at least presumptuous that the United States would try to
dictate China's foreign policy. So we still don't know what
they meant about.
Speaker 2 (56:34):
No, we don't. When it comes to motivations and that role, Ben,
the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, there's history there
you can look up. It used to be the director
of Central Intelligence, I think, until that That new name
was brought about. But in the end, we're talking about
the CIA the whole time. It's just there's a new name,
(56:56):
a new title. I'm wondering about people who get appointed
to that position, because in my mind, you would need
to be a high level military person with lots and
lots of experience, like Michael Hayden, who formerly was the
head of the CIA. David Petraeus, you know, these are
generals like starred generals. And that makes sense to me.
(57:20):
Or somebody who's been in the intelligence game for a long,
long time has that experience wisdom to be at the
top and make the big decisions. It doesn't make sense
to me when it is more of a political appointee.
So somebody, as you said, Ben, is a mayor, is
in the Congress, then gets moved up towards these intelligence
(57:40):
roles for one reason or another. But it ends up
being a political appointment rather than a strategic appointment. Or
maybe it's strategically political.
Speaker 5 (57:51):
Well, haven't we seen a ton of weird crossover with that,
with like kind of cleaning house and getting rid of
a lot of generals that seemed to represent the old
guard or something like that and installing sort of maybe more,
I don't know, sycophantic.
Speaker 4 (58:06):
Fealty, cronyism.
Speaker 3 (58:07):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 5 (58:08):
And also, guys, I mean, I don't mean to derail,
but this just totally ties into that.
Speaker 3 (58:12):
Did you see what the Homeland Security social media posted
the other day?
Speaker 5 (58:18):
It was an image of Trump, uh, under an umbrella,
sort of looking coyly at the camera and said, did
you remain loyal.
Speaker 4 (58:25):
To like a wireless or to like the person?
Speaker 2 (58:27):
Yeah, dude.
Speaker 3 (58:28):
No, it's, it's like the kind of, it's like some 1984.
Speaker 5 (58:30):
I mean, it's like a poster you would see in
a dystopian world where it's like big brothers watching.
Speaker 3 (58:37):
Did you remain loyal? And that's right. I bring that up.
And cause of the, um, what was the term you used?
Speaker 4 (58:43):
Cronyism.
Speaker 3 (58:44):
Cronyism. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (58:45):
Yeah. I've got a, I've got a, um, I've got
to admit that's a crazy thing. You have to wonder
what Washington and Lincoln and so on et al. would
think about social media in general. I mean Ben Franklin
would kill it, Twitter. I think we can all agree
on that.
Speaker 5 (59:03):
But yeah but but it's totally his format a little
aphorism aphorism.
Speaker 4 (59:08):
Yes yeah poor richard uh but there there's one other
thing i've got a string out here guys man i
wish i drew this on the wall whatever uh this
is something that A lot of people need to be
thinking more about, so NATO is endangered.
Speaker 3 (59:26):
The U.S.
Speaker 4 (59:27):
Relationship with NATO is on a sharp decline for various reasons.
Some of that is the cronyism and the compromise of
the U.S. government, which is in a very weak position
at this point. I'm wondering, I've been talking with some
folks about this, I'm wondering if we sent our big
(59:47):
daddy of the CIA out over to Moscow to talk
about the rumors that Russia is going to be testing NATO.
Right now, we think there are maybe three different areas
where Russia will launch something that will not be strong
(01:00:07):
enough to trigger World War III or something, but will
be strong enough to test whether the United States is
has the back of NATO countries to see what Uncle
Sam will do, right, if the Baltics get pushed on.
So maybe the CIA went to Moscow and said, please
(01:00:33):
don't do this. Or maybe the CIA went to Moscow
and said, we're publicly going to say this is a problem,
but just so you know, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Guys, have you heard this?
Speaker 5 (01:00:46):
Conspiracy theory that, like, maybe it's entirely possible that Trump,
in an effort to have this legacy of being the
toughest and strongest and most, you know, strong man kind
of president, is sort of setting the stage for a
situation where he has to push the nuclear button?
Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
Ooh.
Speaker 4 (01:01:08):
I mean.
Speaker 5 (01:01:09):
It's a thing that's floating around. I mean, it's obviously conjecture,
but it's in keeping with his.
Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
Things that would work as an October surprise. Russia testing NATO. Oops,
a nuke. Oh, dang it. What else? What's on our list, guys?
What could be a great October surprise for this midterm election?
Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
Oh, a natural disaster that's manufactured. Maybe a, oh, of course,
you know, stick with the oldies, right? Do a false
flag on U.S. soil. You know what I mean? That's
a great way to shore up a vote.
Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
Aliens?
Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Aliens, why not?
Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
Throw it in.
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
I think we already got that one out of the
way and it was a bit of a womp.
Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
We just didn't do the rollout correctly, I think.
Speaker 3 (01:01:52):
That's fair.
Speaker 4 (01:01:54):
But we do know this is the kind of stuff
that people in power don't want you to pay attention to,
which is why we are bringing it up. I know
that I'm on record getting some hot takes from some
of our fellow listeners by saying that I am increasingly
(01:02:15):
convinced that aspects of the U.S. government have been compromised
by foreign actors. I'll say it, by Russia, right? And
to a degree, by China. Check out all the news
that seems to break every month or so about Chinese spies, right?
Like Christine Fang and that congressman who just had a
(01:02:40):
bad situation.
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
I would say we certainly have seen a lot of
different folks and factions trying to compromise people in the U.S.
Speaker 6 (01:02:48):
Government.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
You know, I like you a lot, Qatar, but dang,
that's kind of weird with the jet thing. You know,
there's just a lot of people out there doing stuff,
a lot of gifts going around, a lot of favors
being done.
Speaker 4 (01:03:04):
Exactly. And we're getting to the point where We have
to hear from you folks. Please, please, please let us know. Also,
if you were the pilot on that plane, and if
you're cool with it, no pressure, email us. Even if
it's just to tell us what snacks are on the plane,
(01:03:25):
we didn't want to end with some terrible questions, but
we do want your opinion on them. We're not going
to get to a story about the Speaking of social
media going wrong, we're not going to get to the
story about the Indian teenager who was murdered for his
testicles due to a fake social media claim that they
(01:03:48):
were worth 100,000 British pounds. But please do check out
the Arab Times for more on that.
Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Are testicles transplantable? I guess anything is, right?
Speaker 4 (01:04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:04:01):
How much does a pair of testicles go on the
black market, Ben? On the red market, rather.
Speaker 3 (01:04:05):
Yeah. Or the gray market? Testicles are kind of gray.
Speaker 4 (01:04:08):
Oh, gosh. Wait, what?
Speaker 5 (01:04:10):
Yeah, testicles are kind of like, you know, you ever
seen prairie oysters? They're kind of gray.
Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
Okay, yes. I'm with you.
Speaker 5 (01:04:18):
Sorry, I was just talking about naming colors of markets. But,
I mean, surely you could get some amount of coin
for a good pair of testicles.
Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
Maybe not a hundred grand, but... I'm curious what they
go for in the open market.
Speaker 4 (01:04:31):
Yeah, and unfortunately, this kid died.
Speaker 3 (01:04:37):
That story's gnarly.
Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
No, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (01:04:38):
I don't mean to make light.
Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
It's a gnarly story.
Speaker 4 (01:04:40):
He was 17 years old. It's a story you'll have
to read more about, folks. We're happy, as always, to
give you sources if you want to check in with us.
I thought if it's okay, we could end on that.
A nice bookend to our earlier point about exhibiting technology, right,
(01:05:03):
and finding a use for it later. This is either
terrifying news or it's good news. I would say it's
a little bit of both. Let's set it up this way. Guys,
do you remember how we've talked about crazy wackadoo ideas
to turn animals into cyborgs, like cat spies and bat moms?
Speaker 3 (01:05:25):
Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (01:05:27):
So kind of partially organic still, like giving them some
implants or add-ons.
Speaker 4 (01:05:35):
Yes, exactly. So the second question here is we're setting
it up. You guys, are you big fans of cockroaches?
Are you big anti-cockroach guys?
Speaker 3 (01:05:44):
I respect them, but I don't want them in my house. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:05:49):
What about you, Matt? Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
I respect that. How can you not respect their resilience?
Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
And like, it's, I have been on a thing where
for gosh, the past several years, I haven't been killing them.
And I know even if you get them and you
throw them or you move them away, they're going to
find their way back in. I know that about them,
but I still don't want to kill them because they
seem way more intelligent than they have any right to be.
Speaker 4 (01:06:15):
I always try to, you know, this is dumb of me,
but it's, it's cool to be dumb sometimes. Uh, I
always try to give them a little pep talk, you know,
like the older guy in the neighborhood who checks in
and says like, hey, young blood, you don't have to,
what are you doing skirting around here? There's plenty of
food outside. You know, I used to be, yeah, I
(01:06:35):
used to be just like you, that kind of thing. Well,
the good news here is that we're back in the
cyborg game, baby. Cyborg cockroaches have been designed with tiny
syringes to join, uh, SNR search and rescue teams to
help find people in the wake of major disasters like
(01:06:57):
the floods in Nepal or like the, uh, earthquakes in Japan. Uh,
they are giant burrowing cockroaches. They have cameras and quote,
medical injectors, end quote. They're being tested as first responders
in earthquakes. So shout out to the Australian associated press. Uh,
(01:07:20):
But what do you guys think? The idea of, they're
calling them paraborgs, by the way. The idea of these
guys having syringes to inject you with is freakish to me.
Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Stop it.
Speaker 4 (01:07:32):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:07:32):
Dude. Ugh.
Speaker 3 (01:07:34):
Dystopia.
Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
Ugh. As long as it's not full of cordyceps, we'll
be fine.
Speaker 4 (01:07:39):
There we go. We'll give you... I just want you
guys to see this.
Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
More likely to be full of fentanyl or something.
Speaker 4 (01:07:45):
Jeez.
Speaker 3 (01:07:46):
Assassination. I'm sorry, man. What do you think they're going
to be doing? Vitamins?
Speaker 4 (01:07:51):
Well, here's what one of them looks like.
Speaker 6 (01:07:55):
With cyborg insects, because of their small size, their agility,
we hope that we can easily release them into a
collapse structure. They can go deep under the rubble to
search for victims. With that information, sending back to the
first responder, hopefully... we can identify where the.
Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
Wait a minute, but why do they have syringes? Is
it sort of like the St.
Speaker 5 (01:08:15):
Bernard with the thing of booze under its neck to
revive fallen hikers in the Alps?
Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
What are we talking here? Are there dual purposes to
these things?
Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
Yeah, we're going to have to learn more about this.
Speaker 3 (01:08:31):
I didn't mention the syringes. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
Maybe.
Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
Maybe you can have the syringe contain a specific sort
of medicine or maybe you can customize what the syringe
can ingest.
Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
Certainly.
Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Do you know what I'm talking about, Ben?
Speaker 4 (01:08:54):
Yeah, with the sapronauts.
Speaker 3 (01:08:56):
Warms them up.
Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
With a little, like a tiny baby keg. A little cork. Yeah. Yeah,
we've got to recommend this article. Please check it out.
We just saw the photographs of the cockroaches in question
strapped up. I think it's happening. I think we're going
to see more cyborg And I think we're going to
(01:09:21):
see that in conjunction with the new research into increasingly
humanoid robots. Not the way we wanted this one to end,
but paraborgs. That's our word of the day. I don't know.
Any final thoughts before we wrap, guys?
Speaker 7 (01:09:40):
No.
Speaker 3 (01:09:41):
Leave it at paraborgs.
Speaker 4 (01:09:42):
We'll leave it at paraborgs.
Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
We must be assimilated.
Speaker 4 (01:09:46):
All right. Well, folks, please be safe out there. Thank you,
as always, so much for tuning in. We cannot wait
to hear your thoughts. There are a number of ways
to find us and you don't need a cyborg cockroach
to do it.
Speaker 5 (01:10:00):
I mean, send them our way if you got them,
just preferably not full of any, you know.
Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
Poisonous substances.
Speaker 5 (01:10:07):
You can find the heck out of us on the
internet by reaching out to the Handle Conspiracy Stuff or
Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on which one of those brain
poisoning social media platforms you go out for.
Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
We also have a phone number that you can call
and leave a voicemail. It's 1-833-STD-WYTK. Guys, I just want
to take one moment here just to recognize the passing
this past week of Dolly Parton, Tim Curry and and
now Peter Cullen. Peter Cullen.
Speaker 6 (01:10:38):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
The voice of the original Predator, the voice of the
original Mogwai, the voice of Eeyore, and freaking Optimus Prime himself.
Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
Gotta add to that as well, Matt, Yayoi Kusama, the
incredibly important artist who's known for those pumpkins and the
infinity mirror rooms and just an incredible human being. 97
years old. seems to have had a great and fascinating
and super cool life.
Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Absolutely. And just to put that out there, if you
have any thoughts on those folks or things that we
should be thinking about with them or remembering them, why
don't you call us and tell us about that or
anything we talked about today on the show. If you
don't like using your phone, instead, maybe you want to
write something down and send it our way, why don't
you do that? You can. We are.
Speaker 4 (01:11:24):
The entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive
be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
And Matt, I know we're talking off air about the
passage of Dolly Parton, just a phenomenal, inspiring person. One
thing that you can do, folks, in that case in particular—
(01:11:47):
is visit donate.imaginationlibrary.com. This has changed the lives of so
many kids and given them the gift of literacy, which
is a gift you really cannot put a price on.
So thank you as always so much for tuning in.
We'd love to hear your thoughts. We'd love to hear
your random facts. We'd love to hear what you think
(01:12:09):
the next John Henry moment is going to be. Conspiracy
at iHeartRadio.com.
Speaker 2 (01:12:33):
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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