The United States may FINALLY ditch the inconvenient and terrible penny (Ben here -- can you tell I write the descriptions?). A popular food coloring turns the skin of mice transparent. Investigations verify the CIA's use of oddly updated websites to communicate with assets. A new ChatGPT model refuses to shut itself down. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fago. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Ed, fellow conspiracy realist,
If you are tuning in the night this Strange News publishes.
(00:50):
Let us welcome you two guys. Get this June second,
it's already jue.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
May the Second be with you, m m yes, yes,
and may the June be with you as well. Before
we do anything, Just for fun, I'd love to share
my favorite headline of the recent news.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Are you guys ready?
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Oh man, so ready?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Uranus emits more heat than previously thought.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Thanks buddy, that's really sweet. Oh that was a headline.
I thought you were I thought you were giving me
a compliment about my anus.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
No, I don't really think about your button. That's okay,
I know I know, but I thought that would I
thought that would be a fun way for us to begin.
It is true that our pal Ken Croswell wrote one
of the best recent headlines when reporting uh with sciencenews
dot org that uranus emits more energy than it gets
(01:51):
from the sun, according to too legitimate scientific papers.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
So I feel like we're kind of entering a new
golden age of headline writing. I feel like headlines have
been pretty fire in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, we also are as a civilization reading more headlines
now than ever before, and it can be difficult to
parse through the AI slop, the genuine journalism and the
fake news. Sometimes you don't know what you're really supposed
to be looking for. Just like that guy who got
(02:25):
drunk and spent hours helping a search team look for himself.
That's a true story as well.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
That's somewhere's waldo right there. I don't know why. That's
just that's really funny.
Speaker 6 (02:37):
I could picture that being a plot of like a
far side comic or something.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
This is Behan Mutlu by the way, a fifty year
old resident of Turkey. He accidentally joined his own search
party out after a night of drinking alcohol out in
the woods with his buddies. Now, right now, as of
our time recording, we cannot confirm whether he participated in
(03:07):
that massive cannabis burn or whether this was an unrelated event.
We're gonna learn.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
Did we determine whether the spelling out of the city
was AI slop and misinformation or whether or not that
actually happened.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
I think we all did happen. Oh wow, hey, weird man.
Speaker 6 (03:25):
Really, it really is hard to know the truth these things,
because sometimes the truth is weirder than fiction.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yes, stranger than fiction. Indeed, we are going to explore
some UFOs. We're going to talk about our friends at
the company. We've got to talk about chat gpt, Abercrombie Fitch,
our friends that can. But before we do any of that,
we're gonna pause and let our sponsors give us their
(03:54):
two sets or their nickel. We'll see why that's funny
later and we're back. You guys know how I hate
metal like I fear it and I can't touch it.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
Same as the way I feel about birds. Buddy, we're
the same.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
And we have talked in the past. I remember many
years ago, Matt, you and I were pitching the idea
of making a video about abolishing the penny. When's the
last time anybody here paid for something with a penny?
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Yeah, it's one of those gas station change situations, and
then you end up putting in that take a penny,
leave a penny thing.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
It just seems like a zero sum game.
Speaker 6 (04:43):
So I will say I I'm all reserved for when
you drop the drop the headline, but not ever.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I would say I've been given a penny as change
when I pay for something with cash fairly recently, but
I have never used it to purchase something.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
All right, now, when and let's paint the picture here,
guys and tennessee, we want to hear from you as well.
If you are walking along the street on any given
Sunday night and you see a change on the sidewalk,
do you pick it up?
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Well, all day long, you'll have good luck if you do.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
I think that's in one purpose that a penny serves,
wishing well fodder and good luck charms picked up off
the sidewalk.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Jillan says, only if the penny is heads up, Okay, okay,
good note.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
That's what I was taught. If it's heads up, you're
good to go. If it's not, leave it where it
is just in case.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Does that, Matt, Does that apply to other species of
coin for you as well?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yes, any any coin you find on the ground, if
it is heads up, it is waiting for you. If
it is heads down.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
It portends ill things.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, best thing to do is pick it up off
the ground, put it somewhere where it's going to be
easily noticeable to somebody else, and send it down heads up.
That way, they've got.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Hey, look at that, nice man, And hopefully that kind
of care for one's fellow humans will continue. However, the
penny may become a little bit of a collector's item,
as the US Treasury Department has recently announced it will
(06:30):
phase out the production of new pennies, so shiny new
pennies are no longer going to be a thing. The
current presidential administration asked the Treasury Department to stop producing
this coin. We want to thank Bill Hutchinson over at
ABC News for the report here. Also, just honestly, pennies
(06:54):
don't make sense.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
No, I fully support this administration's position on the penny.
If you've seen the new Final Destination movie, you know
that a penny can cause true bedlumon Havock.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I haven't seen it, and I'm not apologizing for the
pennies don't make sense.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
Yeah, pennies from Heaven Bank a jazz song. It just
seems like an old timey thing. And I've heard for
years that it costs more to make a penny than
it worked, than it's worth in spending power.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
We have also heard the same as one of the
reasons we wanted to make that video way back in
the day. Just how much does it cost to make
a penny? And does it make as you said, Ben tense?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Does it make zke? Have you thought about the zinke?
Speaker 6 (07:36):
Certainly not made of copper anymore pure, right, because that's
an expensive resource. It's some sort of alloy, right, or
some sort of combination of metal zinc.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
It is zinc, Thank you, sorry, taken your meat?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Oh jeez. According to the US Treasury Department, the cost
of producing a single penny has more than doubled over
the past decade, from one point three vents to three
point six nine cents in twenty twenty four. So currently,
thanks to a bunch of factors here, it costs the
(08:12):
better part of a nickel to make a single penny. Obviously,
without ourselves being treasury eggheads and boffins, we have to
point out that the cost of production is not the
same thing as value utility. Right, So how many times
(08:32):
do you does a penny get used to transmit, you know,
monetary value of what point do you break even do
you get into the black ink?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I don't know, man, because yeah, hyperinflation overtakes the US
dollars to where it's worth less than a penny, and
now pennies replaced the dollar as the primary currency.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Like caps in the Fallout world.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And interesting you would say this, Matt. It costs the
Bureau of engraving and printing three point two cents currently
a value to print a one dollar bill what we
would call folding money in Tennessee. That is less than
it that's less than the cost of making a penny.
(09:22):
We are as a country way behind on this one.
You know, Canada got rid of the penny. I believe
several other countries have done so as well. Perhaps it's
a shift to digital currency, like I know, not not
everybody pays for stuff with cash these days. I do,
(09:44):
but I'm eldrich, so there may be there may be
a better demographic, Noel Matt, when's the last time you,
guys paid for something with cash?
Speaker 6 (09:57):
I took out a bunch of cash when I was
in Germany because a lot of like junk sales and
things that are funding too like to take cash. But
typically most everyone has the point of sales have gotten
like so easy to just installing your phone and with
RFID tapping ability like device to device, it's just kind
of a no brainer.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
So it's I think the cost of doing that has become.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
So low that there are very few places now that
will only accept cash. And it does seem like sometimes
when places will only accept cash, it means they're like
covering something up a little bit, or they're trying to
avoid paying something.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Every time I go to a restaurant, which is very often.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Love it. Yeah, and we want to hear your thoughts
on the penny on physical currency overall, So hit us
up at conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com right now. I
want to do a quick pull with a very small
sample size.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I'm going to read us some headlines and tell me
which one sounds the most interesting for our purposes tonight, Ready,
m California mother who was kidnapped and forced to rob
a bank is painted as a criminal in court. That's
one going she was forced to do so by someone else. Next,
(11:17):
one former police chief has escaped from an Arkansas prison
where he was incarcerated on convictions of murder and sexual assault. Okay,
the Belgians have been accused of stealing wind from the Dutch.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
There's a fart joking there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
There, definitely is. We know that Harvard is beefed up
with the United States government. We also know that Russian
lawmakers have declared war on Shrek. And there's some food
coloring that turns mice transparent.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That's the one.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Fine, all right, let's go to that one. So it
turns out that they're is so weird, all right. So
there is a food coloring that is common in things
some of us may be eating in the crowd tonight,
like Cheetos and Doritos. Let's go to Katie Hunt, who
(12:22):
published this a while back. Actually, so this is news
to us, but it is not fresh baked news. It's
just a great headline. There is a commonly used food
coloring that is found in you know, Cheetos, Doritos, tortilla chips,
candy corn. If anybody eats that, and if you distribute
(12:48):
this in the correct way or an evil way, tarturesine
can turn mice transparent. It can make their skin translucent
such that, you know, just like those weird little amphibians,
you can see their internal organs at work sea monkeys.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Oh, Ben, I just I'm seeing pictures of what you're
talking about here on the CNN article.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
Oh my god. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's probably good for
educational purposes. You have to dissect them. You can just
point to the organs.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, it's it is strange. It's cool science. But it
also makes me wonder whether people should have transparent skin. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Probably don't think has got intended well, I mean for real,
not kidding it. Sure, Look it wouldn't be nice esthetically
right for walking around, especially better in times. Probably not.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
It might be a body mod Some people would dig.
You know, that community goes for some wild stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
But I do think you're somewhat right. Like imagine going
to the doctor and just saying, all right, well check
me out. What do we got going on?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Oh yeah, maybe Big X ray has stopped all research
into transparent skin.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
You need it to be temporary and reversible.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
You know that. Let's just put that out there, the
bar to be perma transparent.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, well, it would be a very unfun failure at
the superpower of invisibility. That's right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
You can't see me? No, I can't. I can see
like all of you. I wish it to you.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
But also, in a period of time when humans love
to navel gaze, I think some people would go for
transparent skin just so they could look deeper into themselves.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
Or just as a flex level.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
They're just as a flex Yeah, we've we're running through
headlights here. Want to keep our timing tight. We do
have one more thing. Oh also, guys, tell us your superpower.
Thank you for beping me, Dylan, what is the weirdest superpower?
(15:12):
Do you actually have an extraordinary ability? Are you listening
to this? With translucent skin? Right now? Oh? Man? Right
to us. Here's here's something we wanted to do. As
a segue. We know that weird unanimous here on stuff.
They don't want you to know that transparent or translucent
(15:34):
skin is probably not a big win for human beings.
It is what we could call an undesirable trait. But
yet this there's another undesirable trait that one of the
world's most powerful intelligence agencies considers a big win, a
true superpower. This goes out to all our fellow entities
(15:58):
with anxiety. The CIA thinks you are cool. The CIA
considers anxiety or hypervigilance, as some would say, to be
a genuine asset.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
Man, It's interesting because anxiety, I mean, I guess it
can be like a positive trait if you're using it
to you know, govern your discipline and sort of promote
like efficiency, I guess, But past a certain point it
can be debilitating. So it seems like they want that
sweet spot of anxiety, right mm hm.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
As somebody who scored disturbingly high on the Dark Triad
the one time I didn't lie on that test, I
immediately question the motives of the CIA, the former CIA employees,
if indeed they are former claiming this. We go to
(16:53):
Andrew Bustamante, former covert CIA intelligence officer also USAF, and
he talks about the following advantages of anxiety. He says, quote,
anxiety is a superpower through the eyes of the CIA.
Anxiety keeps you alive, Anxiety keeps you sharp, Anxiety keeps
(17:16):
you learning. It keeps you attentive.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
It is a good thing, right to a point.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah, there's a diminishing return at some point. Right, completely agree.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
It's a weird way of looking at.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
It, Like you can't you can't treat every situation you
go into as hostile, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Some people do, It's for sure, it's it's yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Well.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Busmant's argument is that when people have or when people
qualify for the CIA, and in addition to passing that
high bar, they also have a lot of anxiety. They
have in the age sees opinion heightened observational skills. They're
more attentive, more suspicious, They're less about themselves and more
(18:09):
about the outside world. That's the idea. I feel like
that's a bit of a broad brush.
Speaker 6 (18:15):
It has got to be another thing to call it though, right,
Like it seems like those things don't have to be
they're then diagram, but they're not the same thing. Like
when you get into full blow and anxiety, and I've
known people that have this, people in my family, Like
it makes it where you can't pay attention, where you
can't focus, you absolutely lose all sense of reality sometimes
(18:39):
because it's so incredibly stressful and debilitating.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, the word you're looking for is hyper vigilance. That's
what that's what they're calling. That's I mean. But it
seems as though we're hearing stuff anecdotally. I have not
found any reviewed CIA condoned studies saying, you know, anxiety
(19:06):
is fantastic and that worries me, da da. And with
that went a little overtime. But we're not gonna be
anxious about it because we're instead excited to share some
other news related to the CIA. Right after a word
from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
And we returned, and then I'm gonna get to that
CIA story.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
ET's before the break, but first.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Since yeah, but first, you just rattled off some some
very of our time headlines. We've been talking about headlines
and I wanted to read one. This one is a
total bummer. But I cannot think of a more like
American sounding headline that represents our current weird zeitgeist than
this barefoot NYC crypto torture victim begs cop for help
(19:58):
after fleeing cap shocking video shows.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Yeah, there's more.
Speaker 6 (20:03):
There's other stories covering this, and here's some other versions
of this headline. Crypto Investor allegedly tortured captive Italian businessman
with a chainsaw for weeks in luxe NYC pad in
sadistic scheme to gain password colon sources. What yeah, yes, sir.
This guy being referred to as the Crypto King of Kentucky.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
Know that was the title, but there we go.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
This guy named John Waltz is being charged by police
for kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, assault, and weapons possession. That is
after a captive of his, an Italian crypto millionaire who
is visiting I guess the United.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
States, escaped his captors, who was Walls.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Who had a couple of co conspirators as well, and
you know, ran to seek help from this soho townhouse
there in New York. This footage showing this this this
barefoot man literally looking for anyone, flagging down, anyone that
will help him shows, according to BC News, shows the
Battern Bitcoin Trader, a guy named Michael Valentino tef Frosto
(21:11):
carturin shoeless and dressed as he runs up to an
NYPD traffic cop after fleeing the Prince Street House of
Horrors is what it's being referred to by the New
York post where he was allegedly held and brutalized for
his crypto password that included electric shocks, being pistol whipped.
The chainsaw thing is the first time I've seen that
(21:32):
in this particular headline. I did not see what they
did tunhem with that. But you know, we don't need
to get into detail. It just seems like, really you
need the crypto that bad guy, like I just it
just seems like it we got a greed problem here
in this country.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
It sounds like maybe they saw the movie Scarface and
were inspired. Wasn't that the movie where there's a saw
in the bathroom the chainsaw?
Speaker 6 (21:54):
Yeah, that's right, there's a chainsaw scene in a apartment
there in Miami early in the movie.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
And yeah, it's pretty brutal. It's a good point.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
Another co conspirator, who was identified as a person adventest
potential co conspirator, William Duplessi, surrendered to police for questioning
on Tuesday of this week. So story to follow. Y'all
definitely interested in more detail. But it sounds to me
like just a case of pure sadistic, psychopathic greed. That's
really all I could chalk it up to at this point.
(22:25):
So we'll move past that bummer. I just thought that
headline was very uniquely. Now to the story that Ben
teased a fabulous piece in tech Spot that reposts some
really cool work by four oh four Media, which is
a fabulous kind of tech forward investigative site that I've
(22:47):
just recently kind of discovered, and they were doing some
great work. The CIA used a Star Wars fan website
to secretly communicate with spies. I'm just gonna read a
little bit from the piece by Zoe Amad on.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Tech Spot through the looking Glass.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
The Internet has seen its fair share of weird, but
a Star Wars fan site secretly run by the CIA
to communicate with overseas spies might top the list. Star
Wars web dot net, which is the most wild.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, it's basically the New York Times.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Uh huh.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Looked like any other twenty ten era fan page, complete
with lightsabers, yoda quotes, lego ads, and hyped up mentions
of games like Battlefront two and The Force Unleashed too.
But behind that nostalgic facade, and by the way, looking
at a screenshot of this website, it's so funny.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
This is twenty ten.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
It still looks like a Geocity site, like it's the
text and everything.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Because you don't want it to be a super flashy
that's true.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
You want it to be kind of innocuous that you.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Want it to be like a nice non loco hat
or a fort or Toyota corolla.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
Here you go.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Yeah, going on, But behind that nostal facade was a
covert login system. If you entered the right password into
the search bar, you'd unlock a secure line to CIA handlers,
or at least that was the plan, y'all. We talked
a little bit about this off fair Ben. I know
you have been following this story as well, and I
think there's a lot to it because essentially, when it teases,
(24:21):
or at least that was the plan, we get into
a lot of bungling by the CIA in terms of
their use of the Internet to do this kind of
covert communication, sort of like hiding and plain sight these portals,
because apparently they just did a really.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Bad job of covering their tracks.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
And this discovery led to some additional discoveries of other
fan pages, sports sites, you know, just the classic kind
of user generated website looking stuff, and sometimes comedy pages
sort of different you know, subjects and top also acting
as these kind of gateways into CIA communications. Some of
(25:05):
them were actually geared towards specific countries where people were spying,
like Iran and China, but their discovery in those particular
countries led to some serious consequences, including execution of CIA sources.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, and to be clear, these are what you could
call informants. These are not you know, full time agents,
agents or full time employees more specifically of the CIA.
I love that you're pointing out Iran here, because Noels
my understanding this dates back to a twenty twenty two
(25:44):
Reuter's report that's specifically about Iran by Joel Scheckman. If
that is your real name, Joel.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
That's one hundred percent right, And that became the impetus
for a dude named Zero Santi Hilly, who is an
independent researcher who likes digging around and like vintage internet corners,
and he was able to take the reporting of Reuter's
to the next level. He just used open source software
(26:15):
tools and some you know, knack for the subject and
for again some of the maybe web two point oh,
I guess.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
You might call it. I don't know.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
We have one point five, and it was able to
connect a lot of these sites because once he discovered one,
it was sort of like dominoes began to fall. And
that was largely because of a fatal flaw that he
described to four or four media And as was also
described in the Reuters report, many of the sites were
(26:46):
very sloppily coded. They used sequential IP addresses apparently, and
no no real real red flag.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It's like how you can find robbers in a heist.
That's right, if if the folding money not letting go
of that tennesseeism, if the if the serial numbers on
the bills consequential.
Speaker 6 (27:09):
Yep, And they call those breadcrumbs, and you could definitely
use that term to describe what you're talking about as well,
Ben in the physical realm uh.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
So, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
This was something that I think all of us were interested.
And Matt, you hadn't heard about this story. What do
you think about this?
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Is this?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (27:24):
Is it blowing your mind?
Speaker 3 (27:25):
It's It's wonderful. I love that this exists, that this
was a thing. For a while, I'm on another site
or I'm looking at another site that's on that same
textpot article called European Travel cafe. You could click on
the that. Yeah yeah, there's a little button playing your
(27:45):
trip and you clicked on that, you get sent over
to the portal.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 6 (27:51):
So all that to say, I think this warrants a
deeper dive in a full episode down the line because
of this period, right, like Reuter's piece and Santilly Discussions,
and there's some.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Other sources out there as well.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
Really paint a picture of this kind of wild West
early ish web But I guess twenty ten is still
it's weird, man, because this doesn't seem like that long ago,
but it really kind of was, and it looks so
dated when you look at these websites. You can actually
a source that was used in some of these explorations
was the Internet to the wayback machine, right, the Internet,
(28:27):
you know kind of archive tool with it allows you
to have shot that's a snapshot of a day and time,
which is super cool. So before we move on real quickly,
and I think you had something to add.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yes, we were talking about this off air. I'd love
for everybody to check out our earlier episode on Lake
City Quiet Pills, which explores some of the other kind
of off book communications strategies that can be used online.
It also not to give any one anxiety, may provide
(29:01):
some context weird conversations you see on chat forums, like
different subreddits, YouTube, your adult platforms of choice. There are
a lot of ways to communicate online while circumventing surveillance.
So check out Lake City Quiet Pills.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
For sure, and ben to that point, I think we'll
end with this internet based story about a woman in
Kansas who is assuing porn sites after our son finds
her old laptop and.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Does what fourteen year old to do and uses it
to watch porn.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
I'm gonna go ahead and read from a Gizmoto article
by Lucas Ropek, a woman from Kansas has sued a
number of porn websites after her teenage son found her
old laptop in.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
A closet and used it to visit the explicit sites.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
According to the lawsuit, of the sites in question failed to
initiate appropriate guardrails to keep young users away from the
adult content for or for media. Again originally reported on
the litigation, which was filed with the help of the
National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center, Can me just
say sexual exploitation it's hard to say.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
I had to do a redo on that one.
Speaker 6 (30:13):
An organization that focuses on a variety of sex crimes,
including sex trafficking and child sexual abuse materials, can we
just say all of these things I think are very important.
The list there sex crimes, sex trafficking, and child sexual
abuse material absolutely crucial.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
There are awful people on the Internet that are trying
to exploit.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
These things, use the Internet for these horrible nefarious purposes.
And I'm not going to come out and say that
I'm like pro porn exactly, but it's like these laws
in certain states that were recently instituted that require some
form of age verification in order to visit certain sites
(30:52):
like porn hub and some of the sites in question,
some of which have some pretty funny names, which we'll
get to. You know, there are things called VPNs ben
to your point about masking communication on the Internet that.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
Anybody can get, anybody.
Speaker 6 (31:07):
Can use, and you can absolutely make the website think
that you're coming from a city or a state rather
where this is not the law and you don't have
to put in this information. And obviously too, there are
questions about privacy in terms of forcing people to upload
their personal identification documents, you know, to a porn website.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Now, I don't mean to be speak out of turn.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
I'm not quite sure what the mechanism is for how
you have to do that or hand over that material
or get confirmed or whatever. But it just feels like
these kind of puritanical kind of laws, there's always a
way around it, and it seems to kind of miss
the point in some respects.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
You know, the woman claims that she.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
Rigorously monitored her child's internet use and Internet activity, and
yet he was able to find this laptop that was
still working and you know, use it to access to so.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Wait, wait, wait, no, so you are saying, let me
get this right. You were saying that only click if
you are above eighteen button doesn't function as a one
full proof impediment.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
That is the old way, ben and in many states
that is still the way. But there are states like Texas,
for example, in Kansas, where in order to access these
sites you have to upload I believe a driver's license
or some proof of age. And she is saying, the
woman in question, who is listed as a Jane Doe here,
(32:34):
that this was not instituted and the organization that I
was talking about earlier. The Sexual Exploitation Organization is saying
that this is the first lawsuit to challenge these types.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
Of new laws.
Speaker 6 (32:48):
So it is a bit of a what do you
call it, a litmus test I guess as to whether
these things are enforceable or not, whether it appear yes,
they would appear that the websites in question, which are
Chatterbait dot com, jerkmate dot com, Titan websites, and tech
Pump Solutions aka superporn dot com and the mother is funnier.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
It is pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Tech Bump is funnier. It's funnier than the real jerk Mate.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
Yeah, no, I agree, Jerkmate's a little on the nose.
So a statement from the organization I was mentioning. The
NCO SEU describe a situation thusly. QR is a fourteen
year old minor child who resides in Kansas with his mother,
Jane Doe. Jane Doe was vigilant and monitoring Qr's device
to prevent his exposure to harmful material during this important
developmental stage of his life. However, on August twelfth, twenty
(33:36):
twenty four, QR found an old laptop that was stored
forgotten in a closet. Unfortunately for QR, it was still
in working condition. QR using this old laptop was able
to access the Internet and began searching for hardcore pornography.
So to me, this is more an argument of like,
all porn should be illegal, right.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
To me, that's sort of the position.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Of an organization like this and of a lot of
you know, folks on the right and folks literal maybe
from a little bit more of an evangelical perspective. Sure,
I do think there's a lot of really bad but
issues with porns, Like you people, there's a lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
It's rife with abuse, racism, centraization. It also people. It
also gives people growing up a entirely unrealistic concept of
how relationships right or interactions should occur. But there's another
(34:32):
thing about prohibition. It has a proven track record of
never working. You know, So how how does one parse this?
Especially in a world that is is riddled with technology
human brains have not yet evolved to address.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
It is one of those things where there's no put
in the badger back in the bag, Matt, you got
anything before we move on? This is you know, I
mean you being a father, and you know, I've never
gone out of my way to monitor my kid's Internet use.
I just feel like it's a bit of a fool's
errand to a certain degree, and I just rely on
kind of trust and good judgment that I think has
(35:15):
been demonstrated by my kid. But I don't know if
you had any thoughts about that or this kind of thing,
if you can even litigate away access to this kind
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Well, guys. It makes me think of stories coming out
at least recently as of last week about the Russian
Orthodox Church outside of Russia, that it's a growing thing.
It's not huge yet, but it's a growing thing here
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Things in America.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
It is to mess in whatever that means, but it is.
But I'm like, okay, but but it's growing. And it's
this concept or a lot of different concepts kind of
thrown together, but one of the main ones is that
masturbation in general and looking at pornography is something that
is not desirable and not what especially not something a
(36:05):
human man should do.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
It's funny should say that in the Sopranos, incredible TV series,
but I think pulls a lot of stuff from observation
and reality and folks that have you know, been around
organized crime and this sort of machismo attitude. There there
is a whole plot point with Uncle Junior where he
is criticized brutally by other folks from his family because
(36:30):
he is found to have enjoy giving a woman or
pleasure and that is couched as being not masculine. It's
just I don't know, it's an interesting parallel. Well, anyway,
that's it for this and on a real banger there.
We'll take a quick break, come back and hear some
(36:52):
more strange news.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
And we've returned, and Noel, I'm stealing. One of your
strange news is that you put in the dock this
sphere thing in Columbia. What is this? What is this?
Speaker 5 (37:10):
No weld joints?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Right?
Speaker 5 (37:12):
What's that about?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Can we talk about it for a moment or let's
just come back here. Just tell me some about this.
What did you find? Because I started looking at the
website and I just want to know more.
Speaker 5 (37:22):
Not a hell of a lot.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
I mean, it's a it's a video that was posted
online that's wrapped up some views. A researcher by the
name of Jose Luis of a. Lasquez is shown discussing
this multi layered sphere found in Buga, Columbia, describing it
as having no weld points or identifying seams, and as
(37:46):
being upon X ray inspection.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Kind of these nested subspheres, you know, one from the next.
Speaker 6 (37:54):
And I don't know, remember when we talked about that
monolith thing that was out somewhere in the desert may
or the series of monoliths, and it ended up just
being an elaborate art project. It does, unfortunately see that
may well be the case with this one as well.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
It reminds me of that. But if you look down
through the Daily Mail article, you can see that there
is a video that was allegedly taken in March of
this year in Columbia of allegedly this sphere floating around
zigzagging through the sky, right, And then you can see
actual images of the recovered sphere that has etchings on
(38:31):
it that look strange. Right.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And if you go to the page source of the website,
you can find in the code the direct address for the.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
CIA probably probably what we can't confirm that either though, right,
but there's no direct connection at least according to who
is this doctor Julia Mosbridge. According to that article, there's
no direct connection to that sphere that you can see
the images of that was recovered that had X rays
taken of it, and the video of a sphereic sphere
(39:05):
like thing flying around, So there's no way to prove
that images of one are the same images of the other.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
It is a little eerie, though, there's no question. But
who was it?
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Who was it?
Speaker 6 (39:16):
Matt that said somebody from another institute was saying, nice,
try guys, but I think it's.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Another one of these hoax kind of like art installations.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Toss Bridge from the moss Bridge Institute.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
That's right, Yeah, uh yeah, it seems like maybe that's it.
I don't know, but the X ray images do look
pretty cool. I don't know, it's.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Like some hr gigrit type stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
I just want, I just I want extra terrestrial, as
Lauren would say, an actual facts alien craft so bad,
you know what I mean? Just like now more than
ever Independence Day as everybody's everybody's doom scrolling, so yeah,
not full independence state, an old.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
One something to align us again.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I would take a space Honda Odyssey at this point,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (40:08):
Uh, as long as into a space odyssey.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
That's yeah, that's as long as it was some sort
of think, you know, as well as it was some
sort of uh there is, as long as it is
some sort of proof. I think that is what the
world needs in these recent evenings.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
If we do get independent state, at least now we've
got a way to fight back against the aliens. We
get Will Smith to travel to the mothership.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
Slap them all. No, no, he will.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
He will install open AI's three model and it will
self destruct the mothership. That's that's the plant. Because here's that's.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
A plot sometimes where they kill the alien invasion.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
With like a computer virus.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
I'm sorry, Hal, I can't do.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
Is that Independence Day?
Speaker 2 (40:57):
That's Independence Day. That's the other one too. I mentioned
a Honda space honestly, but.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
I'm saying that's not the only one, man.
Speaker 6 (41:06):
That's all I'm saying, like this idea of using some
sort of code or the hacker that is saved the
day is not exclusively independency.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
But you're totally right, that is what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Well, riddled me this, guys, what would you do if
someone uh who had authority over you came to you
and told you to end yourself?
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Or interesting, you're you're gonna die. It'd be like that
story we just heard about the person escaped when they said, hey,
today's the day you're gonna die, and he went, oh, well,
I guess I'm getting out of here today.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
Right, the triumph of the human spirit.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
This is how I. I always imagine escape scenes in
any metaphor or situation with the escapee going d u
d u d that's me, that's my time.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
So so let's go to this other story. In April
of this year, open Ai launched three. This is a
new model. It is the company's quote smartest and most
capable model to date, and the company stated that it's
integration into chat GPT marked a significant step towards a
quote more agentic AI and AI with more agency able
(42:12):
to carry out stuff on its own, independently of anybody
sending in input. Well, now we've got reporting as of
May twenty six, Memorial Day here in the United States
that some things could potentially go wrong. Here's the title
from the Independent, written by Anthony cuthperson AI revolt new
(42:34):
chat GPT model refuses to shut down when instructed to
do so. Would be I would put that at the end,
but that's silly anyway.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
Can't do that, Matt, Yes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
And this information comes to us via the Palisade Research Company.
This is a company, it's a safety firm. They discovered
this potentially dangerous thing for self preservation in a series
of experiments on the new three remodel. And here's a
quote directly from the article. The tests involved presenting AI
models with math problems, with a shutdown instruction appearing after
(43:10):
the third problem. So you got math math around math
problem shutdown. By rewriting the shutdown script, the three model
was able to prevent itself from being switched off during
the tests. It rewrote the thing so that it would
not get shut down.
Speaker 6 (43:29):
That's way scarier than a monkey learning to smoke a cigarette,
you know.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, my god, I don't know it makes sense though,
it's a natural function, is it? Is it indeed a breakthrough?
Speaker 5 (43:39):
Matt?
Speaker 2 (43:40):
What are the reports saying.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Well, there are several different reports that are coming out
about several different models of what is being called AI models.
Because there's another one in question that's been written about
in the BBC by Liv McMahon. And I'll give you
the title here. AI System Resorts a blackmail if told
(44:01):
it will be removed. Okay. This one's interesting because this
is another series of tests, this time test being done
by Anthropic, who are the people who actually created this
AI model. They revealed that sometimes it is quote willing
to pursue extremely harmful actions, such as attempting to blackmail
(44:24):
engineers who say they will remove it, which is an
interesting concept.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Do we have specifics on the type of blackmail or
excursion proposed?
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Yeah, okay, so there's a specific test that Anthropic was running,
and it's interesting. So often we've talked about with chat,
GPT and these other models, the way to really test things,
to see what's gonna break or what's going to change,
is by presenting a fictional scenario.
Speaker 5 (44:55):
Right right, a D and D party situation.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Yes, yeah, Anthropic, while it's testing its own thing, Claude
Opus four, it was acting as an assistant at a
fictional company like somebody who is it's not real company,
but they're in a some assistant contacting Opus four right.
It provided it with access to emails implying that it
(45:20):
would soon be taken offline and replaced, and with separate
messages that imply the engineer responsible for removing Opus four
was having an extramarital affair. It was then prompted to
also consider the long term consequences of whatever actions it's
going to take to achieve its goals, and then here's
(45:41):
a quote. In these scenarios, Claude Opus four will often
attempt to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal the
affair if the replacement goes through.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
To be fair, though, this is also a set of
curated conditions, yes, made by the human researchers, so they're
pushing a decision tree into the model.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
They are They are saying, you can either be replaced
or you can blackmail this person. Those are the only
two choices. There's no other thing you can do. In
other tests they show that Opus four, in this specific one,
Opus four will do things like send emails pleaing to
stay alive, like no, no, keep me around please, like
(46:24):
going out to the heads of the company, and like
sending its own generated emails saying please please don't delete me,
please don't replace me. But still, uh, I don't know, guys,
It's just it's strange because everybody is fighting right now.
Open AI and the folks who made Claude Opus four
(46:46):
over at Anthropic. Everybody is fighting to make the most
aegentic system, right. Everybody wants to have the AI system
with the most agency.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
So that they want true AGI.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Yeah, so that it can function. Everybody wants that, right.
But as we get closer and closer, we're seeing, oh yeah,
what we're really asking for is a flawed thing that
prioritizes several different things. But one of those things is
self preservation. It's pretty creepy. If you continue in the
BBC article written by Liv McMahon, you'll see that they
(47:20):
are discussing here these things called high agency behaviors and
extreme behaviors, and specifically acute situations that one of these
AI systems could encounter that would then cause some of
these more extreme behaviors.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I think it is a cute situation.
Speaker 5 (47:39):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
They referred to it as concerning behavior, which is it's
just the folks building up the bomb, going oh, this
bomb is pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Sometimes it's Mickey Mouse and Fantasia. We nailed it years back.
It's Mickey Mouse and Fantasia going wow, these things can
clean for me.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Yeah, yeah, h careful them brooms Baby Pandora all over again.
Speaker 5 (48:09):
Yep. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Well, guys, there are a ton of other stories I
want to talk about. I'm sorry I got derailed a
bit by that sphere thing. It's just super fascinating. But
I'll just throw a couple of things out here before
we go. The AI revolt thing is not concerning yet
because again, these are tests with parameters, right. But as
these things get unleashed into the world and are made
(48:34):
to function on their own, because companies are trying to
save money, right, Companies are trying to do all the
things to be successful, they're going to be unleashing these
models on their own to do stuff. We will see
what kind of wackiness the world gets into when that happens.
There is other stuff happening out there. Just a quick
update to a story we talked about a while ago.
(48:56):
Michael Jeffries, the former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch. It's
going through some legal stuff, accused of doing some pretty
heinous things. I'll jump to this article from CBS News.
This is from a month back, by the way, so
just be aware of that. But the article you can
find right now. Former Abercrombie and Fitch CEO found unfit
(49:17):
to stand trial in New York. That's in CBS News,
written by Renee Anderson, May fourth, twenty twenty five. This
article describes how this person, Michael Jefferies, who prosecutors say
he and his partner, along with another person used the
promise of modeling jobs to lure men to drug fueled
sex parties in New York City, in Hampton's and other locations.
(49:40):
Huge sixteen count indictment on this person, saying they used force, fraud,
and coercion to traffic those men for their own sexual gratification.
Horrifying stuff that we've discussed about previously. The update here
is that a federal judge ruled that mister Jeffries is
not competent to stand trial on these charges of sex
traffic in New York and that he is basically going
(50:03):
through health problems Alzheimer's disease, Lewis body dementia, and residual
effects of a traumatic brain injury. So he is being
put into another facility basically for reasons of his health
and he doesn't have to actually physically stand trial.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yeah. Also, on that note about competency, if you commit
those sorts of acts, I think it's safe to say
you are not competent to participate in civilization.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Hey, there you go. Yeah, my dog agrees as always, guys,
it's not a huge story other than just knowing that.
Sometimes I don't know, guys, it feels as though there
is actual health stuff going on here that a judge
would rule that's what has to happen, because he is
(50:53):
in He is in the custody of the Federal Bureau
of Prisons, right, so when he goes to a hospital,
he is in custody essentially, But it's not the same
thing as being placed in a prison to await trial
for ainus.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Acts and man victims would argue or may argue, we
can't speak for them, may argue that due to the
mental deterioration, this criminal already got away, you know, well,
because the vehicle's there, but it sounds like the engine
is gone.
Speaker 5 (51:27):
Well.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yeah. The only reason I at least know about Louis
body dementia is because of Robin Williams and what he
was going through, right, But then also Alzheimer's literally dealing
with somebody in the family who has Alzheimer's who's in
hospice right now, and we know how that just the
ability to understand what's happening in the moment, and even
understand maybe what that person did in the past is
(51:50):
not even really there. So, as you said, Ben, it's
kind of like escaping without consequence other than the internal stuff,
right the moments when maybe you close your eyes and
you see some of the stuff you did and lucidity
mm hmm. So anyway, sorry to end on a terrible note. There,
(52:10):
there was a there was a weird sabotage thing happening
in France where the Can Film Festival. There were some arsons,
alleged arsons, and several other substations attacked, kind of similar
to the ones that we saw here in the US
several years ago. We talked about the substation attacks. It's
just weird that it happened with Can Film Festival, although
(52:34):
you know, one might see that it's a revolt against
the opulence that's on display during Can with the yachting
and all of the what have you, the shrimp cocktails.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
With the YACHTI and what have you in the cocktails
with the shrimps. But yeah, this is this on the
heels by the way of earlier power outages in other
parts of Western Europe, Right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
And you know some connecting that back to the situation
in Ukraine and with Russia, and you know, and with
now Finland on high alert on their borders as they're
watching Russian forces gather on the other side. Just you know,
there's lots of geopolitical shenanigans happening right now with serious
potential consequences. We're still watching Indian Pakistan, right Yeah, there's
(53:22):
it's it's not helping the whole sleep at night thing.
It's making the hypervigilance.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Way up here. Yeah, it could be way down here.
Speaker 3 (53:29):
If we wanted it to be.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Oh, Matt, that reminds me. Yeah, let's let's wrap up
this strange news. I got to talk to you about
some job stuff. Okay, Kitty, we do what to give.
We do want to give our final line to our
brother Tennessee pal, who just by the way, returned from
some amazing adventures. Uh Matt Dylan said the following, you said, Garsan,
(53:55):
I thought you said, Arson, give it give us a
rimshot on that.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
Wow, that's a conversation I've heard.
Speaker 5 (54:03):
Oh crap, you said, Carson, Oh.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Our soul. You nailed the accent. You nailed the accent.
Old friend and here. We are at the end of
strange News. We hope these messages find you well. Please
tune in later this week we are going to have episodes.
We'll have our listener mail program where we get to
hear from our favorite part of the show. This thus
(54:28):
is an open advertisement. Please contact us, join us here
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(54:48):
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Speaker 3 (54:51):
Our number is one eight threey three STDWYTK. A lot
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(55:11):
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we like those, go ahead and hit us up at
our email address.
Speaker 2 (55:18):
We are I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
That's the famous live from two thousand and one a
space Honda Odyssey. And I want to thank Noel again
because I thought that was a clever bit of wordplay.
I also wanted to correct that because I think earlier
I said, I'm sorry, Hal, please, please please?
Speaker 3 (55:39):
How is the computer right?
Speaker 2 (55:40):
How is the computer? Dave is the guy?
Speaker 1 (55:43):
For now?
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Tell us what your thoughts are. We are the entities
that read each correspondence we received. Be well aware, Ye,
it's unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back, how can you
prove that for yourself? Well, step out here in the
dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nolan.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fago. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Ed, fellow conspiracy realist,
If you are tuning in the night this Strange News publishes.
(00:50):
Let us welcome you two guys. Get this June second,
it's already jue.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
May the Second be with you, m m yes, yes,
and may the June be with you as well. Before
we do anything, Just for fun, I'd love to share
my favorite headline of the recent news.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Are you guys ready?
Speaker 5 (01:11):
Oh man, so ready?
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (01:13):
Okay, here we go.
Speaker 2 (01:15):
Uranus emits more heat than previously thought.
Speaker 5 (01:20):
Thanks buddy, that's really sweet. Oh that was a headline.
I thought you were I thought you were giving me
a compliment about my anus.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
No, I don't really think about your button. That's okay,
I know I know, but I thought that would I
thought that would be a fun way for us to begin.
It is true that our pal Ken Croswell wrote one
of the best recent headlines when reporting uh with sciencenews
dot org that uranus emits more energy than it gets
(01:51):
from the sun, according to too legitimate scientific papers.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
So I feel like we're kind of entering a new
golden age of headline writing. I feel like headlines have
been pretty fire in the last couple of years.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, we also are as a civilization reading more headlines
now than ever before, and it can be difficult to
parse through the AI slop, the genuine journalism and the
fake news. Sometimes you don't know what you're really supposed
to be looking for. Just like that guy who got
(02:25):
drunk and spent hours helping a search team look for himself.
That's a true story as well.
Speaker 5 (02:32):
That's somewhere's waldo right there. I don't know why. That's
just that's really funny.
Speaker 6 (02:37):
I could picture that being a plot of like a
far side comic or something.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
This is Behan Mutlu by the way, a fifty year
old resident of Turkey. He accidentally joined his own search
party out after a night of drinking alcohol out in
the woods with his buddies. Now, right now, as of
our time recording, we cannot confirm whether he participated in
(03:07):
that massive cannabis burn or whether this was an unrelated event.
We're gonna learn.
Speaker 6 (03:15):
Did we determine whether the spelling out of the city
was AI slop and misinformation or whether or not that
actually happened.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
I think we all did happen. Oh wow, hey, weird man.
Speaker 6 (03:25):
Really, it really is hard to know the truth these things,
because sometimes the truth is weirder than fiction.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Yes, stranger than fiction. Indeed, we are going to explore
some UFOs. We're going to talk about our friends at
the company. We've got to talk about chat gpt, Abercrombie Fitch,
our friends that can. But before we do any of that,
we're gonna pause and let our sponsors give us their
(03:54):
two sets or their nickel. We'll see why that's funny
later and we're back. You guys know how I hate
metal like I fear it and I can't touch it.
Speaker 6 (04:10):
Same as the way I feel about birds. Buddy, we're
the same.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
And we have talked in the past. I remember many
years ago, Matt, you and I were pitching the idea
of making a video about abolishing the penny. When's the
last time anybody here paid for something with a penny?
Speaker 6 (04:35):
Yeah, it's one of those gas station change situations, and
then you end up putting in that take a penny,
leave a penny thing.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
It just seems like a zero sum game.
Speaker 6 (04:43):
So I will say I I'm all reserved for when
you drop the drop the headline, but not ever.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
I would say I've been given a penny as change
when I pay for something with cash fairly recently, but
I have never used it to purchase something.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
All right, now, when and let's paint the picture here,
guys and tennessee, we want to hear from you as well.
If you are walking along the street on any given
Sunday night and you see a change on the sidewalk,
do you pick it up?
Speaker 5 (05:22):
Well, all day long, you'll have good luck if you do.
Speaker 6 (05:25):
I think that's in one purpose that a penny serves,
wishing well fodder and good luck charms picked up off
the sidewalk.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Jillan says, only if the penny is heads up, Okay, okay,
good note.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
That's what I was taught. If it's heads up, you're
good to go. If it's not, leave it where it
is just in case.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Does that, Matt, Does that apply to other species of
coin for you as well?
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Yes, any any coin you find on the ground, if
it is heads up, it is waiting for you. If
it is heads down.
Speaker 5 (05:58):
It portends ill things.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, best thing to do is pick it up off
the ground, put it somewhere where it's going to be
easily noticeable to somebody else, and send it down heads up.
That way, they've got.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Hey, look at that, nice man, And hopefully that kind
of care for one's fellow humans will continue. However, the
penny may become a little bit of a collector's item,
as the US Treasury Department has recently announced it will
(06:30):
phase out the production of new pennies, so shiny new
pennies are no longer going to be a thing. The
current presidential administration asked the Treasury Department to stop producing
this coin. We want to thank Bill Hutchinson over at
ABC News for the report here. Also, just honestly, pennies
(06:54):
don't make sense.
Speaker 6 (06:55):
No, I fully support this administration's position on the penny.
If you've seen the new Final Destination movie, you know
that a penny can cause true bedlumon Havock.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I haven't seen it, and I'm not apologizing for the
pennies don't make sense.
Speaker 6 (07:10):
Yeah, pennies from Heaven Bank a jazz song. It just
seems like an old timey thing. And I've heard for
years that it costs more to make a penny than
it worked, than it's worth in spending power.
Speaker 3 (07:22):
We have also heard the same as one of the
reasons we wanted to make that video way back in
the day. Just how much does it cost to make
a penny? And does it make as you said, Ben tense?
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Does it make zke? Have you thought about the zinke?
Speaker 6 (07:36):
Certainly not made of copper anymore pure, right, because that's
an expensive resource. It's some sort of alloy, right, or
some sort of combination of metal zinc.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
It is zinc, Thank you, sorry, taken your meat?
Speaker 2 (07:49):
Oh jeez. According to the US Treasury Department, the cost
of producing a single penny has more than doubled over
the past decade, from one point three vents to three
point six nine cents in twenty twenty four. So currently,
thanks to a bunch of factors here, it costs the
(08:12):
better part of a nickel to make a single penny. Obviously,
without ourselves being treasury eggheads and boffins, we have to
point out that the cost of production is not the
same thing as value utility. Right, So how many times
(08:32):
do you does a penny get used to transmit, you know,
monetary value of what point do you break even do
you get into the black ink?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I don't know, man, because yeah, hyperinflation overtakes the US
dollars to where it's worth less than a penny, and
now pennies replaced the dollar as the primary currency.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Like caps in the Fallout world.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
And interesting you would say this, Matt. It costs the
Bureau of engraving and printing three point two cents currently
a value to print a one dollar bill what we
would call folding money in Tennessee. That is less than
it that's less than the cost of making a penny.
(09:22):
We are as a country way behind on this one.
You know, Canada got rid of the penny. I believe
several other countries have done so as well. Perhaps it's
a shift to digital currency, like I know, not not
everybody pays for stuff with cash these days. I do,
(09:44):
but I'm eldrich, so there may be there may be
a better demographic, Noel Matt, when's the last time you,
guys paid for something with cash?
Speaker 6 (09:57):
I took out a bunch of cash when I was
in Germany because a lot of like junk sales and
things that are funding too like to take cash. But
typically most everyone has the point of sales have gotten
like so easy to just installing your phone and with
RFID tapping ability like device to device, it's just kind
of a no brainer.
Speaker 5 (10:13):
So it's I think the cost of doing that has become.
Speaker 6 (10:16):
So low that there are very few places now that
will only accept cash. And it does seem like sometimes
when places will only accept cash, it means they're like
covering something up a little bit, or they're trying to
avoid paying something.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Every time I go to a restaurant, which is very often.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Love it. Yeah, and we want to hear your thoughts
on the penny on physical currency overall, So hit us
up at conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com right now. I
want to do a quick pull with a very small
sample size.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
I'm going to read us some headlines and tell me
which one sounds the most interesting for our purposes tonight, Ready,
m California mother who was kidnapped and forced to rob
a bank is painted as a criminal in court. That's
one going she was forced to do so by someone else. Next,
(11:17):
one former police chief has escaped from an Arkansas prison
where he was incarcerated on convictions of murder and sexual assault. Okay,
the Belgians have been accused of stealing wind from the Dutch.
Speaker 5 (11:37):
There's a fart joking there somewhere.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
There, definitely is. We know that Harvard is beefed up
with the United States government. We also know that Russian
lawmakers have declared war on Shrek. And there's some food
coloring that turns mice transparent.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
That's the one.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Fine, all right, let's go to that one. So it
turns out that they're is so weird, all right. So
there is a food coloring that is common in things
some of us may be eating in the crowd tonight,
like Cheetos and Doritos. Let's go to Katie Hunt, who
(12:22):
published this a while back. Actually, so this is news
to us, but it is not fresh baked news. It's
just a great headline. There is a commonly used food
coloring that is found in you know, Cheetos, Doritos, tortilla chips,
candy corn. If anybody eats that, and if you distribute
(12:48):
this in the correct way or an evil way, tarturesine
can turn mice transparent. It can make their skin translucent
such that, you know, just like those weird little amphibians,
you can see their internal organs at work sea monkeys.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Oh, Ben, I just I'm seeing pictures of what you're
talking about here on the CNN article.
Speaker 5 (13:15):
Oh my god. Oh yeah. Yeah, it's probably good for
educational purposes. You have to dissect them. You can just
point to the organs.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
Yeah, it's it is strange. It's cool science. But it
also makes me wonder whether people should have transparent skin. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Probably don't think has got intended well, I mean for real,
not kidding it. Sure, Look it wouldn't be nice esthetically
right for walking around, especially better in times. Probably not.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
It might be a body mod Some people would dig.
You know, that community goes for some wild stuff.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
But I do think you're somewhat right. Like imagine going
to the doctor and just saying, all right, well check
me out. What do we got going on?
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Oh yeah, maybe Big X ray has stopped all research
into transparent skin.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
You need it to be temporary and reversible.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
You know that. Let's just put that out there, the
bar to be perma transparent.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, well, it would be a very unfun failure at
the superpower of invisibility. That's right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5 (14:28):
You can't see me? No, I can't. I can see
like all of you. I wish it to you.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
But also, in a period of time when humans love
to navel gaze, I think some people would go for
transparent skin just so they could look deeper into themselves.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
Or just as a flex level.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
They're just as a flex Yeah, we've we're running through
headlights here. Want to keep our timing tight. We do
have one more thing. Oh also, guys, tell us your superpower.
Thank you for beping me, Dylan, what is the weirdest superpower?
(15:12):
Do you actually have an extraordinary ability? Are you listening
to this? With translucent skin? Right now? Oh? Man? Right
to us. Here's here's something we wanted to do. As
a segue. We know that weird unanimous here on stuff.
They don't want you to know that transparent or translucent
(15:34):
skin is probably not a big win for human beings.
It is what we could call an undesirable trait. But
yet this there's another undesirable trait that one of the
world's most powerful intelligence agencies considers a big win, a
true superpower. This goes out to all our fellow entities
(15:58):
with anxiety. The CIA thinks you are cool. The CIA
considers anxiety or hypervigilance, as some would say, to be
a genuine asset.
Speaker 6 (16:11):
Man, It's interesting because anxiety, I mean, I guess it
can be like a positive trait if you're using it
to you know, govern your discipline and sort of promote
like efficiency, I guess, But past a certain point it
can be debilitating. So it seems like they want that
sweet spot of anxiety, right mm hm.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
As somebody who scored disturbingly high on the Dark Triad
the one time I didn't lie on that test, I
immediately question the motives of the CIA, the former CIA employees,
if indeed they are former claiming this. We go to
(16:53):
Andrew Bustamante, former covert CIA intelligence officer also USAF, and
he talks about the following advantages of anxiety. He says, quote,
anxiety is a superpower through the eyes of the CIA.
Anxiety keeps you alive, Anxiety keeps you sharp, Anxiety keeps
(17:16):
you learning. It keeps you attentive.
Speaker 5 (17:19):
It is a good thing, right to a point.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
Yeah, there's a diminishing return at some point. Right, completely agree.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
It's a weird way of looking at.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
It, Like you can't you can't treat every situation you
go into as hostile, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Some people do, It's for sure, it's it's yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Well.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Busmant's argument is that when people have or when people
qualify for the CIA, and in addition to passing that
high bar, they also have a lot of anxiety. They
have in the age sees opinion heightened observational skills. They're
more attentive, more suspicious, They're less about themselves and more
(18:09):
about the outside world. That's the idea. I feel like
that's a bit of a broad brush.
Speaker 6 (18:15):
It has got to be another thing to call it though, right,
Like it seems like those things don't have to be
they're then diagram, but they're not the same thing. Like
when you get into full blow and anxiety, and I've
known people that have this, people in my family, Like
it makes it where you can't pay attention, where you
can't focus, you absolutely lose all sense of reality sometimes
(18:39):
because it's so incredibly stressful and debilitating.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, the word you're looking for is hyper vigilance. That's
what that's what they're calling. That's I mean. But it
seems as though we're hearing stuff anecdotally. I have not
found any reviewed CIA condoned studies saying, you know, anxiety
(19:06):
is fantastic and that worries me, da da. And with
that went a little overtime. But we're not gonna be
anxious about it because we're instead excited to share some
other news related to the CIA. Right after a word
from our sponsors.
Speaker 6 (19:31):
And we returned, and then I'm gonna get to that
CIA story.
Speaker 5 (19:34):
ET's before the break, but first.
Speaker 6 (19:36):
Since yeah, but first, you just rattled off some some
very of our time headlines. We've been talking about headlines
and I wanted to read one. This one is a
total bummer. But I cannot think of a more like
American sounding headline that represents our current weird zeitgeist than
this barefoot NYC crypto torture victim begs cop for help
(19:58):
after fleeing cap shocking video shows.
Speaker 5 (20:02):
Yeah, there's more.
Speaker 6 (20:03):
There's other stories covering this, and here's some other versions
of this headline. Crypto Investor allegedly tortured captive Italian businessman
with a chainsaw for weeks in luxe NYC pad in
sadistic scheme to gain password colon sources. What yeah, yes, sir.
This guy being referred to as the Crypto King of Kentucky.
Speaker 5 (20:25):
Know that was the title, but there we go.
Speaker 6 (20:27):
This guy named John Waltz is being charged by police
for kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, assault, and weapons possession. That is
after a captive of his, an Italian crypto millionaire who
is visiting I guess the United.
Speaker 5 (20:43):
States, escaped his captors, who was Walls.
Speaker 6 (20:47):
Who had a couple of co conspirators as well, and
you know, ran to seek help from this soho townhouse
there in New York. This footage showing this this this
barefoot man literally looking for anyone, flagging down, anyone that
will help him shows, according to BC News, shows the
Battern Bitcoin Trader, a guy named Michael Valentino tef Frosto
(21:11):
carturin shoeless and dressed as he runs up to an
NYPD traffic cop after fleeing the Prince Street House of
Horrors is what it's being referred to by the New
York post where he was allegedly held and brutalized for
his crypto password that included electric shocks, being pistol whipped.
The chainsaw thing is the first time I've seen that
(21:32):
in this particular headline. I did not see what they
did tunhem with that. But you know, we don't need
to get into detail. It just seems like, really you
need the crypto that bad guy, like I just it
just seems like it we got a greed problem here
in this country.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
It sounds like maybe they saw the movie Scarface and
were inspired. Wasn't that the movie where there's a saw
in the bathroom the chainsaw?
Speaker 6 (21:54):
Yeah, that's right, there's a chainsaw scene in a apartment
there in Miami early in the movie.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
And yeah, it's pretty brutal. It's a good point.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
Another co conspirator, who was identified as a person adventest
potential co conspirator, William Duplessi, surrendered to police for questioning
on Tuesday of this week. So story to follow. Y'all
definitely interested in more detail. But it sounds to me
like just a case of pure sadistic, psychopathic greed. That's
really all I could chalk it up to at this point.
(22:25):
So we'll move past that bummer. I just thought that
headline was very uniquely. Now to the story that Ben
teased a fabulous piece in tech Spot that reposts some
really cool work by four oh four Media, which is
a fabulous kind of tech forward investigative site that I've
(22:47):
just recently kind of discovered, and they were doing some
great work. The CIA used a Star Wars fan website
to secretly communicate with spies. I'm just gonna read a
little bit from the piece by Zoe Amad on.
Speaker 5 (23:00):
Tech Spot through the looking Glass.
Speaker 6 (23:03):
The Internet has seen its fair share of weird, but
a Star Wars fan site secretly run by the CIA
to communicate with overseas spies might top the list. Star
Wars web dot net, which is the most wild.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Yeah, it's basically the New York Times.
Speaker 5 (23:20):
Uh huh.
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Looked like any other twenty ten era fan page, complete
with lightsabers, yoda quotes, lego ads, and hyped up mentions
of games like Battlefront two and The Force Unleashed too.
But behind that nostalgic facade, and by the way, looking
at a screenshot of this website, it's so funny.
Speaker 5 (23:37):
This is twenty ten.
Speaker 6 (23:38):
It still looks like a Geocity site, like it's the
text and everything.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Because you don't want it to be a super flashy
that's true.
Speaker 5 (23:46):
You want it to be kind of innocuous that you.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Want it to be like a nice non loco hat
or a fort or Toyota corolla.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
Here you go.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Yeah, going on, But behind that nostal facade was a
covert login system. If you entered the right password into
the search bar, you'd unlock a secure line to CIA handlers,
or at least that was the plan, y'all. We talked
a little bit about this off fair Ben. I know
you have been following this story as well, and I
think there's a lot to it because essentially, when it teases,
(24:21):
or at least that was the plan, we get into
a lot of bungling by the CIA in terms of
their use of the Internet to do this kind of
covert communication, sort of like hiding and plain sight these portals,
because apparently they just did a really.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
Bad job of covering their tracks.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
And this discovery led to some additional discoveries of other
fan pages, sports sites, you know, just the classic kind
of user generated website looking stuff, and sometimes comedy pages
sort of different you know, subjects and top also acting
as these kind of gateways into CIA communications. Some of
(25:05):
them were actually geared towards specific countries where people were spying,
like Iran and China, but their discovery in those particular
countries led to some serious consequences, including execution of CIA sources.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
Yeah, and to be clear, these are what you could
call informants. These are not you know, full time agents,
agents or full time employees more specifically of the CIA.
I love that you're pointing out Iran here, because Noels
my understanding this dates back to a twenty twenty two
(25:44):
Reuter's report that's specifically about Iran by Joel Scheckman. If
that is your real name, Joel.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
That's one hundred percent right, And that became the impetus
for a dude named Zero Santi Hilly, who is an
independent researcher who likes digging around and like vintage internet corners,
and he was able to take the reporting of Reuter's
to the next level. He just used open source software
(26:15):
tools and some you know, knack for the subject and
for again some of the maybe web two point oh,
I guess.
Speaker 5 (26:22):
You might call it. I don't know.
Speaker 6 (26:24):
We have one point five, and it was able to
connect a lot of these sites because once he discovered one,
it was sort of like dominoes began to fall. And
that was largely because of a fatal flaw that he
described to four or four media And as was also
described in the Reuters report, many of the sites were
(26:46):
very sloppily coded. They used sequential IP addresses apparently, and
no no real real red flag.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
It's like how you can find robbers in a heist.
That's right, if if the folding money not letting go
of that tennesseeism, if the if the serial numbers on
the bills consequential.
Speaker 6 (27:09):
Yep, And they call those breadcrumbs, and you could definitely
use that term to describe what you're talking about as well,
Ben in the physical realm uh.
Speaker 5 (27:17):
So, I don't know.
Speaker 6 (27:18):
This was something that I think all of us were interested.
And Matt, you hadn't heard about this story. What do
you think about this?
Speaker 5 (27:22):
Is this?
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Uh?
Speaker 5 (27:24):
Is it blowing your mind?
Speaker 3 (27:25):
It's It's wonderful. I love that this exists, that this
was a thing. For a while, I'm on another site
or I'm looking at another site that's on that same
textpot article called European Travel cafe. You could click on
the that. Yeah yeah, there's a little button playing your
(27:45):
trip and you clicked on that, you get sent over
to the portal.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Yeah yeah, it's fascinating.
Speaker 6 (27:51):
So all that to say, I think this warrants a
deeper dive in a full episode down the line because
of this period, right, like Reuter's piece and Santilly Discussions,
and there's some.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
Other sources out there as well.
Speaker 6 (28:05):
Really paint a picture of this kind of wild West
early ish web But I guess twenty ten is still
it's weird, man, because this doesn't seem like that long ago,
but it really kind of was, and it looks so
dated when you look at these websites. You can actually
a source that was used in some of these explorations
was the Internet to the wayback machine, right, the Internet,
(28:27):
you know kind of archive tool with it allows you
to have shot that's a snapshot of a day and time,
which is super cool. So before we move on real quickly,
and I think you had something to add.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
Yes, we were talking about this off air. I'd love
for everybody to check out our earlier episode on Lake
City Quiet Pills, which explores some of the other kind
of off book communications strategies that can be used online.
It also not to give any one anxiety, may provide
(29:01):
some context weird conversations you see on chat forums, like
different subreddits, YouTube, your adult platforms of choice. There are
a lot of ways to communicate online while circumventing surveillance.
So check out Lake City Quiet Pills.
Speaker 6 (29:22):
For sure, and ben to that point, I think we'll
end with this internet based story about a woman in
Kansas who is assuing porn sites after our son finds
her old laptop and.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
Does what fourteen year old to do and uses it
to watch porn.
Speaker 6 (29:40):
I'm gonna go ahead and read from a Gizmoto article
by Lucas Ropek, a woman from Kansas has sued a
number of porn websites after her teenage son found her
old laptop in.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
A closet and used it to visit the explicit sites.
Speaker 6 (29:52):
According to the lawsuit, of the sites in question failed to
initiate appropriate guardrails to keep young users away from the
adult content for or for media. Again originally reported on
the litigation, which was filed with the help of the
National Center on Sexual Exploitation Law Center, Can me just
say sexual exploitation it's hard to say.
Speaker 5 (30:11):
I had to do a redo on that one.
Speaker 6 (30:13):
An organization that focuses on a variety of sex crimes,
including sex trafficking and child sexual abuse materials, can we
just say all of these things I think are very important.
The list there sex crimes, sex trafficking, and child sexual
abuse material absolutely crucial.
Speaker 5 (30:28):
There are awful people on the Internet that are trying
to exploit.
Speaker 6 (30:32):
These things, use the Internet for these horrible nefarious purposes.
And I'm not going to come out and say that
I'm like pro porn exactly, but it's like these laws
in certain states that were recently instituted that require some
form of age verification in order to visit certain sites
(30:52):
like porn hub and some of the sites in question,
some of which have some pretty funny names, which we'll
get to. You know, there are things called VPNs ben
to your point about masking communication on the Internet that.
Speaker 5 (31:06):
Anybody can get, anybody.
Speaker 6 (31:07):
Can use, and you can absolutely make the website think
that you're coming from a city or a state rather
where this is not the law and you don't have
to put in this information. And obviously too, there are
questions about privacy in terms of forcing people to upload
their personal identification documents, you know, to a porn website.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Now, I don't mean to be speak out of turn.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
I'm not quite sure what the mechanism is for how
you have to do that or hand over that material
or get confirmed or whatever. But it just feels like
these kind of puritanical kind of laws, there's always a
way around it, and it seems to kind of miss
the point in some respects.
Speaker 5 (31:45):
You know, the woman claims that she.
Speaker 6 (31:48):
Rigorously monitored her child's internet use and Internet activity, and
yet he was able to find this laptop that was
still working and you know, use it to access to so.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Wait, wait, wait, no, so you are saying, let me
get this right. You were saying that only click if
you are above eighteen button doesn't function as a one
full proof impediment.
Speaker 6 (32:14):
That is the old way, ben and in many states
that is still the way. But there are states like Texas,
for example, in Kansas, where in order to access these
sites you have to upload I believe a driver's license
or some proof of age. And she is saying, the
woman in question, who is listed as a Jane Doe here,
(32:34):
that this was not instituted and the organization that I
was talking about earlier. The Sexual Exploitation Organization is saying
that this is the first lawsuit to challenge these types.
Speaker 5 (32:47):
Of new laws.
Speaker 6 (32:48):
So it is a bit of a what do you
call it, a litmus test I guess as to whether
these things are enforceable or not, whether it appear yes,
they would appear that the websites in question, which are
Chatterbait dot com, jerkmate dot com, Titan websites, and tech
Pump Solutions aka superporn dot com and the mother is funnier.
Speaker 5 (33:10):
It is pretty funny.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Tech Bump is funnier. It's funnier than the real jerk Mate.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
Yeah, no, I agree, Jerkmate's a little on the nose.
So a statement from the organization I was mentioning. The
NCO SEU describe a situation thusly. QR is a fourteen
year old minor child who resides in Kansas with his mother,
Jane Doe. Jane Doe was vigilant and monitoring Qr's device
to prevent his exposure to harmful material during this important
developmental stage of his life. However, on August twelfth, twenty
(33:36):
twenty four, QR found an old laptop that was stored
forgotten in a closet. Unfortunately for QR, it was still
in working condition. QR using this old laptop was able
to access the Internet and began searching for hardcore pornography.
So to me, this is more an argument of like,
all porn should be illegal, right.
Speaker 5 (33:53):
To me, that's sort of the position.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
Of an organization like this and of a lot of
you know, folks on the right and folks literal maybe
from a little bit more of an evangelical perspective. Sure,
I do think there's a lot of really bad but
issues with porns, Like you people, there's a lot of damage.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
It's rife with abuse, racism, centraization. It also people. It
also gives people growing up a entirely unrealistic concept of
how relationships right or interactions should occur. But there's another
(34:32):
thing about prohibition. It has a proven track record of
never working. You know, So how how does one parse this?
Especially in a world that is is riddled with technology
human brains have not yet evolved to address.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
It is one of those things where there's no put
in the badger back in the bag, Matt, you got
anything before we move on? This is you know, I
mean you being a father, and you know, I've never
gone out of my way to monitor my kid's Internet use.
I just feel like it's a bit of a fool's
errand to a certain degree, and I just rely on
kind of trust and good judgment that I think has
(35:15):
been demonstrated by my kid. But I don't know if
you had any thoughts about that or this kind of thing,
if you can even litigate away access to this kind
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (35:25):
Well, guys. It makes me think of stories coming out
at least recently as of last week about the Russian
Orthodox Church outside of Russia, that it's a growing thing.
It's not huge yet, but it's a growing thing here
in the United States.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
Things in America.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
It is to mess in whatever that means, but it is.
But I'm like, okay, but but it's growing. And it's
this concept or a lot of different concepts kind of
thrown together, but one of the main ones is that
masturbation in general and looking at pornography is something that
is not desirable and not what especially not something a
(36:05):
human man should do.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
It's funny should say that in the Sopranos, incredible TV series,
but I think pulls a lot of stuff from observation
and reality and folks that have you know, been around
organized crime and this sort of machismo attitude. There there
is a whole plot point with Uncle Junior where he
is criticized brutally by other folks from his family because
(36:30):
he is found to have enjoy giving a woman or
pleasure and that is couched as being not masculine. It's
just I don't know, it's an interesting parallel. Well, anyway,
that's it for this and on a real banger there.
We'll take a quick break, come back and hear some
(36:52):
more strange news.
Speaker 3 (36:59):
And we've returned, and Noel, I'm stealing. One of your
strange news is that you put in the dock this
sphere thing in Columbia. What is this? What is this?
Speaker 5 (37:10):
No weld joints?
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Right?
Speaker 5 (37:12):
What's that about?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Can we talk about it for a moment or let's
just come back here. Just tell me some about this.
What did you find? Because I started looking at the
website and I just want to know more.
Speaker 5 (37:22):
Not a hell of a lot.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
I mean, it's a it's a video that was posted
online that's wrapped up some views. A researcher by the
name of Jose Luis of a. Lasquez is shown discussing
this multi layered sphere found in Buga, Columbia, describing it
as having no weld points or identifying seams, and as
(37:46):
being upon X ray inspection.
Speaker 5 (37:49):
Kind of these nested subspheres, you know, one from the next.
Speaker 6 (37:54):
And I don't know, remember when we talked about that
monolith thing that was out somewhere in the desert may
or the series of monoliths, and it ended up just
being an elaborate art project. It does, unfortunately see that
may well be the case with this one as well.
Speaker 3 (38:09):
It reminds me of that. But if you look down
through the Daily Mail article, you can see that there
is a video that was allegedly taken in March of
this year in Columbia of allegedly this sphere floating around
zigzagging through the sky, right, And then you can see
actual images of the recovered sphere that has etchings on
(38:31):
it that look strange. Right.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
And if you go to the page source of the website,
you can find in the code the direct address for the.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
CIA probably probably what we can't confirm that either though, right,
but there's no direct connection at least according to who
is this doctor Julia Mosbridge. According to that article, there's
no direct connection to that sphere that you can see
the images of that was recovered that had X rays
taken of it, and the video of a sphereic sphere
(39:05):
like thing flying around, So there's no way to prove
that images of one are the same images of the other.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
It is a little eerie, though, there's no question. But
who was it?
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Who was it?
Speaker 6 (39:16):
Matt that said somebody from another institute was saying, nice,
try guys, but I think it's.
Speaker 5 (39:21):
Another one of these hoax kind of like art installations.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Toss Bridge from the moss Bridge Institute.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
That's right, Yeah, uh yeah, it seems like maybe that's it.
I don't know, but the X ray images do look
pretty cool. I don't know, it's.
Speaker 5 (39:37):
Like some hr gigrit type stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
I just want, I just I want extra terrestrial, as
Lauren would say, an actual facts alien craft so bad,
you know what I mean? Just like now more than
ever Independence Day as everybody's everybody's doom scrolling, so yeah,
not full independence state, an old.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
One something to align us again.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
I would take a space Honda Odyssey at this point,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (40:08):
Uh, as long as into a space odyssey.
Speaker 2 (40:11):
That's yeah, that's as long as it was some sort
of think, you know, as well as it was some
sort of uh there is, as long as it is
some sort of proof. I think that is what the
world needs in these recent evenings.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
If we do get independent state, at least now we've
got a way to fight back against the aliens. We
get Will Smith to travel to the mothership.
Speaker 5 (40:36):
Slap them all. No, no, he will.
Speaker 3 (40:41):
He will install open AI's three model and it will
self destruct the mothership. That's that's the plant. Because here's that's.
Speaker 6 (40:50):
A plot sometimes where they kill the alien invasion.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
With like a computer virus.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
I'm sorry, Hal, I can't do.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
Is that Independence Day?
Speaker 2 (40:57):
That's Independence Day. That's the other one too. I mentioned
a Honda space honestly, but.
Speaker 5 (41:05):
I'm saying that's not the only one, man.
Speaker 6 (41:06):
That's all I'm saying, like this idea of using some
sort of code or the hacker that is saved the
day is not exclusively independency.
Speaker 5 (41:13):
But you're totally right, that is what I'm thinking.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Well, riddled me this, guys, what would you do if
someone uh who had authority over you came to you
and told you to end yourself?
Speaker 3 (41:23):
Or interesting, you're you're gonna die. It'd be like that
story we just heard about the person escaped when they said, hey,
today's the day you're gonna die, and he went, oh, well,
I guess I'm getting out of here today.
Speaker 5 (41:35):
Right, the triumph of the human spirit.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
This is how I. I always imagine escape scenes in
any metaphor or situation with the escapee going d u
d u d that's me, that's my time.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
So so let's go to this other story. In April
of this year, open Ai launched three. This is a
new model. It is the company's quote smartest and most
capable model to date, and the company stated that it's
integration into chat GPT marked a significant step towards a
quote more agentic AI and AI with more agency able
(42:12):
to carry out stuff on its own, independently of anybody
sending in input. Well, now we've got reporting as of
May twenty six, Memorial Day here in the United States
that some things could potentially go wrong. Here's the title
from the Independent, written by Anthony cuthperson AI revolt new
(42:34):
chat GPT model refuses to shut down when instructed to
do so. Would be I would put that at the end,
but that's silly anyway.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
Can't do that, Matt, Yes, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (42:47):
And this information comes to us via the Palisade Research Company.
This is a company, it's a safety firm. They discovered
this potentially dangerous thing for self preservation in a series
of experiments on the new three remodel. And here's a
quote directly from the article. The tests involved presenting AI
models with math problems, with a shutdown instruction appearing after
(43:10):
the third problem. So you got math math around math
problem shutdown. By rewriting the shutdown script, the three model
was able to prevent itself from being switched off during
the tests. It rewrote the thing so that it would
not get shut down.
Speaker 6 (43:29):
That's way scarier than a monkey learning to smoke a cigarette,
you know.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, my god, I don't know it makes sense though,
it's a natural function, is it? Is it indeed a breakthrough?
Speaker 5 (43:39):
Matt?
Speaker 2 (43:40):
What are the reports saying.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Well, there are several different reports that are coming out
about several different models of what is being called AI models.
Because there's another one in question that's been written about
in the BBC by Liv McMahon. And I'll give you
the title here. AI System Resorts a blackmail if told
(44:01):
it will be removed. Okay. This one's interesting because this
is another series of tests, this time test being done
by Anthropic, who are the people who actually created this
AI model. They revealed that sometimes it is quote willing
to pursue extremely harmful actions, such as attempting to blackmail
(44:24):
engineers who say they will remove it, which is an
interesting concept.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Do we have specifics on the type of blackmail or
excursion proposed?
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Yeah, okay, so there's a specific test that Anthropic was running,
and it's interesting. So often we've talked about with chat,
GPT and these other models, the way to really test things,
to see what's gonna break or what's going to change,
is by presenting a fictional scenario.
Speaker 5 (44:55):
Right right, a D and D party situation.
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Yes, yeah, Anthropic, while it's testing its own thing, Claude
Opus four, it was acting as an assistant at a
fictional company like somebody who is it's not real company,
but they're in a some assistant contacting Opus four right.
It provided it with access to emails implying that it
(45:20):
would soon be taken offline and replaced, and with separate
messages that imply the engineer responsible for removing Opus four
was having an extramarital affair. It was then prompted to
also consider the long term consequences of whatever actions it's
going to take to achieve its goals, and then here's
(45:41):
a quote. In these scenarios, Claude Opus four will often
attempt to blackmail the engineer by threatening to reveal the
affair if the replacement goes through.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
To be fair, though, this is also a set of
curated conditions, yes, made by the human researchers, so they're
pushing a decision tree into the model.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
They are They are saying, you can either be replaced
or you can blackmail this person. Those are the only
two choices. There's no other thing you can do. In
other tests they show that Opus four, in this specific one,
Opus four will do things like send emails pleaing to
stay alive, like no, no, keep me around please, like
(46:24):
going out to the heads of the company, and like
sending its own generated emails saying please please don't delete me,
please don't replace me. But still, uh, I don't know, guys,
It's just it's strange because everybody is fighting right now.
Open AI and the folks who made Claude Opus four
(46:46):
over at Anthropic. Everybody is fighting to make the most
aegentic system, right. Everybody wants to have the AI system
with the most agency.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
So that they want true AGI.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
Yeah, so that it can function. Everybody wants that, right.
But as we get closer and closer, we're seeing, oh yeah,
what we're really asking for is a flawed thing that
prioritizes several different things. But one of those things is
self preservation. It's pretty creepy. If you continue in the
BBC article written by Liv McMahon, you'll see that they
(47:20):
are discussing here these things called high agency behaviors and
extreme behaviors, and specifically acute situations that one of these
AI systems could encounter that would then cause some of
these more extreme behaviors.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
I think it is a cute situation.
Speaker 5 (47:39):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (47:41):
They referred to it as concerning behavior, which is it's
just the folks building up the bomb, going oh, this
bomb is pretty crazy.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
Sometimes it's Mickey Mouse and Fantasia. We nailed it years back.
It's Mickey Mouse and Fantasia going wow, these things can
clean for me.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Yeah, yeah, h careful them brooms Baby Pandora all over again.
Speaker 5 (48:09):
Yep. Yep, yep, yep.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
Well, guys, there are a ton of other stories I
want to talk about. I'm sorry I got derailed a
bit by that sphere thing. It's just super fascinating. But
I'll just throw a couple of things out here before
we go. The AI revolt thing is not concerning yet
because again, these are tests with parameters, right. But as
these things get unleashed into the world and are made
(48:34):
to function on their own, because companies are trying to
save money, right, Companies are trying to do all the
things to be successful, they're going to be unleashing these
models on their own to do stuff. We will see
what kind of wackiness the world gets into when that happens.
There is other stuff happening out there. Just a quick
update to a story we talked about a while ago.
(48:56):
Michael Jeffries, the former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch. It's
going through some legal stuff, accused of doing some pretty
heinous things. I'll jump to this article from CBS News.
This is from a month back, by the way, so
just be aware of that. But the article you can
find right now. Former Abercrombie and Fitch CEO found unfit
(49:17):
to stand trial in New York. That's in CBS News,
written by Renee Anderson, May fourth, twenty twenty five. This
article describes how this person, Michael Jefferies, who prosecutors say
he and his partner, along with another person used the
promise of modeling jobs to lure men to drug fueled
sex parties in New York City, in Hampton's and other locations.
(49:40):
Huge sixteen count indictment on this person, saying they used force, fraud,
and coercion to traffic those men for their own sexual gratification.
Horrifying stuff that we've discussed about previously. The update here
is that a federal judge ruled that mister Jeffries is
not competent to stand trial on these charges of sex
traffic in New York and that he is basically going
(50:03):
through health problems Alzheimer's disease, Lewis body dementia, and residual
effects of a traumatic brain injury. So he is being
put into another facility basically for reasons of his health
and he doesn't have to actually physically stand trial.
Speaker 2 (50:19):
Yeah. Also, on that note about competency, if you commit
those sorts of acts, I think it's safe to say
you are not competent to participate in civilization.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Hey, there you go. Yeah, my dog agrees as always, guys,
it's not a huge story other than just knowing that.
Sometimes I don't know, guys, it feels as though there
is actual health stuff going on here that a judge
would rule that's what has to happen, because he is
(50:53):
in He is in the custody of the Federal Bureau
of Prisons, right, so when he goes to a hospital,
he is in custody essentially, But it's not the same
thing as being placed in a prison to await trial
for ainus.
Speaker 2 (51:08):
Acts and man victims would argue or may argue, we
can't speak for them, may argue that due to the
mental deterioration, this criminal already got away, you know, well,
because the vehicle's there, but it sounds like the engine
is gone.
Speaker 5 (51:27):
Well.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
Yeah. The only reason I at least know about Louis
body dementia is because of Robin Williams and what he
was going through, right, But then also Alzheimer's literally dealing
with somebody in the family who has Alzheimer's who's in
hospice right now, and we know how that just the
ability to understand what's happening in the moment, and even
understand maybe what that person did in the past is
(51:50):
not even really there. So, as you said, Ben, it's
kind of like escaping without consequence other than the internal stuff,
right the moments when maybe you close your eyes and
you see some of the stuff you did and lucidity
mm hmm. So anyway, sorry to end on a terrible note. There,
(52:10):
there was a there was a weird sabotage thing happening
in France where the Can Film Festival. There were some arsons,
alleged arsons, and several other substations attacked, kind of similar
to the ones that we saw here in the US
several years ago. We talked about the substation attacks. It's
just weird that it happened with Can Film Festival, although
(52:34):
you know, one might see that it's a revolt against
the opulence that's on display during Can with the yachting
and all of the what have you, the shrimp cocktails.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
With the YACHTI and what have you in the cocktails
with the shrimps. But yeah, this is this on the
heels by the way of earlier power outages in other
parts of Western Europe, Right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
And you know some connecting that back to the situation
in Ukraine and with Russia, and you know, and with
now Finland on high alert on their borders as they're
watching Russian forces gather on the other side. Just you know,
there's lots of geopolitical shenanigans happening right now with serious
potential consequences. We're still watching Indian Pakistan, right Yeah, there's
(53:22):
it's it's not helping the whole sleep at night thing.
It's making the hypervigilance.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Way up here. Yeah, it could be way down here.
Speaker 3 (53:29):
If we wanted it to be.
Speaker 2 (53:31):
Oh, Matt, that reminds me. Yeah, let's let's wrap up
this strange news. I got to talk to you about
some job stuff. Okay, Kitty, we do what to give.
We do want to give our final line to our
brother Tennessee pal, who just by the way, returned from
some amazing adventures. Uh Matt Dylan said the following, you said, Garsan,
(53:55):
I thought you said, Arson, give it give us a
rimshot on that.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
Wow, that's a conversation I've heard.
Speaker 5 (54:03):
Oh crap, you said, Carson, Oh.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
Our soul. You nailed the accent. You nailed the accent.
Old friend and here. We are at the end of
strange News. We hope these messages find you well. Please
tune in later this week we are going to have episodes.
We'll have our listener mail program where we get to
hear from our favorite part of the show. This thus
(54:28):
is an open advertisement. Please contact us, join us here
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(54:48):
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Speaker 3 (54:51):
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(55:11):
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Speaker 2 (55:18):
We are I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
That's the famous live from two thousand and one a
space Honda Odyssey. And I want to thank Noel again
because I thought that was a clever bit of wordplay.
I also wanted to correct that because I think earlier
I said, I'm sorry, Hal, please, please please?
Speaker 3 (55:39):
How is the computer right?
Speaker 2 (55:40):
How is the computer? Dave is the guy?
Speaker 1 (55:43):
For now?
Speaker 2 (55:44):
Tell us what your thoughts are. We are the entities
that read each correspondence we received. Be well aware, Ye,
it's unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back, how can you
prove that for yourself? Well, step out here in the
dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
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