A massive password hack compromises 10 BILLION passwords -- and no one's sure what will happen next. As of July 7th, all new cars sold in the EU and in Northern Ireland will require mandatory speed limiters onboard. Over in South Korea, civilization may have witnessed the first 'robot suicide.' All this and more (pants smuggling, Taco Bell retirement, et cetera) 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):
Fellow conspiracy realist. We, like the rest of the world,
have our eyes on the recent assassination attempt of former
US President Donald Trump on July thirteenth, twenty twenty four,
as we recorded this strange news program before that incident occurred.
We are releasing a special full episode on the event,
which will be published this week. Thank you for your time.
(00:22):
Be safe and stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name's Matt, my
name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexis, code named
Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are You are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
It is almost birthday season here at how Here it's
stuff they'll want you to know. As we heard all
headlong toward August and the news isn't stopping. Taco Bell
(01:15):
has a retirement home. Just off air. We're talking about
some big changes in Greece, and a lot of people
are smuggling animals in their pants. That's hot again now.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
And they're apparently also happy to see us. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, there's one great case with a guy named Matt
Pancake real name, stop it, real name. You can see
him on YouTube getting caught in a leopard onesie asleep
on a bench after he broke into a pet store
and tried to smuggle a bunch of hamsters out in
his onesies for sex stuff a.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
You know what, I'm wondering if it was it could
have been floated out there.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
You tell us, folks, maybe there is an entirely wholesome,
indeed noble reason that you would need to put on
an animal ones and throw a bunch of hamsters.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
And maybe he just really identifies with the animal kingdom
and he was trying to liberate his people.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
You know.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
But I will say, we were watching the video that
you've found Ben on that topic with Alexis code named
Doc Holliday, and Alexis pointed out that the police were
being quite fast and loose and rough with this fellow
without thinking anything about the imperiled lives of the hamsters
contained with him.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
That leopard onesie.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Assumptions are dangerous and doc. Yes, agreed, you made an
excellent point. Also, shout out to the guy who got
caught with a hundred live serpents in his pants when
he conspired to smuggle them out of Hong Kong. There's
some great pictures there are.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
We talking babies, we're talking quote.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
If you go to the Guardian you will see that
the way the way the authorities describe it. When he
was caught trying to smuggle these from Hong Kong into
Shenzhen was upon inspection, customs officers discovered that the pockets
of the trousers the passenger was wearing we're packed with
six canvas drawstring bags and sealed with tape. Once opened,
(03:07):
each bag was found to contain living snakes in all
kinds of shapes, sizes and colors.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Wow. True coalition of certitudes.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Of that should be political slogan, Our coalition of the
unwilling you already have right, Yeah, basically Jesus.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So, before we move into the news, do you guys
want to talk a little bit about Greece's bold new
six day work week.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Sure, it feels like a weird move in the midst
of you know, a lot of new work from home
things new, Uh, get the job done. Get it done right,
But we as a company aren't going to tell you,
you know, how many hours you got to put in.
Just make sure you're doing what we're paying you to do.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
And just a lot of chatter, and I mean understandably
and rightfully so, around workers' rights and the idea of
a separation between work life balance and all of that stuff.
It does seem like an odd pr move at the
very least. And I was questioning, like, is this because
their economies in trouble, and Matt you pointed out it's
quite the contrary.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Right, well, at least according to the Prime Minister, right,
who is kind of repping the move, saying, yeah, this
is a good idea, guys, this initiative was necessary, the
Prime Minister says, because quote the twin perils of a
shrinking population and a shortage of skilled workers. So the
(04:40):
thought here is instead of having a forty hour work
week as a standard for many workers, you would have
a forty eight hour work week. But well, if there
are a bunch of other things they're saying, they're also
saying a lot of workers at least in Greece, and
one of the reasons this was done is because they're
working overtime hours and not getting paid. They're not being
(05:02):
compensated correctly for those overtime hours. They're working as a necessity.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
So this is putting the workers first, is the arlement.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
That's look, Greece already has an historically, it has the
longest average work week of the entirety of the European Union.
So it's kind of codifying what is already happening and
making sure that people get that overtime pay. And if
you work in a job where you do have to
you have an assigned number of hours and you do
(05:31):
have to go over that, you know that overtime is
a huge deal. So on paper, in theory, this is
not a conspiratorial thing. It's the right move. But I
will add that for many, many years, Greece has had
this sort of cultural understanding that a lot of people
don't pay taxes or report things specifically, and there's still
(05:53):
a big cash economy there. So it's going to be
very interesting to see how this works, especially with the
global contrast to so many other entities, state level or
private industry who are dialing back their work week, you know,
famously trying things like a four day work week.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
It's so weird to me because it does it feels
like an opposite move of what they're saying it is
because apparently it's only going to apply to private businesses
that provide quote, round the clock services, So that's not
like your service industry, hospitality, that kind of stuff. Necessarily,
that's not round the clock services. And it feels as
(06:33):
though if there are these companies that if let's say
you've got an individual worker who works forty hours a week,
then if you need that person to work another eight hours,
you're going to pay them time and a half. Now
the company only has to pay them time right for
your standard, your standard going wage. So in the end
it's saving companies money, right, but it's making the workers
(06:55):
work more probably what they were going to work with
over time anyway, but now they're going to get paid less.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Also, yeah, wherever you live, I would be very skeptical
when you hear a politician describe something as growth oriented,
because the economy is not necessarily the people. But also
I didn't know this. In twenty twenty two, the average
Greek employee across industry worked one thousand, eight hundred and
eighty six hours per year. That's higher than the US average,
(07:25):
which is one eight hundred and eleven. And the US
already has a reputation of people being overworked, you know,
and not getting some basic benefits like PTO or vacation.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Oh yeah, no, absolutely, guys. There's an added thing here
that I didn't realize, and I think I already misspoke
because of this new information I'm getting from the Guardian.
It says under the extended working week, staff and select
industries and manufacturing facilities will have the option of working
in additional two hours per day, right, So that would
add up or an extra eight hour shift, and they
(07:58):
would be rewarded during that time period with a top
up fee of forty added to the daily wage. So
they are still making over time overtime. Yes, it's great,
you're right there. They are just kind of codifying it
in the way business functions now.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
And if you're if you're a Greek national, or if
you reside in Greece, let us know what the vibe
is on the ground, let us know the lay of
the land, and perhaps most importantly, please assure us that
we can still have access to euros. That's not a
washed joke and whatsoever.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, I love a euro knocking on.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Every year when it comes around to get that euro.
I think euros should be for all year round.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
And then, of course not the only thing in cuisine
that Greece is known and for. They have the plethora
of incredible offerings. But it is a delightful sandwich.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
The civilization, this civilization, let's not get into a couple
of things, a couple other things in addition to the Euro.
So we'll give them their flowers there. And no matter
where you live, this is one of our first big stories.
No matter where you live in this wide world, no
matter what you do for fun or for work, you
(09:12):
need to check your passwords right now, Alexis, can we
get like a weird breaking news faith perfect?
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Yes, all right, let's.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Go to cyber news and rock You twenty twenty four
all one word. Cyber news researchers recently discovered the largest
password hack in known history. We're talking ten billion different
passwords and it came through a file called Rocky two
(09:42):
zero two four dot txt text file and was posted
by a someone calling themselves Obamacare on July fourth. This
this person has this entity or this representative of this
group has already shared employee databases from law firms, leaks
(10:05):
from online casinos, even student applications for colleges. Like, whatever
they're doing, they're they're doing very well. And we were
talking about this in a text thread we use sometimes
we're not recording. We're also talking about it a little
bit off air. But Noel, you in particular clock something
that Doc. I think we both noticed too, and maybe
(10:27):
you as well met that there has been an escalation
of scam attempts, phishing attempts, phone calls. I've got I've
got one story, not to make a personal story, but
this is something that involves us. We may have mentioned it,
but we haven't done it on the air. Our pattern
familias of how stuff works. Absolute brilliant guy named Marshall Brain.
(10:49):
Yes that's his real name, He's mister Brain. A while back,
right around not two too long ago, received the text
message from someone identified themselves as Marshall Brain, mentioning me
by name or by the name I use here and
asking me for stuff. And so, Matt, you'll recall I
(11:10):
texted you saying recognize the number. And I think we
both kind of got cracking real quick on the weekend
right to figure out if this is the real brain.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Oh yeah, I texted him, uh and I called him,
left a voicemail and uh, yes, I guess it was him.
I don't know. He didn't mention that in particular, but
the same number is his.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I emailed him because the text I got was from
a different number than the one that we have for him.
And then he wrote, ball, I have to send you
guys the email to He wrote back a very nice email,
gave us all the shout out. Confirmed it wasn't him,
But it was odd the specificity.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Oh it wasn't that.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Him, tipped. It was not him. Oh, it was not him.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It was someone who knew enough information to use these
two names together and to probably try to get something.
And that's just you know, that's just a microcosmic example, right,
Like I think we were saying off air, we've all
been receiving some kind of wackado glad handing attempts online.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Right mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
By the way, just really quickly, Marshall. Marshall reports that
he is quote here in his super secret fortress of solitude,
and his plans to save the world should come to
fruition any day now.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
I was just saying, for my part, I have received
notifications through Apple through my iPhone a couple of times
over the last year or so that my data was
part of an identified breach and.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
That I should change my passwords.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
And I don't know if anyone else has noticed that
feature in the iPhone, but it is apparently a thing.
I guess they get wind of this stuff and they
send you these notifications or if it's like a setting
you have to.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Turn on or off.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
But you know, I've certainly now been the best steward
of my passwords over the years. I have a couple
that I use, and I switched them around and changed
digits and add a few things on the end. But
at the end of the day, I ultimately will get
to a place where I've forgotten what I changed the
password to, and then I have to change it again,
and then if I'm not careful, I'll you know, rense
(13:11):
and repeat. But I have gotten more into using two
factor authentication, and a lot of times, you know, a
breacher or someone who's really trying to do you wrong
needs some other way. They can't just have your password,
They need access to your email.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
If they're getting your banking stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
If you have two factor, then you'll get something via
email or via text. So it's not unless they control
all of those, you know, those accounts. Can they actually
really really really do you dirty? Not to say let
your guard down, don't worry, You're fine, but I would
say look.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Into any form of two factor authentication.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
But what I was wondering is, like, do these because
I've seen just a massive uptick in this particular type
of scam call that I'd never heard before, where it's
like comes from all over the country, different numbers, and
it's saying that it's a loan company needing to confirm
some data for the loan that I applied for, and
it's happened multiple times, And at first I was freaked out,
(14:03):
like did somebody apply for a loan in my name?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
But no, it turns out it's a pretty common scam.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
And I just have to wonder if with these data leaks,
in addition to passwords, they must also be getting other information.
The phone numbers are probably attached to some of these
if you're you know, entering it for maybe political campaigns
or forgetting text notifications or whatever. And it's kind of
wonder how the folks that are capitalizing on these breaches
(14:29):
are using this information. And if this uptick and scams
you know via text message and phone calls has anything
to do with those.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You really don't need a ton of information. You need
a startlingly sparse set of data points to be able
to pull some financial shenanigans, to do things like credit stuffing,
or to do things like you know, opening opening certain
types of loans, or it's it's easier than it sounds
(14:57):
to compromise someone's identity. And going back to our story,
rock You twenty twenty four did not come out of
the blue. Please check out this story, folks. It comes
on the heels of things like the Rock You twenty
twenty one compilation. Before just a few days ago, Rock
You twenty twenty one was the largest single password breach
(15:20):
collection in history. So whoever is doing this is not
only keeping up with their previous iterations, but they're escalating.
They're getting better. And no matter how secure we may
feel we are, no matter how much security hygiene we practice,
now is the time to go in and change your passwords.
One thing that might be concerned that I don't see
(15:42):
a ton of confirmation or conversation about here, even in
some software forums, is the idea of compromising campaign databases, right,
because those calls escalate really quickly around election season, and
you know, election season here in the US is basically lobsterfest.
It never ends, it's always going on. So that is
(16:06):
to your point, that's a almost at a great resource.
That is a very powerful resource for bad faith actors
because they can scoop up some information about you, cross
ref to a couple of other databases, and then boom,
you get a very specific text that does seem like
it could be legit because they know your name, they
know where you live, they might have known some things
you were doing earlier. It's ethics aside. It's it's a
(16:28):
pretty brilliant operation. At this point. It can be a
little disturbing for people because all the advice you're getting
from the experts and from the armchair folks alike is
just turn on you know, MFA multi factor authentication, reset
all your passwords, you know, even if you think they
(16:50):
haven't been associated with this leak. But again, ten billion
more passwords than there are people on the planet, so
the odds of you getting hit are very much much
and zero yeah, it's just someone you know getting hit
or or I wouldn't even say hit compromised in this leak.
Are virtually certain it's probably one of us recording this
(17:11):
evening or one of us listening to the show tonight.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I got my LifeLock alerts specifically when this gut released.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Oh yeah, you still have the LifeLock mm hm. Back
around to the phone number thing too.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
I've been using What's App for a while, which is
tied to a phone number, and I hadn't logged onto
it for a while. But then a friend of mine
was saying, like, oh, I'm kind of trying to move
all my text communications to WhatsApp because he uses an
Android and as we know, there's some weird exclusionary stuff
that involves, you know, the way Apple treats Android users,
and it really is kind of obnoxious. So I totally
(17:42):
get it, and I was fully game, and I went
to log into my WhatsApp and I got a notification
saying my account had been suspended due to suspicious activity.
But I hadn't used it in months and months and months,
and I very quickly just fill out a little form
and said, I don't know what this is about I
have no idea what could have happened. YadA, YadA, YadA,
(18:03):
and they reinstated it very quickly. But I know there
are lots of WhatsApp scams, and I have to believe
that somebody fished my account, use my phone number and
tried to use it to run some scams when I
wasn't logged in because it was a dormant account.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, dormant accounts. The empty parking spaces right are already
pretty cozy for bad faith actors. If you were one
of the many, many people who has a Facebook account
that you never bother to use, then you probably want
to check in on that bad boy too, because those
can very easily be spoofed. I mean, it happens with
what celebrities or public figures on Instagram all the time.
(18:39):
They get spoofed. It's a good thing to keep an
eye out for. And really the purpose of this story
it's too recent for us to have a ton of
fallout for this or to know what the actionable consequences
will be. But it's more a clarion call. You know,
it's a true it's a true thing, and it might
(19:00):
feel boring to change passwords, but it's way cooler to
be a bord for a moment than to have thousands
of dollars stolen from you.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
And do you have a question though, like, it's at
a certain point if everyone in the world's passwords have
been leaked and literally like everyone is compromised, are there
no protections in place? Like if everyone's being scammed? Like,
isn't there is there like a ceiling for this stuff.
It just seems outrageous for it to be that huge,
(19:30):
that that maximalist of a leak, for it for you
to be able to target like everybody. But I guess
you know, once you get the information, then you weed
through it and figure out who's the most vulnerable and
who's like the weakest in the herd technologically speaking, right.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Right, or who is the most high value target?
Speaker 4 (19:47):
So yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So this this brings us to another thing is there's
a cricket industry game going on here too, because if
you are someone who wants to remove privacy from the
Internet or someone who wants to remove anonymity, this is
a great argument to do so, such that the ultimate
password in the scenario you're describing their noel would be
(20:10):
biometric data even onto retinal scans or fingerprints will work
anymore DNA stuff like that. It's enough to make you think,
and I know we've got to keep this one short.
It's enough to make you think maybe maybe society overall,
the way we're doing it is kind of overrated. Maybe
(20:31):
we should just retire to that new Taco Bell retirement home.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
Can you tell me more about this mean?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
What does this mean?
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Is it like the Taco Bell cantina where they serve
margarita's but they also have like beds?
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Like what is the Taco Bell retirement though?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Is it for people who are too far gone and
just enjoy Taco Bell for the rest of your life
while you got it kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
It's similar to uh so I was talking with the
Daily Zeyitegeist guys about this.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Well back, It's.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Similar to other come up branded retirement homes like the
Disney ones.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Really confusing.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
But if you would like to call off the rat
race and live a life of case Ada fueled luxury,
then look no further than that cantinas, where, according to
Taco Bell, everyone can live like a retiree. As comes
from Fox eleven out of La Shout Out to you guys.
They say, this is a quote luxurious experience that will
(21:27):
offer senior inspired recreation and cross generational activities. Early morning golf,
tea times, afternoon aerobics, pickleball matches, and it's let's see,
it is reserved for Taco Bell Rewards members. So you
got you already have to be kind of Taco Bell premium,
you know, the one percent of Taco Bell. I don't
(21:48):
know how tough it is to join the Rewards club.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
There.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
You can get a day pass if you're not ready
to jump all the way in, and it starts in
just six days. They start selling access to the cantinas.
As we record now it's July tenth. So if you
are like millions of Americans I'm sure, just champion at
the bit to live your Taco Bell life, then get
(22:14):
thee to a Taco Bell on July sixteenth, or download
their app and just make sure you know you get
a good password. We're going to pause for a word
from our sponsors, and we'll be back with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
And we're back with more strange news.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Gonna do two sort of teching news stories out of
the Asian continent. One is sort of absurd, and one
is both absurd and a little bit sad and potentially
portentous of things to come when it comes to our
robot friends and potential overlords. But first, there was recently
a gubernatorial election in Tokyo. The results of that have
(23:00):
determined Eureko Kowiki one amidst a crazy cavalcade of opposition,
And that's sort of where the story comes from in Tokyo. Been,
I know that you've spent some time over there, and
you may have been there at some point during election season,
but a big part of the election cycle in Tokyo
are these like physical ad spaces that are sort of
(23:23):
temporarily put up during elections that are like little squares
that are kind of like these grids of squares. They
are billboards on the ground that are put up, and
you can rent these squares for something like one hundred
and twenty five dollars a day.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
And because of this new sort of.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Conservative group that has been running aggressively in the city,
they apparently rented out a ton of these And I
don't know if they're just trying to create subterfuge or
create a situation where it's like a distraction or spoken
mirrors from the Real series candidates to kind of you know,
throw a wrench in the works, basically would rent them
out to anyone who would pay them for their pre
(23:59):
rent spaces, and that has resulted or had resulted in
some pretty wacky and outrageous little political ads, including ads
for like pornographic material sex shops. There was even an
AI mayor candidate, and this was of course a gobernatorial
race running on a platform of using artificial intelligence to
(24:21):
run the government.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
A guy running on a golf platform.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Where he apparently a big part of and this is
also there are videos associated with these, not in the
squares but online, and in the little clip or in
the little square, he's kind of showing him practicing his
golf swing, and you know, pictures of pets, pictures of kickboxers,
you know, all kinds of you know, lurid poses. And
the thing is, in Japan, the law has been that
(24:49):
anybody running for office can pretty much say anything they
want as long as it's not inherently libelists or slanderous,
or as long as they're not supporting another candidate, which
is interesting, but I guess makes sense that we would
maybe like put it exactly like that over here, because
the implication you wouldn't really be running if you were
going to be supporting another candidate unless you lose, you know,
(25:09):
a potential bid for a nomination, then you, you know,
put your support behind a certain candidate, you endorse them
or whatever. But this new hiccup has been specifically caused
by this political party that has been renting out these
spaces kind of creating a bit of a bizarro kind
of show that a lot of citizens of Tokyo have
(25:32):
commented they find distasteful. It's a little bit embarrassing, you know,
it doesn't really cast their city in a particularly flattering light.
So I don't know if you guys have any thoughts
about that or as it relates to our political process
over here.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Is hit worse? Is it better? I mean, it.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Almost seems a little bit lighthearted and lower stakes than
what we're seeing over here in terms of some of
the gnarly kind of hate.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Filled, baiting kind of cam pains.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
That we see in political ads, not to mention with
Citizens United and the ability of corporations to give unlimitedly,
you know, to these types of campaigns.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, the Shenanigans are kind of evenly distributed around the world,
for better or worse. And this is fascinating to me
because Tokyo has such a huge impact on the rest
of Japan right the world. Yeah, yeah, very much, and
culturally as well. And there are still, you know, they're
(26:32):
definitely far right forces in Japan. There are some active
extremists in Hokkaido. Okinawa is going through some turbulent times
right now because yet again US service members were committing
some pretty heinous sex crimes and assaults. This the idea
(26:53):
what you're saying, like the lightheartedness of this particular instance,
I would agree with that. It is if anything, it
is kind of embarrassing to the residents of Tokyo. And
you see those those quotes from various you know, person
on the street interviews with different media outlets. There was
one I saw in uh infox by my Yumi noteap
(27:17):
there was an office worker in Tokyo and just said, uh,
mainly message that they feel this is embarrassing when outsiders,
non Japanese visitors see what's happening and said quote, I
see many foreign visitors passed by these billboards and they
must wonder what's going on. As a voter, I think
it's outrageous and disrespectful to the other candidates we're seriously competing.
(27:40):
But you know, we get that in the UK, we
get that in the US. Somebody runs as like, quote
unquote a joke candidate. I love Buckethead. Remember Buckethead?
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Of course, yeah, you can shred too. Are you talking
about the same guy? The bucket had the plays of
the guitar. Maybe I'm not just trying to replace slash
that's right, as in fact go by Buckehead as well.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
I could see the confusion there.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
But yeah, apparently this emerging Conservative Party is what the
AP describes them as. And I've dug a little deeper
and a lot of things that are, you know, in
Japanese and I haven't really I don't know exactly what
the name of the of the party is. But they
apparently were even encouraging folks who weren't candidates to rent
these spaces, and a lot of it ended up just
(28:24):
being like vying for attention. And the leader of this
Conservative Party, a guy with the name of Takashi Tachibana,
said we have to be whackyer.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
We don't get media attention.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
And the AP also spoke to a professor at Nihan
University by the name of Ryosuke Nishida, who is a
political experts and media specialist, and said the point is
to make it moral and outrageous actions. The reason why
some people find these performances amusing is because they think
their objections are not taken into consideration by politicians and
(28:57):
existing parties or reflected in their politics. And I did
see a YouTube video of an American. I believe he
didn't have an accent. He seemed like an American living
in Tokyo, seems to have been living there for.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
A long time.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
And he did point out that, you know, much like
over here in other parts of the world, there is
a perception of significant corruption in Japanese politics. So this
is almost the thumbing of the nose at the system
that many perceive as being broken.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah, but just to be clear, these billboards are meant
to show the actual candidates they could vote for, that's right,
and they are being just changed in these weird ways, misused, misused,
But ultimately there is this the only way people learn
about candidates or is this just like traditionally.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
It's a popular way and again, Ben, I would defer
to you with your time there. But it is a
cultural thing, these squares, these grids of squares that are
put up seasonally. It is something that people have come
to expect because I believe online campaigning wasn't even really
much of a thing until relatively recently because of some laws.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, Japan, as anybody who's been there or spend time
there knows, Japan is far far into the future in
some things like toilet technology and frankly food, but also
seems to weirdly lag behind in some innovations right like
fax machines are still very common, just because that is
(30:27):
the normalized, expected way to do things. And so to
the question about the paths of or the opportunities to
learn more about a candidate as a voter in Tokyo
or Japan, surely there are write in listeners let us
know conspiracy, iHeartRadio dot com. Surely there are people who
are maybe less tech savvy, or maybe they're older people,
(30:51):
and they've just associated this platform in particular as their
way to get a quick summation of the can you know,
And people just like over here typically are going to
vote with the party they already identified with in previous elections.
It's kind of rare for folks to break ranks due
to the tribalism, so I would say it's important there
(31:13):
are other ways to learn about it, right and with
you can just see how many candidates are in these
kind of races, so they're not just racing for public approval,
they're also fighting tooth and nail to get any sort
of media coverage, and past a certain point, it's like
the old Hollywood rule, does bad or good coverage matter?
(31:33):
That Matt much is the main thing just getting your
name and your face out there.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
And apparently like some of these entire billboards, of which
there are tens of thousands, by the way, throughout the
city of Tokyo, where they'll rent the same same square.
You know, it'll be the same ad in an entire
grid of by the way, forty eight squares in these.
And it's sort of like if you go to New York,
where there'll be walls around construction sites where it is
(32:00):
legal to post bills, and then there's the ones that
say post no bills. This is kind of like that,
like it's sort of built into the urban landscape. Of
the city, and apparently all of this is perfectly legal
because of that lag that Ben's talking about, which I
do find interesting. Japan does seem to be a play
a country of conundrums, of sort of you know, what's
(32:20):
the word I'm looking for, like contradictions, right like where
it's like, you know, yes, they are so ahead of
the curve on so many things, but there are some
things like this that just don't quite catch up to
the times, and there are people out there seemingly exploiting them.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And to be fair, you know, this country's not not
some kind of paragon of perfection, which is a redundant phrase.
Like everything we just said about Japan can in some
ways be applied to the US right very far ahead
in some things and cartoonishly behind in some others. And
it just depends on where you live and what gets normalized.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
Well, speaking of what gets normalized, And I think we
can give this quick. I actually didn't think that this
one was going to generate quite as more much conversation
as it did, but I'm glad it did.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
I think these were all really valid and interesting points.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
Apparently, South Korea has for some time had the densest
robot population in the entire world, and.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
That is something that I was unaware of.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
You if you're lucky enough to be anywhere near Buford
Highway here in Atlanta, where there's some amazing cuisine and
some restaurants that you might not find in places other
than a Asia, you will notice that there are a
lot of spots that have these serving robots that will bring.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
You your trays and bring you your drinks, etc.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
There's like a pretty popular rotating, revolving sushi restaurant called
Kura I believe, and they have these little serving robots,
and they are starting to become a little more popular.
In cities like New York or Los Angeles, well you'll
be walking around and see like a food delivery robot.
But in South Korea they've been doing this for a
very long time. And that also applies apparently to civil service,
where there are robots that are helping with admin type
(33:59):
tasks and sort of interacting with office workers. And in
South Korea, in a place called Gome City, there has
been what is being reported as the first robot suicide.
And I have to just go ahead and caveat this upfront.
I really do think this is quite hyperbolic and in
(34:21):
many ways just sort of an entry into a conversation
about what it means to be human and what it
means to humanize robots, and what it means for artificial
intelligence to simulate human emotions, because you know, people get
bummed out, and isn't the idea of a robot that like,
they're like all the good things about humans, but they're
(34:41):
sort of impervious to some of the bad. But as
we know with like things like chatbots becoming racist when
you train them on the internet, they take all that
stuff into and there is a question as to whether
or not this robot was feeling overwhelmed and overworked like
many of the probably other folks was working alongside so
(35:02):
the robots worked for the Goomy City Council. Was found
at the foot of a two meter long staircase, where,
according to some reports, including one from tech report dot com,
it threw itself down. I did sorry, I think describing
the idea of a robot throwing itself dead so dramatic
(35:24):
and really click paity and like good for a headline,
but I don't know if I buy it. It was
known as the Robot Supervisor, worked normal shift hours like
everybody else, even had its own employee card and was
very accustomed or programmed, I guess, to operate the elevators.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
And that's true.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
I think we've all been traveling together and maybe seen
these in hotels occasionally where they do get off the elevator.
They use the elevator, they've got something where they can
either extend like an R two D two little finger
and poke the button or whatever. But they do get
on and on elevators. And according to this Tech Report
article by Chrishy Chowdry, the reason for the suicide is
(36:01):
not yet been determined, but the broken pieces have been
taken away.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
In order to help determine the cause.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
So it's weird though, because it's not exactly a crime scene,
I mean, but it does seem, you know, the anthropomorphization
of robots really comes into play, especially in the way
it's being described. And that's really the gist of it, guys.
It was manufactured by a company out of California called
Bear Robotics, and it began its work back in twenty
(36:30):
twenty three. And all this writing about the robot's suicide
I think is really overblown, borderline I responsible in some ways.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Maybe that's me being a little too alarmist about it,
but what do you guys think. I know we're near
in the end of the segment, but I just want
to quick I think this is worth a quick chat
and then maybe bring it back up for another episode,
maybe on robot servants, you know, or on the anthromorphization
of technology.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
To me, it sounds like we need to get some
robot doors, kind of like doggy doors, you know, or
like the little fences that you'll put up on a staircase.
She install one of those, or a bunch of those, like.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
Those those curve fences they put on bridges to keep
humans from throwing themselves off.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
No, no, I'm joking. I know, I'm totally joking.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Look, I don't know anything about this manufacturer, this specific robot,
but it feels to me like it was some kind
of error, right it wastant spinning in a circle, then
went off the thing.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
So the deepend Matt the deep end enough.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
I just finished this game with my son called Stray
on PlayStation. This game about a cat in a city
full of robots, and it's very very cool. I would
recommend everybody plays it, but just this way we apply
our thinking.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
To the robots.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I think that's you're right on that that's what's happening here.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
Any last thoughts from you, Ben before we move on.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, but I'll save them for an episode with robot servants.
You know, like you said, they're quite prevalent in the
more develop parts of Asia. I've had some very weird
run ins, the kind of things that leave you a
little paranoid. But I'm sure everything's fine.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Probably so and again I joke that, you know, our
robot servants slash overlords. But it is the thing that
we're like trying to train these things to be as
human as possible without the inconvenient parts of being human.
A big conversation around AI is that there comes a
point where there's this this sort of I don't know,
critical mass point where you can't filter out the things
(38:33):
that you're you're training it with human stuff. It's gonna
get the human parts as well, and then eventually it
might just take over and start writing its code itself.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
But I don't know.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
I'm glad that you're into that idea, Ben, I think
that'll be really really cool to talk about big picture,
what does the future of robot assistance, AI assistance, all
of that stuff I think could be bundled into a
great episode.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Well, let's take a quick pause.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Here, here a word from our robot overlord, our sponsors,
and then we'll be right back with another piece of
strange news.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
And we've returned. Guys, how much do we all love driving?
We're big driving enthusiasts, right.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
Don't love it on the regular in traffic and just
for like functional and purposes. But out on an open
road type situation, I had rented kind of a souped up, cooler.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Car than I normally possess. That was awesome.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
I live for that, but like, yeah, in Atlanta driving
kind of sucks because of you know, the traffic, and
a lot of it.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Isn't driving at all, it's just sitting there.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I love it for a number of personal reasons related to,
of course, one of the first shows I did with
this network car stuff, but also depending on the kind
of situations you're in, it's a it can be a
much more dependable way to transport yourself or things as
opposed to cargo ship or as opposed to flight, you know,
(40:00):
because getting caught without wheels when you're at the mercy
of a rental place or an airport and inclement weather.
It's never an ideal situation. So for many, many reasons,
I think there's a poetry to the open road and
the idea of vehicles here in the US. Obviously it's
not great that the majority of people living here are
(40:21):
forced to depend upon those vehicles. But they're just cool.
They're just so cool, man.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, cars are the best. Driving is one of my
favorite things to do on the planet. And you know,
as you're saying, especially if you're at the mercy of
you know, public transportation, no matter how good it is, right,
no matter what state you live in, what country you
live in, using public transit, you're using somebody else's schedule, right,
you are hoping everything is going to work functionally. With
(40:49):
a car, if it's yours and you're driving it, you
get to get wherever you're going basically as fast as
you want to get there or can get there, And
you get to choose your own destiny. Right, you can
decide to go somewhere else if you want to. There's
a great freedom of a personal vehicle like a car, truck,
(41:10):
or an suv, even a motorcycle, any of that stuff. Well,
some of that personal freedom that car vehicles represent is
getting taken away guys in the EU, in the European
Union as well as in Northern Ireland at least to
some extent, and we're about to talk about it. As
of July seventh, that is the Sunday before we are
(41:34):
recording this on July tenth, all new vehicles, all new
cars sold in the European Union and Northern Ireland must
have quote a range of technical safety features fitted as standard,
including an intelligent speed assistance which is also known as
a speed limitter. Now what does that mean a lot
(41:56):
of newer vehicles, including the camera I'm currently driving it,
which is a twenty twenty one model, they have things
on them that will alert you that you are potentially
probably going over the posted speed limit on a road.
How does it do that? Well, in the vehicle I'm driving,
(42:16):
there is a little speed limit sign that shows up
on your heads up display in the or it's not
really heads up display, it's on your dashboard, but it
shows you what the posted speed limit is on that road,
right next to how fast you're going on your spinometer.
And in my vehicle at least it just lets you know,
(42:37):
with a color coding if you're going green like under
the speed limit, yellow right at that speed limit, or
red you're above the speed limit, buddy, And that's all
my vehicle does. It just lets me know that I
am doing this.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
It doesn't interfere with your operation. It's like it's it's
the onboard version of those speed monitoring kiosk that gets
set up and like flash yes five if you're going
forty five and a thirty.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Five Yes, And in full honesty, guys, I notice when
it's happening. I just see the little like I'll see
the red pop up and I'm like, oh dang, I'm
going a little too fast, especially if I've got my
son in my car. It's really helpful. I'm like, I
should probably be a little more responsible than.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
This doesn't beat at you, though, does it.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
It does not, But god, many many vehicles will beep
at you, and other vehicles will even do things like
make the make the accelerator more difficult to push down.
It'll it'll give you resistance on your accelerator, which is
kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Other stitch to the insurance company, Oh.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Well, yeah, if you've got don't let me look if
you've got your you know, apps up to date, and
you've signed up for all the services, and you've said
yes to all the things, and whatever vehicle make and
model you're driving, it could potentially be, like Ben said,
snitching to your insurance company. Well, there's other things that
(44:00):
they can get around it, but officially, if you haven't
said yes to the stuff, at least as of right now,
it can't be used against you.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
It reminds me of the kind of like governors that
like commercial trucks have in them. Right, it's sort of
almost approaching that if it is actually hampering your speed
because your school bus, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Well here's the deal, guys. These new vehicles, according to
these new rules in the European Union in Northern Ireland,
and that's just vehicles that are sold in those two places,
the new speed limitters will actually prevent vehicles from going
above the speed limit in posted zones. Now, there's not
I haven't seen the regulation anywhere in the Guardian or
(44:42):
any of the other places I've looked at this that
say which roads will be governed by these things, Like
is it just on highways, is it just on residential
streets or in school zones. Where where will those speeds
actually be regulated? If it's just on a per car
basis and it's in the entirety of the European Union
in Ireland or wherever that vehicle drives, that's pretty intense.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
A lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
It's actually it's more dangerous to have a minority of
cars forced to be limited in that way, especially in
places where people will tend to drive five to ten
over the limit km or miles.
Speaker 5 (45:20):
It doesn't think you're sitting with duck and you can't
outmaneuver others too. Let's say you're being chased or something,
or you in like a situation where you need to
I'm just saying, just putting that out there, but also
like who decides where and how do you know?
Speaker 4 (45:34):
And is that not the slipperiest of slopes, right, there's
stated aim.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
There's stated aim would be to probably number one priority
to lower road deaths and fatalities and accidents. So so logically,
if they're not rolling it out everywhere all at once,
they would probably be looking for areas where people are
more likely to die in car accidents.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, apparently, at least to the Guardian, road deaths involving
a speeding vehicle in Britain has risen faster since COVID,
which is up twenty percent in twenty twenty two. So
I believe what they're stating here, and I'm not positive
because it's a little bit strange to read, but it
says three hundred and three out of one thousand, six
(46:20):
hundred and ninety five. To me, that sounds like three
hundred and three deaths out of one thousand, six hundred
and ninety five speeding vehicle accidents or something. But staying
on logic, guys, tell me if I'm completely wrong here,
what I've noticed in driving on highways in Atlanta and
even just on you know, smaller residential roads around here.
(46:42):
I use the logic of I drive roughly the same
speed as the other vehicles that I'm driving around same
flow of traffic because and you just maintain distance from
the vehicles in front of you and around you, right.
But if you don't do that, at least in this
city they're is, it feels extremely dangerous because of I
(47:03):
would just say, the tempers and the attitudes of other
drivers around you, which you cannot control. How the aggressiveness
increases as you slow down and maybe even.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Anyone could have a gun.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Well yeah, yeah, I mean that's.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
What's sitting duck again, Like I was saying, you know, but.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
It's for me. It's just the actions that another driver
could take to aggressively get around me if I am
not going roughly the same speed as other drivers. Because
that's in my experience, that's when I've seen accidents on
the highway, is when someone's upset and trying to get
around somebody else, so they make a quick maneuver, which
then they either run into somebody else or it causes
(47:43):
a chain reaction.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
And you would have blend in when you're when you're
in traffic, especially on a highway, so you kind of
want to move with the herd. If you are picking
up speed. You should know that speeding saves at best
three minutes of travel time. I think last time I
checked this stat So make your own judgment called make
sure that three minutes is important enough to you, and
(48:05):
be well aware that if you are chasing that extra
three minutes and you get pulled over, you're going to
lose much more than three minutes. You're going to be
way later to whatever it was, and you might not
make it depending on how fast you're going. Right, So
this is I think there's a lot of human psychology
that proves to us people are not necessarily built to
operate cars in groups because there's still that line mentality
(48:30):
like I want to be first in line to stop
light or whatever. Yeah, this is this is an inevitable
way of handling it. But the rollout itself, and I
think this is the point maybe you're getting to there,
Matt has its own potential for danger.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Well it does. And you made a great point there,
Ben that this is going to be a massive minority
of vehicles on the road for a long long time.
Not many people go out there and buy a brand
new model whatever, right, and then go take it on
the road. Most people, at least the ones that I
know and the statistics I'm seeing, you buy a vehicle
(49:07):
that's at least a couple of years out of date
from the brand new model. And that's a strategic thing.
That is a you know, that comes to how much
money you're going to spend. It has a lot to
do with a lot of things. Well, mostly because the
brand new model is crazy expensive for what you're getting,
especially since it loses a lot of its value as
soon as you drive it off the lot. Right, That's
(49:28):
something we've talked about over and over and over again.
So there's just going to be a tiny number of
cars that have to go the speed limit and stay
as far over as they possibly can so other cars
can go zip around them dangerously.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
I would also be pissed in the UK with this
kind of control, even though there is a lot of.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
Validity to it.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
I would be I would understand the perspective of someone
who says it's already crazy expensive to own and operate
a car in London, you know, in particular like the
road tax you have to pay just to drive your
car or nuts. So I could see how a lot
of people get up about this, as we used to
say on car stuff.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Yeah, but the UK is out of this. It's not
in there.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
For Northern Ireland.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
I mean, y, yes, exactly well, you know, yeah, exactly right.
So that's that's going to create a whole other thing, right,
because if you take highways far north enough, you're gonna
be dealing with this stuff. But and again it's only
in new cars. So if you want a solution to this,
and you're gonna buy a car, in the next ever,
just buy a vehicle that was manufactured before twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, honestly, you know, they're not perfect, but they will.
I am increasingly bullish on this. I don't think you
should buy new cars if you can avoid it, And
increasingly the older cars become more attractive because they can
there's still something that you own versus the newer models,
which are very very much pushing for subscription models. And
(50:59):
if subscribe to something that means you never really own it,
you know. Yeah, So self sufficiency is always always a
pretty good thing when you can possess it.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
Agreed. Agreed. My favorite writing about this thus far has
come out of the Utopian by a gentleman named Matt
heart Degree. Really love your writing, Matt, if you ever
hear this. He just makes this really great point. He says,
speed limits, you know, they're they're part of the social
contract that we've talked about many times when we talk
(51:30):
about the lines on the road, right, But he says,
he says, you could drive one mile over the speed
limit and expect to get away with it. But you
rob one bank and all of a sudden there's a
man hunt. I just I'm sorry. I love that feels
like us talking on the show specifically, Ben, it sounds
(51:50):
like you to me, because it's just like this, it's
a perfect joke to me, it's.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
I mean, it is Honestly, there are emergency situations where
you have to break a law. You know, I'm not
saying necessarily a bank robbery, but you know, you've got
what's the old eighties film trope. You have a pregnant
person giving birth in the car. You would want to
get to the hospital. You want to arrive at the
hospital before the baby arrives on Earth. Right, that's a
(52:18):
heck of a ticking time bomb scenario or a grievous injury,
you know. A natural disaster is another thing that every
year there are a ton of people in the US
who have to temporarily evacuate due to things like hurricanes,
and that already these I don't know. I'm on the fence.
(52:39):
I can see both sides of this, but the main
thing I see is that this is certain to occur,
right it It will roll out, and the more it's normalized,
there will be a feedback loops and more manufacturers will
adopt it proactively, even if they don't, even if they
don't legally have to, they'll adopt it just because it
gives them a better chance to sell cars in the EU.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
You yeah, well yeah, And Matt makes this point that
I really think will resonate with us guys. He says,
increasingly car makers are trying to take the role of
driving away from the driver. This view sees the driver
as an unfortunate necessity, a stand in for a computer
that will eventually do the job, and that view within
(53:21):
car manufacturing is winning. So this concept of like the excitement,
the freedom that you feel getting in a car, it
will go away, as you're saying, Ben, all of that stuff,
it's just gonna go away. Eventually. We'll just have to
cling on to you know, a nineteenth what I don't
know the year, but the nineteen eighty something Dodge charger. Man.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
We have talked about that though, and there is I
think one could argue a greater good argument there where, like,
you know, statistically speaking, if this were the case and
the technology was good, it would reduce deaths. And it
might be there might be a future where that feeling
you guys are talking about would be relegated to an
experience you pay for, you know, on a track or
something that's like outside of the realm of like other people,
(54:08):
you know, being potentially in harm's way.
Speaker 4 (54:10):
And I know that likely sucks to.
Speaker 5 (54:13):
A lot of auto enthusiasts, But I'm wondering if you
guys have thought about the flip side of that, if
there is a greater good argument here, if you know,
sufficiently advanced enough technology were to come about.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
In depth, yeah, especially in car stuff, at least.
Speaker 4 (54:27):
On my end.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Maybe I can't remember what show I made this analogy,
and but one of one comparison could be when comparison
could be the idea of horses. Right, pre automobile and
internal combustion engine, a lot of people would engage in
transportation with horses, right, because it's smart. It's been around
for a while. But now as the automobile became more normalized,
(54:53):
more affordable, now horses have been kind of relegated to
this nostalgic thing for the And that might be what
happens with cars that you drive yourself. It might be,
you know, I can earn the sci fi story, but
there's this great mystery sci fi story about a world
wherein fossil fuel emissions are much more closely monitored and
(55:17):
there's a guy who is just sneaking out and driving
his old school and a museum type of car. But yeah,
it's possible. So maybe maybe that'll be it. Maybe the
the cameras and the Ford focuses and the Ford escapes
and what have used. Maybe if you have a car
like that, you should hold on to it as long
(55:39):
as you can.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Hey, man, my camera gets forty MPG. Okay, come on, oh.
Speaker 4 (55:44):
Yeah with the cus but tiny thing for me.
Speaker 5 (55:48):
It also reminds me of folks that like refuse to
upgrade their operating systems on their computer because they like
the version of the software they use and they do
not want to be forced to upgrade, so they like
kind of remove that computer from the Internet. And this
is true from a lot of audio, you know, or
video editing. Perhaps somebody really liked the early version of
(56:09):
Final Cut Pro and doesn't want to participate anything else
because that just worked for them, you know. And so
you just kind of remove yourself from that technological rat race.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Well unless you can't, unless you cannot remove yourself at all,
because if you own a vehicle, even in California, Senator Wiener, yes,
that's right, Scott Wiener. He proposed a bill back in
January to do this very thing in California, so you
know it might be coming our way. That bill, by
(56:39):
the way, it's not going through, and that cat is
very excited to exit this room. So why don't we
exit this segment? Thank you, Doc? Here we go ed.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
This brings us to one of our favorite parts of
the show. This is where we pass the torch to you,
fellow conspiracy realist. Have you have you like some of
your faithful correspondents traveled abroad and ran into the robot revolution.
What do you think about cars? So you get my
car stuff? Had on for this. Really interested to hear
(57:10):
the future of automation, the greater good arguments, and then
of course change your passwords. We can't wait to hear
from someone who is actually attending the Taco Bell Retirement Home,
reach out to us online, tell us about all this,
and most importantly, tell us what it's like to live Moss.
It's a Taco Bell tag, min I'm doing Taco Bell references.
Speaker 4 (57:31):
More by I got it, I got it. It's good.
Speaker 5 (57:34):
It's true, though, Ben, you make great points here, and
you can, in fact reach out to us in various ways,
including on the Internet where you can find it to
the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist, on Facebook where
we have our Facebook group.
Speaker 4 (57:45):
Here's where it gets crazy. Get it in on the
conversation there.
Speaker 5 (57:48):
Send us your memes and your hot takes on topics
of discussion here on stuff that it wants you to know.
We are also conspiracy Stuff on xfka, Twitter and on YouTube.
We have video concept coming at you on the regular.
On Instagram and TikTok. We're Conspiracy Stuff show. Do you
want to call us? Call one eight three three st
(58:08):
d WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You'll have three minutes
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what you think about this episode, or any other episode,
or any topic at all.
Speaker 3 (58:19):
Give us a suggestion for a show. We should do anything.
We want to hear from you. If you got more
to say, they can fit in three minutes. One not
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Speaker 1 (58:29):
We are the entities that read every email we receive.
Be well aware sometimes the void writes back head and
can't wait to hear from you. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (58:57):
Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist. We, like the rest of the world,
have our eyes on the recent assassination attempt of former
US President Donald Trump on July thirteenth, twenty twenty four,
as we recorded this strange news program before that incident occurred.
We are releasing a special full episode on the event,
which will be published this week. Thank you for your time.
(00:22):
Be safe and stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name's Matt, my
name is Noel.
Speaker 4 (00:52):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
We're joined as always with our superproducer Alexis, code named
Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly, you are You are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
It is almost birthday season here at how Here it's
stuff they'll want you to know. As we heard all
headlong toward August and the news isn't stopping. Taco Bell
(01:15):
has a retirement home. Just off air. We're talking about
some big changes in Greece, and a lot of people
are smuggling animals in their pants. That's hot again now.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
And they're apparently also happy to see us. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Well, there's one great case with a guy named Matt
Pancake real name, stop it, real name. You can see
him on YouTube getting caught in a leopard onesie asleep
on a bench after he broke into a pet store
and tried to smuggle a bunch of hamsters out in
his onesies for sex stuff a.
Speaker 5 (01:50):
You know what, I'm wondering if it was it could
have been floated out there.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
You tell us, folks, maybe there is an entirely wholesome,
indeed noble reason that you would need to put on
an animal ones and throw a bunch of hamsters.
Speaker 5 (02:03):
And maybe he just really identifies with the animal kingdom
and he was trying to liberate his people.
Speaker 4 (02:07):
You know.
Speaker 5 (02:08):
But I will say, we were watching the video that
you've found Ben on that topic with Alexis code named
Doc Holliday, and Alexis pointed out that the police were
being quite fast and loose and rough with this fellow
without thinking anything about the imperiled lives of the hamsters
contained with him.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
That leopard onesie.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Assumptions are dangerous and doc. Yes, agreed, you made an
excellent point. Also, shout out to the guy who got
caught with a hundred live serpents in his pants when
he conspired to smuggle them out of Hong Kong. There's
some great pictures there are.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
We talking babies, we're talking quote.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
If you go to the Guardian you will see that
the way the way the authorities describe it. When he
was caught trying to smuggle these from Hong Kong into
Shenzhen was upon inspection, customs officers discovered that the pockets
of the trousers the passenger was wearing we're packed with
six canvas drawstring bags and sealed with tape. Once opened,
(03:07):
each bag was found to contain living snakes in all
kinds of shapes, sizes and colors.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Wow. True coalition of certitudes.
Speaker 5 (03:17):
Of that should be political slogan, Our coalition of the
unwilling you already have right, Yeah, basically Jesus.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So, before we move into the news, do you guys
want to talk a little bit about Greece's bold new
six day work week.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Sure, it feels like a weird move in the midst
of you know, a lot of new work from home
things new, Uh, get the job done. Get it done right,
But we as a company aren't going to tell you,
you know, how many hours you got to put in.
Just make sure you're doing what we're paying you to do.
Speaker 5 (04:00):
And just a lot of chatter, and I mean understandably
and rightfully so, around workers' rights and the idea of
a separation between work life balance and all of that stuff.
It does seem like an odd pr move at the
very least. And I was questioning, like, is this because
their economies in trouble, and Matt you pointed out it's
quite the contrary.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
Right, well, at least according to the Prime Minister, right,
who is kind of repping the move, saying, yeah, this
is a good idea, guys, this initiative was necessary, the
Prime Minister says, because quote the twin perils of a
shrinking population and a shortage of skilled workers. So the
(04:40):
thought here is instead of having a forty hour work
week as a standard for many workers, you would have
a forty eight hour work week. But well, if there
are a bunch of other things they're saying, they're also
saying a lot of workers at least in Greece, and
one of the reasons this was done is because they're
working overtime hours and not getting paid. They're not being
(05:02):
compensated correctly for those overtime hours. They're working as a necessity.
Speaker 4 (05:07):
So this is putting the workers first, is the arlement.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
That's look, Greece already has an historically, it has the
longest average work week of the entirety of the European Union.
So it's kind of codifying what is already happening and
making sure that people get that overtime pay. And if
you work in a job where you do have to
you have an assigned number of hours and you do
(05:31):
have to go over that, you know that overtime is
a huge deal. So on paper, in theory, this is
not a conspiratorial thing. It's the right move. But I
will add that for many, many years, Greece has had
this sort of cultural understanding that a lot of people
don't pay taxes or report things specifically, and there's still
(05:53):
a big cash economy there. So it's going to be
very interesting to see how this works, especially with the
global contrast to so many other entities, state level or
private industry who are dialing back their work week, you know,
famously trying things like a four day work week.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
It's so weird to me because it does it feels
like an opposite move of what they're saying it is
because apparently it's only going to apply to private businesses
that provide quote, round the clock services, So that's not
like your service industry, hospitality, that kind of stuff. Necessarily,
that's not round the clock services. And it feels as
(06:33):
though if there are these companies that if let's say
you've got an individual worker who works forty hours a week,
then if you need that person to work another eight hours,
you're going to pay them time and a half. Now
the company only has to pay them time right for
your standard, your standard going wage. So in the end
it's saving companies money, right, but it's making the workers
(06:55):
work more probably what they were going to work with
over time anyway, but now they're going to get paid less.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Well.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Also, yeah, wherever you live, I would be very skeptical
when you hear a politician describe something as growth oriented,
because the economy is not necessarily the people. But also
I didn't know this. In twenty twenty two, the average
Greek employee across industry worked one thousand, eight hundred and
eighty six hours per year. That's higher than the US average,
(07:25):
which is one eight hundred and eleven. And the US
already has a reputation of people being overworked, you know,
and not getting some basic benefits like PTO or vacation.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Oh yeah, no, absolutely, guys. There's an added thing here
that I didn't realize, and I think I already misspoke
because of this new information I'm getting from the Guardian.
It says under the extended working week, staff and select
industries and manufacturing facilities will have the option of working
in additional two hours per day, right, So that would
add up or an extra eight hour shift, and they
(07:58):
would be rewarded during that time period with a top
up fee of forty added to the daily wage. So
they are still making over time overtime. Yes, it's great,
you're right there. They are just kind of codifying it
in the way business functions now.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
And if you're if you're a Greek national, or if
you reside in Greece, let us know what the vibe
is on the ground, let us know the lay of
the land, and perhaps most importantly, please assure us that
we can still have access to euros. That's not a
washed joke and whatsoever.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
Yeah, I love a euro knocking on.
Speaker 5 (08:37):
Every year when it comes around to get that euro.
I think euros should be for all year round.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
And then, of course not the only thing in cuisine
that Greece is known and for. They have the plethora
of incredible offerings. But it is a delightful sandwich.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
The civilization, this civilization, let's not get into a couple
of things, a couple other things in addition to the Euro.
So we'll give them their flowers there. And no matter
where you live, this is one of our first big stories.
No matter where you live in this wide world, no
matter what you do for fun or for work, you
(09:12):
need to check your passwords right now, Alexis, can we
get like a weird breaking news faith perfect?
Speaker 4 (09:20):
Yes, all right, let's.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Go to cyber news and rock You twenty twenty four
all one word. Cyber news researchers recently discovered the largest
password hack in known history. We're talking ten billion different
passwords and it came through a file called Rocky two
(09:42):
zero two four dot txt text file and was posted
by a someone calling themselves Obamacare on July fourth. This
this person has this entity or this representative of this
group has already shared employee databases from law firms, leaks
(10:05):
from online casinos, even student applications for colleges. Like, whatever
they're doing, they're they're doing very well. And we were
talking about this in a text thread we use sometimes
we're not recording. We're also talking about it a little
bit off air. But Noel, you in particular clock something
that Doc. I think we both noticed too, and maybe
(10:27):
you as well met that there has been an escalation
of scam attempts, phishing attempts, phone calls. I've got I've
got one story, not to make a personal story, but
this is something that involves us. We may have mentioned it,
but we haven't done it on the air. Our pattern
familias of how stuff works. Absolute brilliant guy named Marshall Brain.
(10:49):
Yes that's his real name, He's mister Brain. A while back,
right around not two too long ago, received the text
message from someone identified themselves as Marshall Brain, mentioning me
by name or by the name I use here and
asking me for stuff. And so, Matt, you'll recall I
(11:10):
texted you saying recognize the number. And I think we
both kind of got cracking real quick on the weekend
right to figure out if this is the real brain.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Oh yeah, I texted him, uh and I called him,
left a voicemail and uh, yes, I guess it was him.
I don't know. He didn't mention that in particular, but
the same number is his.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
I emailed him because the text I got was from
a different number than the one that we have for him.
And then he wrote, ball, I have to send you
guys the email to He wrote back a very nice email,
gave us all the shout out. Confirmed it wasn't him,
But it was odd the specificity.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Oh it wasn't that.
Speaker 4 (11:49):
Him, tipped. It was not him. Oh, it was not him.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
It was someone who knew enough information to use these
two names together and to probably try to get something.
And that's just you know, that's just a microcosmic example, right,
Like I think we were saying off air, we've all
been receiving some kind of wackado glad handing attempts online.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Right mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
By the way, just really quickly, Marshall. Marshall reports that
he is quote here in his super secret fortress of solitude,
and his plans to save the world should come to
fruition any day now.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
I was just saying, for my part, I have received
notifications through Apple through my iPhone a couple of times
over the last year or so that my data was
part of an identified breach and.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
That I should change my passwords.
Speaker 5 (12:38):
And I don't know if anyone else has noticed that
feature in the iPhone, but it is apparently a thing.
I guess they get wind of this stuff and they
send you these notifications or if it's like a setting
you have to.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Turn on or off.
Speaker 5 (12:49):
But you know, I've certainly now been the best steward
of my passwords over the years. I have a couple
that I use, and I switched them around and changed
digits and add a few things on the end. But
at the end of the day, I ultimately will get
to a place where I've forgotten what I changed the
password to, and then I have to change it again,
and then if I'm not careful, I'll you know, rense
(13:11):
and repeat. But I have gotten more into using two
factor authentication, and a lot of times, you know, a
breacher or someone who's really trying to do you wrong
needs some other way. They can't just have your password,
They need access to your email.
Speaker 4 (13:25):
If they're getting your banking stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:26):
If you have two factor, then you'll get something via
email or via text. So it's not unless they control
all of those, you know, those accounts. Can they actually
really really really do you dirty? Not to say let
your guard down, don't worry, You're fine, but I would
say look.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
Into any form of two factor authentication.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
But what I was wondering is, like, do these because
I've seen just a massive uptick in this particular type
of scam call that I'd never heard before, where it's
like comes from all over the country, different numbers, and
it's saying that it's a loan company needing to confirm
some data for the loan that I applied for, and
it's happened multiple times, And at first I was freaked out,
(14:03):
like did somebody apply for a loan in my name?
Speaker 4 (14:06):
But no, it turns out it's a pretty common scam.
Speaker 5 (14:09):
And I just have to wonder if with these data leaks,
in addition to passwords, they must also be getting other information.
The phone numbers are probably attached to some of these
if you're you know, entering it for maybe political campaigns
or forgetting text notifications or whatever. And it's kind of
wonder how the folks that are capitalizing on these breaches
(14:29):
are using this information. And if this uptick and scams
you know via text message and phone calls has anything
to do with those.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
You really don't need a ton of information. You need
a startlingly sparse set of data points to be able
to pull some financial shenanigans, to do things like credit stuffing,
or to do things like you know, opening opening certain
types of loans, or it's it's easier than it sounds
(14:57):
to compromise someone's identity. And going back to our story,
rock You twenty twenty four did not come out of
the blue. Please check out this story, folks. It comes
on the heels of things like the Rock You twenty
twenty one compilation. Before just a few days ago, Rock
You twenty twenty one was the largest single password breach
(15:20):
collection in history. So whoever is doing this is not
only keeping up with their previous iterations, but they're escalating.
They're getting better. And no matter how secure we may
feel we are, no matter how much security hygiene we practice,
now is the time to go in and change your passwords.
One thing that might be concerned that I don't see
(15:42):
a ton of confirmation or conversation about here, even in
some software forums, is the idea of compromising campaign databases, right,
because those calls escalate really quickly around election season, and
you know, election season here in the US is basically lobsterfest.
It never ends, it's always going on. So that is
(16:06):
to your point, that's a almost at a great resource.
That is a very powerful resource for bad faith actors
because they can scoop up some information about you, cross
ref to a couple of other databases, and then boom,
you get a very specific text that does seem like
it could be legit because they know your name, they
know where you live, they might have known some things
you were doing earlier. It's ethics aside. It's it's a
(16:28):
pretty brilliant operation. At this point. It can be a
little disturbing for people because all the advice you're getting
from the experts and from the armchair folks alike is
just turn on you know, MFA multi factor authentication, reset
all your passwords, you know, even if you think they
(16:50):
haven't been associated with this leak. But again, ten billion
more passwords than there are people on the planet, so
the odds of you getting hit are very much much
and zero yeah, it's just someone you know getting hit
or or I wouldn't even say hit compromised in this leak.
Are virtually certain it's probably one of us recording this
(17:11):
evening or one of us listening to the show tonight.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
I got my LifeLock alerts specifically when this gut released.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Oh yeah, you still have the LifeLock mm hm. Back
around to the phone number thing too.
Speaker 5 (17:22):
I've been using What's App for a while, which is
tied to a phone number, and I hadn't logged onto
it for a while. But then a friend of mine
was saying, like, oh, I'm kind of trying to move
all my text communications to WhatsApp because he uses an
Android and as we know, there's some weird exclusionary stuff
that involves, you know, the way Apple treats Android users,
and it really is kind of obnoxious. So I totally
(17:42):
get it, and I was fully game, and I went
to log into my WhatsApp and I got a notification
saying my account had been suspended due to suspicious activity.
But I hadn't used it in months and months and months,
and I very quickly just fill out a little form
and said, I don't know what this is about I
have no idea what could have happened. YadA, YadA, YadA,
(18:03):
and they reinstated it very quickly. But I know there
are lots of WhatsApp scams, and I have to believe
that somebody fished my account, use my phone number and
tried to use it to run some scams when I
wasn't logged in because it was a dormant account.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
Yeah, dormant accounts. The empty parking spaces right are already
pretty cozy for bad faith actors. If you were one
of the many, many people who has a Facebook account
that you never bother to use, then you probably want
to check in on that bad boy too, because those
can very easily be spoofed. I mean, it happens with
what celebrities or public figures on Instagram all the time.
(18:39):
They get spoofed. It's a good thing to keep an
eye out for. And really the purpose of this story
it's too recent for us to have a ton of
fallout for this or to know what the actionable consequences
will be. But it's more a clarion call. You know,
it's a true it's a true thing, and it might
(19:00):
feel boring to change passwords, but it's way cooler to
be a bord for a moment than to have thousands
of dollars stolen from you.
Speaker 5 (19:09):
And do you have a question though, like, it's at
a certain point if everyone in the world's passwords have
been leaked and literally like everyone is compromised, are there
no protections in place? Like if everyone's being scammed? Like,
isn't there is there like a ceiling for this stuff.
It just seems outrageous for it to be that huge,
(19:30):
that that maximalist of a leak, for it for you
to be able to target like everybody. But I guess
you know, once you get the information, then you weed
through it and figure out who's the most vulnerable and
who's like the weakest in the herd technologically speaking, right.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Right, or who is the most high value target?
Speaker 4 (19:47):
So yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
So this this brings us to another thing is there's
a cricket industry game going on here too, because if
you are someone who wants to remove privacy from the
Internet or someone who wants to remove anonymity, this is
a great argument to do so, such that the ultimate
password in the scenario you're describing their noel would be
(20:10):
biometric data even onto retinal scans or fingerprints will work
anymore DNA stuff like that. It's enough to make you think,
and I know we've got to keep this one short.
It's enough to make you think maybe maybe society overall,
the way we're doing it is kind of overrated. Maybe
(20:31):
we should just retire to that new Taco Bell retirement home.
Speaker 5 (20:35):
Can you tell me more about this mean?
Speaker 4 (20:39):
What does this mean?
Speaker 5 (20:41):
Is it like the Taco Bell cantina where they serve
margarita's but they also have like beds?
Speaker 4 (20:45):
Like what is the Taco Bell retirement though?
Speaker 3 (20:47):
Is it for people who are too far gone and
just enjoy Taco Bell for the rest of your life
while you got it kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
It's similar to uh so I was talking with the
Daily Zeyitegeist guys about this.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Well back, It's.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Similar to other come up branded retirement homes like the
Disney ones.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
Really confusing.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
But if you would like to call off the rat
race and live a life of case Ada fueled luxury,
then look no further than that cantinas, where, according to
Taco Bell, everyone can live like a retiree. As comes
from Fox eleven out of La Shout Out to you guys.
They say, this is a quote luxurious experience that will
(21:27):
offer senior inspired recreation and cross generational activities. Early morning golf,
tea times, afternoon aerobics, pickleball matches, and it's let's see,
it is reserved for Taco Bell Rewards members. So you
got you already have to be kind of Taco Bell premium,
you know, the one percent of Taco Bell. I don't
(21:48):
know how tough it is to join the Rewards club.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
There.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
You can get a day pass if you're not ready
to jump all the way in, and it starts in
just six days. They start selling access to the cantinas.
As we record now it's July tenth. So if you
are like millions of Americans I'm sure, just champion at
the bit to live your Taco Bell life, then get
(22:14):
thee to a Taco Bell on July sixteenth, or download
their app and just make sure you know you get
a good password. We're going to pause for a word
from our sponsors, and we'll be back with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
And we're back with more strange news.
Speaker 5 (22:36):
Gonna do two sort of teching news stories out of
the Asian continent. One is sort of absurd, and one
is both absurd and a little bit sad and potentially
portentous of things to come when it comes to our
robot friends and potential overlords. But first, there was recently
a gubernatorial election in Tokyo. The results of that have
(23:00):
determined Eureko Kowiki one amidst a crazy cavalcade of opposition,
And that's sort of where the story comes from in Tokyo. Been,
I know that you've spent some time over there, and
you may have been there at some point during election season,
but a big part of the election cycle in Tokyo
are these like physical ad spaces that are sort of
(23:23):
temporarily put up during elections that are like little squares
that are kind of like these grids of squares. They
are billboards on the ground that are put up, and
you can rent these squares for something like one hundred
and twenty five dollars a day.
Speaker 4 (23:36):
And because of this new sort of.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Conservative group that has been running aggressively in the city,
they apparently rented out a ton of these And I
don't know if they're just trying to create subterfuge or
create a situation where it's like a distraction or spoken
mirrors from the Real series candidates to kind of you know,
throw a wrench in the works, basically would rent them
out to anyone who would pay them for their pre
(23:59):
rent spaces, and that has resulted or had resulted in
some pretty wacky and outrageous little political ads, including ads
for like pornographic material sex shops. There was even an
AI mayor candidate, and this was of course a gobernatorial
race running on a platform of using artificial intelligence to
(24:21):
run the government.
Speaker 4 (24:23):
A guy running on a golf platform.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Where he apparently a big part of and this is
also there are videos associated with these, not in the
squares but online, and in the little clip or in
the little square, he's kind of showing him practicing his
golf swing, and you know, pictures of pets, pictures of kickboxers,
you know, all kinds of you know, lurid poses. And
the thing is, in Japan, the law has been that
(24:49):
anybody running for office can pretty much say anything they
want as long as it's not inherently libelists or slanderous,
or as long as they're not supporting another candidate, which
is interesting, but I guess makes sense that we would
maybe like put it exactly like that over here, because
the implication you wouldn't really be running if you were
going to be supporting another candidate unless you lose, you know,
(25:09):
a potential bid for a nomination, then you, you know,
put your support behind a certain candidate, you endorse them
or whatever. But this new hiccup has been specifically caused
by this political party that has been renting out these
spaces kind of creating a bit of a bizarro kind
of show that a lot of citizens of Tokyo have
(25:32):
commented they find distasteful. It's a little bit embarrassing, you know,
it doesn't really cast their city in a particularly flattering light.
So I don't know if you guys have any thoughts
about that or as it relates to our political process
over here.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
Is hit worse? Is it better? I mean, it.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Almost seems a little bit lighthearted and lower stakes than
what we're seeing over here in terms of some of
the gnarly kind of hate.
Speaker 4 (25:57):
Filled, baiting kind of cam pains.
Speaker 5 (26:00):
That we see in political ads, not to mention with
Citizens United and the ability of corporations to give unlimitedly,
you know, to these types of campaigns.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, the Shenanigans are kind of evenly distributed around the world,
for better or worse. And this is fascinating to me
because Tokyo has such a huge impact on the rest
of Japan right the world. Yeah, yeah, very much, and
culturally as well. And there are still, you know, they're
(26:32):
definitely far right forces in Japan. There are some active
extremists in Hokkaido. Okinawa is going through some turbulent times
right now because yet again US service members were committing
some pretty heinous sex crimes and assaults. This the idea
(26:53):
what you're saying, like the lightheartedness of this particular instance,
I would agree with that. It is if anything, it
is kind of embarrassing to the residents of Tokyo. And
you see those those quotes from various you know, person
on the street interviews with different media outlets. There was
one I saw in uh infox by my Yumi noteap
(27:17):
there was an office worker in Tokyo and just said, uh,
mainly message that they feel this is embarrassing when outsiders,
non Japanese visitors see what's happening and said quote, I
see many foreign visitors passed by these billboards and they
must wonder what's going on. As a voter, I think
it's outrageous and disrespectful to the other candidates we're seriously competing.
(27:40):
But you know, we get that in the UK, we
get that in the US. Somebody runs as like, quote
unquote a joke candidate. I love Buckethead. Remember Buckethead?
Speaker 5 (27:48):
Of course, yeah, you can shred too. Are you talking
about the same guy? The bucket had the plays of
the guitar. Maybe I'm not just trying to replace slash
that's right, as in fact go by Buckehead as well.
Speaker 4 (28:01):
I could see the confusion there.
Speaker 5 (28:03):
But yeah, apparently this emerging Conservative Party is what the
AP describes them as. And I've dug a little deeper
and a lot of things that are, you know, in
Japanese and I haven't really I don't know exactly what
the name of the of the party is. But they
apparently were even encouraging folks who weren't candidates to rent
these spaces, and a lot of it ended up just
(28:24):
being like vying for attention. And the leader of this
Conservative Party, a guy with the name of Takashi Tachibana,
said we have to be whackyer.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
We don't get media attention.
Speaker 5 (28:36):
And the AP also spoke to a professor at Nihan
University by the name of Ryosuke Nishida, who is a
political experts and media specialist, and said the point is
to make it moral and outrageous actions. The reason why
some people find these performances amusing is because they think
their objections are not taken into consideration by politicians and
(28:57):
existing parties or reflected in their politics. And I did
see a YouTube video of an American. I believe he
didn't have an accent. He seemed like an American living
in Tokyo, seems to have been living there for.
Speaker 4 (29:08):
A long time.
Speaker 5 (29:09):
And he did point out that, you know, much like
over here in other parts of the world, there is
a perception of significant corruption in Japanese politics. So this
is almost the thumbing of the nose at the system
that many perceive as being broken.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Yeah, but just to be clear, these billboards are meant
to show the actual candidates they could vote for, that's right,
and they are being just changed in these weird ways, misused, misused,
But ultimately there is this the only way people learn
about candidates or is this just like traditionally.
Speaker 5 (29:47):
It's a popular way and again, Ben, I would defer
to you with your time there. But it is a
cultural thing, these squares, these grids of squares that are
put up seasonally. It is something that people have come
to expect because I believe online campaigning wasn't even really
much of a thing until relatively recently because of some laws.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Yeah, Japan, as anybody who's been there or spend time
there knows, Japan is far far into the future in
some things like toilet technology and frankly food, but also
seems to weirdly lag behind in some innovations right like
fax machines are still very common, just because that is
(30:27):
the normalized, expected way to do things. And so to
the question about the paths of or the opportunities to
learn more about a candidate as a voter in Tokyo
or Japan, surely there are write in listeners let us
know conspiracy, iHeartRadio dot com. Surely there are people who
are maybe less tech savvy, or maybe they're older people,
(30:51):
and they've just associated this platform in particular as their
way to get a quick summation of the can you know,
And people just like over here typically are going to
vote with the party they already identified with in previous elections.
It's kind of rare for folks to break ranks due
to the tribalism, so I would say it's important there
(31:13):
are other ways to learn about it, right and with
you can just see how many candidates are in these
kind of races, so they're not just racing for public approval,
they're also fighting tooth and nail to get any sort
of media coverage, and past a certain point, it's like
the old Hollywood rule, does bad or good coverage matter?
(31:33):
That Matt much is the main thing just getting your
name and your face out there.
Speaker 4 (31:37):
I think that's absolutely right.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
And apparently like some of these entire billboards, of which
there are tens of thousands, by the way, throughout the
city of Tokyo, where they'll rent the same same square.
You know, it'll be the same ad in an entire
grid of by the way, forty eight squares in these.
And it's sort of like if you go to New York,
where there'll be walls around construction sites where it is
(32:00):
legal to post bills, and then there's the ones that
say post no bills. This is kind of like that,
like it's sort of built into the urban landscape. Of
the city, and apparently all of this is perfectly legal
because of that lag that Ben's talking about, which I
do find interesting. Japan does seem to be a play
a country of conundrums, of sort of you know, what's
(32:20):
the word I'm looking for, like contradictions, right like where
it's like, you know, yes, they are so ahead of
the curve on so many things, but there are some
things like this that just don't quite catch up to
the times, and there are people out there seemingly exploiting them.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
And to be fair, you know, this country's not not
some kind of paragon of perfection, which is a redundant phrase.
Like everything we just said about Japan can in some
ways be applied to the US right very far ahead
in some things and cartoonishly behind in some others. And
it just depends on where you live and what gets normalized.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
Well, speaking of what gets normalized, And I think we
can give this quick. I actually didn't think that this
one was going to generate quite as more much conversation
as it did, but I'm glad it did.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
I think these were all really valid and interesting points.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
Apparently, South Korea has for some time had the densest
robot population in the entire world, and.
Speaker 4 (33:14):
That is something that I was unaware of.
Speaker 5 (33:16):
You if you're lucky enough to be anywhere near Buford
Highway here in Atlanta, where there's some amazing cuisine and
some restaurants that you might not find in places other
than a Asia, you will notice that there are a
lot of spots that have these serving robots that will bring.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
You your trays and bring you your drinks, etc.
Speaker 5 (33:36):
There's like a pretty popular rotating, revolving sushi restaurant called
Kura I believe, and they have these little serving robots,
and they are starting to become a little more popular.
In cities like New York or Los Angeles, well you'll
be walking around and see like a food delivery robot.
But in South Korea they've been doing this for a
very long time. And that also applies apparently to civil service,
where there are robots that are helping with admin type
(33:59):
tasks and sort of interacting with office workers. And in
South Korea, in a place called Gome City, there has
been what is being reported as the first robot suicide.
And I have to just go ahead and caveat this upfront.
I really do think this is quite hyperbolic and in
(34:21):
many ways just sort of an entry into a conversation
about what it means to be human and what it
means to humanize robots, and what it means for artificial
intelligence to simulate human emotions, because you know, people get
bummed out, and isn't the idea of a robot that like,
they're like all the good things about humans, but they're
(34:41):
sort of impervious to some of the bad. But as
we know with like things like chatbots becoming racist when
you train them on the internet, they take all that
stuff into and there is a question as to whether
or not this robot was feeling overwhelmed and overworked like
many of the probably other folks was working alongside so
(35:02):
the robots worked for the Goomy City Council. Was found
at the foot of a two meter long staircase, where,
according to some reports, including one from tech report dot com,
it threw itself down. I did sorry, I think describing
the idea of a robot throwing itself dead so dramatic
(35:24):
and really click paity and like good for a headline,
but I don't know if I buy it. It was
known as the Robot Supervisor, worked normal shift hours like
everybody else, even had its own employee card and was
very accustomed or programmed, I guess, to operate the elevators.
Speaker 4 (35:39):
And that's true.
Speaker 5 (35:40):
I think we've all been traveling together and maybe seen
these in hotels occasionally where they do get off the elevator.
They use the elevator, they've got something where they can
either extend like an R two D two little finger
and poke the button or whatever. But they do get
on and on elevators. And according to this Tech Report
article by Chrishy Chowdry, the reason for the suicide is
(36:01):
not yet been determined, but the broken pieces have been
taken away.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
In order to help determine the cause.
Speaker 5 (36:07):
So it's weird though, because it's not exactly a crime scene,
I mean, but it does seem, you know, the anthropomorphization
of robots really comes into play, especially in the way
it's being described. And that's really the gist of it, guys.
It was manufactured by a company out of California called
Bear Robotics, and it began its work back in twenty
(36:30):
twenty three. And all this writing about the robot's suicide
I think is really overblown, borderline I responsible in some ways.
Speaker 4 (36:40):
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Maybe that's me being a little too alarmist about it,
but what do you guys think. I know we're near
in the end of the segment, but I just want
to quick I think this is worth a quick chat
and then maybe bring it back up for another episode,
maybe on robot servants, you know, or on the anthromorphization
of technology.
Speaker 3 (36:55):
To me, it sounds like we need to get some
robot doors, kind of like doggy doors, you know, or
like the little fences that you'll put up on a staircase.
She install one of those, or a bunch of those, like.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
Those those curve fences they put on bridges to keep
humans from throwing themselves off.
Speaker 4 (37:11):
No, no, I'm joking. I know, I'm totally joking.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
Look, I don't know anything about this manufacturer, this specific robot,
but it feels to me like it was some kind
of error, right it wastant spinning in a circle, then
went off the thing.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
So the deepend Matt the deep end enough.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
I just finished this game with my son called Stray
on PlayStation. This game about a cat in a city
full of robots, and it's very very cool. I would
recommend everybody plays it, but just this way we apply
our thinking.
Speaker 4 (37:45):
To the robots.
Speaker 3 (37:46):
I think that's you're right on that that's what's happening here.
Speaker 4 (37:49):
Any last thoughts from you, Ben before we move on.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Yeah, but I'll save them for an episode with robot servants.
You know, like you said, they're quite prevalent in the
more develop parts of Asia. I've had some very weird
run ins, the kind of things that leave you a
little paranoid. But I'm sure everything's fine.
Speaker 5 (38:09):
Probably so and again I joke that, you know, our
robot servants slash overlords. But it is the thing that
we're like trying to train these things to be as
human as possible without the inconvenient parts of being human.
A big conversation around AI is that there comes a
point where there's this this sort of I don't know,
critical mass point where you can't filter out the things
(38:33):
that you're you're training it with human stuff. It's gonna
get the human parts as well, and then eventually it
might just take over and start writing its code itself.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
But I don't know.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
I'm glad that you're into that idea, Ben, I think
that'll be really really cool to talk about big picture,
what does the future of robot assistance, AI assistance, all
of that stuff I think could be bundled into a
great episode.
Speaker 4 (38:56):
Well, let's take a quick pause.
Speaker 5 (38:57):
Here, here a word from our robot overlord, our sponsors,
and then we'll be right back with another piece of
strange news.
Speaker 3 (39:10):
And we've returned. Guys, how much do we all love driving?
We're big driving enthusiasts, right.
Speaker 5 (39:19):
Don't love it on the regular in traffic and just
for like functional and purposes. But out on an open
road type situation, I had rented kind of a souped up, cooler.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Car than I normally possess. That was awesome.
Speaker 5 (39:30):
I live for that, but like, yeah, in Atlanta driving
kind of sucks because of you know, the traffic, and
a lot of it.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Isn't driving at all, it's just sitting there.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I love it for a number of personal reasons related to,
of course, one of the first shows I did with
this network car stuff, but also depending on the kind
of situations you're in, it's a it can be a
much more dependable way to transport yourself or things as
opposed to cargo ship or as opposed to flight, you know,
(40:00):
because getting caught without wheels when you're at the mercy
of a rental place or an airport and inclement weather.
It's never an ideal situation. So for many, many reasons,
I think there's a poetry to the open road and
the idea of vehicles here in the US. Obviously it's
not great that the majority of people living here are
(40:21):
forced to depend upon those vehicles. But they're just cool.
They're just so cool, man.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
Yeah, cars are the best. Driving is one of my
favorite things to do on the planet. And you know,
as you're saying, especially if you're at the mercy of
you know, public transportation, no matter how good it is, right,
no matter what state you live in, what country you
live in, using public transit, you're using somebody else's schedule, right,
you are hoping everything is going to work functionally. With
(40:49):
a car, if it's yours and you're driving it, you
get to get wherever you're going basically as fast as
you want to get there or can get there, And
you get to choose your own destiny. Right, you can
decide to go somewhere else if you want to. There's
a great freedom of a personal vehicle like a car, truck,
(41:10):
or an suv, even a motorcycle, any of that stuff. Well,
some of that personal freedom that car vehicles represent is
getting taken away guys in the EU, in the European
Union as well as in Northern Ireland at least to
some extent, and we're about to talk about it. As
of July seventh, that is the Sunday before we are
(41:34):
recording this on July tenth, all new vehicles, all new
cars sold in the European Union and Northern Ireland must
have quote a range of technical safety features fitted as standard,
including an intelligent speed assistance which is also known as
a speed limitter. Now what does that mean a lot
(41:56):
of newer vehicles, including the camera I'm currently driving it,
which is a twenty twenty one model, they have things
on them that will alert you that you are potentially
probably going over the posted speed limit on a road.
How does it do that? Well, in the vehicle I'm driving,
(42:16):
there is a little speed limit sign that shows up
on your heads up display in the or it's not
really heads up display, it's on your dashboard, but it
shows you what the posted speed limit is on that road,
right next to how fast you're going on your spinometer.
And in my vehicle at least it just lets you know,
(42:37):
with a color coding if you're going green like under
the speed limit, yellow right at that speed limit, or
red you're above the speed limit, buddy, And that's all
my vehicle does. It just lets me know that I
am doing this.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
It doesn't interfere with your operation. It's like it's it's
the onboard version of those speed monitoring kiosk that gets
set up and like flash yes five if you're going
forty five and a thirty.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
Five Yes, And in full honesty, guys, I notice when
it's happening. I just see the little like I'll see
the red pop up and I'm like, oh dang, I'm
going a little too fast, especially if I've got my
son in my car. It's really helpful. I'm like, I
should probably be a little more responsible than.
Speaker 4 (43:17):
This doesn't beat at you, though, does it.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
It does not, But god, many many vehicles will beep
at you, and other vehicles will even do things like
make the make the accelerator more difficult to push down.
It'll it'll give you resistance on your accelerator, which is
kind of interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Other stitch to the insurance company, Oh.
Speaker 3 (43:40):
Well, yeah, if you've got don't let me look if
you've got your you know, apps up to date, and
you've signed up for all the services, and you've said
yes to all the things, and whatever vehicle make and
model you're driving, it could potentially be, like Ben said,
snitching to your insurance company. Well, there's other things that
(44:00):
they can get around it, but officially, if you haven't
said yes to the stuff, at least as of right now,
it can't be used against you.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
It reminds me of the kind of like governors that
like commercial trucks have in them. Right, it's sort of
almost approaching that if it is actually hampering your speed
because your school bus, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3 (44:20):
Well here's the deal, guys. These new vehicles, according to
these new rules in the European Union in Northern Ireland,
and that's just vehicles that are sold in those two places,
the new speed limitters will actually prevent vehicles from going
above the speed limit in posted zones. Now, there's not
I haven't seen the regulation anywhere in the Guardian or
(44:42):
any of the other places I've looked at this that
say which roads will be governed by these things, Like
is it just on highways, is it just on residential
streets or in school zones. Where where will those speeds
actually be regulated? If it's just on a per car
basis and it's in the entirety of the European Union
in Ireland or wherever that vehicle drives, that's pretty intense.
Speaker 4 (45:07):
A lot of questions.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
It's actually it's more dangerous to have a minority of
cars forced to be limited in that way, especially in
places where people will tend to drive five to ten
over the limit km or miles.
Speaker 5 (45:20):
It doesn't think you're sitting with duck and you can't
outmaneuver others too. Let's say you're being chased or something,
or you in like a situation where you need to
I'm just saying, just putting that out there, but also
like who decides where and how do you know?
Speaker 4 (45:34):
And is that not the slipperiest of slopes, right, there's
stated aim.
Speaker 1 (45:39):
There's stated aim would be to probably number one priority
to lower road deaths and fatalities and accidents. So so logically,
if they're not rolling it out everywhere all at once,
they would probably be looking for areas where people are
more likely to die in car accidents.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Yeah, apparently, at least to the Guardian, road deaths involving
a speeding vehicle in Britain has risen faster since COVID,
which is up twenty percent in twenty twenty two. So
I believe what they're stating here, and I'm not positive
because it's a little bit strange to read, but it
says three hundred and three out of one thousand, six
(46:20):
hundred and ninety five. To me, that sounds like three
hundred and three deaths out of one thousand, six hundred
and ninety five speeding vehicle accidents or something. But staying
on logic, guys, tell me if I'm completely wrong here,
what I've noticed in driving on highways in Atlanta and
even just on you know, smaller residential roads around here.
(46:42):
I use the logic of I drive roughly the same
speed as the other vehicles that I'm driving around same
flow of traffic because and you just maintain distance from
the vehicles in front of you and around you, right.
But if you don't do that, at least in this
city they're is, it feels extremely dangerous because of I
(47:03):
would just say, the tempers and the attitudes of other
drivers around you, which you cannot control. How the aggressiveness
increases as you slow down and maybe even.
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Anyone could have a gun.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Well yeah, yeah, I mean that's.
Speaker 4 (47:20):
What's sitting duck again, Like I was saying, you know, but.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
It's for me. It's just the actions that another driver
could take to aggressively get around me if I am
not going roughly the same speed as other drivers. Because
that's in my experience, that's when I've seen accidents on
the highway, is when someone's upset and trying to get
around somebody else, so they make a quick maneuver, which
then they either run into somebody else or it causes
(47:43):
a chain reaction.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
And you would have blend in when you're when you're
in traffic, especially on a highway, so you kind of
want to move with the herd. If you are picking
up speed. You should know that speeding saves at best
three minutes of travel time. I think last time I
checked this stat So make your own judgment called make
sure that three minutes is important enough to you, and
(48:05):
be well aware that if you are chasing that extra
three minutes and you get pulled over, you're going to
lose much more than three minutes. You're going to be
way later to whatever it was, and you might not
make it depending on how fast you're going. Right, So
this is I think there's a lot of human psychology
that proves to us people are not necessarily built to
operate cars in groups because there's still that line mentality
(48:30):
like I want to be first in line to stop
light or whatever. Yeah, this is this is an inevitable
way of handling it. But the rollout itself, and I
think this is the point maybe you're getting to there,
Matt has its own potential for danger.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
Well it does. And you made a great point there,
Ben that this is going to be a massive minority
of vehicles on the road for a long long time.
Not many people go out there and buy a brand
new model whatever, right, and then go take it on
the road. Most people, at least the ones that I
know and the statistics I'm seeing, you buy a vehicle
(49:07):
that's at least a couple of years out of date
from the brand new model. And that's a strategic thing.
That is a you know, that comes to how much
money you're going to spend. It has a lot to
do with a lot of things. Well, mostly because the
brand new model is crazy expensive for what you're getting,
especially since it loses a lot of its value as
soon as you drive it off the lot. Right, That's
(49:28):
something we've talked about over and over and over again.
So there's just going to be a tiny number of
cars that have to go the speed limit and stay
as far over as they possibly can so other cars
can go zip around them dangerously.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
I would also be pissed in the UK with this
kind of control, even though there is a lot of.
Speaker 4 (49:48):
Validity to it.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
I would be I would understand the perspective of someone
who says it's already crazy expensive to own and operate
a car in London, you know, in particular like the
road tax you have to pay just to drive your
car or nuts. So I could see how a lot
of people get up about this, as we used to
say on car stuff.
Speaker 3 (50:07):
Yeah, but the UK is out of this. It's not
in there.
Speaker 1 (50:11):
For Northern Ireland.
Speaker 3 (50:12):
I mean, y, yes, exactly well, you know, yeah, exactly right.
So that's that's going to create a whole other thing, right,
because if you take highways far north enough, you're gonna
be dealing with this stuff. But and again it's only
in new cars. So if you want a solution to this,
and you're gonna buy a car, in the next ever,
just buy a vehicle that was manufactured before twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
Yeah, honestly, you know, they're not perfect, but they will.
I am increasingly bullish on this. I don't think you
should buy new cars if you can avoid it, And
increasingly the older cars become more attractive because they can
there's still something that you own versus the newer models,
which are very very much pushing for subscription models. And
(50:59):
if subscribe to something that means you never really own it,
you know. Yeah, So self sufficiency is always always a
pretty good thing when you can possess it.
Speaker 3 (51:08):
Agreed. Agreed. My favorite writing about this thus far has
come out of the Utopian by a gentleman named Matt
heart Degree. Really love your writing, Matt, if you ever
hear this. He just makes this really great point. He says,
speed limits, you know, they're they're part of the social
contract that we've talked about many times when we talk
(51:30):
about the lines on the road, right, But he says,
he says, you could drive one mile over the speed
limit and expect to get away with it. But you
rob one bank and all of a sudden there's a
man hunt. I just I'm sorry. I love that feels
like us talking on the show specifically, Ben, it sounds
(51:50):
like you to me, because it's just like this, it's
a perfect joke to me, it's.
Speaker 1 (51:55):
I mean, it is Honestly, there are emergency situations where
you have to break a law. You know, I'm not
saying necessarily a bank robbery, but you know, you've got
what's the old eighties film trope. You have a pregnant
person giving birth in the car. You would want to
get to the hospital. You want to arrive at the
hospital before the baby arrives on Earth. Right, that's a
(52:18):
heck of a ticking time bomb scenario or a grievous injury,
you know. A natural disaster is another thing that every
year there are a ton of people in the US
who have to temporarily evacuate due to things like hurricanes,
and that already these I don't know. I'm on the fence.
(52:39):
I can see both sides of this, but the main
thing I see is that this is certain to occur,
right it It will roll out, and the more it's normalized,
there will be a feedback loops and more manufacturers will
adopt it proactively, even if they don't, even if they
don't legally have to, they'll adopt it just because it
gives them a better chance to sell cars in the EU.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
You yeah, well yeah, And Matt makes this point that
I really think will resonate with us guys. He says,
increasingly car makers are trying to take the role of
driving away from the driver. This view sees the driver
as an unfortunate necessity, a stand in for a computer
that will eventually do the job, and that view within
(53:21):
car manufacturing is winning. So this concept of like the excitement,
the freedom that you feel getting in a car, it
will go away, as you're saying, Ben, all of that stuff,
it's just gonna go away. Eventually. We'll just have to
cling on to you know, a nineteenth what I don't
know the year, but the nineteen eighty something Dodge charger. Man.
Speaker 5 (53:45):
We have talked about that though, and there is I
think one could argue a greater good argument there where, like,
you know, statistically speaking, if this were the case and
the technology was good, it would reduce deaths. And it
might be there might be a future where that feeling
you guys are talking about would be relegated to an
experience you pay for, you know, on a track or
something that's like outside of the realm of like other people,
(54:08):
you know, being potentially in harm's way.
Speaker 4 (54:10):
And I know that likely sucks to.
Speaker 5 (54:13):
A lot of auto enthusiasts, But I'm wondering if you
guys have thought about the flip side of that, if
there is a greater good argument here, if you know,
sufficiently advanced enough technology were to come about.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
In depth, yeah, especially in car stuff, at least.
Speaker 4 (54:27):
On my end.
Speaker 1 (54:29):
Maybe I can't remember what show I made this analogy,
and but one of one comparison could be when comparison
could be the idea of horses. Right, pre automobile and
internal combustion engine, a lot of people would engage in
transportation with horses, right, because it's smart. It's been around
for a while. But now as the automobile became more normalized,
(54:53):
more affordable, now horses have been kind of relegated to
this nostalgic thing for the And that might be what
happens with cars that you drive yourself. It might be,
you know, I can earn the sci fi story, but
there's this great mystery sci fi story about a world
wherein fossil fuel emissions are much more closely monitored and
(55:17):
there's a guy who is just sneaking out and driving
his old school and a museum type of car. But yeah,
it's possible. So maybe maybe that'll be it. Maybe the
the cameras and the Ford focuses and the Ford escapes
and what have used. Maybe if you have a car
like that, you should hold on to it as long
(55:39):
as you can.
Speaker 3 (55:40):
Hey, man, my camera gets forty MPG. Okay, come on, oh.
Speaker 4 (55:44):
Yeah with the cus but tiny thing for me.
Speaker 5 (55:48):
It also reminds me of folks that like refuse to
upgrade their operating systems on their computer because they like
the version of the software they use and they do
not want to be forced to upgrade, so they like
kind of remove that computer from the Internet. And this
is true from a lot of audio, you know, or
video editing. Perhaps somebody really liked the early version of
(56:09):
Final Cut Pro and doesn't want to participate anything else
because that just worked for them, you know. And so
you just kind of remove yourself from that technological rat race.
Speaker 3 (56:18):
Well unless you can't, unless you cannot remove yourself at all,
because if you own a vehicle, even in California, Senator Wiener, yes,
that's right, Scott Wiener. He proposed a bill back in
January to do this very thing in California, so you
know it might be coming our way. That bill, by
(56:39):
the way, it's not going through, and that cat is
very excited to exit this room. So why don't we
exit this segment? Thank you, Doc? Here we go ed.
Speaker 1 (56:50):
This brings us to one of our favorite parts of
the show. This is where we pass the torch to you,
fellow conspiracy realist. Have you have you like some of
your faithful correspondents traveled abroad and ran into the robot revolution.
What do you think about cars? So you get my
car stuff? Had on for this. Really interested to hear
(57:10):
the future of automation, the greater good arguments, and then
of course change your passwords. We can't wait to hear
from someone who is actually attending the Taco Bell Retirement Home,
reach out to us online, tell us about all this,
and most importantly, tell us what it's like to live Moss.
It's a Taco Bell tag, min I'm doing Taco Bell references.
Speaker 4 (57:31):
More by I got it, I got it. It's good.
Speaker 5 (57:34):
It's true, though, Ben, you make great points here, and
you can, in fact reach out to us in various ways,
including on the Internet where you can find it to
the handle Conspiracy Stuff, where we exist, on Facebook where
we have our Facebook group.
Speaker 4 (57:45):
Here's where it gets crazy. Get it in on the
conversation there.
Speaker 5 (57:48):
Send us your memes and your hot takes on topics
of discussion here on stuff that it wants you to know.
We are also conspiracy Stuff on xfka, Twitter and on YouTube.
We have video concept coming at you on the regular.
On Instagram and TikTok. We're Conspiracy Stuff show. Do you
want to call us? Call one eight three three st
(58:08):
d WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You'll have three minutes
and give yourself a cool nickname and let us know
what you think about this episode, or any other episode,
or any topic at all.
Speaker 3 (58:19):
Give us a suggestion for a show. We should do anything.
We want to hear from you. If you got more
to say, they can fit in three minutes. One not
instead send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (58:29):
We are the entities that read every email we receive.
Be well aware sometimes the void writes back head and
can't wait to hear from you. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (58:57):
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Ben Bowlin
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