Strange News: Peter and the Antichrist, Hegseth's Stand-up Bombs, Crypto Heists and More

The world's largest crypto-related heists poses a bizarre dilemma for authorities in London. The perplexing meeting of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and America's generals has everyone -- including the generals -- scratching their heads. The billionaire Peter Theil is raising eyebrows and serious concerns with his technocratic take of the End of Days, and his speech series arguing regulation will inevitably lead to the rise of the Antichrist. Join Ben, Matt and Dylan for all this and more in this week's strange news segment.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Our colleague Nol is still on an adventure, but will
be back soon.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
They called me Ben.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
We're joined as always with our super producer Dylan the
Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, folks, you argue you are here.
That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
If you are.

Speaker 4 (00:46):
Listening to our strange news program the evening, it publishes
Welcome to October sixth, twenty twenty five. We almost cribbed
a page from our buddy Miles's book over on Daily's geys,
where we check in with the national or international days
that occur on the calendar. Matt, I don't know if

(01:08):
you do that, but I do it every evening when
I wake up. It's just such a it's such a
cool way to learn about the world, you know what
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, last time we were doing this, which was yesterday,
it's now October first, and the government is shut down.
We were recording yesterday, and we noted it was International
Podcasting Day when we recorded What is today? Do you
have one?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Oh? Yeah, man, we got tons.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
Not all are created equally, to be honest, this is
the two hundred and seventy ninth day of the year.
Some holidays you might recognize would be World Space Week. Okay,
I'm working so hard to be positive. Space is so
fricking cool. World Space Week. Here in the United States,
it's a German American Day, and we'll see why. That's

(01:53):
an interesting reference as this program continues. Also, shout out
to Sri Lankan teachers. It is Teachers Day in Sri Lanka.
And again shout out to Miles who came up with
that idea. It's just such a beautiful way to learn
about the world. Matt, We're going to have a bit
of a cognitive roller coaster because there are some things
that have been on our mutual mind. Yeah, we've been

(02:18):
we've been quite intense on some research. But I suggest
before we get into the Shenanigans, we give a shout
out to Hershey.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Let's do it. Chocolate is one of those things that
we know will bring us up. It will make us
almost feel love.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
If we can ansume it right, and don't ask about
how it gets made.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no no, especially the
American sold milk chocolate. Don't ask about any of that.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Oh yeah, don't ask about the factories or the the
labor involved in the farms.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Yeah. Well, what's in chocolate news today, Ben.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Oh, it's a big win for Hershey.

Speaker 4 (02:56):
Matt Hershey, Uh, just laughing because of the way an
article is written that we clocked earlier. Thanks to the
journalist Damy Peache writing over at CBS News, Hershey has
won a suit you guys claiming it's Reese's Halloween candies
Orange spooky and the first line just give me the
first line here quote. Hershey received a treat Friday when

(03:21):
a judge dismissed a lawsuit claiming the company's Reese's candies
tricked customers by depicting spooky Halloween designs on their packaging,
while the unwrapped chocolates were in fact featureless, just kind
of globs. Just got yeah, just kind of peanut butter
chocolate globs. Like we were, like, we were discussing a

(03:42):
little bit off air, and Dylan, you came in with
a hot take.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
You said that you're more a holiday chocolate guy.

Speaker 5 (03:49):
Yeah, I feel like the reces that are shaped like
different things have a better peanut butter to chocolate ratio,
particularly the pumpkins.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Yes, I just had one the other day because they
were finally on sale like two months ago, because you
know how retail stores now put things out at least
two or three months in advance. Just got a single one,
you guys, I never do that. I just picked one up,
you know, as you're going to check out.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Well impulse by. Huh.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
It was a good choice.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
Yeah, especially getting the one instead of a huge pack,
because now it's special, right, it's not Christmas, if it's
every day, it's not a treat.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
That's just a thing that happens.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
It's mostly a removing temptation because if I have a
pack of even two or three, oh, I'm eating those.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
Yeah, they're gone. Yeah. Yeah. The technology has just come
so far it's hacking the mind.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Also, you know, it's always Halloween in America. We're going
to get to some more lawsuits. We're going to get
to some deep strange philosophy. There's a meeting that we
wanted to talk about as well, which we've both been
very deep into before we do any of that, Matt,
what about this. Let me pitch you on this. What

(05:01):
if we pause for a word from our sponsors and
then we get into a weirdly awesome heist.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Yeah, I like those that'll make me feel better. Honestly, Ben,
you have so much energy right now and all I
feel is malaise and I don't know how to get
out of it. So I need something fun, like a heist.
I think.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Great. Well, don't count me as a I'm not a
good example or sample size, Matt, because I'm functionally insane.
But anyway, what's your sofa? Here's an ad and we
have returned.

Speaker 4 (05:37):
Okay, this is something I had never heard about. Apparently
the case has been going on for a while, but
true story. A Chinese national has pled guilty to bitcoin
fraud in what is believed to be without caveat the
world's largest bitcoin seizure, and no idea this was happening,

(05:59):
But they're a pickle to it. This is a forty
seven year old Chinese woman who went to court over
in the UK in London, and she confessed and pled
guilty to playing to running point in a multi billion
pound fraudulent bitcoin scheme pound as in like pound sterling,
you know the currency of that place. This is a

(06:20):
Chinese business woman named Shi min Kwan who went by
the name Yadi Jiang. She pled guilty at or pleaded
guilty if you prefer, at the Southwark Crown Court to
just a massive heist. Okay, So between twenty fourteen to
twenty seventeen, she had this large scale fraud operation in China.

(06:42):
They defrauded over one hundred and twenty eight thousand people
to the tune of what we would say is approximately
one point seven million pounds sterling. That's what she was
doing in China. The question is, as happens with so
many crimes in that part of the world, how do
you move the money out right? How do you wash
the money? She did something really smart. She stored the

(07:06):
winnings from her heist and her frauds in bitcoin, and
because of the time in which she did this twenty
fourteen to twenty seventeen, it actually worked like an investment
and she made way more money than she stole.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, that makes sense if
only all of us listening right now in what around
those years would have thought to take that extra twenty dollars,
extra one hundred dollars and just start, you know, just
to buy one bitcoin.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
I know. Then, I remember, dude, we were hanging out.

Speaker 4 (07:42):
Our office was still in Buckhead, I want to say,
and we were our pal, a dear friend of the
show casey Pegram, who was longtime producer of ridiculous history
and stuff you missed in history class. I think he
actually got bitcoin and then used it to buy a
pizza or something. And he's he's quite an erudite dude.

(08:06):
And I remember one time he told me it's one
of my top four regrets.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yeah, in my look to my recollection.

Speaker 4 (08:17):
It was at the other office, thens okay, but.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
It was like right as we moved in, and it
was right when bitcoin was having its first big whatever push.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
That's it.

Speaker 2 (08:30):
But I genuinely don't know.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Well, Casey's an early adopter of nothing else, so I
may be misrecalling the timeline here. But the timeline for
our buddy Jong is pretty clear according to the courts.
So she she has to get the money out of China.
She also uses a false traveling paperwork to flee China

(08:54):
and to enter the United Kingdom, and then in September
twenty eighteen. She's got all this all this money, I
got all this dirty money. I need to wash, right,
So she attempts to do it with one of the
tried and true things, purchasing a bunch of property. This
makes it one of the world's largest cryptocurrency crime cases

(09:17):
that we know of so far. And people say, I
was thinking about this earlier. I don't want to spoil
like a song I'm working on. But people say, crime
doesn't pay. If crime doesn't pay, then why does crime
rise when things get pricey?

Speaker 3 (09:31):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (09:32):
I don't know, because I guess you get short term gains,
long term prison.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
Sentences, right right right, you got to roll the dice
right now. From what we understand, the ultimate worth of
the bitcoin method here is now around five point five
billion pounds sterling, and this has been seized by the government.

(09:57):
So what happens to all the extra money? Even if
this person paid tons of money back to the victims
of the scheme and added interest, it would be something like, sorry,
you were scammed ten thousand in twenty seventeen. Now you

(10:18):
get thirty two million dollars. Even if that happened, this
person would still have billions of dollars left over, because
that's the difference.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
Between a billion and a million.

Speaker 4 (10:30):
Right, yeah, yeah, what do you think is going to happen?

Speaker 3 (10:34):
You think London will just keep it? Why not?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
No? I mean they should give it back to the
people that it was stolen from.

Speaker 3 (10:43):
Come on, and the extra stuff.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
So I mean that you should give him a big right.

Speaker 3 (10:48):
A vigorous yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
But at that point, are you still a victim of
a crime or are you just a non consensual investor
who won big?

Speaker 2 (10:57):
You're a winner of a very dark lottery.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Winner of a very dark lottery.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
That's a great setup for some for some other stuff
that's been on our minds, Matt, we were talking about
just sort of round robineing or ping pong and back
and forth with some shorter stories.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
What do you got? What do you get? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (11:18):
I got two things. It intersects two things we've talked
about a lot, drones and energy weapons. Yeah, check it out.
This is a really cool thing. This is a really
news This is something that was announced way back in
September tenth by the company involved as a press release.
Inside that press release, there's a video of a demonstration
and now on September twenty eighth. That's being written about

(11:39):
by Mark Tyson over at Tom's Hardware.

Speaker 3 (11:42):
I would look Tom's Hardware. It's a great source.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Actually, me too, me too. Check this out. It just
sounds amazing and it seems like a really important weapon
or defensive weapon to have if you're let's say, a
city army, anyone important. It actually feels like like I'm
down with this weapon. Let me explain why. There's this
quote US electronics warfare specialist company called Epirius. I think

(12:09):
epi r us, epirus, epirus. I don't know how they
say it. I haven't looked at.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
A pronunciation tomatoes, tomato.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
They've got a series of weapons that are energy weapons,
high powered microwave weapons. The flagship of those is called Leonidas,
which is just fun to say. This Leonidis thing. It's
kind of like a turret, but instead of bullets, it
shoots high powered microwave energy beams. What it can do

(12:38):
is disable flying swarms of drones. It quote delivers weaponized
electromagnetic interference to counter swarms of robotic asymmetric threats. The
cool thing about this. In their demo, they put up
sixty one drones a swarm, if you will, of drones
into the sky. This thing aimed its turret at those drones,

(13:02):
turned it, you know, fired whatever it fires, the high
powered microwaves, and all sixty one of those drones. You
just watch them disable and draw from the sky. Yep,
just all the way down.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
That sound effect, well, you know, you just.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Imagine that sound effect in all the movies where the EMP.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Goes off, things are powering down.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yeah, it looks like that. So then you imagine at
least I certainly imagine all of the drone warfare that's
been happening specifically in the Ukraine Russia conflict, where these
swarms of drones will be flying sometimes on other countries airspaces,
just flying right over and then they will attack, like explode.

(13:42):
They will sometimes fly near flotilla's let's say that are
heading towards Gaza that have people that we know on them.
These specific weaponized drones, the small bodied drones that have
explosed on them, they're terrifying. And if there are a
lot of them and you have one of these Leonidis weapons,
theoretically you can just shoot them out of the sky.

(14:03):
It looks as though there's a sweeping action that it
can take and it can take out multiple swarms at once,
coming from different directions. Just a very I was gonna say,
cool weapon, but it's a weapon that seems to be
extremely effective against a new threat.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
Yeah, because the arm race never stops.

Speaker 3 (14:21):
Right.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
One note, we want to we want to give you
folks to really paint the picture. When we're saying it
has a turret, what we mean. It's not like a gun.
It's not like a cylindrical thing. It looks a lot
more like a big rectangular metal plate.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yes, And the only reason I'm thinking about it as
a turret is that you face it one way, and
that's where the energy actually emits. Right. It doesn't emit
in a three to sixty fashion. They make a small
one that is meant to be attached to another drone,
and it is very directional. Like more so like again,
I just think about a gun because it is shooting

(14:56):
this wave in one direction. This one. You can fly
a drone towards another swarm of drones or oncoming swarms
of drones and just shoot this thing at it, and
all of those drones just will fall out of the sky.
And it's not like they're temporarily disabled, or maybe they are,
but I think they're out of commission just straight up ride.

Speaker 3 (15:14):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (15:15):
Yeah, that would make sense if we're talking eh PM. Also,
I had a suspicion. We're very into the providence of names.
I had a suspicion and I looked it up, and
I feel supertentious.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
Man. Yes, Leonidas is named after the king of Sparta.

Speaker 4 (15:33):
Yeah, dude, who because probably because he fought a successful
campaign while out numbered.

Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yes, precisely. Wow, I didn't realize that, but that makes
so much sense. I'm just thinking about the movie three
hundred Now, all of those men.

Speaker 4 (15:49):
Oh no, I saw some I saw some internet efemera
earlier with a real a real life Sparta kick. Yeah,
and they looks so cool. But I'm not sure how
I feel about the context. Apparently it was a elderly
lady on public transit, maybe Sparta kicking somebody, maybe in China. No,

(16:10):
she got Sparta kicked. She was asking or she was.
There was an argument ensuing, and there was another lady,
a younger lady, sitting in those seats reserved for special
needs people or for the elderly and the pregnant, and
whatever ensued. This older woman very much a grandma. She
started pushing on this other person and then hitting them

(16:33):
with her bag, and the younger lady stood up and
Sparta kicked her across the train.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Wow. See, I think it's though.

Speaker 4 (16:44):
I'm only bringing this up because I believe it's an
interesting comparison to the moment to Go where you said.
I don't know if I want to say this is cool.
That's how I felt watching the Sparta kick. Yeah, what
I mean, because Sparta kicks do look cool, But that
is an elderly woman.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, it's really just a pushkick too. It's not even
it's not even that effective in causing damage. But when
you push someone, the damage ends up happening when you
run into something else.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, the damage happens when you land.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, like you know, on spikes or in an endless
pit or wherever you have.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
On the other side of the train car into a
baffled cavary man. We know that the that drones have
fundamentally changed war, and I'd like your note about the
expansion of both defensive and offensive capabilities, because as we
are recording mystery, drones are just riddling the airspace ere

(17:46):
expanding westward.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Oh yeah, we should also be noted that this drone
technology is one of the most viable ways to fight
against let's say, an oppressive government or you know, a
large actual army when you are resistance for us and
knowing that there is a weapon out there or probably

(18:08):
multiple because this is just one weapons manufacturer.

Speaker 3 (18:10):
Right.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Anytime there's a government contract offered for a specific type
of weapon or a weapon capability, then you've got multiple
companies developing those, attempting to get those grants and those
what do you call those just the money tracks.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Yeah, tried to get a successful.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
Bid in Yes, so it's not the only one, but
just knowing that they're out there, it's a really good,
really potentially bad thing. It's just it feels like everything
nowadays is potentially a win or just that's going to
be a fail very very soon, like a bad human thing.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
Oh yeah, like television. I still don't think humans are
ready for television. It just came out way too early.
I probably shouldn't say that because we make our living
doing podcasts, but this, I don't know if humans were.

Speaker 3 (18:57):
Ever ready for the information age.

Speaker 4 (19:00):
We know, this arms race, this back and forth can
run the risk of becoming a circular call and response
kind of thing, right. The EU has proposed building a
drone wall to protect to protect their institution from Russian
drones because airspace intrusions quite recently resulted in the closure

(19:26):
of Danish airports. Anti drone systems are a huge investment
for the EU, well for pretty much everybody, and we
know that there are unexplained instances of drone activity just
going across that part of the world. I'm thinking in
particular the recent the recent sightings over northern Germany, these

(19:47):
mystery drones were over critical infrastructure, and the world of drones,
the pantheon of drones has a vaultd so quickly you know.
It's such an umbrella word too. It could be anything
like a reaper to a little quad copter you bought
on Amazon. So saying something as a drone, I don't
know how helpful that is. But if you can take

(20:09):
the Leonidis and just knock anything out of the sky,
then that makes the problem much more simple until somebody
evolves the Leonidis killer, which is naturally going to happen.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Well, yeah, and it's it's one of those weapons systems
that you can mount on pretty much any vehicle that
has the space for what would be like turret action
or yeah, yeah, yeah, a turnable big rectangle.

Speaker 4 (20:33):
Exactly, which was the original name until somebody read a
little bit of history about Sparta. Also, Sparta is so weird, man,
not just the film but the actual place.

Speaker 2 (20:43):
I hm.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
Film's good though, story for a different day. Do we
want before we go to our next break, do we
want to wish good luck to the people of the
United States as the US government shuts down.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
That's probably a good idea.

Speaker 3 (21:00):
All right, good luck everyone, Yep, good luck.

Speaker 2 (21:03):
No, we're fine, We're fine. It only happened for thirty
four days last time.

Speaker 4 (21:07):
Yeah, yeah, but that was the longest time on record. Yeah,
so we'll see how long this one goes ultimately. Look,
government shutdown the concept is going to be familiar to
some of us who lived through previous eras and administrations
in the United States. But the pickle of it is

(21:31):
this is weaponizing bureaucracy. Every time it's happened, it throws
things into a chaotic state that's really not good for
the nation because it means thousands of government employees will
get furloughed. A furlough is when you can't go to
work you're not fired, can't go to work, and you

(21:52):
don't get paid.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
Yeah, it doesn't seem great, especially for you know, most
human beings who live close to paycheck to paycheck.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
If not so, which is most human beings?

Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I don't know. It looks like eight
hundred thousand people. You see, eight hundred thousand people were
furloughed last time.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
And the CBO Congressional Budget Office says about seven hundred
and fifty thousand employees will be furloughed each day while.
But good news, folks, if you're worried about Congress, they're fine.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
They don't get furloughed. Yeah, the president still gets a salary.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
Oh that's nice.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
The people in charge of shutting this thing down are
not affected by the consequences of that decision, you're saying.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
The senators and the representatives still get paid.

Speaker 4 (22:49):
At least until re election time comes up. Man, we
don't know how long this one will go. And if
you yourself are a federal employee, or if you are
a teacher an educator, if you work in the armed forces,
you may remember last time. You know, it's a very
scary thing for people to have to explain to their families.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, I was twenty eighteen last time.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
Right, Yes, Yeah, that was twenty eighteen, and it went
on until early twenty nineteen.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Man, It's just if you go online, depending on your source,
you will see the direct messaging from either side of
the so called aisle there where just fingers get pointed.
It's your fault, we're doing this. It's your fault, we're
doing this. Those guys are doing this. Those guys are
radical leftists, those guys are fascists.

Speaker 3 (23:41):
Why do you keep making me hit you? It's just.

Speaker 2 (23:49):
I think that's why I feel the way I feel today,
mostly because it is such and it has been such
stark division and sure just human beings and this somehow
out there concept that we could work together and maybe
collectively decide that there's some cool things we can do
for each other, and it just goes out the window.

(24:10):
And I know everybody out there feels that and knows that,
but we're stuck in these I was gonna say, like
brainwashing channels somehow where there's just a I don't know, man,
I know a lot of us can see all of
it in a bigger picture. It's just it doesn't feel
like any of the messaging that gets to us. If

(24:31):
you're just reading the news or you're watching television or something,
none of those moderate messages of let's work together really
cut through because the other stuff is so vitriolic and
angry and makes you want to comment on it.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yeah, and it's exacerbated by the information age and ubiquitous
always on social media. It's a hack of a very
old human process, a cognitive process and tendency that indeed
predates the modern Homo sapien tribalism, the US versus them.
It's a very powerful social media sip for people since

(25:08):
the beginning of tribes.

Speaker 3 (25:10):
And we know that.

Speaker 4 (25:12):
Well, to get into the brass tacks, let me step
away from the philosophy and all the nerdy stuff. The
brass tacks of it are this. There's a huge clash
that's been ongoing. Specifically, the one that we believe resulted
in this shutdown was that the Democratic side of Congress
and US Polity is demanding an extension of healthcare funding

(25:38):
because the subsidies that were made during a previous administration,
the Barack Obama administration are set to expire, so people's
healthcare people who are in that plan their premiums will
skyrocket at the.

Speaker 3 (25:52):
End of the year.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
And then they also put in a bid where they said,
we need something in writing assurances that the current president
won't continue to unilaterally withhold spending that Congress already agreed on.
So everybody in Congress, by hook or by crook, you know,
whether they loved it or not, they reached a compromise

(26:14):
and they said, Okay, we're going to spend X on Y.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
And the issue, at least coming from.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
The Democratic side, is that they believe the current presidential
administration sees what Congress does and if it's politically advantageous
to them, they just pretend it never happened.

Speaker 3 (26:32):
Yeah, and they say, no, don't do it.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
I was sent something this morning. It was where is
it here? He goes from the Guardian. It's about several
federal agencies that sent out official memos regarding the shutdown.
And it was one of those where you could see
from several of the major agencies that it was copy
and paste job or you know, a memo that was

(26:54):
sent to those agencies to send out and it's like,
here's why everything's happening.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
And here's the language to use.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Yeah, I saw those and it's interesting how these you know,
official federal agencies within those messages blame I guess, I
guess Democrats, uh as like that's why this is happening.
And then to but to have federal agencies that are
neither Republican or Democrat right state something like that goes
back to this thing called the Hatch Act, right, which

(27:23):
is supposed to limit the political activities you know what,
politics within these government agencies and government positions. So then
now there's going to be a whole fight about that
and what did that mean in lawsuits and just more division?

Speaker 4 (27:37):
Yeah, and can these agencies function if they lose the
ability to be a political I'm thinking in particular, I
want to give it you guys know, I'm super into
aviation for some side missions, and I want to give
a shout out to the long suffering folks at the FAA,
the Federal Aviation Administration. Why why are we shouting out

(27:59):
the specifically or why am I doing that? It's because
a partial government shutdown is going to put a lot
of pressure on a very unsafe infrastructure at the moment,
or a very struggling infrastructure. Air traffic controllers, security officers,

(28:20):
the ATC is a really interesting case, going all the
way back to the eighties, right when it was made
illegal for those guys to go on strike. So they
are going to be forced to work without pay because
the planes don't stop. And when you create a situation
like that, you massively increase the likelihood of something going

(28:42):
wrong in the sky or you know, spartakick style going
wrong when you try to land.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Oh, that's probably the worst part of it. Yeah, makes
you want to get on a plane, and like, I
don't know a week, I'd love to just get on
a plane in about a week's time, fly somewhere.

Speaker 3 (28:59):
I love it. I love planes.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
You can fly to Miami, where we embark on a cruise,
that true crime cruise.

Speaker 3 (29:05):
Well, however we get there separately or together, whether by
horseback or traveling through shadows and mirrors at night or
hopping a plane.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
You to ride a horse from Atlanta to Miami, that's crazy.

Speaker 4 (29:17):
You gotta know the right horse. So you gotta know
a cool horse, a real shadow facts kind of horse.
So as you're hearing this October sixth, we are at
the end of the week embarking on a crazy journey
in the international waters. We're all very excited about that.
Dylan will be joining us as well as of course

(29:37):
Noel and several other podcasting colleagues. So from the tenth
through the fifteenth, we're.

Speaker 3 (29:44):
On a true crime cruise.

Speaker 4 (29:46):
We're doing a live show about the Bermuda Triangle. From
the Bermuda Triangle, assuming, assuming the world continues through October.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah, and if it doesn't, why not head out to
your local supermarket and pick up some Margaret Holmes diced
root of begas mmmm, real Southern style. We're not sponsored
by them, just you can get dice rut of begas
in your canned goods section. It's important to know.

Speaker 4 (30:13):
Right right, this is the breaking news. And with that
you may wonder, folks, why I'm saying cryptic things like
assuming the world continues through October. Before we pause for
a word from our sponsor, we and many of our
fellow conspiracy realists, including some people directly involved, have been

(30:33):
intensely interested and concerned with a big, weird meeting that
took place quite recently. So how about we pause for
a word from our sponsors, and then we dive in
to Pete Hexis and how he absolutely bombed his stand
up set in front of the world's most dangerous military.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Okay, and we've returned. I suppose let's begin towards the beginning, Ben,
because we have been talking about this off air for
a long time and doing little mentions on air. Let's
jump to ap News September twenty fifth, twenty twenty five. Hexith, abruptly,

(31:16):
someone's top military commanders to a meeting in Virginia next week,
and that is Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth or is it
War Secretary Pete Hexath? I guess it's still Defense Secretary.
This was announced in the news as some kind of memo, right, Hey, hey,
just so everybody knows in the world all of the

(31:36):
top military commanders are going to be meeting in a
place so the Defense Secretary can give a speech to them. Ben.
It hit me in a certain way, as you know,
just full on been a civilian, had civilian life my
entire life. I understand it to some certain extent because
of other people I know who have been in the military.
I don't understand maybe the full potential ramifications of having

(32:01):
all of those people in one room at one time.

Speaker 4 (32:04):
Yeah, yeah, As you recall one of the first things
I said, maybe I should have made that a priority.
But one of the first things I said was, how
incredibly cartoonishly unprofessional is this. We're all going to be
here at this spot. We're giving you a week's notice.
Anybody is mad at the US military infrastructure. The op

(32:27):
SECT was just missing. It was performative. And as we'll
see as we continue in this part of Strange News,
we'll see that indeed performance being performative, the appearance the
aesthetic of power was just as important to these folks
as the exercise of power actual. And that's a big

(32:48):
red flag for authoritarianism just throughout the world.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
In any case, there's a flexing because you can.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
Flexing, because you can flexing publicly so that your audience,
the public, the whole pelo see what is happening. That's
why we have those big parades with all the you know,
all the toys that we problematically think are very cool,
if evil, And that's why you see public dressing downs
in dictatorships, you know, in the stands or in the

(33:17):
case in China recently, very much still an authoritarian place
where a guy got sentenced to death publicly for taking bribes,
not even that much.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
Like thirty eight million. Oh, which is weird that we
have to say it that way.

Speaker 4 (33:30):
But it seems like a well, it's a lot, it's
a lot of entities like us.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
It's there, wasn't there. There's a guy in us recently
that got in. He got his hands slapped because he
took a bag with fifty yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:43):
A brown paper bag with fifty k. And he was like,
what is this? Why is this a problem? You don't
know me. Know what I do outside of work.

Speaker 2 (33:52):
Sometimes I carry around a brown paper bag that has
fifty thousand dollars in it. That's just what I do.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
It's loose diamonds all over again, you know what I mean?
Sometimes you need a bag of diamonds. I don't know
why everybody's been so weird about this.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
Well, in this case of this meeting, yes, this meeting,
the timing feels weird for somebody who might be a
little conspiracy theory minded pointing at myself, somebody who you
know is in the in the news space looking for connections. Right,
you see that there's a looming government shutdown on the way.
Then you see, oh wait, the Defense secretary is getting

(34:27):
all of the military commanders together. That feels a little weird.
There's all these tensions happening, you know, considering Victory Day
that we talked about, and just mention again here in
China with all the heads of all these other countries.

Speaker 4 (34:40):
Proposed invasions of domestic us cities, which is a violation
of a lot of a lot of stuff that the
country worked on for a couple centuries.

Speaker 2 (34:52):
Now, Yeah, so you're seeing all these things happen, and
then this meeting gets announced. My brain just exploded a
little bit and I was just going, Oh, this is it.
This is the thing. This is where something really big
is going down, whether it's going to be one of
these fabled false flag attacks that we know are real,
but also things are accused as false flags when they're not.
But then there are also real ones.

Speaker 3 (35:12):
Shout out gulf of talking. Yeah, whoop, whoop.

Speaker 2 (35:15):
Whoo whoop. Indeed, but in this case, they're at least
heading to Quantico, or the Marine Corps base there in Quantico.
If you've kept up with any kind of popular media,
when it comes to the FBI, there's so many shows
out there now. Quantico is often referenced because this is
the place or FBI Quantico is the place where everybody goes,
all the new recruits. Everybody heads on over there to

(35:37):
do their onboarding, their training, all kinds of stuff like that.
You always hear about Quantico. Well, there's also a Marine
Corps base there and that's where they're heading. So you imagine,
at least again as a layperson here, you imagine that
place has got to be crazy secure. It would have
to be a high level operation if anything nefarious was
going to happen at this meeting, right, that isn't just
the meeting. So then and I'm only speaking personally here

(36:00):
because of just kind of describing what my process of
thinking through all this stuff and just sitting alone in
my house going oh what could this mean? Then you imagine, well,
what could the messaging be that ends up coming out
at that meeting. And that's when we have to jump
forward a little bit in time, because yesterday, as we
were recording on the thirtieth, just before that, the speeches

(36:22):
were made, right, and we maybe mentioned it a little
bit in that episode. I'm hesitant to get into the
politics of what it means, but maybe just some of
the direct quoting and some of the statements that were
made in front of these established esteemed military commanders. We
should at least talk about it a little bit for sure.

(36:44):
So you can go to the Guardian. That's one of
a good place that I found that has kind of
a breakdown of Defense Secretary Hegxith's speech. I'm trying so
hard to be objective and take like personal beliefs out
of this, but some of it just feels wrong. But
you just have to well just state it. Okay, you

(37:06):
can head on over to the Guardian and you can
find something. Well, I'll just give you the title no
More Woke in the US Military. Key takeaways from Pete
Hegsath's speech You can read that it was posted on
the thirtieth of September. Gives you key takeaways. What I
got from this ben is that the Defense Secretary wants
the military to be very samey. He wants troops to

(37:29):
look the same. He wants troops to be able to
do the same kinds of things, going so far as
talking about making sure everyone is clean shaven and no
more beards are allowed. People they have to be physically
fit to a certain extent or they're no longer wanted.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
Yeah, I also clocked the idea of fat soldiers in
fat generals per exits. Again, I'm calling it stand up folks.
I personally it looked like a stand up comic bombing.
People weren't vibing. The attempt was performative, you know. And

(38:07):
especially look if you know flag officers and up, like
the guys with the stars on their epaulets, they don't
really mess around, you know what I mean, And they're like,
of course they're duty bound by the constitution. But I
think it's safe to say they were rightly aggravated. As
guys who always have to fight over budgets, they were

(38:28):
rightly aggravated about the expense. This is the macro version
of could this have been an email?

Speaker 2 (38:34):
Yes, because we were talking about millions of dollars to
get all of these one star or up generals in
their advisors to Quantico to have this meeting, to have
a former Fox News host get up there and as
you said, do a stand up show for them in
a what seems like, Hey, guys, we're all in this together.
But also if you don't like what I'm saying, you
need to leave and just retire, because this is how

(38:56):
it's going to be from now on.

Speaker 4 (38:58):
Remember, I kept comparing it to a wedding. Last time
we talked about this from Game of Thrones, which is
adapted from Song of Ice and Fire.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Check out the books.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yes, I'll give you one direct quote from Pete Hexath,
from this Shindig quote. The sooner we have the right people,
the sooner we can advance the right policies. But if
the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink,
then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We
will thank you for your service.

Speaker 4 (39:26):
And I can't remember which recent recording we mentioned that
specific specific quotation.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
On, but I think it was yesterday.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
As the White Stripes say, it bears repeating because what
we're seeing here is still a modicum of civic behavior
a big leaf. Folks at that if you're unfamiliar, and
I know a lot of us in the audience intimately
know about this kind of surreal dog and pony show

(39:56):
at that level of the military, at that level, indeed
of a lot of part private industry. It's a bad
look to say you're firing someone in the military, especially
unless they've committed a crime, right or unless you successfully
smeared their character. Instead, what you do is sort of
volunteer people to resign and that way, it looks like

(40:18):
the onus of the decision was on them and not
upon the system. And that's a huge structural point. So
we see I think Hexath pushing really hard for that,
or whomever told him to do this performance really wanted
that to be a takeaway. Also, the notion of increasing

(40:39):
lethality and being less concerned about avoiding casualties, that's incredibly troubling.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Oh yeah, just considering the current deployments of US troops
on the National Guard level to US cities to police
those cities, right, and then there are more cities on
the way. I think Portland troops are being deployed to
Portland right now as we're recording this, and they will
get there by the time you hear this, and they.

Speaker 4 (41:07):
Don't want to be there, by the way, No Lisa
ones I know are like this. It's it's like, what
was that deployment to DC? Where where these guys these Again,
we have to we have to make this point when
we mentioned this stuff. I don't want to put my
personal opinion in it. I'm just an entity. I wake
up at sunset and put my skin on one leg at.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
A time like everybody else.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
You know, but I do that too.

Speaker 4 (41:31):
But but with that, you know, we want to give
you the facts and the analysis here, and we want
to exercise empathy for the people who are being subjected
to these deployments and the people who are being deployed.
It's not like they can realistically say screw you, I'm
staying home. Instead, a lot of these guys are saying, man,

(41:55):
this is a terrible day at the job. You know,
I don't want to treat my fellow Americans as enemies.

Speaker 2 (42:02):
Of course, which brings us to I think the real
reason this whole meeting was called and why they got
all the people together, because immediately following Pete Hegsith's thing,
the President of the United States got on stage and
talked for about an hour. And this is where Ben,
can you give us a quick catchphrase?

Speaker 4 (42:25):
Sure, here's where it gets crazy stuff they don't want
you to know. Presents the enemy with it, Yes, with it.

Speaker 2 (42:33):
Yes, there's a lot of stuff talked about by the
President on the stage during this meeting. My key takeaway
and the notes that I took as I was watching
it in real time, had to do with what the
people in that room, what their mission was going to be.
And it doesn't mean it would be the entirety of

(42:53):
their mission. It means that it is the desire of
the current administration that this be a part of it.
And here are some direct quotes. I was watching The Guardian.
They were doing a live posting at the same time.
I'm watching the thing, and they're catching the things that
you know you and I know you and I would
be catching. And it just started making the hair on
the back of my neck stand up. Because the President said, quote,

(43:17):
we are under invasion from within, no different than a
foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they
don't wear uniforms.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
Right.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
He said that quote, straightening out US cities will be
a major part for some of the people in this
room again talking to all these generals and advisors. Quote,
and this is going to be a major part for
some of the people in this room. That's a war too,
that's a war from within. Here's the last one. This
is the quote that really this is the hair on

(43:49):
the back of the neck thing. Quote. I told Pete
talking about Pete, hegseath we should use some of these
dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard,
but military because we're going into Chicago very soon, and
the tone and tenor going into it and speaking about

(44:10):
it as though it would be normal and totally fine
to just be sending US military into US cities to
control them and to stop whatever it is that is
seen as undesirable.

Speaker 4 (44:23):
Yeah, I don't think undesirable is a bad word in
that case. I feel like that's fairly accurate, because there's
a narrative war going on portraying these cities as lawless
and permeated with violence crime. This narrative has a distinct
disadvantage because it does not match any quantitative data, any

(44:48):
quanticotative data. These stats just aren't there to support the claims.
And there is one. I'm not going to jump back
and forth here on this stuff, but objectively, in my opinion,
does not matter on this I'm not an expert. Objectively,
people need to remember that just because the generals in

(45:10):
the audience didn't immediately stand up and cheer, it doesn't
necessarily mean they're doing any kind of protest. That is
par for the course. When you get a speech from
the big guy of this level, right, you're not there
to fill out the crowd with applause on a Netflix special.
You're there to listen to the information, figure out what
the mission is, and do your best not to screw up.

(45:33):
But the question becomes, you know, if they're asking you
to do things that are genuinely against the mission of
the United States, how do you respond. If you're smart
enough that you have ascended to the role of general,
which is crazy to get there in the first place,
then you're already smart enough to take a moment and

(45:53):
collect your thoughts. Now, there might have been somebody in
the back who was like, but that is probably also
smart enough not to even say that under his breath,
he's waiting until he gets back to his place, and
that he's going to like pour a stiff drink and
you know, like.

Speaker 3 (46:09):
The shower, check the devices.

Speaker 4 (46:15):
You can't remove them because that'll be suspicious, and then
he'll just like scream into a scream pillow for a second.
That that is the reality and the reason this is dangerous,
and it's okay to call it alarmists. The reason this
is dangerous is because, performative as it may be, it
sends serious conspiratorial signals to anyone who is a student

(46:41):
of history. Everything is precedent. I keep saying that now authoritarianism,
similar to fascism, is measured in terms of tactics, right,
not in terms of definition, So you you don't look
necessarily at what people are saying at this level. You
look more at their actions and what they're doing.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
And what they're doing is.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
Arguably to a lot of critics against the mission of
the United States, well.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
They're at least messaging it very publicly, right to an
audience of captive heads of military I think about it
also on the heels of what we talked about on
Strange News last time, where there was the push by
the Pentagon to say, hey, journalists, you cannot report on
anything that is not directly approved by the Pentagon.

Speaker 4 (47:29):
Right without explaining the channels of approval. Yeah, which also
makes it a trap just to be completely honest, because
I'd like to share something I've referenced in the past.
This is one that love our veteran friends will recognize.
It's a true story. They used to say in the Pentagon.
I'm not sure who is joking or who was serious

(47:51):
when they said this, but they used to say we
never lie. The truth changes, which is just peak cognitive Parkour,
whoever worked on that one is evil and probably really
fun to.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Hang out with.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
Actually I don't know.

Speaker 4 (48:07):
I mean, okay, hang out with for like an hour.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Yeah, say hi to.

Speaker 3 (48:13):
Grab some juice, get a coffee, and then set your timer.

Speaker 2 (48:16):
So each X filtrate take a dip in the hot
tub with a couple of bruise or right, pete, Hey,
all right, anyways, I don't have much more to this,
Ben besides just I think it is worth us really
paying attention. Just pay attention, that's all, because there's never
gonna be one big announcement. Hey guys, it's orwell time

(48:40):
it's it's gonna be these little tiny movements that push
us closer and closer to whatever that thing is.

Speaker 4 (48:47):
Yeah, and by the time something like that happens, if
the historically, when things go down, these incremental erosion of
checks and balances sort of structures historic what happens is
you wake up one day and you've always been at
war with Eurasia, You've always been at war with East
Asia or Oceania. You know, whatever just happened is going

(49:10):
to be messaged as though it was always this way,
and people be afraid to speak up. I do have
a conspiratorial thing there's no rabbit hole too far ever
since we've started this show, Matt Dylan. I don't know
if you guys have heard, but it turns out the
commander in chief making that recent speech that has garnered

(49:31):
so much controversy and interest might not actually be the
president at all.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
I'm sorry yet.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
Yeah, yep, guys.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
This goes to a returning guest of the show, the
QAnon Shaman, none other than Jacob Chansley, who has recently
sued Donald Trump personally for forty trillion dollars and he
claims he is the rightful president of the United States.

Speaker 5 (49:58):
Oh Q sad trombone horns.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Yeah, do that.

Speaker 4 (50:06):
And keep the part where you said that billing. Okay,
it's a twenty six page complaint. It's all one paragraph
and it reads like a manifesto. You can learn about
this from some excellent work by TJ. Lahue in the
Phoenix New Times. And in this complaint, Chanceley the Shaman says,

(50:29):
my first, fourth, and Second Amendment rights have been violated.
I'm suing. Oh, not just Donald Trump, but also the
Federal Reserve, the NSA, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank,
the Bank of International Settlements, the entire nation of Israel.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
What about the Council and Foreign Relations?

Speaker 4 (50:46):
Dude, he skipped over them. I think that's a separate one.
I know you missed that one. But T Mobile, Twitter,
T Mobile, DARPA, and Warner Brothers.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
He's amazing.

Speaker 4 (50:59):
Oh he said it's a conspiracy.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Yeah, it's just a man, it's quite amusing. I would say, yes,
that's where it's just, that's very amusing.

Speaker 4 (51:16):
He also did previously, of course, get pardoned by the
administration after some some shenanigans in DC back on January sixth,
the few years ago.

Speaker 2 (51:28):
Uh, and.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
He no longer gets gets on with the current president
of the United States.

Speaker 3 (51:36):
I love.

Speaker 4 (51:39):
I love weird literature, man, I think we both do.
So if you're looking for something interesting to read, pull
up the complaint of the QAnon shaman, who per him
might be the actual president.

Speaker 2 (51:53):
You know what they're doing. You know what QAnon shaman
is doing. He's reawakening the warrior spirit.

Speaker 4 (52:00):
Ah, yes, yeah, yeah, he's big into that head. Speaking
of spirits, we should probably take a break for a
word from our sponsors and get to something that has
been fascinating and terrifying for a while. Story that we're
gonna call Peter and the Antichrist another Pete, but not

(52:21):
the way you think. And we have returned sort of
like an evil supernatural creature and a fairy tale. You know,
we're the ones coming up late to the party and
saying I have a gift for the child. We have
one more gift for you, folks. It concerns a guy

(52:43):
that a lot of people aren't too familiar with.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
You've heard the name.

Speaker 4 (52:47):
You might not know too much about him because you're
not as bubbled into conspiracy rabbit holes as we are.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
But there's a guy named Peter Andreas Teal.

Speaker 4 (52:58):
He is a co founder of paid Uh, co founder
of Pallenteer Technologies, Yes, named after the evil magic balls
in Lord of the Rings. We talked about Vallaunteer more
and more often. He was the first outside investor in Facebook,
and he has become so wealthy that no one's really.

Speaker 3 (53:20):
Checking on Pete.

Speaker 4 (53:22):
Okay, no one's coming in and saying, hey, man, are
you all right? Do you like need some orange slices
or doing a nap or something. He has gone on
what people are calling an Armageddon speaking tour, and it's
about his obsession with the anti Christ from biblical lore

(53:42):
and how that meshes with technological innovation.

Speaker 3 (53:46):
What yeah, that's what I said too.

Speaker 2 (53:49):
Are we talking about bringing about an Antichrist with technology
or preventing an Antichrist with technology?

Speaker 4 (53:57):
All right, this is so weird. Okay, we got to
start at the beginning. This will probably be an episode
in the future. Again, assuming things don't burn down, because yeah,
this is gonna be a deep exploration.

Speaker 3 (54:10):
We can't get all the way into.

Speaker 4 (54:12):
The story really starts with a guy named Carl Schmidt.
Carl Schmidt is a German jurist, political theorist. He hates liberalism,
he hates democracy. He loved Nazis. He's very active in
the Nazi Party. So years and years ago, like three
decades gone, now, old Pete is looking for answers, right,

(54:36):
looking to explain the world around him and how he
should feel about it and what he should do as
a result. So he talks to a Austrian theologian. Not
Carl Schmidt. He talks to an Austrian theologian who's kind.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Of a piece nick. He likes peace, he likes the
idea of a world without war. And he says, Pete,
you got to remember there's a lot of crazy thoughts
out there, and he hips Pete to the theories of
this other guy, Karl Schmidt, the Nazi, and things kind
of go wrong.

Speaker 4 (55:09):
Because when Pete learns about Carl Schmidt, it's supposed to
be a cautionary tale. He doesn't get the message. He
takes the message and he's like, oh, this is great.
This Carl guy makes total sense. Ok. Yeah, And so
Pete goes on a mission to spread what he sees

(55:30):
as as the gospel of this. He is a devout Christian,
and of course we are huge supporters of anybody's spiritual beliefs.
As long as you're not hurting anybody else or trying
to make them do stuff they don't want to do,
then go with God.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
But he is.

Speaker 4 (55:46):
Pushing his particular the critics will say, he's pushing his
particular interpretation of Biblical lore into the world. With real
dangerous consequence is he's invested in all these defense and
weapons technology companies as well, and he's literally traveling around

(56:07):
doing a sold out series of lectures on the Biblical
Antichrist organized through a group called Acts seventeen Collective, and
Acts itself is an initialism. It stands for acknowledging Christ
and technology and society. The talks are supposed to be
off the record, but things have leaked just because of

(56:27):
the tenor and the content of what he's saying. His
argument is that because the secular world is increasingly concerned
about existential threats, now is the time for the Antichrist
to rise to power, and the Antichrist will rise to
power by championing regulation of technological progress.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
What.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
Yeah, so he said, if we keep all these dumb
regulations and these pesky laws, the Antichrist is.

Speaker 3 (56:56):
On the way. Oh maybe, but it's difficult.

Speaker 4 (57:01):
It's difficult to your question there. It took me a
second to get to it. It's kind of difficult for
me to figure out if he wants that to happen, Like,
does he want an Antichrist?

Speaker 3 (57:11):
Does he not want it?

Speaker 2 (57:12):
He wants to prevent it, That's what I'm getting. At least,
he wants to prevent the rise of the Antichrist.

Speaker 5 (57:18):
I don't know, not to editorialize too much, but just
to jump in. It's amazing when these people their intentions
are just so transparent.

Speaker 3 (57:26):
Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
Think there is some window dressing that he was a little,
a little Chanzy on. To be honest, you could have
targeted it up a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Yeah, I'm so confused by the prospect of it. And
maybe it's just because of maybe again maybe personal thoughts
on concepts of the Antichrist. My thinking on it, based
on everything I have read in the past about it,
is that the Antichrist would be someone that unites everyone
somehow in this weird way, which makes me think of technology,

(57:58):
which makes me think of you know, all these rumors
about six to sixty six and barcodes back in the day,
and sure concepts of implants that we would all get
or to some kind of tattoo.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
That would market the beast interpretations.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah, and that all speaks to technological innovation to me.
But then he's saying that the Antichrist would be anti innovation,
anti technology.

Speaker 4 (58:22):
To hold it back, right, because it's inherently contradictory. Now,
I hear you guys on that. The reason I'm saying
it's tough to suss out what the ultimate proposed goal
is is because for a certain demographic of followers of Christianity,

(58:42):
the idea of bringing about the end of the world
is a goal is aspirational, right, This is why, because
then you will ultimately have revelations occur, right, the return
of the Christ, and then the separation of the real
good guys and the real bad guys. Heaven comes after

(59:02):
a couple of complications. Here's That's why it's always difficult
to say, you know, what do you think at this
moment when I hear these folks talking, so without my
opinion or anything, Let's give you a direct quote from
some of Teal's earlier statements. He gives a summary of
a sort of mission statement or his thesis, the kind

(59:25):
of stuff he talks about in these closed door lectures.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
Which were quite popular.

Speaker 4 (59:29):
By the way, he says, quote, the way the Antichrist
would take over the world is you talk about armageddon
non stop. You talk about existential risk NonStop. And this
is what you need to regulate. The thing that has
political resonance is this. We need to stop science. We
need to just say stop to this. And this is

(59:49):
where in the seventeenth century I can imagine a doctor
Strangelove Edward Teller type person take you.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
Over the world.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
In our world, it's far more likely to be Greta Thunbern. Yeah,
Mike Calves, hurt from that logical leap there at the end.
So it seems like he's saying again regulation not letting
big tech companies do what they want, or asking for
ethics and AI or making some kind of laws protecting

(01:00:18):
resources like water for instance, that that is leading to
a totalitarian government which will be run by the enemy
of Jesus Christ, the anti Christ. Do you see what
I'm saying about? How like nobody checks in on this guy?

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Is Pete here saying that it's the current administration, like
the current president or somebody in the future, or is
he is it one of those things where we can't know,
We don't know yet.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Yeah, he's leaving that part open.

Speaker 4 (01:00:47):
Okay, except for the except for when he walks way
down the street to throw shade at Greta Thunberg.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Is this the right time to mention that Peter Thiel,
along with Steve Bannon and Elon Musk were all mentioned
in recent Epstein estate releases.

Speaker 4 (01:01:04):
This is the perfect time, This is the perfect time,
and we oh, man, I'm so jaded now because every
news story or weird development I learn about that in
any way touches the Epstein debacle. I have to fight
so hard not to dismiss it as a distraction.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
Yeah, but it's also aren't there further distractions from the
Epstein stuff? So it's like something happens distraction with Epstein.
Oh now we got to distract from the Epstein files.
Oh now we got to distract from this. But it
is this endless stream of consciousness, weird stuff that happens
and announcements, and I don't know, how can you tell

(01:01:47):
what's a distraction was not when there's so much crap.

Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
Right, Yeah, and one person's distraction might be another person's
most important development of the day.

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:01:59):
We have to realize, you know that everybody's reaction or
perspective is going to be unique, but it is also
going to be programmable and easily influenced. What I'm seeing
here and what we'll get into, I think is Petertiel's
just such a fascinating character and a parable What I'm
seeing is an attack on the concept of being a Luddite,

(01:02:24):
an attack on the concept of technophobia, we could call it,
and there is some righteous validity to that, because right now,
with the state the human world is in, technology is
either going to be the thing that saves civilization or
the thing that absolutely wrecks it, and maybe both at
the same time. But the thing is, the way that

(01:02:47):
this guy is arguing in favor of technocracy is still
folding in some really crazy far afield versions of capitalism
like hydro capitalism. Don't stop me, got to do what
I want.

Speaker 2 (01:03:01):
Well, yeah, he is backing this thing called Plasma one,
which is a quote stable coin, native neo bank and
card which was just announced where you can use your
card in over one hundred and fifty countries at over
one hundred and fifty million merchants. It's a new stable coin, Plasma.

(01:03:25):
I don't know, that's a big announcement that's kind of
gone under the radar for you know, for my newsfeed
at least.

Speaker 4 (01:03:32):
I bet you that Chinese con artist we talked about
in the beginning already clucked stable coin.

Speaker 3 (01:03:38):
I bet she's got eyes on it. Just gotta move
the money. Oh.

Speaker 4 (01:03:42):
Another anti Christ potential candidate named by Teal is my
guy Nick Bostrom.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
What yeah, he said, maybe.

Speaker 4 (01:03:53):
People like this philosopher Nick, the guy who wrote some
papers that.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
We both love simulation theory, right, h yeah, yeah, And
it's twenty nineteen.

Speaker 4 (01:04:04):
Nick got on Pete's bad list, there's antichrist list because
he wrote a paper where he said, what if we
create an emergency system of global governance, predictive policing, and
some restrictions on technology, chiefly the technology we don't fully
understand as a civilization.

Speaker 2 (01:04:23):
Nick Bostrom said that, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
And Nick isn't the only voice in the room there.
But to Pete that is some very anti christ vibe
stuff or antichrist coded as Noel would say, Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Yeah, okay, Oh man, I it's weird. I both love
and hate that idea of some kind of global.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
So why I'm too deep into this? Yes, they can
be even weirder hanging out with people. I am trying
to do small talks so hard and so unsuccessfully at
this point in time.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
Yeah, I didn't even realize the Future of Humanity Institute
got closed down last year. That's a Nick Corossrooms thing.
I had no idea.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
Oh man, I hadn't heard that news. I had to
learn that on air. Oh it feels like a bad sign.
Doesn't feel great, Matt doesn't feel great because the idea here,
then is Pete saying humanity has to avoid technological disaster,
whatever shape that might take for you or for him,
and at the same time it has to it has

(01:05:33):
to apparently I'm not sure again how to parse this.
It has to avoid the rise and reign of the
biblical anti Christ. But maybe he wants that to happen,
to bring about the end of days. Like what is
his schedule? Like what does he do after lunch?

Speaker 3 (01:05:55):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Yeah, he spended too much time in that new bunker
he's probably built.

Speaker 5 (01:06:00):
You know, it's Charlie Day and the board all over
it there it is.

Speaker 4 (01:06:04):
I think every billionaire, you know, I know, we go
we're very ambivalent and internally troubled about regulation as a concept.
But I think we should make a law where every
billionaire has sort of a Labowski esque sidekick that hangs out.
They're not employed by them, they get their payment from

(01:06:27):
the government or whatever.

Speaker 3 (01:06:28):
They're not active in policy.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
Their job is to be the guy who I don't
care if they're smoking cannabis. Their job is to be
the guy who like has a beer or hits a
bong whenever the billionaire is saying something crazy and just
diplomatically lets them know they're saying crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Yeah. I love that. I absolutely love that I.

Speaker 4 (01:06:50):
Think it'd be cool because now I pictured now I
pictured like a Elon Musk character going up to a
podium and making a speech, and behind him there's a
guy with a white Russian be two on the nose.
So let's say he's got just like a michelob Ultra.
Part Way through the speech, he just goes and he

(01:07:10):
takes a simp and he's like, Elion, you're crazy for
this one, Doug.

Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
And he does it by the podium. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
I just like it in the living room or wherever.
The billionaire is just hanging out, you know, having their
thoughts and they just say some of those thoughts out
loud and purposefully. That other person just goes, what are
you talking about? Man? That's not that's not how that goes.

Speaker 4 (01:07:33):
Or just are you okay? Do you want to like
go hang out at the planetarium or something? Which the
planetarium is awesome. If you have a planetarium in your
neck of the Global Woods, you should you should go
while it's still open, depending on how it gets funded. Also,
in one of these speeches that we saw, there's an
excellent long breed from the Big Story over it wired

(01:07:57):
about this. Please check it out the real steaks and
real story Teal's Antichrist obsession. This is excellent work by
Laura Bullard and one of my favorite quotes coming from
the articles a description of the aftermath of his keynote speech.

Speaker 3 (01:08:14):
Quote. When Teal was finished, a moderator kicked off the
QA session by noting in so many words that this
speech had been a huge bummer. If the world is
hurdling toward an apocalyptic crisis, he asked, what might this
billionaire suggest we do? End quote. Apparently, Teal said.

Speaker 4 (01:08:33):
I'm not really in the business of offering practical advice.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
Oh, which is.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
A weird thing to throw at the end.

Speaker 2 (01:08:40):
Just the messenger just divinely inspired.

Speaker 4 (01:08:45):
He's like, I'm just you know, vibing out here, guys,
and everybody I've met has told me my ideas are awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
You know, billionaires are not immune to that thing that's
been happening with chat bought interactions.

Speaker 3 (01:09:00):
Oh yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:01):
I do wonder if there could be something else going
on there where, you know, having conversation or two goes
a little too deep and oh you've got to tell
the world, Peter. Yeah, that's a great idea. Here's an
action plan.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
What I love about this is how right you are.

Speaker 4 (01:09:20):
The issue there, I think is I mean, it's common
we will say that just because we have serious questions
and fascination and confusion about this guy's stances or his statements,
that doesn't mean he's not intelligent, right, Incredibly intelligent people
say incredibly crazy stuff constantly. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:40):
Well, often intelligence is associated very closely with what would
be considered insanity, right, I mean, and that's just that's
how it's always been. Because when you know enough things,
or you make connections at a high enough level, then
you're probably not just okay with how things are going,
no matter where you are, no matter when, it is
probably not cool with everything, and it might make you

(01:10:01):
seem a little whack of dude to everybody else. That
makes sense. I get that. Yeah, But also this is
even so this is out there for me.

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
Yeah, you just you need a guy. I don't know,
it doesn't matter if it's a beer or a drug
or something. I feel like it should be some kind
of snack, like some kind of prop in your hand,
you know, like a guy who just opens a bag
of those little bs bags of sonships that you get
a loud Yeah, he opens those and he's just like, Pete, man,

(01:10:32):
you're crazy. You're crazy that he offers him some sonships,
so it doesn't sting is bad. One more Pete quote.
He was three years after the events of September eleventh.
He went to speak at a conference with the theme
being politics in the Apocalypse, and he said the following quote,

(01:10:54):
The brute facts of September eleventh demand a re examination
of the foundations of modern Paula pics ding Ding Ding, Well,
do get easter egg there? And he says, today mere
self preservation forces all of us to look at the
world anew, to think strange new thoughts, and thereby to
awaken from that very long and profitable period of intellectual

(01:11:15):
slumber and amnesia that is so misleadingly called the Enlightenment.
So wait, you're mad at the.

Speaker 3 (01:11:23):
Enlightenment, Peter, you're crazy? Man, Dylan, you would be perfect
for the new job.

Speaker 5 (01:11:31):
I bet the snack budget would be huge. Can I
recommend one thing that listeners look up if they're interested
in the Antichrist more? Yeah, it's the concept of praetorism
and Emperor Nero and that it's already happened.

Speaker 4 (01:11:45):
Ah, Okay, because we've seen multiple people be accused of
being the Antichrist of multiple times.

Speaker 5 (01:11:50):
Right, Yeah, and there's like a there's there are Christians
who believe it has come to pass already.

Speaker 2 (01:11:55):
Amazing that part.

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
Yeah, thanks Tennessee.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
And I want to add one more thing too, just
because we hit nine to eleven there, and maybe think
about Saudi Arabia and maybe think about electronic arts that's
being purchased in part by the Saudi Arabian Sovereign Fund
that we discussed before on the show. So that's kind
of fun.

Speaker 4 (01:12:16):
Shout out Jay Kush Boy's wild for that one. He
needs a psidekick, a snacks a snack kick too, we'll
call him stack kicks. You get after a certain amount
of money and power, you get assigned a snack kick
and they hang out the snack budgets wild, but it's
an investment in the future.

Speaker 3 (01:12:33):
He also says stuff that is strident and opinionated. And
there's nothing wrong with opinions or with disagreeing with people,
but it is troubling to hear somebody at his level
of power say things like quote, a direct path forward
technological progress is prevented by America's constitutional machinery. We should

(01:12:54):
have a worldwide surveillance network instead of the United Nations
fil with interminable and inconclusive parliamentary debates that resemble Shakespearean
tales told by idiots. Instead, we should consider the secret
coordination of all the world's intelligence services as the decisive
path to a truly global pox Americana. What I come on, man,

(01:13:21):
it's He also says this super organism of surveillance could
act as quote, a political framework that operates outside the
checks and balances of representative democracy.

Speaker 4 (01:13:34):
So he's company. He's like, the Antichrist is real. Forget democracy,
it's bs. The enlightenment is whack. I hate Greta Thunberg.
I hope he starts the speech with First off, that's
the best way to start a wild rant.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
It feels like a similar shared version that we've been
hearing about folks who are up at the upper echelons
of some of this AI bubble that's happening right now,
and people who truly really want to become more than human,
like personally want chack and believe that is our destiny,
and believe that that's the way what we should all want,

(01:14:12):
and that is that's pretty scary to me, man.

Speaker 4 (01:14:17):
I yeah, I think it should be pretty frightening to everyone,
which is why we are going to do an episode
on this in the future. Folks who are running along
because there was so much to get to. We hope
this program finds you well. We hope you're having grand adventures.
Thank you so much for tuning in, thanks to our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan, and let us

(01:14:40):
know your thoughts. Find us online and give us a call.
Find us on an email.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. It's a voicemail. When you call in,
give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
Here's a quick quote from Jared Kushner's CEO of Infinity Partners,
who is jointly acquiring EA.

Speaker 3 (01:15:05):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (01:15:05):
I've admired EA's ability to create iconic, lasting experiences, and
as someone who grew up playing their games and now
enjoys them with his kids, I couldn't be more excited
about what's ahead. Hey, you want to send us an email,
you can do that.

Speaker 4 (01:15:18):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
We receive.

Speaker 4 (01:15:22):
Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back.
If you want to learn more about what's called game
washing now the story that Matt was referencing, check out
the recent episode of The Daily Zeitgeist where Jack and
Miles dive deep into the story, and also check out
our earlier episode on live golf and the concept of

(01:15:42):
sportswashing conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:16:05):
Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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