The notorious tech giant Palantir may soon create history's most comprehensive -- and controversial -- database on all US residents. Why? Descendants of Walt Disney object to his animatronic likeness. Guinea pigs hate Adele. A bodyguard for New York mayor Eric Adams gets jammed up in shenanigans. Science shows insects are dying out at alarming rates. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this 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,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist, if
you are tuning in to our strange news program the
Evening It publishes, let us be the first to welcome
(00:50):
you to Monday, June ninth, twenty twenty five. Oh, we're
still at the beginning of June. Guys, do we have
any life lessons from our time spent in May?
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I know, I know it had to be May. That's all.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
I Just try your absolute best to stay away from
Georgia Pollin because my god, well we went through May
and in April.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Just cover it touches.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
It's almost as though the climate is changing a little bit,
or maybe we're getting old. I had a little life
advice for anybody. This may come in handy for a
certain percentage of our demographic. This is not news. But folks,
if you are doing a persona in an unfamiliar situation,
be very everybody thinks about appearance, but be very careful
(01:46):
with your voice and your cadence. Because I got made.
Speaker 6 (01:49):
Yeah may he told us that off air, it's always
cool to get voice clocked.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Happened to me as well. I was getting a tattoo.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
And guys, did you see that Joey Fatone in Saints
speaking of It's got to be in May is shilling
for a red lobster. Now, yeah, I did not, Man, great,
I saw. You know how all the social media's of
these big restaurant chains try to get real cute, and
so they're doing a campaign where it looks like a
Tiger Beat magazine cover, but it's Joey Fatone just housing
(02:19):
fried shrimp and just shilling for nineteen ninety nine endless
shrimp for reading.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I love that, and you know those chains need the
help right now. We didn't have this for strange news,
but McDonald's has suffered the worst US sales decline in
five years, and they're they're blaming it on anti American
sentiment and not the fact that the ice cream is
always broken and the food stuff that.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Cot well, I think they fixed the ice cream problem.
They they made so.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
Music conspiracy with the third party, not exactly.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
But also I don't know if you go to mc
I go to McDonald's every now, and they just won
in my house, and they really are pushing this like
are you gonna use your points today?
Speaker 4 (02:58):
And I just want to yeah, get that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Know.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
I think most people probably say no, but they ask
you verbally every single time, So that seems a little
desperate to me.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean because then massive data collection can
become an entirely new revenue stream. Also, I didn't know this. Guys.
Remember Rob Thomas, He's a fan of a show that
we work with called Wrongful Conviction. Oh cool, of course,
just mentioning people in that musician mill you. But maybe, look,
we have a lot that we're going to touch on.
(03:29):
We're going to talk some dangerous stuff about Disney. We
are going to have some updates from jail videos and
the FBI, some talk about our favorite New York City mayor.
Before we do any of that, maybe we pause for
a word from our sponsors and then follow up on
this concept of mass collection of data as a revenue stream.
(03:52):
I'm here for it, and we have return heard our
first non McDonald's story this evening. You may have heard
of a little group called Pallenteer p A l A
N t R. Now we've talked about these guys a
(04:13):
little bit in the past. Correct, mm hmmm.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
Only I clearly didn't get the memo because I really
didn't realize exactly how evil they were until you brought
this up just now, Ben.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Oh, well, their actions are evil for sure. And we
were talking offline and you said, yeah, the stock.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Is actually doing very I didn't know. Someone just I've
got a couple of Stock friends that were just like,
you should get in on this thing.
Speaker 6 (04:39):
It's you know, whatever data, you know, brokering or whatever.
And I just knew the basics of it. But now
I'm feeling very on the fence about holding this, so
I may just let it go, even though, yes, Ben,
it is doing very well.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Well. It maybe because they're citing more and more quite
lucrative government contracts. The head line here. We could go
to the New Republic for this one. This went live
on May thirtieth, but people already knew what was happening.
The current US presidential administration is tapping the tech giant
(05:15):
Palenteer to create a master database on every single American.
And this article we're recommending comes from the journalist Hafiz Rashid.
But before we get into this particular dystopia, let's go
ahead and note a brief background of Palenteer. So Palenteer
(05:37):
is what you would call a data and analytics company
similar to Cambridge Analytica. Check out our episodes on that.
It was co founded by the current president and a
big campaign donor named Peter Teel. And what they're doing
right now is really streamlining and aggregating. If you live
(06:02):
in the US, you are already we joke about being
on a list, right, but you're already on so many lists.
Not all of them are bad. There's just this pedopoly
of government databases that already have information about you know,
your bank account number, your medical claims, disabilities, student loan debts.
It's just not in one central place. So now Pallunteer,
(06:26):
the stock price might go up because they are going
to create a master database. This comes to us from
the New York Times as well, which originally broke the story,
So let's make sure to shout out the journalist Shira
Frankel and Aaron Krolik. This dates back to March when
the current administration signed in executive order the EO, the
(06:50):
superpower of the President said, look, federal government share data
across agencies and this is worrisome before for a lot
of people. Before we go into more of than nitty gritty,
what's your initial reaction. Do you think a private tech
company should be tapped to create this master list of
(07:13):
everyone's everything?
Speaker 6 (07:15):
No, boys, that line gotten blurred between private and public.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, so that's one vote against.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, well I'm for it, guys, what vote I think
it's I think is very strange the way all of
this is happening and being rolled out, because it is
it's a government. It's government money to the tune of
what almost eight hundred million, like or it's close to that,
like eight hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, that's counting. It's a little over because there was
a do D contract for seven hundred and ninety five
million that Palenteer got, and then before then, since the
beginning of the current administration, Palnteer got more than a
little north of one hundred and thirteen million. Good.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So, okay, so they're taking in all this money, right,
they're a private company. They have a piece of software,
right that basically is this data aggregation thing holding all
of this data, separating it out, being able to search it,
right and house it. That's what is it foundry foundry. Okay,
(08:27):
so they've got this thing. So theoretically what they're doing.
All they're doing is just going out and talking to
the other agencies, right, just saying, hey, you should use
our stuff too, guys, Department of Homeland Security, you're already
using our stuff. Thanks. And they've got a couple others, right,
But then they're going to all the other places like
medicare selective service. So it is, I don't know, it
(08:50):
doesn't feel like the nefarious act of building this giant database.
It feels like a private company just trying to get there.
They're a version of Adobe software in everywhere or you know.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
All right, so that's a vote for it.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
You're just saying, it's not much different than a lot
of third party companies whose bread and butter are like
these suites of tools that giant corporations end up going
all in behind like.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
They want to everybody have the enterprise version.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
That's right, Like Microsoft does not care if you buy
an Xbox, you know what I mean, that's not where
they make their money.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
But how many of those companies use like Windows right, right?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
How many? How many companies use you know, as you said,
enterprise software sort of like a lot of auto or
vehicle or construction manufacturers make money off fleet deals, right,
make money off government contracts. You know, it's not gonna
it's not going to screw them over if you wait
a year to buy your camera.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yes, right, oh so oh just on that too. I'm sorry,
I don't mean to do realist please. Something that's weird
that I never really thought about. Guys, most vehicles that
are you know, pass a certain year have a little
thing attached to the rear view mirror that opens garages,
and almost all of them are the exact same thing.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Flipper zero is entered the chat said, you're gonna be cool.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
It's really creepy.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
It's yeah, because you can program each one of those
things to anything that can project a signal out that
opens garage doors and all. It's all the same.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Tech and the active monitoring right now, insurance companies. Privatized
car insurance companies are giving people opt in methods to
save a little scratch as long as you agree to
constant monitoring and surveillance. I'm anti surveillance, and I think
the argument that if you're doing nothing wrong, you should
(10:47):
have nothing to worry about is intellectually fraudulent. It is
purposely misleading. So how long before it becomes an opt
out thing that you pay extra or will people simply
skip that step? In every car manufactured after insert year
here is required to have that constant monitoring for security
(11:10):
and safety purposes, You guys, security and safety the waymos
are already expanding through Atlanta?
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Are they really really?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I saw one. I saw it in the wild, and
you know what, it almost screwed up at a crosswalk.
I'm sure the technology will get back.
Speaker 6 (11:25):
Well, that's the thing though. That's interesting. I heard a
conversation on a podcast or a YouTube show recently where
Weymo's been at this for a long time and they're
still not great. Whereas Tesla is about to unleash their
cyber taxis on the world, and they're not using infrared
or whatever it is laser technology.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
They're just using low pixel.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Count cameras and they haven't really road tested these, and
we already know the problems with their self driving stuff
and how self driving has been promised and even their
flagship vehicles and never fully rolled out as self driving.
So Elon Musk, like, in an effort to appease stockholders
or you know, finally keep a promise, is doing this
with the cyber taxis. And to your point, Ben, the Waimos,
(12:09):
there's always stories coming out about how they're not great
and they use much higher tech and have been testing
for much longer on actual roads.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
And in their defense, I don't like the phrase Devil's advocate.
I did rewatch the film good. The monologues are great,
the ending needs some work, but yeah, I love it.
I love it. I've got a word for doing that
monologue years back. But the point I want to make
in their defense is that, you know, we have to
remember it took humans thousands and thousands of years of
(12:40):
trying to fly and then immediately dying for someone to
invent a plane. So maybe we're a plane that didn't
kill you automatically, So maybe we're we're seeing another progression
in that way. But we've talked about the danger of
autonomous vehicles, not necessarily just in terms of technology, but
(13:01):
in terms of what humans do with that technology, that surveillance,
that ability to shut down a grid during a protest
such that no one can drive away right or drive
toward a situation or a conflict. This is one of
the big concerns. This pollunteer thing happens with a context
(13:21):
wherein people are legitimate US residents and being deported right
even with guilt by association, like a family that recently
got deported. We're seeing the massive unforced error we would
call that and go the unforced error of creating brain
drain in the United States by deporting international students who
(13:45):
legally reside there. We're also seeing the palateer program happening
in step with the recent report that ICE has accessed
a nationwide license plate network, which means there's further surveillance
by ICE.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
We also, I mean, I don't know if you guys
have ever gotten one of those robotickets where they just
snap your license plate and then you get something in
the mail. I mean that tech freaks me out and
I find it inconvenient. Boy, is it ever hard to
contest and there's going to come a point where these
things are impossible to contest. Not to mention, the way
ICE is scooping up people. Contesting is sort of not
even part of that deal, at least as far as
(14:25):
some of the people in power would like it.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
And I want to stay yeah, I hear you. I
want to stick with this ICE story because the news
will probably get exaggerated or get spin depending upon who
who is reporting it or what source. Folks who are
supportive of ICE are going to say, you know, this
is ensuring safety, this is helping us with new tools
(14:50):
to find the bad guys. Folks who are opponents of
ICE or the current methods of that organization are going
to say this is further government overreach and what whatever
the justifications may be, it will be used for something
nefarious or perhaps indeed unconstitutional in the future. So it's
important to know the facts. ICE has indirectly accessed an
(15:12):
outfit called Flock Safety, and they're doing this by mass
requesting searches through local and state law enforcement agencies. Just
like the past year, there have been more than four
thousand immigration related lookups, which means someone doesn't necessarily even
have a moving violation they just get their license clocked.
(15:36):
And now imagine that feeding in to the palanteer eye
of soro on right, and now imagine all the variables
you can use to target someone you know. Okay, first
it was people who were illegally in the United States,
that part is true. But then it becomes people who
are not US citizens but are legal residents of the
(15:59):
United States, like kids on a on a student visa.
And then what comes next? Do we get to people
who are part of the culture war demographic targets like LGBTQ.
Does it does it stop? What happens to the professors? Right?
Does it go further to the professors? How long do
we have you guys, it's podcasters. They'll get Robert Evans first.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, yeah, well, at least before us. Do we think
the ISPs and like verizons and t mobiles of the
world are also caught up in all this stuff already
because of the previous stuff we've talked about, so it
right now, it's like, if you drive a vehicle, your
(16:45):
vehicle gets scanned by this flock safety thing. If you've
got a license plate, even if you don't have a
license plate, you've got a specific dealer plate or something.
It's got numbers on it can be tracked. Then you're
if you're using your cellular device that's being tracked, which people.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
Are all using for data all the time. So there's
tons of stuff flowing through those networks, right.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, then that number is probably connected to one or
more of those databases you're talking about. Ben So then
it literally, it literally is aggregated everything. It's what's that
movie we always talk about, Minority Reports, that's.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
The minority Yeah, the pre crime calculation. Yeah, shout out
with Dart. And the thing is, we don't we don't
need cinematic sci fi dystopia to explain nefarious actions as
as they occur. Uh, Dystopian society grows gradually one time.
(17:43):
You know, one day, you rarely get a sudden moment
of revelation. You turn around one day and you're older
than you thought you would be, and you don't recognize
the place you live in anymore.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
It's not that's how it happens. It's not how we
experience time. It's just kind of like a frog boiling at.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
This situation, right, Y'll be terrifying that there was a
dystopia button. I mean, I guess nuclear all nuclear war
is the dystopia button.
Speaker 7 (18:10):
Other than that, it's defined by future historians, and that
effect or that moment is often achieved in fiction or
science fiction with the narrative device of time travel, where
someone steps out of a portal and everything's all.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Ft up, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah, yeah, but it usually takes the later work of
scholars and historians totally, and whomever owns the current prevailing
Zeitgeister narrative, it takes them to look back and say,
you know, this is the moment Franz Ferdinand, when Franz
Ferdinand was assassin with.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
The band Okay, people were.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Saying, yeah, when the Black Hand assassinated Franz Ferdinand. People
newspaper reports at the time where of course running the story,
but they were running other stories too. You know. There
was a guy who's like, no, the way the world's
going to end is all these people wanting balustrades. The
balustrade industry simply can't meet the demand of all these
(19:08):
people by balustrades. And someone was like, I don't know,
both sides are correct.
Speaker 6 (19:13):
Archduke kind of became the hot button thing through revisionist history,
or rather like an assessment of history and trying to
boil it down to an understandable narrative.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Right, yeah, functions thereof you know, and if we're talking
about I don't want to go too lower this. If
we're talking about those apocalyptic moments. One thing we've seen
often in this show is not just apocalyptic moments defined
by human society, but defined by the actions of the
natural world. So if we continue this podcast for the
(19:47):
next fifteen human years, we may have a follow up
to a study that recently published that says toxic fungui
will or fungi your choicers are your own, will threaten
millions of lives within within that timeframe, within fifteen years.
This is of course on par with other predictions. Whenever
(20:11):
I read news like this, guys, I just can't help
but think of that time everybody told us we were
crazy and controversial for pointing out neo nikotinoid's damaging effects
on honeybee populations, and it turned out we were right,
or the people who did the studies were right. They
were just ignored. So if you want to read more
about that, go to Popular Mechanics excellent article by Darren Orf,
(20:35):
who's citing the latest studies when his work and apocalypse
of toxic fungi could threaten millions of lives within fifteen years.
We're going to pause for word from our sponsors. We
want to hear your thoughts on mass surveillance, human political
apocalypses or natural still human created apocalypses. Yeah, have a
(20:59):
great type at the abreak. We'll be back with more
strange news. No, look, can we go to Disney.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Boy, let's do it. Let's go to Disneyland.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
And we've returned and we've got our Mickey Matt or
Mini whichever you know, dealer's choice, hats on and eaten
some I don't know, themed ice cream of some sort,
perhaps also mouse shaped, and we're seeing that beautiful vista
of the Cinderella's Castle on the horizon. We're just full
of wonder and joy as we walk into Disneyland or.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
World side note I do I do fondly recall one
of those videos where we did where you know, use
the phrase iced creams iced cream.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
I think I probably stold the over annunciation from my
buddy Matt Berry don't actually know him, would love to
huge fan. But disney Land, World, the Magic Kingdom, whichever
you prefer whichever one is more in your neck of
the woods. Has long been an innovator in theme park technology.
Let's just say early versions of these theme parks, or Disneyland,
(22:07):
let's just say the very first one, have incorporated cutting
edge for the time animatronics, some of which the vintage
versions have stuck around, like the Country Bear Jamboree.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I think they only just recently retired.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
That one, but either when I was in Disneyland not
too too long ago, a couple of years ago, I
got to see that, and I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
It's no longer there. But a lot of.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
Fun, a lot of kind of weird, uncanny Valley Chuck
e Cheese esque, but a little bit you know better animatronics.
We also, of course know about the Hall of Presidents,
where you can see your favorite presidents personified through robotic forms,
including Abraham Lincoln, who gives little you know excerpts from
his Gettysburg address. Well, the Walt Disney Company, which of
(22:50):
course now owns Star Wars, Disney a ton of other
properties as well, like all of the Pixar stuff that's all.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Under this umbrella. Now you can stream it all on
Disney Plus. Not an ad.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
They and their leadership, Bob iger Is, the CEO of Disney,
are getting criticized pretty hardcore by relatives of the late
Walt Disney for their decision to roll out an exhibit,
an animatronic exhibit in Anaheim and Disneyland, an experience. They
call it the Imagineers, wherein people will be able to
(23:27):
hang out with an animatronic representation of Walt Disney himself.
The experience was described at the D twenty three event
is where Disney kind of rolls out their slates and
all of their new theme park stuff last summer, described
as being able to experience what.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
It would have been like to be in Walt's presence.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
However, Walt Disney's granddaughter is super super non on board
with this and says Walt wouldn't have been either. Joanna Miller,
in a Facebook post recently in the last couple of days,
called the the idea of this a robot imposter and
warned that Disney execs were dehumanizing the memory of her grandfather.
(24:13):
She goes on to say and her post, people are
not replaceable. You cannot add life to a robot empty
of a soul or essence of the man, I think
that's fascinating on a couple of fronts, because of course
Disney did pioneer animatronics, and they, you know, Walt Disney
was all about that, and you know they've done it
with presidents and every time there's a new president, I
(24:33):
believe I'm not.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Mistaken, they add it to the whole president's right.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Well, they get in front of it too, which is
why there's one that looks kind of trumpish, kind of glintonish.
But I was asking that exact question off air, and
I'm glad you brought it up here, like is it not?
Could people not see that as somewhat hypocritical?
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I have sensitivity for families of estates NOL. Do we
know if this descendant of Walt himself is actively working
in the company, because I think if that was the case,
then they would never the conversation, would never have gotten this.
Speaker 6 (25:09):
If I'm not mistaken, the entire Disney family is no
longer a decision making any I'm not sure if there
are other survivors of the Disney line other than this granddaughter.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
And I apologize, but I think for.
Speaker 6 (25:20):
Our purposes here, I do know that there is no
decision making power anymore coming from the Walt Disney family,
which is why this is more point of protest and
you know, bad taste being acknowledged than it is some
kind of actionable item, because Joanna Miller in her post
asked for people's support in helping convince the company in
(25:43):
all caps to you know, scrap plans to do this
abandon the robot of Grandpa, she says, most importantly, and
this is I think the kicker here. That's very interesting
and to your point, Ben, and what I was bringing
up as well. Most importantly, I learned that Grandpa told
Sam McKim, which I believe must have been an old
colleague perhaps someone who was also once connected to the company,
(26:06):
clearly a confidante, that he never wanted to be an animatronic.
Marty Sklar, who was an early imagineer, a founder of
this whole kind of division, I think, along with I Works,
who is also a person who was very close to
Disney and invented some very very important innovative devices and
(26:28):
technologies and processes, all of which you can see by
the way and the history at an incredible place that
I probably pitched before on the show called the Disney
Family Museum in San Francisco that is funded and or
operated by the Walt Disney Family Trust.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
So that is a good example too of where.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
You can see their version of the memory of Waltz
and his innovations. How that differs from the company line
on all of that stuff. It's a really neat place.
I do highly recommend you check it out. Marty Scalar
taught the imagineers. She says he knew Grandpa's wishes. So
the idea of a robotic Grandpa to give the public
(27:07):
a feeling of who the living man was, which is
the stated purpose of this exhibit. The idea literally that
came from the statement about it at D twenty three
just makes no sense. It would be an impost. They
are dehumanizing him. People are not replaceable. You could never
get the casualness of his talking, interacting with the camera,
his excitement to show and tell people about what is
(27:29):
new at the park, etc. You cannot add life to
one empty of a soul or essence of the man
knowing that he did not want this, having your predecessors
tell you that this was out of bounds, so so
sad and disappointed.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
It's extra interesting too.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
Considering that Bob Ayger's been mega under fire for some
kind of not great decisions that have been made around
their reboots of classic animated films that are beloved as
these live action kind of I'm just gonna say where
I land on it abominations, I would say that word
is appropriate. Some of them are just kind of missing
(28:06):
the point of what made the animated films good in
the first place. And there's just that uncaddy valley ness
of it all too. And the snow White rollout has
obviously been plagued with catastrophe. It's the biggest bomb of
any of these that they've ever put out, if I'm
not mistaken. And the star Rachel Ziggler on the kind
of press trail for that just made some really not
(28:26):
great comments about the original version that alienated basically anybody
that would have been into the movie, and nobody went
and saw it. So this seems like another and a
long line of kind of those kind of missteps by
the Walt Disney Company and mister Bob. I here, what
do you guys think that any thoughts of the contradictions here? Maybe,
And like the obviously Disney was a huge innovator of animatronics,
(28:48):
but that he himself did not want to be given
that treatment.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I wonder if Abraham Lincoln wanted exactly a guy, and
like how you would have felt about that. I don't know.
I think if you're going to have those things, having
the guy that invented it in many ways or the
guy that created it become one is actually kind of cool.
(29:13):
But nowadays you don't really need that. You could just
have a an AI generated version of him, right that
uses his previous interviews, and that dude could show you
around the park if you wanted to. That's cool, but
that would probably be considered horrifying as well. But if
that's horrifying for the guy that created this thing that
(29:34):
led us down this path, then what are we doing?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I hear you on that, Matt. That that was my
point too. You know, like, first, yes, we could argue
a hypocritical but second it goes into some very logical considerations.
I really appreciate you bringing up there because the philiposophical
aspects we're bringing up here too. It touches on the
idea of agency, Like when we're talked about that kerfuffle
about purported AI George Carlin stuff exactly. So the question
(30:07):
then is, I don't know. It's tough to parse because
the primary issue is you can't ask Walt Disney about it.
But to Matt's point, what if we made an AI
emulator of Walt Disney with all the data we could
collect and then ask that, right, asked Walt two point?
Oh you felt about it, but it's only black mirror
(30:31):
till it's real, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
And that question is do you want a body?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, exactly, and then.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
I want a body?
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Come on, how did you really feel about uh, you know,
were you really anti semitic?
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Geez, yeah, yeah, I opened that back of words. But
this maybe I don't know, man like, who can who
can make the call? Does the estate have the rights
to Walt Disney's like that?
Speaker 4 (30:57):
I don't know. It's surely not. You know how lawyered
up these companies would get.
Speaker 6 (31:02):
I mean, I don't think they would have put in
the planning and made the announcement if they couldn't legally
do it. So I think at this point it's just
a protest thing and calling it the tasteless. And then
of course the imagineers and the folks at Disney are
defending it. It's interesting because when I went to Disney
this last time for the first time in many years.
At Epcott, they have this ride called Spaceship Earth, which
is like this cool time traveling space ride that sort
(31:25):
of shows you the one my.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Founding of civilization exactly.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
And in my mind I was like, I swear there
is a Walt Disney animatronic in that because it was
so his thing. But there definitely isn't, uh and there
never has been. And this is a that's why this
is such a big deal. So hm, I don't know,
it's it's it's a it's a it's a pickle.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I guess what I think?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Yeah, what do you think that?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I think Disney needs to up their game.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
I remember what I was gonna say. Sorry, Matt, those
do it.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
This is interesting too because of all the conspiracies around
Walt Disney life extension stuff.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
And preserving them.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
And all that is kind of them trying to do that,
keeping him alive in a way, but also his state
representatives of it are not down with that. I'm so sorry, Matt.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
I was just trying.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
What were you thinking?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
That it's a way more realistic version of extending life
than freezing some stuff.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
We know that the technology is just not there. It's
just that it's because water expands at a certain tip.
I'm not gonna do it. I'm not going to do
it today.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
It's a whole thing. But uh, what I was gonna
say is Disney's up their game. All of these theme
parks are magical wonderlands, right. But my son just got
back from Universal and they had a new one that
I didn't even know existed. That's like Epic Universe or something.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Brand new day a day or two old, I swear.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
But my son got to hang out in Donkey Kong
Country and he was in it.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
And take my money.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
There's a Mario Kart joking, my god.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
I'm going, I'm going that's my stuff, dude. Oh that
sounds amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
There's a Nintendo World I think opening up in US
pretty soon. I'm actually what I'm talking about. I think
that's where that must be it because they that go
to the one in Japan later because I guess.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
Yeah, I guess the Mario movie was under Universal, so that, yeah,
that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
All I know is it's crazy cool.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Folks, tell us your favorite and most unusual amusement or
theme parks that you have visited. I am a big
fan of amusement parks, especially the propagandistic ones in other countries.
Speaker 6 (33:32):
In Japan, there's like a Yokai themed amusement park, or
maybe it's even.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
A whole city.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I've been to the Kai town.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Okay, that must be it.
Speaker 6 (33:40):
But then I also saw there's a poop themed amusement
park that just I've heard of.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
It in Japan. I haven't been.
Speaker 6 (33:46):
It's about the wonders of sanitation. It's like got a message.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, well, you gotta have something that doesn't just say
we're in dapu. Yeah right, yeah, and sanitations is important.
To brillion people die every year due to lack of
potable water, So I get it. But that's a great
example there. It's as long as you can add this
(34:11):
is for an important reason. At the very end of
whatever weird thing you're doing, you can get a pass
and you can make an amusement park. For sure. God,
I want to hear about new and strange amusement parks
we haven't visited yet. Gosh, that must be so new
that what you call it epic universe?
Speaker 6 (34:29):
Yeah, it was just ribbon cut like a week or
two ago. So your your son got very lucky and
getting to catch that so early. Are you serious?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Look, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
He was with his mom and they ended up there
and he just told me all about.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
Also switch to Drop Day this week coming out on Friday,
New Mario Kart, Mario Kart World Mario. It hasn't been
a new Mario Kart in over a decade or at
least a decade, So I'm pumped.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
That's awesome.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
Well, jeez, guys, we went we went on about Disney
for a lot longer than I thought I did.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Just want to little tie in story.
Speaker 6 (35:02):
David Zaslov, who's also another you know, CEO of entertainment
Conglomo that's under fire and been under fire.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Who full disclosure, we have met.
Speaker 6 (35:12):
We've met him, but he used to be the CEO
of Discovery, you know, I'm sorry, still still is Warner
Brothers Discovery, and we initially were acquired by Discovery. That
was like right when I joined the company. And he
is being sort of chastised by the board.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
The company's executives, who.
Speaker 6 (35:32):
Are who held a symbolic non binding vote against the
executive payout package of around fifty more than rather fifty
million dollars that he's due, so they're saying that he's
not doing great at his decision making. All the debacle
around HBO streaming HBO, HBO Max HBO Max HBO, we
(36:00):
don't even know. It's bad, real bad dilution kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Back of how yep BO.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
We've also seen a lot of backlash against some of
their prized brands, like the House of the Dragons. The
Game of Thrones spin off kind of had a little
bit of a petering out in its audience because there
were not that many episodes.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
It felt like they were cutting corners.
Speaker 6 (36:21):
So seasons have gotten a lot shorter, and most recently
the season the second season of the Last of Us
has absolutely been lambasted by fans and critics alike. Seems
like nobody liked it, and it also seems to be
victim of some cuts. So yeah, they're they're saying it's
not a good idea to do that, they're against it,
(36:41):
but it's non binding, so he's definitely still going to
get every dollar of that, so there you go.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Gosh.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
I had a couple other stories.
Speaker 6 (36:49):
Guinea pigs have been forced to listen to adele in
order to test out how music audio compression affects our
brains and our ears specifically are hearing. Compression is a
tool in audio production that basically makes quiet parts loud
and loud parts quiet, evening them out so there's no
dynamic range the aka difference between the loudest and the
(37:11):
quietest parts of the music. And if anybody's a musician
or into that, you know that that's where a lot
of tension drama comes from, is having quiet bits and things,
you know, opening up and classical music for sure. Dynamics
is a term that's used often, but this is more
referring to dynamics in terms of the actual analyzing of
the audio waveform. It turns out that when you compress
(37:31):
stuff and it make it just consistently loud all the time,
it doesn't give our brains time to reset and our
ears time to rest.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
And it's bad.
Speaker 6 (37:39):
So guinea pigs that were subjected to seven days of
Adele's music in compressed and uncompressed form suffered more significant
hearing damage when they expose to the compressed form, which,
if you're into audio stuff in production that do it
does make sense, but it's interesting that that's being codified now,
(37:59):
so it.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Wasn't non stop adele right.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
I don't know exactly exactly what kind of rests or
breaks they got, but that would be really cruel and
the kind of thing you'd see in like black sites
or whatever. But on poor little guinea pigs, who you know,
it's not funny you always hear guinea pigs used to
stand in for like test subjects, right, if you never
really hear guinea pigs being used in this way, at
least I don't.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
Maybe I don't read enough abstracts of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
But there is a thing that's been raging for about
five or six years, maybe a little more in music
production called the loudness wars, and that has to do
with compression about like making something as loud as you can.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
The only way you can make something louder is by reducing.
Speaker 6 (38:41):
The peak value, like the luffs is what it's called
loudness units over time. And in order to do that,
you got to make the quiet parts, the loud parts quiet,
and the quiet parts loud so everything's the same. Then
you can just make the whole thing bigger, make the
whole thing louder. And it's not good because it reduces
the dynamics, and it reduces the you know, the differences
between loud and quiet, which is so much of what
(39:03):
makes music exciting and interesting.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I think, so there you go, y'all.
Speaker 6 (39:07):
Sorry if I went a little long on those interesting
talk about the Disney stuff and look forward to following
the the HBO.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Debacle as well. Are we max again?
Speaker 6 (39:17):
Now?
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Are we HBO max again? Now?
Speaker 6 (39:19):
Ben?
Speaker 4 (39:20):
Is it actually officially re rolled out?
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Well?
Speaker 6 (39:24):
I believe it's Max dot com here go, which is
so funny because the Wen already have Cinemax and anyway,
neither you're nor there. Let's take a quick break here,
work from a response, and they'll be back with some
more strange news.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
And we've returned.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
We're increasing the dynamics of this episode by going quieter here.
I've got two days. I want to start with you guys.
This is a bit of the downer part of the episode,
so apologies. We'll have some ups and downs in dynamics
as well, yep. But first of all, I just want
to say we were really saddened a lot of folks
(40:03):
on on my team and you guys probably as well,
because I been I know you had a little direct
I don't know if he had direct contact with this actor,
but he worked on a show that you also worked on, Yes,
Jonathan Joss, who was the voice of John Redcorn and
King of the Hill. He was a voice of I
think Chief Ken was the character's name on Parks and
(40:25):
rec a bunch of other stuff this actor has done.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
He unformed a tremendous person as well. Yeah, yeah, which
is way more important than like celebrity status, Like an actual,
genuine good dude.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, really cool verson that we got to work with personally,
and you know, be on zoom calls where he's recording
audio for a show that we made called Bridgewater, and
he's just a really great human being.
Speaker 6 (40:49):
I didn't know that that's that's my gosh.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Yeah, it was just really sad when we recorded with him.
I specifically remember the studio he was in at his house.
He had I don't even know, I didn't count how
many awesome lights he had in the background, but they
were all those like multicolored lights that did different things.
It looked like a party at his house, and it
was just a really cool vibe. Just gonna I'm just
(41:15):
very sad into that guy's passing.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Well, just the hatred behind the crime.
Speaker 6 (41:19):
I mean, it just seemed like there was a targeted
act of absolute homophobia and xenophobia and like just a
like just absolute, like a campaign of terror against this man.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
And I did not agree with the way a lot
of the initial reporting went, especially because they're missing those
those parts about hate crimes and harassment and prejudice. And
we have to remember, you know, whenever you hear stories
like this, it's different because we were personally connected with
an actually human being, right, we hear these stories the
(41:53):
ephemera that wants you to always just like clock into
the most vicious sounding thing and then to deify celebrities
who were just people. Just treat celebrities like people. It's
sick how this country is always asking people to deify
or vilify folks. You know. That's why I get tired
(42:14):
of celebrity news, because it's it's unfair to the subject,
it's unfair to the audience. But this was a really
genuinely good dude, and the manner of the harassment and
the crimes against him, I think it needs to be
further acknowledged because it's just unclean, are.
Speaker 6 (42:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's trigger warrion, and honestly,
some of the stuff that we're talking about, like harm
to animals and things like, I mean really really brutal, brutal, respicable,
and there is a person in custody, if I'm not mistaken.
I just was so direct floor by the headlines. I
did not even get that far.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And even though on a sad note, I think we
can find positivity. And here, Matt, I really appreciate you
bringing up and focusing on the fact that this human
being was again a tremendous, genuine and phenomenally talented person,
and I don't want to lose sight about that in
this crazy, just stupid rush people have about celebrities. You know.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Oh yeah, My big takeaway is just the positivity he
brought to you. Again, I only interacted with him virtually
over one of these that we're doing right now, but
just the positivity that shone through you know, his camera
and audio. You're like, oh dang, that is cool person.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
So that's a life we're sick too, right, Oh yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
I mean again, like it was part of that.
Speaker 6 (43:39):
Whole that's a personality thing, right, It's due that wanted
to be surrounded by quirky, fun funds, you know, like,
I mean, come.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
On, and he was so happy to be doing voice work,
and you're just like, yes, it is a cool job.
Awesome man, let's do this. So any let's let's Johonadan
will remember and we'll think more about that. We'll talk
more about it if we need to, but for now,
let's just one other thing I wanted to bring up here, Ben,
you were talking about those moments in history, like Franz
(44:07):
Ferdinand that will be looked back at historians, but maybe
not everybody in the present moment fully clocks the significance of.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
We'll be seen as a tipping point in retrospect exactly.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I just wanted to point out this thing that happened yesterday,
as we record on Tuesday, June third, there was a
you know, there's the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine
right now, and a lot of them. There's so many
news stories happening in cycles about everything that's happening there,
and so many developments, so many fronts, so many things
(44:41):
happening that's hard to even really see specific instances anymore,
at least for me as somebody who's attempting to observe
the whole thing. There's a moment that occurred on June
third where Ukraine forces used explosives over several months, like
planted explosives on a specific bridge that is a strategic
(45:03):
connection point from Russia into Crimea, which is an area
that they the country had previously annexed and you know,
fought a war over. But just the fact that these
strategic points of access for like bringing in more troops,
bringing in you know, more supplies, anything like that, or
being targeted, it feels like the kind of escalation, you know,
(45:27):
not only the stuff where there have been attacks like
deep within Russia from the Ukraine side, where a lot
of the people allied with Ukraine are sending longer range
missiles and things.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Now those forty one planes got absolutely walloped.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah, yeah, there's just stuff happening right now in that
In that situation, there feels like to me, it's going
to be the stuff that's written about as Oh and
then on this day this happened, which then triggered this
other thing, which then caused you know, full scale whatever.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Because there's somewhat around to write about it later.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, Yeah, that's the hope.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
That's that's the hope. Otherwise, in a world bereft of humans.
It's just going to be the descendants of chat GPT
rewriting their own interpretations of what was posted. You know
what I mean, because social media about Russian Ukraine in
the time the humans were around.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yeah, the time the humans were doing stuff. Speaking of
humans doing stuff. Oh wow, let's switch gears again. Yeah,
let's jump to a story. I think we talked about
it on listener mail. No, I think it was a
story you brought up, but I can't remember.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
It was this weird crypto case where there was some
kidnapping going oh yeah.
Speaker 6 (46:41):
Yeah, the torture, yeah, and like using electrodes and all
kinds of horrible pistol whipping, really really awful stuff.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yes. Eric Adams, number one New York City mayor.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah right, we're better than.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
The mayor and Ghostbusters guys. He's great for Turkey, He's
huge there.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
So okay, so let's just refresher one of these two guys,
John Willett's Woe Ltz and William Duplessi. These are two
gentlemen who are currently under investigation and charged with holding
this twenty eight year old, wealthy Italian cryptocurrency trader hostage
(47:18):
for several weeks. And the concept, at least according to authority,
is that those guys John and William were attempting to
get this person's Bitcoin password, and there was torture involved,
all kinds of stuff according to the findings and the
evidence in the place where these two gentlemen were keeping
this guy captive. There is a weird little wrinkle in
(47:39):
a little tiny news story that came out. And as
you said, Ben, you said, the keyword there new York
City Mayor Eric Adams. That's the keyword. The reason why
it's even newsworthy. There's a gentleman who was a part
of Eric adams security detail who allegedly is the human
being that picked up this guy that got cap was
(48:00):
held hostage. He picked him up from the airport and
took him to the place where he was held captive.
Speaker 4 (48:05):
No, I have not heard this.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Yes, but he was he was off duty at the time,
at least according to you know, he wasn't on his
Eric Adams detail.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Sure, it's a gig economy, it is, but that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
It actually is a gig economy. And if he works security,
and you've got somebody who's wealthy, who was paying you
to do stuff. Being you know, a chauffeur from the
airport isn't a big deal and may even not mean anything.
And he literally just dropped a guy off that he
thought was a guest of his employer. Right, but it
(48:39):
sure is weird to have those two worlds collide right there.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to hear more about that
news because it's funny. I was thinking about this earlier, Matt.
There's this confluence of the average person and being able
to learn more right at a faster pace, a more
shallow pace, but a definitely a faster pace than ever before.
(49:08):
And then the question becomes, are we seeing more connections
that have already existed? Are we discovering new connections? Or
has the entire world of the powerful also always been
kind of like this? And now you know, like, they're
not extra skeletons in the close I'm pointing at a closet.
They're not extra skeletons in the closet. They're just better flashlights. Now, yeah,
(49:33):
I mean, and I think the flashlight answer is correct.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
Yeah, phones even have a flashlight built in.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
It's crazy, dude, right, And they're also it feels like
there are more ways to reflect. I'm just joking.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
I was going to do a thing. He's got this.
Speaker 6 (49:50):
Yeah great, I think we might be getting into more
videos soon.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
But I boil.
Speaker 6 (49:55):
I wish you could see you're gonna have to go
on vacation again to that same exact resort.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
No, I'm just gonna build one of these.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Yeah, what are what are the mirror tariffs? Right now?
I haven't looked that up.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Wait, isn't that a thing in like esoteric thought that
if you put two mirrors facing each other you could
create a portal of some sort.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Well, fung Shui doesn't like it bad times. Yeah, it's
basically a Oija board for the wall.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Amazing. Well, let's build podcastingja boards and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Oh man, Okay, I have so many other Eric Adams
questions for off air, but yeah, okay, So again, what
we're saying is interesting confluence. Does it tell us anything
other than that's interesting?
Speaker 2 (50:43):
There's nothing other than it's just it's strange in it's news.
So guess what it's in this episode?
Speaker 3 (50:49):
There we got strange news segment.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
But last little thing I want to talk about today.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Guys, you remember that Jeffrey upstea guy. Oh yeah, it's
a court of law as a kangaroo course is well. A.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
There are two recent interviews that occurred on Fox News
where two very important, influential, powerful human beings went on
and gave separate interviews, and one of the topics that
came up in both of those interviews was Jeffrey Epstein.
And I just want to jump to this is all
to get this quote out on the air again, because
(51:29):
I think it's fascinating that it's still a question. People
are still interested. And then even the forces, the powerful
people that maybe believed or represent in some way, the
faction of people including me a little bit, who believe
that Jeffrey Epstein didn't just kill himself, that there was
(51:49):
something else to that, whether it was coercion or you know,
something occurred there to me for me personally, right, and
that's believed.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
I would say the majority of the US public agree.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
I think so too, But for me, I just have
to say it out loud, like when I'm talking about this,
it is my belief. It's not based on evidence, right,
It's based on looking at things and feeling a certain
way about it personally. But even somebody like, how do
he say his name, Dan Bungino, Dan Bungina, I don't
(52:23):
know how to say his name, Dan Bungino. Let's say
Dan Bungino. This is the current deputy director. He went
on Fox News gave an interview and they're discussing Jeffrey
Epstein's death, and Dan talks about the surveillance video that
is allegedly running there of the selling right outside the
cell that we talked about ages ago when all of
(52:44):
this went down, and Dan says that there's absolutely zero
forensic evidence that suggests that any other human being was
in that cell at any time between the last time
he was seen by the authorities and then when he
was found deceased. Here's the quote quote there's no DNA,
there's no audio, there's no fingerprints, there's no suspects, there's
(53:04):
no accomplices, there's no tips, there is nothing. And then
he said, if you have evidence, I am happy to
see it. The video is clear as day. He's the
only person in there and the only person coming out.
You can see it. And you know, to me, Dan
is one of these people who previously has talked about
like I don't know this seems fishy. This seems like
something really went down, and then he's actually finding himself
(53:26):
in a place where he can truly investigate, right, which
not many of us are going to get to that
position where you can really see all the stuff. You
could say, give me everything you got on Epstein and
he is saying, look, there's nothing there. If you got
some more information sent in my way because I want
to know, it does feel a little bit like we
(53:47):
can put the concept that he got physically murdered to bed,
but that it to me, leaves open that whole thing.
Did somebody have a conversation with him, or his attorney
or somebody it basically got to him that gave him
no choice?
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, right right, I mean the hyoid bone breaking is basic.
Is just basic physiology. At that point, the question that
you're asking is I believe the moristute question. In our
three part series on Epstein and then our later follow ups,
I think it's a question that we had to incorporate
(54:28):
in the conversation because of the fact that, yes, there
are suspicious circumstances, Yes there was a fog of war,
there was not enough information to draw a conclusive perspective
on However, I love the point you're making mad about
the deputy director, the guy who could probably get all
(54:52):
the evidence. Maybe, but it's still there's so much just
there is. It's stinks man, Somethings are rotten in the
lock up.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
But then you've also got Cash, buttel the actual facts
shut out FBI director coming out and saying, hey, yeah,
we're actively working on this.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
Still yeah, and he's super qualified.
Speaker 4 (55:15):
Well, plus the name is Cash and that's a sweat name.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Whatever the qualifications. But people in the positions to do
the looking are there and they want to do the looking,
and they are doing the looking. So I'm interested to
see if anything else comes out.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
Same, especially given the administration's foot dragging of releasing connections
or releasing you know, the so called Little Black Book information.
Even if it, you know, let's play game theory for
a moment. If there's nothing bad, if it does indeed
support improve the existing mainstream narrative and at the same
(55:55):
time disproved multiple points of speculation and conspiracy theory, then
why wouldn't you release it post taste? Why wouldn't you
come out like if you're not really committee to agro terrorism,
why wouldn't you tell the FBI immediately, you know, why
would you try to lie? That's a teaser for something
(56:16):
that will happened later this week.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
You might not say anything if you're the acting president
and you I'm just joking, right, or you know, the
Prince of England or whatever.
Speaker 4 (56:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
God, yeah, never get it. You know, he doesn't sweat,
is what he said.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
The President of the United States and a Prince of
England both implicated the same guy.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
Yeah, like prince yeah, well like a deputy prince.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Anyway, we'll learn more about that. One last thing to
ruin your week, just a little bit. If you've got time,
head on over to the Guardian Slash Environment slash series
slash the Age of Extinction. It's a whole thing that
The Guardian has a whole series about the Age of extinction.
(57:11):
We all find ourselves in right now.
Speaker 3 (57:14):
Yeah. It reminds me, Matt of Low those many years
ago when we were we were looking into neo nicotinoid
effects on honeybee populations, which hadn't been proven at that time.
And then also we started talking about insect population collapse.
Thanks to the help of several academics and fellow conspiracy
(57:37):
realist in the crowd. The think about these stories, which
I'm sure have to irritate so many scientists, is that
it has been shouted from the proverbial rooftops and the
tree top canopies for so long. It's happening, and it's
so easy for people to say, well, it's not happening
to me directly, or it's not affecting me directly, therefore
(57:59):
it's not really happening. But it's coming to your door soon,
you know, faster than dominoes.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
Oh it is, And it's genuinely truly terrifying. It's existential
threat level stuff. If you look at the subtitle of
The Guardian's Age of Extinction series, it says reporting on
our catastrophic species loss and ways to tackle the biodiversity crisis,
which is nice. They've got that in the end, right.
(58:27):
So the thing we always try and do, what's the
positive thing, what's the action, what's the good stuff? The
problem is we're in a catastrophic species lost situation and
there is a story you can read right now, and
I wish you would. Again, not going to be great
for your psyche, but will be good for you to
know and to think about it. Is titled half the
(58:47):
Tree of Life colon Ecologists horror as nature reserves are
emptied of insects, And it's specifically going on a couple
of different entomologists paths. It follows them one particular guy
who studied a basically moths and all kinds of insects
and a bunch of different species out in Costa Rica.
(59:11):
And this it's a beautiful story about when he was
brutally injured and he put up sheets around his bed
where he was confined out in the wilderness, and would
turn a light on inside those sheets, right, and the
number of moths, the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
moths that would gather on his sheet at night and
(59:32):
he would study them, and then doing the same thing today,
you know, several decades later, and there are a few
moths and all of the wilderness that show up on
that sheet, which should be like it should be every
moth within a certain vicinity.
Speaker 3 (59:49):
Right, especially you know, depending on the environmental circumstances. But
the frightening thing here, and I think any of us
who have just me personally spending like a lot of
time in the wild, you need to realize this is
on a Nature reserve. These are in areas of the
wild where human encroachment is purposely limited. Yes, and that also,
(01:00:10):
like any of us who do enjoy being outdoors, if
you are past a certain age, you have noticed a
steep decline in a lot of wildlife, right, and it's
it's frightening. It's a political it's real, it's happening. Please Also,
and since we talked about positive note, I do have
one thing to add. There's a Popular Science article that
(01:00:35):
gives us maybe some other news about insects. Researchers have
recently genetically altered fruitflies so that they crave cocaine.
Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
Oh jeez, that's what we need, cooked up fruit flies.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Right, the time has come.
Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
This guy's got a lot of fruitflies in his apartment.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Right, that's his that's his sheet. Three eggs over for
the moths. That's how Oh, that's how they'll bust folks
in the.
Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
Future, like a moth to a coach.
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
That's actually a really good idea for law enforcement. Isn't
it terrifying? You had a fruitfly swarm gun step aside
super soakers. Oh oh jeez, okay, wait, I thought it
was a funny point. And then we made it. It's
a terrifying real one.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
It's all black mirror now all the way down, so
all the way down. And that's all I've got.
Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Guys, folks, thank you so much for joining us. We
hope this strange news segment has found you well. We
cannot wait to hear your thoughts. Is a mass surveillance database. Good?
What's your position on nature and nature and coming collapses
and apocalypsis? And I'm doing that on purpose because I'm
(01:01:44):
still learning English. Tell us your thoughts on Disney, and
of course, tell us your favorite weird amusement parks. We
cannot wait to hear from you. You can give us
a call on the phone. You can always send us
a good old fashioned email, or you can message us
on social media so Pallenteer gets a better read on
all of us. I'm kidding. They have the emails too,
(01:02:06):
I imagine.
Speaker 6 (01:02:06):
So if you'd like, you can find us all over
the internetit your social media platform of choice. We are
Conspiracy Stuff on YouTube, which is kind of a social
media platform or a streaming thing. I don't even know
what it is. It's comments. You can't comment on Netflix.
You can find us at Conspiracy Stuff on that as
well as on Facebook. We have our Facebook group here
is where it gets crazy, and on xfka, Twitter, on
(01:02:28):
Instagram and TikTok or conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 4 (01:02:32):
On the phone lines.
Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
We are one eight three three st d WYTK. When
you call in, you will find yourself inside a voicemail.
You have three minutes to be in that voicemail. Give
yourself a cool nickname in there and let us know
whether or not we can use your name and message
on the air. If you'd like to instead send us words,
(01:02:53):
why not send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Hundreds of prisoners have escaped after an earthquake
in Pakistan. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this 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,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realist, if
you are tuning in to our strange news program the
Evening It publishes, let us be the first to welcome
(00:50):
you to Monday, June ninth, twenty twenty five. Oh, we're
still at the beginning of June. Guys, do we have
any life lessons from our time spent in May?
Speaker 4 (01:03):
I know, I know it had to be May. That's all.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
I Just try your absolute best to stay away from
Georgia Pollin because my god, well we went through May
and in April.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Just cover it touches.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
It's almost as though the climate is changing a little bit,
or maybe we're getting old. I had a little life
advice for anybody. This may come in handy for a
certain percentage of our demographic. This is not news. But folks,
if you are doing a persona in an unfamiliar situation,
be very everybody thinks about appearance, but be very careful
(01:46):
with your voice and your cadence. Because I got made.
Speaker 6 (01:49):
Yeah may he told us that off air, it's always
cool to get voice clocked.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
Happened to me as well. I was getting a tattoo.
Speaker 6 (01:56):
And guys, did you see that Joey Fatone in Saints
speaking of It's got to be in May is shilling
for a red lobster. Now, yeah, I did not, Man, great,
I saw. You know how all the social media's of
these big restaurant chains try to get real cute, and
so they're doing a campaign where it looks like a
Tiger Beat magazine cover, but it's Joey Fatone just housing
(02:19):
fried shrimp and just shilling for nineteen ninety nine endless
shrimp for reading.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I love that, and you know those chains need the
help right now. We didn't have this for strange news,
but McDonald's has suffered the worst US sales decline in
five years, and they're they're blaming it on anti American
sentiment and not the fact that the ice cream is
always broken and the food stuff that.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Cot well, I think they fixed the ice cream problem.
They they made so.
Speaker 7 (02:47):
Music conspiracy with the third party, not exactly.
Speaker 6 (02:51):
But also I don't know if you go to mc
I go to McDonald's every now, and they just won
in my house, and they really are pushing this like
are you gonna use your points today?
Speaker 4 (02:58):
And I just want to yeah, get that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Know.
Speaker 6 (03:01):
I think most people probably say no, but they ask
you verbally every single time, So that seems a little
desperate to me.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, yeah, I mean because then massive data collection can
become an entirely new revenue stream. Also, I didn't know this. Guys.
Remember Rob Thomas, He's a fan of a show that
we work with called Wrongful Conviction. Oh cool, of course,
just mentioning people in that musician mill you. But maybe, look,
we have a lot that we're going to touch on.
(03:29):
We're going to talk some dangerous stuff about Disney. We
are going to have some updates from jail videos and
the FBI, some talk about our favorite New York City mayor.
Before we do any of that, maybe we pause for
a word from our sponsors and then follow up on
this concept of mass collection of data as a revenue stream.
(03:52):
I'm here for it, and we have return heard our
first non McDonald's story this evening. You may have heard
of a little group called Pallenteer p A l A
N t R. Now we've talked about these guys a
(04:13):
little bit in the past. Correct, mm hmmm.
Speaker 6 (04:17):
Only I clearly didn't get the memo because I really
didn't realize exactly how evil they were until you brought
this up just now, Ben.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Oh, well, their actions are evil for sure. And we
were talking offline and you said, yeah, the stock.
Speaker 4 (04:33):
Is actually doing very I didn't know. Someone just I've
got a couple of Stock friends that were just like,
you should get in on this thing.
Speaker 6 (04:39):
It's you know, whatever data, you know, brokering or whatever.
And I just knew the basics of it. But now
I'm feeling very on the fence about holding this, so
I may just let it go, even though, yes, Ben,
it is doing very well.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Well. It maybe because they're citing more and more quite
lucrative government contracts. The head line here. We could go
to the New Republic for this one. This went live
on May thirtieth, but people already knew what was happening.
The current US presidential administration is tapping the tech giant
(05:15):
Palenteer to create a master database on every single American.
And this article we're recommending comes from the journalist Hafiz Rashid.
But before we get into this particular dystopia, let's go
ahead and note a brief background of Palenteer. So Palenteer
(05:37):
is what you would call a data and analytics company
similar to Cambridge Analytica. Check out our episodes on that.
It was co founded by the current president and a
big campaign donor named Peter Teel. And what they're doing
right now is really streamlining and aggregating. If you live
(06:02):
in the US, you are already we joke about being
on a list, right, but you're already on so many lists.
Not all of them are bad. There's just this pedopoly
of government databases that already have information about you know,
your bank account number, your medical claims, disabilities, student loan debts.
It's just not in one central place. So now Pallunteer,
(06:26):
the stock price might go up because they are going
to create a master database. This comes to us from
the New York Times as well, which originally broke the story,
So let's make sure to shout out the journalist Shira
Frankel and Aaron Krolik. This dates back to March when
the current administration signed in executive order the EO, the
(06:50):
superpower of the President said, look, federal government share data
across agencies and this is worrisome before for a lot
of people. Before we go into more of than nitty gritty,
what's your initial reaction. Do you think a private tech
company should be tapped to create this master list of
(07:13):
everyone's everything?
Speaker 6 (07:15):
No, boys, that line gotten blurred between private and public.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Yeah, so that's one vote against.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, well I'm for it, guys, what vote I think
it's I think is very strange the way all of
this is happening and being rolled out, because it is
it's a government. It's government money to the tune of
what almost eight hundred million, like or it's close to that,
like eight hundred million dollars.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, that's counting. It's a little over because there was
a do D contract for seven hundred and ninety five
million that Palenteer got, and then before then, since the
beginning of the current administration, Palnteer got more than a
little north of one hundred and thirteen million. Good.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
So, okay, so they're taking in all this money, right,
they're a private company. They have a piece of software,
right that basically is this data aggregation thing holding all
of this data, separating it out, being able to search it,
right and house it. That's what is it foundry foundry. Okay,
(08:27):
so they've got this thing. So theoretically what they're doing.
All they're doing is just going out and talking to
the other agencies, right, just saying, hey, you should use
our stuff too, guys, Department of Homeland Security, you're already
using our stuff. Thanks. And they've got a couple others, right,
But then they're going to all the other places like
medicare selective service. So it is, I don't know, it
(08:50):
doesn't feel like the nefarious act of building this giant database.
It feels like a private company just trying to get there.
They're a version of Adobe software in everywhere or you know.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
All right, so that's a vote for it.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
You're just saying, it's not much different than a lot
of third party companies whose bread and butter are like
these suites of tools that giant corporations end up going
all in behind like.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
They want to everybody have the enterprise version.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
That's right, Like Microsoft does not care if you buy
an Xbox, you know what I mean, that's not where
they make their money.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
But how many of those companies use like Windows right, right?
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Exactly?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
How many? How many companies use you know, as you said,
enterprise software sort of like a lot of auto or
vehicle or construction manufacturers make money off fleet deals, right,
make money off government contracts. You know, it's not gonna
it's not going to screw them over if you wait
a year to buy your camera.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yes, right, oh so oh just on that too. I'm sorry,
I don't mean to do realist please. Something that's weird
that I never really thought about. Guys, most vehicles that
are you know, pass a certain year have a little
thing attached to the rear view mirror that opens garages,
and almost all of them are the exact same thing.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Flipper zero is entered the chat said, you're gonna be cool.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
It's really creepy.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
It's yeah, because you can program each one of those
things to anything that can project a signal out that
opens garage doors and all. It's all the same.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Tech and the active monitoring right now, insurance companies. Privatized
car insurance companies are giving people opt in methods to
save a little scratch as long as you agree to
constant monitoring and surveillance. I'm anti surveillance, and I think
the argument that if you're doing nothing wrong, you should
(10:47):
have nothing to worry about is intellectually fraudulent. It is
purposely misleading. So how long before it becomes an opt
out thing that you pay extra or will people simply
skip that step? In every car manufactured after insert year
here is required to have that constant monitoring for security
(11:10):
and safety purposes, You guys, security and safety the waymos
are already expanding through Atlanta?
Speaker 4 (11:17):
Are they really really?
Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (11:19):
I saw one. I saw it in the wild, and
you know what, it almost screwed up at a crosswalk.
I'm sure the technology will get back.
Speaker 6 (11:25):
Well, that's the thing though. That's interesting. I heard a
conversation on a podcast or a YouTube show recently where
Weymo's been at this for a long time and they're
still not great. Whereas Tesla is about to unleash their
cyber taxis on the world, and they're not using infrared
or whatever it is laser technology.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
They're just using low pixel.
Speaker 6 (11:46):
Count cameras and they haven't really road tested these, and
we already know the problems with their self driving stuff
and how self driving has been promised and even their
flagship vehicles and never fully rolled out as self driving.
So Elon Musk, like, in an effort to appease stockholders
or you know, finally keep a promise, is doing this
with the cyber taxis. And to your point, Ben, the Waimos,
(12:09):
there's always stories coming out about how they're not great
and they use much higher tech and have been testing
for much longer on actual roads.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
And in their defense, I don't like the phrase Devil's advocate.
I did rewatch the film good. The monologues are great,
the ending needs some work, but yeah, I love it.
I love it. I've got a word for doing that
monologue years back. But the point I want to make
in their defense is that, you know, we have to
remember it took humans thousands and thousands of years of
(12:40):
trying to fly and then immediately dying for someone to
invent a plane. So maybe we're a plane that didn't
kill you automatically, So maybe we're we're seeing another progression
in that way. But we've talked about the danger of
autonomous vehicles, not necessarily just in terms of technology, but
(13:01):
in terms of what humans do with that technology, that surveillance,
that ability to shut down a grid during a protest
such that no one can drive away right or drive
toward a situation or a conflict. This is one of
the big concerns. This pollunteer thing happens with a context
(13:21):
wherein people are legitimate US residents and being deported right
even with guilt by association, like a family that recently
got deported. We're seeing the massive unforced error we would
call that and go the unforced error of creating brain
drain in the United States by deporting international students who
(13:45):
legally reside there. We're also seeing the palateer program happening
in step with the recent report that ICE has accessed
a nationwide license plate network, which means there's further surveillance
by ICE.
Speaker 6 (14:03):
We also, I mean, I don't know if you guys
have ever gotten one of those robotickets where they just
snap your license plate and then you get something in
the mail. I mean that tech freaks me out and
I find it inconvenient. Boy, is it ever hard to
contest and there's going to come a point where these
things are impossible to contest. Not to mention, the way
ICE is scooping up people. Contesting is sort of not
even part of that deal, at least as far as
(14:25):
some of the people in power would like it.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
And I want to stay yeah, I hear you. I
want to stick with this ICE story because the news
will probably get exaggerated or get spin depending upon who
who is reporting it or what source. Folks who are
supportive of ICE are going to say, you know, this
is ensuring safety, this is helping us with new tools
(14:50):
to find the bad guys. Folks who are opponents of
ICE or the current methods of that organization are going
to say this is further government overreach and what whatever
the justifications may be, it will be used for something
nefarious or perhaps indeed unconstitutional in the future. So it's
important to know the facts. ICE has indirectly accessed an
(15:12):
outfit called Flock Safety, and they're doing this by mass
requesting searches through local and state law enforcement agencies. Just
like the past year, there have been more than four
thousand immigration related lookups, which means someone doesn't necessarily even
have a moving violation they just get their license clocked.
(15:36):
And now imagine that feeding in to the palanteer eye
of soro on right, and now imagine all the variables
you can use to target someone you know. Okay, first
it was people who were illegally in the United States,
that part is true. But then it becomes people who
are not US citizens but are legal residents of the
(15:59):
United States, like kids on a on a student visa.
And then what comes next? Do we get to people
who are part of the culture war demographic targets like LGBTQ.
Does it does it stop? What happens to the professors? Right?
Does it go further to the professors? How long do
we have you guys, it's podcasters. They'll get Robert Evans first.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Yeah, yeah, well, at least before us. Do we think
the ISPs and like verizons and t mobiles of the
world are also caught up in all this stuff already
because of the previous stuff we've talked about, so it
right now, it's like, if you drive a vehicle, your
(16:45):
vehicle gets scanned by this flock safety thing. If you've
got a license plate, even if you don't have a
license plate, you've got a specific dealer plate or something.
It's got numbers on it can be tracked. Then you're
if you're using your cellular device that's being tracked, which people.
Speaker 6 (17:00):
Are all using for data all the time. So there's
tons of stuff flowing through those networks, right.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Well, then that number is probably connected to one or
more of those databases you're talking about. Ben So then
it literally, it literally is aggregated everything. It's what's that
movie we always talk about, Minority Reports, that's.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
The minority Yeah, the pre crime calculation. Yeah, shout out
with Dart. And the thing is, we don't we don't
need cinematic sci fi dystopia to explain nefarious actions as
as they occur. Uh, Dystopian society grows gradually one time.
(17:43):
You know, one day, you rarely get a sudden moment
of revelation. You turn around one day and you're older
than you thought you would be, and you don't recognize
the place you live in anymore.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
It's not that's how it happens. It's not how we
experience time. It's just kind of like a frog boiling at.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
This situation, right, Y'll be terrifying that there was a
dystopia button. I mean, I guess nuclear all nuclear war
is the dystopia button.
Speaker 7 (18:10):
Other than that, it's defined by future historians, and that
effect or that moment is often achieved in fiction or
science fiction with the narrative device of time travel, where
someone steps out of a portal and everything's all.
Speaker 4 (18:25):
Ft up, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah, yeah, but it usually takes the later work of
scholars and historians totally, and whomever owns the current prevailing
Zeitgeister narrative, it takes them to look back and say,
you know, this is the moment Franz Ferdinand, when Franz
Ferdinand was assassin with.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
The band Okay, people were.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Saying, yeah, when the Black Hand assassinated Franz Ferdinand. People
newspaper reports at the time where of course running the story,
but they were running other stories too. You know. There
was a guy who's like, no, the way the world's
going to end is all these people wanting balustrades. The
balustrade industry simply can't meet the demand of all these
(19:08):
people by balustrades. And someone was like, I don't know,
both sides are correct.
Speaker 6 (19:13):
Archduke kind of became the hot button thing through revisionist history,
or rather like an assessment of history and trying to
boil it down to an understandable narrative.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Right, yeah, functions thereof you know, and if we're talking
about I don't want to go too lower this. If
we're talking about those apocalyptic moments. One thing we've seen
often in this show is not just apocalyptic moments defined
by human society, but defined by the actions of the
natural world. So if we continue this podcast for the
(19:47):
next fifteen human years, we may have a follow up
to a study that recently published that says toxic fungui
will or fungi your choicers are your own, will threaten
millions of lives within within that timeframe, within fifteen years.
This is of course on par with other predictions. Whenever
(20:11):
I read news like this, guys, I just can't help
but think of that time everybody told us we were
crazy and controversial for pointing out neo nikotinoid's damaging effects
on honeybee populations, and it turned out we were right,
or the people who did the studies were right. They
were just ignored. So if you want to read more
about that, go to Popular Mechanics excellent article by Darren Orf,
(20:35):
who's citing the latest studies when his work and apocalypse
of toxic fungi could threaten millions of lives within fifteen years.
We're going to pause for word from our sponsors. We
want to hear your thoughts on mass surveillance, human political
apocalypses or natural still human created apocalypses. Yeah, have a
(20:59):
great type at the abreak. We'll be back with more
strange news. No, look, can we go to Disney.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
Boy, let's do it. Let's go to Disneyland.
Speaker 6 (21:12):
And we've returned and we've got our Mickey Matt or
Mini whichever you know, dealer's choice, hats on and eaten
some I don't know, themed ice cream of some sort,
perhaps also mouse shaped, and we're seeing that beautiful vista
of the Cinderella's Castle on the horizon. We're just full
of wonder and joy as we walk into Disneyland or.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
World side note I do I do fondly recall one
of those videos where we did where you know, use
the phrase iced creams iced cream.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
I think I probably stold the over annunciation from my
buddy Matt Berry don't actually know him, would love to
huge fan. But disney Land, World, the Magic Kingdom, whichever
you prefer whichever one is more in your neck of
the woods. Has long been an innovator in theme park technology.
Let's just say early versions of these theme parks, or Disneyland,
(22:07):
let's just say the very first one, have incorporated cutting
edge for the time animatronics, some of which the vintage
versions have stuck around, like the Country Bear Jamboree.
Speaker 4 (22:18):
I think they only just recently retired.
Speaker 6 (22:20):
That one, but either when I was in Disneyland not
too too long ago, a couple of years ago, I
got to see that, and I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
It's no longer there. But a lot of.
Speaker 6 (22:28):
Fun, a lot of kind of weird, uncanny Valley Chuck
e Cheese esque, but a little bit you know better animatronics.
We also, of course know about the Hall of Presidents,
where you can see your favorite presidents personified through robotic forms,
including Abraham Lincoln, who gives little you know excerpts from
his Gettysburg address. Well, the Walt Disney Company, which of
(22:50):
course now owns Star Wars, Disney a ton of other
properties as well, like all of the Pixar stuff that's all.
Speaker 4 (22:59):
Under this umbrella. Now you can stream it all on
Disney Plus. Not an ad.
Speaker 6 (23:04):
They and their leadership, Bob iger Is, the CEO of Disney,
are getting criticized pretty hardcore by relatives of the late
Walt Disney for their decision to roll out an exhibit,
an animatronic exhibit in Anaheim and Disneyland, an experience. They
call it the Imagineers, wherein people will be able to
(23:27):
hang out with an animatronic representation of Walt Disney himself.
The experience was described at the D twenty three event
is where Disney kind of rolls out their slates and
all of their new theme park stuff last summer, described
as being able to experience what.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
It would have been like to be in Walt's presence.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
However, Walt Disney's granddaughter is super super non on board
with this and says Walt wouldn't have been either. Joanna Miller,
in a Facebook post recently in the last couple of days,
called the the idea of this a robot imposter and
warned that Disney execs were dehumanizing the memory of her grandfather.
(24:13):
She goes on to say and her post, people are
not replaceable. You cannot add life to a robot empty
of a soul or essence of the man, I think
that's fascinating on a couple of fronts, because of course
Disney did pioneer animatronics, and they, you know, Walt Disney
was all about that, and you know they've done it
with presidents and every time there's a new president, I
(24:33):
believe I'm not.
Speaker 4 (24:35):
Mistaken, they add it to the whole president's right.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Well, they get in front of it too, which is
why there's one that looks kind of trumpish, kind of glintonish.
But I was asking that exact question off air, and
I'm glad you brought it up here, like is it not?
Could people not see that as somewhat hypocritical?
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
I have sensitivity for families of estates NOL. Do we
know if this descendant of Walt himself is actively working
in the company, because I think if that was the case,
then they would never the conversation, would never have gotten this.
Speaker 6 (25:09):
If I'm not mistaken, the entire Disney family is no
longer a decision making any I'm not sure if there
are other survivors of the Disney line other than this granddaughter.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
And I apologize, but I think for.
Speaker 6 (25:20):
Our purposes here, I do know that there is no
decision making power anymore coming from the Walt Disney family,
which is why this is more point of protest and
you know, bad taste being acknowledged than it is some
kind of actionable item, because Joanna Miller in her post
asked for people's support in helping convince the company in
(25:43):
all caps to you know, scrap plans to do this
abandon the robot of Grandpa, she says, most importantly, and
this is I think the kicker here. That's very interesting
and to your point, Ben, and what I was bringing
up as well. Most importantly, I learned that Grandpa told
Sam McKim, which I believe must have been an old
colleague perhaps someone who was also once connected to the company,
(26:06):
clearly a confidante, that he never wanted to be an animatronic.
Marty Sklar, who was an early imagineer, a founder of
this whole kind of division, I think, along with I Works,
who is also a person who was very close to
Disney and invented some very very important innovative devices and
(26:28):
technologies and processes, all of which you can see by
the way and the history at an incredible place that
I probably pitched before on the show called the Disney
Family Museum in San Francisco that is funded and or
operated by the Walt Disney Family Trust.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
So that is a good example too of where.
Speaker 6 (26:46):
You can see their version of the memory of Waltz
and his innovations. How that differs from the company line
on all of that stuff. It's a really neat place.
I do highly recommend you check it out. Marty Scalar
taught the imagineers. She says he knew Grandpa's wishes. So
the idea of a robotic Grandpa to give the public
(27:07):
a feeling of who the living man was, which is
the stated purpose of this exhibit. The idea literally that
came from the statement about it at D twenty three
just makes no sense. It would be an impost. They
are dehumanizing him. People are not replaceable. You could never
get the casualness of his talking, interacting with the camera,
his excitement to show and tell people about what is
(27:29):
new at the park, etc. You cannot add life to
one empty of a soul or essence of the man
knowing that he did not want this, having your predecessors
tell you that this was out of bounds, so so
sad and disappointed.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
It's extra interesting too.
Speaker 6 (27:44):
Considering that Bob Ayger's been mega under fire for some
kind of not great decisions that have been made around
their reboots of classic animated films that are beloved as
these live action kind of I'm just gonna say where
I land on it abominations, I would say that word
is appropriate. Some of them are just kind of missing
(28:06):
the point of what made the animated films good in
the first place. And there's just that uncaddy valley ness
of it all too. And the snow White rollout has
obviously been plagued with catastrophe. It's the biggest bomb of
any of these that they've ever put out, if I'm
not mistaken. And the star Rachel Ziggler on the kind
of press trail for that just made some really not
(28:26):
great comments about the original version that alienated basically anybody
that would have been into the movie, and nobody went
and saw it. So this seems like another and a
long line of kind of those kind of missteps by
the Walt Disney Company and mister Bob. I here, what
do you guys think that any thoughts of the contradictions here? Maybe,
And like the obviously Disney was a huge innovator of animatronics,
(28:48):
but that he himself did not want to be given
that treatment.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
I wonder if Abraham Lincoln wanted exactly a guy, and
like how you would have felt about that. I don't know.
I think if you're going to have those things, having
the guy that invented it in many ways or the
guy that created it become one is actually kind of cool.
(29:13):
But nowadays you don't really need that. You could just
have a an AI generated version of him, right that
uses his previous interviews, and that dude could show you
around the park if you wanted to. That's cool, but
that would probably be considered horrifying as well. But if
that's horrifying for the guy that created this thing that
(29:34):
led us down this path, then what are we doing?
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I hear you on that, Matt. That that was my
point too. You know, like, first, yes, we could argue
a hypocritical but second it goes into some very logical considerations.
I really appreciate you bringing up there because the philiposophical
aspects we're bringing up here too. It touches on the
idea of agency, Like when we're talked about that kerfuffle
about purported AI George Carlin stuff exactly. So the question
(30:07):
then is, I don't know. It's tough to parse because
the primary issue is you can't ask Walt Disney about it.
But to Matt's point, what if we made an AI
emulator of Walt Disney with all the data we could
collect and then ask that, right, asked Walt two point?
Oh you felt about it, but it's only black mirror
(30:31):
till it's real, you know.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
And that question is do you want a body?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, exactly, and then.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
I want a body?
Speaker 3 (30:41):
Come on, how did you really feel about uh, you know,
were you really anti semitic?
Speaker 4 (30:46):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Geez, yeah, yeah, I opened that back of words. But
this maybe I don't know, man like, who can who
can make the call? Does the estate have the rights
to Walt Disney's like that?
Speaker 4 (30:57):
I don't know. It's surely not. You know how lawyered
up these companies would get.
Speaker 6 (31:02):
I mean, I don't think they would have put in
the planning and made the announcement if they couldn't legally
do it. So I think at this point it's just
a protest thing and calling it the tasteless. And then
of course the imagineers and the folks at Disney are
defending it. It's interesting because when I went to Disney
this last time for the first time in many years.
At Epcott, they have this ride called Spaceship Earth, which
is like this cool time traveling space ride that sort
(31:25):
of shows you the one my.
Speaker 4 (31:26):
Founding of civilization exactly.
Speaker 6 (31:28):
And in my mind I was like, I swear there
is a Walt Disney animatronic in that because it was
so his thing. But there definitely isn't, uh and there
never has been. And this is a that's why this
is such a big deal. So hm, I don't know,
it's it's it's a it's a it's a pickle.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I guess what I think?
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Yeah, what do you think that?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
I think Disney needs to up their game.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
I remember what I was gonna say. Sorry, Matt, those
do it.
Speaker 6 (31:52):
This is interesting too because of all the conspiracies around
Walt Disney life extension stuff.
Speaker 4 (31:56):
And preserving them.
Speaker 6 (31:59):
And all that is kind of them trying to do that,
keeping him alive in a way, but also his state
representatives of it are not down with that. I'm so sorry, Matt.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
I was just trying.
Speaker 3 (32:09):
What were you thinking?
Speaker 2 (32:10):
That it's a way more realistic version of extending life
than freezing some stuff.
Speaker 3 (32:15):
We know that the technology is just not there. It's
just that it's because water expands at a certain tip.
I'm not gonna do it. I'm not going to do
it today.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
It's a whole thing. But uh, what I was gonna
say is Disney's up their game. All of these theme
parks are magical wonderlands, right. But my son just got
back from Universal and they had a new one that
I didn't even know existed. That's like Epic Universe or something.
Speaker 4 (32:42):
Brand new day a day or two old, I swear.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
But my son got to hang out in Donkey Kong
Country and he was in it.
Speaker 4 (32:48):
And take my money.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
There's a Mario Kart joking, my god.
Speaker 4 (32:56):
I'm going, I'm going that's my stuff, dude. Oh that
sounds amazing.
Speaker 3 (33:00):
There's a Nintendo World I think opening up in US
pretty soon. I'm actually what I'm talking about. I think
that's where that must be it because they that go
to the one in Japan later because I guess.
Speaker 6 (33:12):
Yeah, I guess the Mario movie was under Universal, so that, yeah,
that makes sense.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
All I know is it's crazy cool.
Speaker 3 (33:20):
Folks, tell us your favorite and most unusual amusement or
theme parks that you have visited. I am a big
fan of amusement parks, especially the propagandistic ones in other countries.
Speaker 6 (33:32):
In Japan, there's like a Yokai themed amusement park, or
maybe it's even.
Speaker 4 (33:37):
A whole city.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
I've been to the Kai town.
Speaker 4 (33:39):
Okay, that must be it.
Speaker 6 (33:40):
But then I also saw there's a poop themed amusement
park that just I've heard of.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
It in Japan. I haven't been.
Speaker 6 (33:46):
It's about the wonders of sanitation. It's like got a message.
Speaker 3 (33:50):
Yeah, well, you gotta have something that doesn't just say
we're in dapu. Yeah right, yeah, and sanitations is important.
To brillion people die every year due to lack of
potable water, So I get it. But that's a great
example there. It's as long as you can add this
(34:11):
is for an important reason. At the very end of
whatever weird thing you're doing, you can get a pass
and you can make an amusement park. For sure. God,
I want to hear about new and strange amusement parks
we haven't visited yet. Gosh, that must be so new
that what you call it epic universe?
Speaker 6 (34:29):
Yeah, it was just ribbon cut like a week or
two ago. So your your son got very lucky and
getting to catch that so early. Are you serious?
Speaker 4 (34:37):
Look, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
He was with his mom and they ended up there
and he just told me all about.
Speaker 6 (34:41):
Also switch to Drop Day this week coming out on Friday,
New Mario Kart, Mario Kart World Mario. It hasn't been
a new Mario Kart in over a decade or at
least a decade, So I'm pumped.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
That's awesome.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
Well, jeez, guys, we went we went on about Disney
for a lot longer than I thought I did.
Speaker 4 (34:59):
Just want to little tie in story.
Speaker 6 (35:02):
David Zaslov, who's also another you know, CEO of entertainment
Conglomo that's under fire and been under fire.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Who full disclosure, we have met.
Speaker 6 (35:12):
We've met him, but he used to be the CEO
of Discovery, you know, I'm sorry, still still is Warner
Brothers Discovery, and we initially were acquired by Discovery. That
was like right when I joined the company. And he
is being sort of chastised by the board.
Speaker 4 (35:30):
The company's executives, who.
Speaker 6 (35:32):
Are who held a symbolic non binding vote against the
executive payout package of around fifty more than rather fifty
million dollars that he's due, so they're saying that he's
not doing great at his decision making. All the debacle
around HBO streaming HBO, HBO Max HBO Max HBO, we
(36:00):
don't even know. It's bad, real bad dilution kind of stuff.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Back of how yep BO.
Speaker 6 (36:06):
We've also seen a lot of backlash against some of
their prized brands, like the House of the Dragons. The
Game of Thrones spin off kind of had a little
bit of a petering out in its audience because there
were not that many episodes.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
It felt like they were cutting corners.
Speaker 6 (36:21):
So seasons have gotten a lot shorter, and most recently
the season the second season of the Last of Us
has absolutely been lambasted by fans and critics alike. Seems
like nobody liked it, and it also seems to be
victim of some cuts. So yeah, they're they're saying it's
not a good idea to do that, they're against it,
(36:41):
but it's non binding, so he's definitely still going to
get every dollar of that, so there you go.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Gosh.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
I had a couple other stories.
Speaker 6 (36:49):
Guinea pigs have been forced to listen to adele in
order to test out how music audio compression affects our
brains and our ears specifically are hearing. Compression is a
tool in audio production that basically makes quiet parts loud
and loud parts quiet, evening them out so there's no
dynamic range the aka difference between the loudest and the
(37:11):
quietest parts of the music. And if anybody's a musician
or into that, you know that that's where a lot
of tension drama comes from, is having quiet bits and things,
you know, opening up and classical music for sure. Dynamics
is a term that's used often, but this is more
referring to dynamics in terms of the actual analyzing of
the audio waveform. It turns out that when you compress
(37:31):
stuff and it make it just consistently loud all the time,
it doesn't give our brains time to reset and our
ears time to rest.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
And it's bad.
Speaker 6 (37:39):
So guinea pigs that were subjected to seven days of
Adele's music in compressed and uncompressed form suffered more significant
hearing damage when they expose to the compressed form, which,
if you're into audio stuff in production that do it
does make sense, but it's interesting that that's being codified now,
(37:59):
so it.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Wasn't non stop adele right.
Speaker 6 (38:04):
I don't know exactly exactly what kind of rests or
breaks they got, but that would be really cruel and
the kind of thing you'd see in like black sites
or whatever. But on poor little guinea pigs, who you know,
it's not funny you always hear guinea pigs used to
stand in for like test subjects, right, if you never
really hear guinea pigs being used in this way, at
least I don't.
Speaker 4 (38:22):
Maybe I don't read enough abstracts of this kind of stuff.
Speaker 6 (38:25):
But there is a thing that's been raging for about
five or six years, maybe a little more in music
production called the loudness wars, and that has to do
with compression about like making something as loud as you can.
Speaker 4 (38:38):
The only way you can make something louder is by reducing.
Speaker 6 (38:41):
The peak value, like the luffs is what it's called
loudness units over time. And in order to do that,
you got to make the quiet parts, the loud parts quiet,
and the quiet parts loud so everything's the same. Then
you can just make the whole thing bigger, make the
whole thing louder. And it's not good because it reduces
the dynamics, and it reduces the you know, the differences
between loud and quiet, which is so much of what
(39:03):
makes music exciting and interesting.
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I think, so there you go, y'all.
Speaker 6 (39:07):
Sorry if I went a little long on those interesting
talk about the Disney stuff and look forward to following
the the HBO.
Speaker 4 (39:15):
Debacle as well. Are we max again?
Speaker 6 (39:17):
Now?
Speaker 4 (39:18):
Are we HBO max again? Now?
Speaker 6 (39:19):
Ben?
Speaker 4 (39:20):
Is it actually officially re rolled out?
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Well?
Speaker 6 (39:24):
I believe it's Max dot com here go, which is
so funny because the Wen already have Cinemax and anyway,
neither you're nor there. Let's take a quick break here,
work from a response, and they'll be back with some
more strange news.
Speaker 4 (39:39):
And we've returned.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
We're increasing the dynamics of this episode by going quieter here.
I've got two days. I want to start with you guys.
This is a bit of the downer part of the episode,
so apologies. We'll have some ups and downs in dynamics
as well, yep. But first of all, I just want
to say we were really saddened a lot of folks
(40:03):
on on my team and you guys probably as well,
because I been I know you had a little direct
I don't know if he had direct contact with this actor,
but he worked on a show that you also worked on, Yes,
Jonathan Joss, who was the voice of John Redcorn and
King of the Hill. He was a voice of I
think Chief Ken was the character's name on Parks and
(40:25):
rec a bunch of other stuff this actor has done.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
He unformed a tremendous person as well. Yeah, yeah, which
is way more important than like celebrity status, Like an actual,
genuine good dude.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
Yeah, really cool verson that we got to work with personally,
and you know, be on zoom calls where he's recording
audio for a show that we made called Bridgewater, and
he's just a really great human being.
Speaker 6 (40:49):
I didn't know that that's that's my gosh.
Speaker 2 (40:53):
Yeah, it was just really sad when we recorded with him.
I specifically remember the studio he was in at his house.
He had I don't even know, I didn't count how
many awesome lights he had in the background, but they
were all those like multicolored lights that did different things.
It looked like a party at his house, and it
was just a really cool vibe. Just gonna I'm just
(41:15):
very sad into that guy's passing.
Speaker 4 (41:17):
Well, just the hatred behind the crime.
Speaker 6 (41:19):
I mean, it just seemed like there was a targeted
act of absolute homophobia and xenophobia and like just a
like just absolute, like a campaign of terror against this man.
Speaker 3 (41:31):
And I did not agree with the way a lot
of the initial reporting went, especially because they're missing those
those parts about hate crimes and harassment and prejudice. And
we have to remember, you know, whenever you hear stories
like this, it's different because we were personally connected with
an actually human being, right, we hear these stories the
(41:53):
ephemera that wants you to always just like clock into
the most vicious sounding thing and then to deify celebrities
who were just people. Just treat celebrities like people. It's
sick how this country is always asking people to deify
or vilify folks. You know. That's why I get tired
(42:14):
of celebrity news, because it's it's unfair to the subject,
it's unfair to the audience. But this was a really
genuinely good dude, and the manner of the harassment and
the crimes against him, I think it needs to be
further acknowledged because it's just unclean, are.
Speaker 6 (42:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's trigger warrion, and honestly,
some of the stuff that we're talking about, like harm
to animals and things like, I mean really really brutal, brutal, respicable,
and there is a person in custody, if I'm not mistaken.
I just was so direct floor by the headlines. I
did not even get that far.
Speaker 3 (42:55):
And even though on a sad note, I think we
can find positivity. And here, Matt, I really appreciate you
bringing up and focusing on the fact that this human
being was again a tremendous, genuine and phenomenally talented person,
and I don't want to lose sight about that in
this crazy, just stupid rush people have about celebrities. You know.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Oh yeah, My big takeaway is just the positivity he
brought to you. Again, I only interacted with him virtually
over one of these that we're doing right now, but
just the positivity that shone through you know, his camera
and audio. You're like, oh dang, that is cool person.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
So that's a life we're sick too, right, Oh yeah, well.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
I mean again, like it was part of that.
Speaker 6 (43:39):
Whole that's a personality thing, right, It's due that wanted
to be surrounded by quirky, fun funds, you know, like,
I mean, come.
Speaker 2 (43:45):
On, and he was so happy to be doing voice work,
and you're just like, yes, it is a cool job.
Awesome man, let's do this. So any let's let's Johonadan
will remember and we'll think more about that. We'll talk
more about it if we need to, but for now,
let's just one other thing I wanted to bring up here, Ben,
you were talking about those moments in history, like Franz
(44:07):
Ferdinand that will be looked back at historians, but maybe
not everybody in the present moment fully clocks the significance of.
Speaker 3 (44:15):
We'll be seen as a tipping point in retrospect exactly.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
I just wanted to point out this thing that happened yesterday,
as we record on Tuesday, June third, there was a
you know, there's the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine
right now, and a lot of them. There's so many
news stories happening in cycles about everything that's happening there,
and so many developments, so many fronts, so many things
(44:41):
happening that's hard to even really see specific instances anymore,
at least for me as somebody who's attempting to observe
the whole thing. There's a moment that occurred on June
third where Ukraine forces used explosives over several months, like
planted explosives on a specific bridge that is a strategic
(45:03):
connection point from Russia into Crimea, which is an area
that they the country had previously annexed and you know,
fought a war over. But just the fact that these
strategic points of access for like bringing in more troops,
bringing in you know, more supplies, anything like that, or
being targeted, it feels like the kind of escalation, you know,
(45:27):
not only the stuff where there have been attacks like
deep within Russia from the Ukraine side, where a lot
of the people allied with Ukraine are sending longer range
missiles and things.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
Now those forty one planes got absolutely walloped.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Yeah, yeah, there's just stuff happening right now in that
In that situation, there feels like to me, it's going
to be the stuff that's written about as Oh and
then on this day this happened, which then triggered this
other thing, which then caused you know, full scale whatever.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Because there's somewhat around to write about it later.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, Yeah, that's the hope.
Speaker 3 (46:04):
That's that's the hope. Otherwise, in a world bereft of humans.
It's just going to be the descendants of chat GPT
rewriting their own interpretations of what was posted. You know
what I mean, because social media about Russian Ukraine in
the time the humans were around.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
Yeah, the time the humans were doing stuff. Speaking of
humans doing stuff. Oh wow, let's switch gears again. Yeah,
let's jump to a story. I think we talked about
it on listener mail. No, I think it was a
story you brought up, but I can't remember.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
It was this weird crypto case where there was some
kidnapping going oh yeah.
Speaker 6 (46:41):
Yeah, the torture, yeah, and like using electrodes and all
kinds of horrible pistol whipping, really really awful stuff.
Speaker 3 (46:48):
Yes. Eric Adams, number one New York City mayor.
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Yeah right, we're better than.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
The mayor and Ghostbusters guys. He's great for Turkey, He's
huge there.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
So okay, so let's just refresher one of these two guys,
John Willett's Woe Ltz and William Duplessi. These are two
gentlemen who are currently under investigation and charged with holding
this twenty eight year old, wealthy Italian cryptocurrency trader hostage
(47:18):
for several weeks. And the concept, at least according to authority,
is that those guys John and William were attempting to
get this person's Bitcoin password, and there was torture involved,
all kinds of stuff according to the findings and the
evidence in the place where these two gentlemen were keeping
this guy captive. There is a weird little wrinkle in
(47:39):
a little tiny news story that came out. And as
you said, Ben, you said, the keyword there new York
City Mayor Eric Adams. That's the keyword. The reason why
it's even newsworthy. There's a gentleman who was a part
of Eric adams security detail who allegedly is the human
being that picked up this guy that got cap was
(48:00):
held hostage. He picked him up from the airport and
took him to the place where he was held captive.
Speaker 4 (48:05):
No, I have not heard this.
Speaker 2 (48:07):
Yes, but he was he was off duty at the time,
at least according to you know, he wasn't on his
Eric Adams detail.
Speaker 3 (48:14):
Sure, it's a gig economy, it is, but that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
It actually is a gig economy. And if he works security,
and you've got somebody who's wealthy, who was paying you
to do stuff. Being you know, a chauffeur from the
airport isn't a big deal and may even not mean anything.
And he literally just dropped a guy off that he
thought was a guest of his employer. Right, but it
(48:39):
sure is weird to have those two worlds collide right there.
Speaker 3 (48:46):
Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to hear more about that
news because it's funny. I was thinking about this earlier, Matt.
There's this confluence of the average person and being able
to learn more right at a faster pace, a more
shallow pace, but a definitely a faster pace than ever before.
(49:08):
And then the question becomes, are we seeing more connections
that have already existed? Are we discovering new connections? Or
has the entire world of the powerful also always been
kind of like this? And now you know, like, they're
not extra skeletons in the close I'm pointing at a closet.
They're not extra skeletons in the closet. They're just better flashlights. Now, yeah,
(49:33):
I mean, and I think the flashlight answer is correct.
Speaker 4 (49:36):
Yeah, phones even have a flashlight built in.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
It's crazy, dude, right, And they're also it feels like
there are more ways to reflect. I'm just joking.
Speaker 4 (49:47):
I was going to do a thing. He's got this.
Speaker 6 (49:50):
Yeah great, I think we might be getting into more
videos soon.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
But I boil.
Speaker 6 (49:55):
I wish you could see you're gonna have to go
on vacation again to that same exact resort.
Speaker 2 (50:00):
No, I'm just gonna build one of these.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
Yeah, what are what are the mirror tariffs? Right now?
I haven't looked that up.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Wait, isn't that a thing in like esoteric thought that
if you put two mirrors facing each other you could
create a portal of some sort.
Speaker 3 (50:16):
Well, fung Shui doesn't like it bad times. Yeah, it's
basically a Oija board for the wall.
Speaker 2 (50:24):
Amazing. Well, let's build podcastingja boards and see what happens.
Speaker 3 (50:29):
Oh man, Okay, I have so many other Eric Adams
questions for off air, but yeah, okay, So again, what
we're saying is interesting confluence. Does it tell us anything
other than that's interesting?
Speaker 2 (50:43):
There's nothing other than it's just it's strange in it's news.
So guess what it's in this episode?
Speaker 3 (50:49):
There we got strange news segment.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
But last little thing I want to talk about today.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Guys, you remember that Jeffrey upstea guy. Oh yeah, it's
a court of law as a kangaroo course is well. A.
Speaker 2 (51:06):
There are two recent interviews that occurred on Fox News
where two very important, influential, powerful human beings went on
and gave separate interviews, and one of the topics that
came up in both of those interviews was Jeffrey Epstein.
And I just want to jump to this is all
to get this quote out on the air again, because
(51:29):
I think it's fascinating that it's still a question. People
are still interested. And then even the forces, the powerful
people that maybe believed or represent in some way, the
faction of people including me a little bit, who believe
that Jeffrey Epstein didn't just kill himself, that there was
(51:49):
something else to that, whether it was coercion or you know,
something occurred there to me for me personally, right, and
that's believed.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
I would say the majority of the US public agree.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
I think so too, But for me, I just have
to say it out loud, like when I'm talking about this,
it is my belief. It's not based on evidence, right,
It's based on looking at things and feeling a certain
way about it personally. But even somebody like, how do
he say his name, Dan Bungino, Dan Bungina, I don't
(52:23):
know how to say his name, Dan Bungino. Let's say
Dan Bungino. This is the current deputy director. He went
on Fox News gave an interview and they're discussing Jeffrey
Epstein's death, and Dan talks about the surveillance video that
is allegedly running there of the selling right outside the
cell that we talked about ages ago when all of
(52:44):
this went down, and Dan says that there's absolutely zero
forensic evidence that suggests that any other human being was
in that cell at any time between the last time
he was seen by the authorities and then when he
was found deceased. Here's the quote quote there's no DNA,
there's no audio, there's no fingerprints, there's no suspects, there's
(53:04):
no accomplices, there's no tips, there is nothing. And then
he said, if you have evidence, I am happy to
see it. The video is clear as day. He's the
only person in there and the only person coming out.
You can see it. And you know, to me, Dan
is one of these people who previously has talked about
like I don't know this seems fishy. This seems like
something really went down, and then he's actually finding himself
(53:26):
in a place where he can truly investigate, right, which
not many of us are going to get to that
position where you can really see all the stuff. You
could say, give me everything you got on Epstein and
he is saying, look, there's nothing there. If you got
some more information sent in my way because I want
to know, it does feel a little bit like we
(53:47):
can put the concept that he got physically murdered to bed,
but that it to me, leaves open that whole thing.
Did somebody have a conversation with him, or his attorney
or somebody it basically got to him that gave him
no choice?
Speaker 3 (54:04):
Yeah, right right, I mean the hyoid bone breaking is basic.
Is just basic physiology. At that point, the question that
you're asking is I believe the moristute question. In our
three part series on Epstein and then our later follow ups,
I think it's a question that we had to incorporate
(54:28):
in the conversation because of the fact that, yes, there
are suspicious circumstances, Yes there was a fog of war,
there was not enough information to draw a conclusive perspective
on However, I love the point you're making mad about
the deputy director, the guy who could probably get all
(54:52):
the evidence. Maybe, but it's still there's so much just
there is. It's stinks man, Somethings are rotten in the
lock up.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
But then you've also got Cash, buttel the actual facts
shut out FBI director coming out and saying, hey, yeah,
we're actively working on this.
Speaker 3 (55:11):
Still yeah, and he's super qualified.
Speaker 4 (55:15):
Well, plus the name is Cash and that's a sweat name.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Whatever the qualifications. But people in the positions to do
the looking are there and they want to do the looking,
and they are doing the looking. So I'm interested to
see if anything else comes out.
Speaker 3 (55:31):
Same, especially given the administration's foot dragging of releasing connections
or releasing you know, the so called Little Black Book information.
Even if it, you know, let's play game theory for
a moment. If there's nothing bad, if it does indeed
support improve the existing mainstream narrative and at the same
(55:55):
time disproved multiple points of speculation and conspiracy theory, then
why wouldn't you release it post taste? Why wouldn't you
come out like if you're not really committee to agro terrorism,
why wouldn't you tell the FBI immediately, you know, why
would you try to lie? That's a teaser for something
(56:16):
that will happened later this week.
Speaker 2 (56:18):
You might not say anything if you're the acting president
and you I'm just joking, right, or you know, the
Prince of England or whatever.
Speaker 4 (56:28):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (56:29):
God, yeah, never get it. You know, he doesn't sweat,
is what he said.
Speaker 2 (56:37):
The President of the United States and a Prince of
England both implicated the same guy.
Speaker 3 (56:43):
Yeah, like prince yeah, well like a deputy prince.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Anyway, we'll learn more about that. One last thing to
ruin your week, just a little bit. If you've got time,
head on over to the Guardian Slash Environment slash series
slash the Age of Extinction. It's a whole thing that
The Guardian has a whole series about the Age of extinction.
(57:11):
We all find ourselves in right now.
Speaker 3 (57:14):
Yeah. It reminds me, Matt of Low those many years
ago when we were we were looking into neo nicotinoid
effects on honeybee populations, which hadn't been proven at that time.
And then also we started talking about insect population collapse.
Thanks to the help of several academics and fellow conspiracy
(57:37):
realist in the crowd. The think about these stories, which
I'm sure have to irritate so many scientists, is that
it has been shouted from the proverbial rooftops and the
tree top canopies for so long. It's happening, and it's
so easy for people to say, well, it's not happening
to me directly, or it's not affecting me directly, therefore
(57:59):
it's not really happening. But it's coming to your door soon,
you know, faster than dominoes.
Speaker 2 (58:05):
Oh it is, And it's genuinely truly terrifying. It's existential
threat level stuff. If you look at the subtitle of
The Guardian's Age of Extinction series, it says reporting on
our catastrophic species loss and ways to tackle the biodiversity crisis,
which is nice. They've got that in the end, right.
(58:27):
So the thing we always try and do, what's the
positive thing, what's the action, what's the good stuff? The
problem is we're in a catastrophic species lost situation and
there is a story you can read right now, and
I wish you would. Again, not going to be great
for your psyche, but will be good for you to
know and to think about it. Is titled half the
(58:47):
Tree of Life colon Ecologists horror as nature reserves are
emptied of insects, And it's specifically going on a couple
of different entomologists paths. It follows them one particular guy
who studied a basically moths and all kinds of insects
and a bunch of different species out in Costa Rica.
(59:11):
And this it's a beautiful story about when he was
brutally injured and he put up sheets around his bed
where he was confined out in the wilderness, and would
turn a light on inside those sheets, right, and the
number of moths, the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
moths that would gather on his sheet at night and
(59:32):
he would study them, and then doing the same thing today,
you know, several decades later, and there are a few
moths and all of the wilderness that show up on
that sheet, which should be like it should be every
moth within a certain vicinity.
Speaker 3 (59:49):
Right, especially you know, depending on the environmental circumstances. But
the frightening thing here, and I think any of us
who have just me personally spending like a lot of
time in the wild, you need to realize this is
on a Nature reserve. These are in areas of the
wild where human encroachment is purposely limited. Yes, and that also,
(01:00:10):
like any of us who do enjoy being outdoors, if
you are past a certain age, you have noticed a
steep decline in a lot of wildlife, right, and it's
it's frightening. It's a political it's real, it's happening. Please Also,
and since we talked about positive note, I do have
one thing to add. There's a Popular Science article that
(01:00:35):
gives us maybe some other news about insects. Researchers have
recently genetically altered fruitflies so that they crave cocaine.
Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
Oh jeez, that's what we need, cooked up fruit flies.
Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
Right, the time has come.
Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
This guy's got a lot of fruitflies in his apartment.
Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Right, that's his that's his sheet. Three eggs over for
the moths. That's how Oh, that's how they'll bust folks
in the.
Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
Future, like a moth to a coach.
Speaker 3 (01:01:03):
That's actually a really good idea for law enforcement. Isn't
it terrifying? You had a fruitfly swarm gun step aside
super soakers. Oh oh jeez, okay, wait, I thought it
was a funny point. And then we made it. It's
a terrifying real one.
Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
It's all black mirror now all the way down, so
all the way down. And that's all I've got.
Speaker 3 (01:01:23):
Guys, folks, thank you so much for joining us. We
hope this strange news segment has found you well. We
cannot wait to hear your thoughts. Is a mass surveillance database. Good?
What's your position on nature and nature and coming collapses
and apocalypsis? And I'm doing that on purpose because I'm
(01:01:44):
still learning English. Tell us your thoughts on Disney, and
of course, tell us your favorite weird amusement parks. We
cannot wait to hear from you. You can give us
a call on the phone. You can always send us
a good old fashioned email, or you can message us
on social media so Pallenteer gets a better read on
all of us. I'm kidding. They have the emails too,
(01:02:06):
I imagine.
Speaker 6 (01:02:06):
So if you'd like, you can find us all over
the internetit your social media platform of choice. We are
Conspiracy Stuff on YouTube, which is kind of a social
media platform or a streaming thing. I don't even know
what it is. It's comments. You can't comment on Netflix.
You can find us at Conspiracy Stuff on that as
well as on Facebook. We have our Facebook group here
is where it gets crazy, and on xfka, Twitter, on
(01:02:28):
Instagram and TikTok or conspiracy Stuff show.
Speaker 4 (01:02:32):
On the phone lines.
Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
We are one eight three three st d WYTK. When
you call in, you will find yourself inside a voicemail.
You have three minutes to be in that voicemail. Give
yourself a cool nickname in there and let us know
whether or not we can use your name and message
on the air. If you'd like to instead send us words,
(01:02:53):
why not send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Hundreds of prisoners have escaped after an earthquake
in Pakistan. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
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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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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