November 13, 2023 • 55 mins
Food giant Tyson recalls 30,000 pounds of chicken nuggets due to possible metal contamination. Bored Ape partygoers wake to find laser light may have permanently injured their eyes. Scientists and native communities raise the alarm about a common chemical in tires, which may spell doom for salmon populations. 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 the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noah. They call
me Ben.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
We're joined as always with our super producer, all mission
control decads. Most importantly, you are here, and that makes
this the stuff they don't want you to know. Strange
news for strange days, strange days. Indeed, we're going to
explore some irony in the world of NFTs. We're going
(00:49):
to explore us some regulation, the consequences thereof, and the
necessity thereof. And before we get into any of that, uh,
we found now that there's always a list of heist
every time we do this strange news segment. I don't
(01:10):
know if we want to save those for the end
or if we want to just run through them. Now,
what do you guys think?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh? Man, you know I love a good ridiculous heist.
I'd say dealer's choice.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Frankly, I think at the end would be great. Okay, Well,
you know one thing we haven't done. Have we spoken
a loud about how much fun we had at the
This Is Important Live show.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Oh, we have that publicly, we should make a statement.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yes, let's put it out and let's get you know,
I actually am applying to be a notary later, so
we can we can stamp stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah, just like.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
What is a little bit easier than the other. Actually
we could do you.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Get your own personalized like stamp one of those big, thick,
chunky boys. I think you too, awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
We could the three of us could make a day
of it. If you guys want to go become notaries.
I think it's a very unnecessary power. But you know
who doesn't love stamps.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
It's a cool micro superpower. I would argue. There you go.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, despite none of us currently being notaries, Matt, you
raise an excellent point, we did, indeed get to meet
some of our I think it's fair to call the
guy's comedy heroes.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Would we agree with that?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, definitely guys that we look up to because they're
about our same age. They've been incredibly successful and created
some of the most iconic characters that were on TV
for years. So yeah, I mean the workaholics guys. You
now have a show called This Is important. If you
don't know about it, you should be listening to it.
If you're okay with let's call it blue humor.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
But it was just a tremendously fun show and those
guys as individuals were extremely kind and not what you
expect when you get warned all the time about meeting
somebody you look up.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
To and that won't do it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, that was not the case with those guys.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
It so cool too, Like I had. The venue they
performed at was this really posh, cool theater where they
often do like ballets and like you know, like classical
music performances, the cob Energy Center, And I've only been
there one time prior to see the Icelandic art rock
band seeger ROAs. It was just it just felt like
such an interesting swath of creativity from siegar ROAs to
(03:20):
Workaholics guys you know talking about tie Buttholes. It was.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
It was fantastic and Workaholics was a fantastic show. Before that,
they did something called mail Order Comedy on YouTube where
you can see you can see some of the early
pure sketch work that they did. We're talking about our
our pals, Adam Kyle Blake and Onders. These guys were,
(03:48):
as you said, Matt, absolutely electric in their live show.
We got to meet them briefly after the show, and yeah,
it was just it was just a fantastic time, you
know what. Shout out as well to our pal super
producer an A. Josnier, who was the entire reason we
(04:09):
got to hang out.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
The proverbial hookup, no question about it. Yeah, no, I
got fat. As the Beatles would say, a fantastic time
was guaranteed for all. I think that's how they said it. Yeah,
a splendid time perhaps. Speaking of which, guys, leading with
a little fun news story that does really quickly. Have
you guys seen this terrible new AI driven Beatles video
(04:32):
for this like.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Song, Don't love it.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
It's so bad. It's like, this is what AI should
never be used for. They used AI on the audio
of John Lennon's vocal that he recorded on a cassette
just to make it sound nicer, and then they, you know,
the Living Beatles overdubbed their parts and stuff. But the
video is just the most quintessentially bad. Like green screen.
It's like, you know, modern day Paul McCartney, modern day
(04:56):
Ringo star superimposed with like Sergeant Pepper era George Harrison,
like he's right there, but it looks so flat and weird,
and it's just it's really bad. Shame on you, Peter Jackson,
Shame on you. I know, I know he can't win
them all.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But also I think it's a fantastic, fantastic arrow in
the quiver of sag Aftra's argument about the AI characterization.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I wonder if that was intentional on mister Jackson this
or our dear friend of the show, Jordan runtalg has
a theory then, because you know, obviously the Get Back
documentary was such a smash and really brought the Beatles
back into the top of people's minds, you know, in
the modern era, a lot of people discovering them for
the first time. And his theory is that Peter Jackson
is so integral to like the next phase of Beatles,
(05:47):
like you know, marketing and selling and figuring out how
to like restore old stuff with his like proprietary AI technology,
that they just let him run with whatever piece of
he turned in because they didn't want to cross him.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I love it, conspira.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I think it's an interesting it's very on brand with
the show. So sorry. I didn't mean to to derail.
I think that's just a neat story that was bugging me,
and I think probably bugging It's basically become an instant
meme because it's so laughably absurd looking.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
We do live in the era of uh. We do
live in the era of miracles and wonders and instant memes,
and sometimes it's difficult not to weep. Shout out to
Paul Simon, Yes here as an AI avatar sometime in
the future.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Please God. That song is so good? Is that it's
You're a boy with the Boy in the Bubble, Boy
in the Some of my most heart wrenching songs are
by Simon and Garfunkle and Paul Simon, like the song
The Only Living Boy in New York. Every time that
song comes on, I weep openly. I'm not going to lie.
I weep openly.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Losing love is like a window in your heart. You
know everyone can see the wind blow this. This may
be this feeling of great loss, may be something people
are encountering. If you are, like many of us out there,
a fan of chicken nuggets, a super convenient food admittedly
not super great for you, and it turns out that
(07:15):
chicken nuggets are in a bit of a crossroads at
the moment. Quite recently, the gargantuan food producer Tyson Foods,
which specializes in poultry, announced that it is quote voluntarily
unquote recalling around thirty thousand pounds of chicken nuggets. That
(07:39):
would be thirteen six hundred and eight kilograms for everybody
outside of the United States. And they're doing this massive
recall because pieces of pliable metal were found in these products.
These are specifically, get this, the fun nuggets, which is
(08:00):
the official word for official term for the dino shaped.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, the vaguely triceratopsy and stegosaurus and nuggets.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Aka the one Matt fed his son for you.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Oh, I love them. You know what, you nailed it.
They did it right with the brand, and they're fun.
You can play a little games with them, be like,
I know.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Right, it's almost like an embedded lesson about uh empowerment.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
You know, now, I eat the t rex.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So the the issue here is, of course, chicken nuggets
occupy their own space and the pantheon of Internet memes
and nomenclature, So this gets a lot of attention. But
we wanted to give it some attention, specifically to explore
some aspects of this story that apply to larger issues.
(08:57):
So Tyson released a statement and you can read it
free online at their website. They said they're voluntarily recalling
approximately thirty pounds of quote frozen fully cooked chicken fun
nuggets sold in twenty nine ounce packages. They take pains
(09:18):
to say no other Tyson brand products are affected, and
again this is the official source. They're saying. A limited
number of consumers have reported they found small, pliable metal
pieces in the product, and Tyson says, out of an
abundance of caution, we are recalling this products as far
(09:40):
as we can tell right now. According to the US
Food Safety and Inspection Service or THYSIS, there was one
report of a minor oral injury, so one person essentially
cut the inside of their cheek or their tongue when
eating these. I wanted to bring this up because this
(10:01):
reminded me of an excellent conversation we had not too
long ago about automobile manufacturer recalls.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
And the formula that they talk about in Fight Club,
right like, if X plus Y plus blah blah blah
divided by so and so equals the is less than
the cost of a recall, then they don't do it.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, there's something else that just happened in the news
and I'm trying to recall it right now DLS. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly.
It's decals that go on the front of steering wheels
that it's apparently a popular thing that I was unaware of.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Therese like emblem things or like the badge badge type deals.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Oh yeah, maybe that's exactly what it is. But you
put it literally on your steering wheel, like where the
horn might be or in that area where the air
bag deploys.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Something additional. I mean, like my car has the car
logo in the center of the steering wheel.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It's a it's a third party, aftermarket thing that goes
on top of like where the logo would be. And
there was one case gosh it was tangentially related to
another recall. But it becomes a projectile, like especially ones
that have rhinestones on them, that that's a very popular thing,
like you get some bird shot.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Basically, yeah, it's like a chuck on blast of the face.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I didn't think rhinestones could be worse than they already are. Wow, Okay,
because this is new to me, Matt, I was. I
was immediately thinking maybe it's the aftermarket, you know, the
grips that go around wheels that have all kinds of
nasty chemicals in them, or.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
The fuzzy ones. Have you ever seen the fuzzy ones
like troll doll hair.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, be safe, folks, and maybe maybe take off the
vanity stickers. You know. The scary thing about the world
and humanity is there's probably someone who has a little
vanity badge right there in the center of the steering wheel.
But it's a mirror, so they watch themselves American psycho
(12:03):
style while they drive.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
That seems extra dangerous and fame and maybe sort of like,
you know, maybe you got it coming. No one, no
one deserves that. But boy, that would explode because you know,
if the if the airbag deployed, it would just be
like a final destination scenario, you know, even with a
little small mirror potentially.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, well, even like you were saying, with a with
any kind of textured badging there, right, because you can
look at a steering wheel and usually you can see
the creases or perforations, yes, where there's in the way. Yeah, yeah,
Relief's a good way to put it so, recalls are important.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
They are a part of business for automobile manufacturers. They
are also, it turns out, a part of business for
large monopolistic food manufacturers. And this is not the first
brush Tyson Foods has had with recalls or recalls. There's
(13:07):
a great article we want to shout out from BBC
News by annabel Leong, and in this the journalist points
out that as recently as twenty nineteen, Tyson Foods had
another recall of chicken nuggets. This time it was not small,
pliable metal pieces, just random pieces of blue rubber.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Again, it sounds like a case where in the giant
manufacturing process to make these something fell in right and
got ground up nice and good.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
With the rest of the chicken pieces and all the grasshoppers.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
That's there's no doubt in there. As well, after Tyson's
recent acquisition of that insect protein company.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
The soldier flies.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Sir, sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Respect their service.
The soldier flies the internet, pay me no mind. This
is not what's happening. This is definitely I'm serious.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So we already know that there is an ongoing controversy
with these formed chicken proteins, right. You find them in Tyson,
you find them anywhere in the United States, often at
fast food locations. Of course, McDonald's has to take the hit.
(14:28):
McDonald's famously a real estate company that happens to sell snacks.
They also get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
What I would.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Say every two year basis a bi annual basis for
certain controversies about what they're actually putting in their nuggies,
as the Internet calls them. Interesting to know. Also, you guys,
the same year, twenty nineteen, Tyson recalled millions of pounds
of chicken strips because of concerns, again a proactive voluntary recall,
(15:04):
concerns that they might also be contaminated with metal and
matt To your point, I believe you are correct. I
believe that it's a problem of scale, right, and a
problem of subcontracting out to things. There is a growing
controversy which will probably be even more mainstreamed in coming
(15:27):
months or years, regarding the use of child labor in
some of these agricultural concerns. And I know, I think
it was just last year Tyson shut down several chicken
processing plants in the United States because during the pandemic.
Demand for chicken started to go down until at inflection point.
(15:54):
I hate you that term, but it's true. It's apt
here an inflection point occurred beef and pork in general
became more and more expensive. We all remember that part, right,
do you guys?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Did you get sticker shocked at some point?
Speaker 3 (16:10):
This it's definitely been a bell weather by which a
lot of folks are measuring inflation and just in general,
how much more expensive it is to like live is
grocery bells.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
There's a oh gosh, I want to say, a three
star restaurant in Belfest that is shutting down because it's
too expensive to carry on creating food at the level
that they want to create food. So they said, it's
just impossible to get enough people who are able to
pay for the food into their restaurant now, even in
(16:42):
a major city like Belfast, they just can't do it.
So they're gonna completely redo this three Michelin star restaurant
into something that's affordable for people to eat.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Wow, I mean, and that's something people who are in
the restaurant industry, many of our fellow conspiracy realist can
witness anywhere and their own neck of the global woods.
You know, restaurants have always been a cutthroat business with
razor thin margins, and if anything shifts in the wrong direction,
(17:12):
then your business all of a sudden is non viable
unless you become a nonprofit you know what I mean.
So what we're looking at here is a problem of
monopolistic control over things. It's simply like, yes, it's all
grand and Pollyannon fiddle dd to say to say, oh,
(17:35):
I am at a point in life where I only
get organic food, I only get farm to table stuff.
I know the name of every animal I eat. But
that's simply not realistic for the vast majority of people,
which means that these businesses, these large interests, are going
to continue. At this point, before we go to our
(17:57):
ad break, we've got to say it's a bit of
a it's a bit of a dilemma. Tyson does feed people.
The livestock industry, especially the poultry industry, as it exists today,
is a horror show by most measures, by almost any
ethical measure. I would like to end by saying we
(18:18):
are going to follow up on this. Good luck to
the people at Tyson who are reporting to their shareholders.
We're reporting their latest quarterly earnings on November thirteenth, and
shout out to the latest Rick and Morty episode as
we record for anyone who hasn't seen it, it is
(18:38):
exactly about stuff like this, and it starts with a
story about spaghetti. So we're gonna pause for a word
from our sponsor and we'll be back with more strange news.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And we're back, and you know what else is back?
Fellas McRib I hope, So what's what's what's mcribs season?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
It's like it's like a cthulhu?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Uh, I mean literally, what time of the year is it?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
The theory is it depends on global pork presses.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I don't know, but okay, maybe I don't.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Think that's actually true.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
And overall it's it's a fun thing to think about. Well,
the pumpkin spice lette is back for sure, which just
goes by PSL. Sometimes people will say PSL for pumpkin
spice lettey and I know it's pronounced lata is being
a fancy boy. But another acronym that hasn't bitted the
news as much lately NFTs. Maybe remember those million dollar
(19:47):
gifts or whatever there were gifts, There were JPEGs there
were you know, ones that moved, there were little video loops. Uh,
it was non fungible tokens.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Oh, I thought it was non fungi tepano.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Yeah. The top of nod, Yeah, it's it's it's it's
a it's a top of nod that does not contain mushrooms,
which is no top of nod of mine, let me
tell you or none that I'm interested in, I uh
in any case, But yeah, NFT, I think the most popular,
or at least the biggest, like celebrity ground swell. There
was that whole beeple crap guy that remember he sold
(20:22):
an n FT for like a billion dollars or something
like that. I'd love to follow up on that guy.
He seems to have cashed out and made a pretty penny.
And obviously, even if you know, whatever tokens he was
paid that in and have have lost their value a
billion dollars, even if it has lost an insane amount
of value, it's probably still some millions of dollars for
(20:42):
old beeple crap. But n FT is the board Ape
yacht club. Do you guys remember that celebrities were getting
in on the fun. It's literally got somebody took his apes.
Somebody just took his apes. There was all this stuff
where people were doing these like wallet like fishing kind
of scams, and you know, people would just totally get
(21:03):
had and they're you know, there's people were stealing the
credentials or literally. What these things are, of course, is
a It's a image that's backed by a receipt that
is tied to the blockchain. That is a contract that
that you know, says that that thing belongs to you.
It's about ownership. We always kind of, I think joked,
or maybe it's not really a joke. It's true. A
lot of this stuff is about fetishization of ownership, sue,
(21:25):
because anybody could take the screenshot of the thing. I
can look at anybody's monkey board ape, which by the way,
these are like generative NFTs, so they're like created by
an algorithm to look different, but they all kind of
look the same. Like Ozzy Osbourne got in on it too.
We have these like Ozzie Bat things that were all
just generated and there'd be a limited number of them,
(21:46):
like Pokemon or whatever. It might be training cards, but
it's all virtual.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Oh uh. One point though, before we get the email, uh,
the technology behind NFTs, the blockchain stuff does have efficacy
for things like.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Absolutely we've talked about that along the way as well.
Not only that marijuana has not been fully recreationally legal
in New York City until very recently, but it was
so decriminalized that there were literal brick and mortar weed
dispensaries and shops. But much like the whole deal, where
like in Atlanta, for the longest time, we had all
(22:21):
these breweries that would not allow you to buy beer
on site at the brewery, so they'd sell you a
tour and they'd give you this little ticket and then
you'd exchange the ticket for your beer at the end
like a gift. And one way that some of these
New York sort of dispensaries, these sort of skirting the
(22:43):
law gray area dispensaries were doing it is they and
I did this one time. You pick out the things
that you want, they quote unquote sell you an NFT
that comes in your email and then they give you
the products that you've requested as a free gift. Oh okay,
it's another very clever use of this.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
This that isn't Yeah, that reminds me of the the
weird gambling loopholes. In Japan, for instance, there are these
pachinko parlors, but gambling straight away is wish wish illegal.
So you win, you win prizes or points, and then
you go up, you literally go across the street and
(23:22):
exchange that thing for any number of stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
So, yeah, not to get too off to but maybe
you can shed some light on this. Ben Here in Atlanta,
gambling is not legal. There's no casinos in Atlanta, but
some gas stations in certain parts of town have these
poker machines and you see people sitting on them feeding
them money. What's up with those? Is it common just
for funzies or is there some payout or is it
(23:47):
just totally flouting the law, if that's even a word.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I mean, I don't want to derail us too often,
but I do. From what I understand, there are not
infrequent instances where there's a back room marked them toys only,
and that's where I've.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Seen these in the main room. Like there's one down
the street from me. There's like three or four of
them in the main that's always posted up at him.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
That's the opening, dude, the opening you play there, I
guess you get your points or whatever, and then you.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Go, Okay, well, I guess the back room of n
F T s. Yeah. Again. The point is NFTs famously tanked,
didn't go wells, magic beans, pixie dust, Woozy wazzy whatever,
the character that Matthew McConaughey plays, and Wolf of Wall
(24:39):
Street's talking about for stocks. You know, he's like, nobody
can predict any of this, it's all, you know, yes,
that and that was all apparently Ben's handing on his chest,
that was all apparently improvised. But I love when he
just says tootski and he offers some little cocaine spoon
and then he instructs him on how to order martinis
and keep him coming and all that, and he gives
him this whole spiel. You know how this all ephemeral,
(25:01):
all this stock stuff, and we know that stocks are
less ephemeral than this NFT or crypto stuff, but only
like by only minor orders of magnitude, if that's not
a total misnomer what I just said. But the back
room now has become these like kind of self congratulatory
parties where it's like, no, no, everything's still cool, y'all.
(25:23):
We we're good, we are the ones riding this out.
We're weathering the storm, y'all. And this is a thing
that's been happening since before the crash. And I forget
the exact number, but NFTs have lost just nearly all
of their value, Like like if you average it up together,
I think the value of like NFTs overall is like
practically zero. And I think, like justin Bieber spent a
(25:46):
multimillion dollars on one, it's now worth like thirty thousand dollars.
So it's like, you know, just the amount of loss
practically equals it flatlining. But in Hong Kong, this this
is one of these very exclusive, you know, NFT community parties.
Is this happened again despite the climate, the board Ape
Yacht Club through this event, the organizer of it being
(26:11):
Yuga Labs, the company based in the US that's originated
the board Ape Yacht Club and that whole deal, and apparently,
you know, this is it's kind of thing you might
think like sort of a techno bro party type thing,
like an activation like it south by Southwest, but very
specifically focused on these board apes. So you'll see like
(26:31):
animated apes djaying with lots of light shows and lasers
and video projections, and you know, any number of hangers
on of the crypto and an FT world having booths
and things like that, trying to get people riled up
for the next wave, which unfortunately I don't think is
gonna happen. But it's called Apefest, which is funny in
and of itself because you know what does an ape do?
(26:53):
The word ape even like aping someone else's behavior. That's
kind of what all this is about. It's like not
wanting to miss so I'm gonna copy what this other
rich guy's doing because I don't want to like lose out.
I don't want to have fomo. So it's like Apefest.
And yeah, and this event took place at Kai Tac
Cruise terminal and it was all honky dories, like maybe
a couple hundred people, very high ticket price, probably upwards
(27:17):
of one thousand dollars if not more than that. I'm
not seeing the exact entry price right this second. But
point being party time, you know, animated monkeys, dancing, all
the good stuff, smoke machines, lasers, black lights, most importantly neon.
A lot of people. The next day wake up with
(27:37):
a different kind of hangover. You guys, not just like,
oh no, that took too much molly and drank too
much cosa dragonas or whatever. No is molly ecstasy. Molly
is ecstasy, yes, MDMA whatever. It's still a pretty popular
dance party kind of club drug for the elites. You know.
(27:57):
I see you shaking your head and bewilderment. Pen my scene.
It's not my scene. I just know from what I've
read it's not never been my thing.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But that makes sense, you would say, because that drug
in particular causes extreme dehydration.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Detridration, headache, dysphoria. They say.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
The crash from that is often quite bad because it
dumps your serotonin, right.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
It does. It's more so than I think even like cocaine,
because it gives you such an insane high and it
just gives you, you know, just shoots you, rushes you full
of all this good feeling juice, and then the next
day you're left feeling like a bit of a husk.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Okay, So people wake up with a some some sort
of deleterious feeling that cannot be attributed to the substances
they ingested.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
They're just not quite sure what it is, Okay, And
people take to the Internet, and it start to kind
of you know, pull the community. Hey, anybody else wake
up with your eyeballs feeling like they've been burnt out
of your skull? Anybody else? Am I blind? Having blurred vision?
You know? Anybody else literally feel like I've got a
(29:05):
sunburn on your corneas as Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
And a lot of people confirmed, right.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
People are like, yeah, yeah, what's up with that? And
it turns out that some of those laser light dealis
that I was talking about maybe were the wrong kind.
Have you guys ever heard of a syndrome called welder's eye, Yeah, photokeratitis,
that's the word. Ben, You nailed it, Matt. You ever
(29:36):
seen like those you know, welders they wear those crazy hoods,
those crazy you know whatever. Well, it's a mask masks, yeah,
or there are versions of it that are just really sharp,
tight you know goggles as well.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Right, And it's kind a lens on it that's a
particular color that is meant to stop certain frequencies of
light from entering your eye over and over and over.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
That's correct, if I'm not mistaken. It might be a
little different with welding, but this case we're dealing with
the uh, the product of ultraviolet light, a KA radiation
that has has a very deleterious effect on people who
are exposed to it for too long, which is again
why these uh, these you know folks that work around
(30:18):
did protect themselves. So it came out that Yeah, in fact,
somebody actually took to the Internet and wrote a pretty
extensive you know post saying, hey, this is real. Some
friends of mine borderline have lost their vision. If you
were at this event, you need to seek medical help
before it's too late, because this is the kind of
(30:39):
thing that, if left unchecked, could absolutely lead to long
term vision loss potential blindness. So the symptoms let's see. Yeah,
here we go. This guy, yeah, Adam Zadunski z d
u n c z y k. This is what he
(31:00):
had to say. He was the guy I was just
mentioned on x nay Twitter to all my friends who suffer,
Now go get your eyes checked. You've likely most literally
got your eyes burned with UV like I did, which
requires medications, eye drops, eye protection, antibiotics, and specialist care.
Don't ignore this health hazard. Without proper treatment, it may
cause long lasting vision impairment and other serious damage. So
(31:26):
what happened exactly, like we all know that sometimes if
you go to a certain concert or a certain film,
there'll be a trigger warning about strobes that could potentially
affect people with say epilepsy, that can be a very
serious medical thing, but it doesn't burn out your eyeballs.
And you know, typically lasers, while dangerous if pointed directly
(31:47):
at the eye, you know, into the eye, that could
cause problems if it stuck there long enough. But that's
not something that you hear people complaining about going to
raves or are these kind of parties. So something is amiss.
So what happened you know that this is this seems
like something got switched. Was it nefarious with somebody like
some you know, v for Vendetta type character trying to
(32:10):
target these these revelers, you know and make them pay.
I mean, the irony is so thick you could cut
it with a whatever, a knife of some kind, a laser.
Perhaps we're talking about people who paid a bunch of
money so they could get a picture of a monkey,
an ape or whatever, and they you know, so they
could presumably look at it, go to an event. You know,
(32:30):
that's almost like partying on the deck of the Titanic
as it sinks, but like a year later kind of
like and then now they're now they're potentially blind and
can't look at anything anymore. It's it's too much, it's wild.
So what ended up happening, we think, or is the theory,
is that some of these light tubes, these bulbs, they
(32:53):
accidentally somehow we don't know again how we're switched out.
Like there are these certain grades of light that would
be like a black light leads like Spencer's to make
a velvet poster of a dragon, you know, look like
all shiny and stuff. And then there's something else, something
called the Phillips TUV thirty watt G thirty eight bulb,
(33:13):
which is a light bulb that emits twelve watts of
uv C radiation and is used for disinfection purposes. This
would be like one of those lights right like you
see in those hotel room exposs maybe where they shine
the thing and that's you know, every and you notice
when they do that, people usually put on glasses, don't they.
(33:34):
If they're doing it for a while, they usually pass
out some little glasses. And I guess presumably there were
tons of these, and people also had burns on their skin,
not only on their eyes.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Isn't this Yeah, isn't this used to like it's a
light based germicide?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
That's it? Really? Maybe I'm getting it wrong, you know
what we did talk about Remember during COVID people were
saying UV light could potentially kill COVID, but it was
also mixed up with a bunch of other bs claims.
But yes, absolutely, I'm sure this could potentially be a disinfectant.
But you would, again, if it's been emitting that much
actual radiation, you would protect yourself. And if enough of
(34:15):
these were installed, that could be really really good news.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Could it be a translation error or some sort of
like I'm with you Nol on the idea that this
was not a malevolent action, right, But could it be
a matter of someone just getting the wrong item in
an invoice or working in English versus working in Chinese
(34:40):
characters and idiograms like.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
It's certainly possible that I haven't seen that exact speculation.
One thing I did see, though, and I will wrap
it up with this was just a comment from the
organizers essentially not claiming any responsibility. This is the kind
of thing that you know, they would never claim onsibility.
They would pass the buck to some supplier, some mistranslation,
(35:04):
like you said, Ben, and all all all this to
say that they're looking into it, you know, and that
they're going to do everything they can to make people whole. Whatever.
But holly cow, what a what a tail?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
I've been watching a video on loop over here on
x for quite a while, hosted by Crypto Turk, and
it's an actual video of the fest, and I'm trying
to discern which lights are actually the ones we've been
talking about. And Guys, there's like just kind of a
blue light hue going on, like that's shown over everybody
(35:38):
that you can't really tell the source of. And then
they've got these crazy violet lights that are just kind
of flying around, you know, like shining down on everybody.
I feel like if you were laser blasting folks with that,
if that was the one we're talking about, it would
not be good. If you just a couple times in
the night glanced up and saw that thing like right
in your eyes.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It's interesting stuff. Somebody would pay at the very least,
you know, someone will get their finger pointed at them,
potentially a bony monkey finger cartoon. And Ben, I think
you found another story of something kind of similar to this,
a similar whoopsie mix up happening at some kind of
sneakerhead conference.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah yeah, apparently hype Beast back in twenty Back in
twenty seventeen, they had a pop up at a place
called The Landmark that had similar symptoms. And it looks
like it was the same It was the same light.
So maybe maybe it's just easy for people to confuse
(36:39):
the two when they're working on a big venue at scale.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Well, they need to get that looked into. Toot sweet,
because yeah, this is not a good look for anybody.
And again and should to see who takes the fall
for this. But let's take a quick break here a
word from our sponsor, and then come back with some
more strange news.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
And we've returned. Hey, guys, do you like tires?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I love that they exist, and I hate paying for them. Matt,
I just had to buy some tires before I left
town for a while, just to keep a car and
running condition. And I cheaped out, which I don't usually
do on a car, but I cheaped out. I didn't
get all four tires, I just got the front to
you have to at least buy them in a pair, right.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Well, yeah, what are you gonna do about your you're
what they what do they call that? Rotation man? And
all your alignment and whatever.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
I'll do that on my own.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I know how to do that.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
But those are all real things that you gotta worry about. Yeah. Yeah,
And tires are made out of rubber and a bunch
of other compounds that assist in rubber continuing to be rubber.
And that's what this story is gonna be about. This
is actually something we've brought up before in the past
when we talked about vehicle, we talked about infrastructure, and
we talked about pollution. I think we actually mentioned this
(38:05):
specific chemical before. But today there's it's back in the
news and it is worth our time. All Right, here
we go. I'm gonna read from several different sources here,
but I have a little verbatim. I apologize, but let's
go ahead and do some shout outs. First shout out
is to Rocky Mountain Outlook. Yeah, they've got an article
(38:26):
here written by Mark Theeson three days ago as we
record this, so Wednesday, November fifth, remember remember sorry, sorry,
it's just the way slices, remember remember the fifth of November.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
For the Matrix. Yeah, I didn't do that, please carry it.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So here's the title US regulators that should be the
EPA will review car tire chemical that kills salmon upon
request from West Coast tribes and by West Coast tribes,
it means indigenous tribes in the United States or living
within the United States territories that exist on US soil. Okay, what,
(39:23):
First of all, there's a chemical in tires that kills salmon.
That doesn't sound good, let's dig in. Okay, So there
is in fact a chemical, one chemical that's used in tires.
And again there are a lot of chemicals, but one
of them that is used to prevent that rubber from
breaking down as quickly as it normally would. This is
(39:44):
a weird chemical, and let's just get it out of
the way. It's known as six ppd six pp d,
so if you ever want to refer to it as
a thing, just call it six ppd. But here's the
full thing, ready, Yeah, N one to three dimethyl beutle
(40:05):
n phenyl p phenal and a diamine broke.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Dude, let's take a moment and admire that pronunciation.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Well, you're welcome. Its spent way too long on that,
but so what this chemical does is hanging out there
with the rubber in the tire that you're rolling around on,
all four of them, hopefully, and it reacts with oxygen
and ozone, so two different forms of the oxygen molecules,
(40:37):
and it oxidizes or ozonidizes, if there's a there's a
term for it. But that chemical itself is the thing
that reacts with the oxygen in the in the atmosphere
around the tire, rather than that oxygen and ozone reacting
with the rubber itself. Right, Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, yeah, because if the rubber interacted with the oxygen,
it would break down and flake away the way you've
seen rubber breakdown, maybe in an old pencil or something,
or you've probably just seen old rubber objects that have
just busted up completely.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Like a ball.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Oh yeah, that's just a natural process of what occurs
with rubber. These chemicals, these additives are meant to stop
that from happening as quickly as it would. And when
that chemical six PPD reacts with ozone specifically and oxygen,
it creates a separate chemical what do you call it.
(41:32):
It's an it's a product of that chemical plus ozone
They call this six ppd Q or quenone six ppd
dash queenone. This is the thing. This like after effect
right of six ppd interacting with ozone. That's the thing
(41:52):
that's dangerous because if you imagine the four tires on
a car rolling down a highway over and over and
over and over again in one specific part of highway.
Now imagine that it rains, and on top of that
highway where all those tires have gone over, this chemical
has been leeching off onto the ground right for every
(42:14):
tire that goes across it. When it rains, the water
interacts with those chemicals and runs all of those chemicals
off wherever that water's gonna flow. Generally, it's gonna flow
into a creek or something like that. When it gets
in there, it continues flowing down to that wherever that
water goes into. And if salmon and a couple other
(42:35):
types of fish happen to live in that water, this
chemical is lethal to them, so not great. Here's the
big problem, y'all. This chemical has been entires since the
nineteen fifties. Human beings have known that this is a
byproduct of the chemicals we've been using. Entires since the
(42:55):
nineteen fifties for about that long.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Well did that episode on The Michelin Man, The Michelin
Tires on ridiculous History, and like there was a whole
history of like crazy gnarly chemicals and tires that was
like essentially almost like a cover up.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Right, If you want to see some conversational parkour or
hears some you can also tune into several car stuff
episodes on tires. You're right, Matt, it's been uh, it's
been kind of nasty for a while, but it was
easy to ignore I think for many people. And to
your point about the Interstate's modern pavement to the problem
(43:36):
is arguably exacerbated because the chemical composition of the pavement
is such that it absorbs water or transfers water differently
than plain old dirt.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Oh yeah, If you want to get those same lessons, Ben,
head on over to the website for the US Tire
Manufacturers Association, because in there they've addressed these issues and
the fact we didn't even say yet will jump back
in just a moment, but they've addressed these issues, and
you know, provided all this information about previous studies about
this particular chemical, about potential fixes which would both get
(44:15):
rid of that chemical or reduce that chemical and maintain
the safety standards in tires for vehicles on roads in
the United States, because that is the main argument for
keeping this six PPD around. It is the most reliable
chemical to prevent tire breakdown that exists and that is
known of right now. And if you've ever seen a
(44:36):
tire explode on the highway, whether from you know, an
eighteen wheeler or just a regular car, you know how
dangerous that can be. How it can potentially kill the
driver and another driver or a bunch of drivers cause
a major accident, or the debris from a tire can
cause a major accident itself. Like that's scary stuff, really
(44:56):
really scary stuff. So I understand the tire manufacturers saying, hey,
this has been working. We need a solution. But we
got to remember that this is working. But they list
a bunch of stuff like, hey, one potential thing we
could do is rubber treat all the asphalt on the highways,
So the asphalt itself is rubber treating. You're like, well, guys,
(45:18):
I don't know if that does the right thing. But again,
there was a study in two thousand and six that
the Arizona Department of Transportation conducted and they found, Hey,
you can reduce tirewear by fifty percent if you rubber
treated the road too.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Anyway, doesn't that seem like a miss like just an interject, Matt,
Does that not seem like a bad faith argument. They're saying, well,
we could do things. Here's our solution. Put the rubber
on the entirety of the United States roads.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Where the rubber meets the road. Guys.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, literally. There are other ideas like, well, why don't
we just use chopped up tires to make these things
on the sides of highways to trap some of the chemicals.
And again I get it. It's the tire manufacturers Association saying, hey,
how do we benefit from this thing? I get it.
I understand.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Like when they wanted to make coral reefs out of
old tires. Yeah, spoiler didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
It could have.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Who knows, that's the thing. Gotta give things a try.
But if there's motivations behind it that are pretty clear,
we should probably just be open about those motivations. The
whole reason this is even happening that the Environmental Protection
Agency has even taken a look at this chemical is
because those tribes got together and they made a huge
petition saying, hey, this specific type of salmon is really
(46:43):
important culturally to us, and this chemical is wiping out
the populations along the Puget Sound, along all these other
areas in the Northwest. Let's call out these tribes. It's
the Uruk tribe in California, the Port Gamble Sclullum, and
the Yallop tribes in Washington. They all got together and
(47:04):
they asked the e P a, hey, help us out.
It's specifically Coho salmon c o h O salmon.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Isn't that the kind that's sort of like the real
pink kind that you get like at the regular just
the store.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I honestly don't know a ton about this specific.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Heard of it, and but I'm trying to remember if
it's like basic kind of like you know, the lowest
tier salmon, or if it's a nicer one. But that
doesn't matter. I know I've heard the name before. Yeah, No,
Coho versus Sake versus King, So like Sake and King
are the fancy ones. Coho is still kind of fancy.
It's it's it's like definitely up there, but it's a
(47:40):
little less fancy than the sake or the king.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Because it's not farm raised. I think that's you get
the wild caught, so you get the you get the
extra edible parasites. That's true.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yea. Also, no fish is pink like that. It's just
not a it's yellow, you know.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
But but also, uh, they're already I believe coho or
wild caught salmon is already in a bit of a
pickle because a bunch of farm raised salmon escaped recently.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Anyway, Yeah, they're also in trouble because there are a
bunch of dams that have been built on you know,
salmon travel very specific routes to get back to their
spawning areas, and you know, if you build a dam
over the route, probably.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Fish ladders or no. Is that a thing that salmon
will cooperate with? And I'm not sure, I just cause
came up recently, the idea of fish ladders. I was
talking to my kid about the Hoover dams. She's like
one of those things that the fish go up. I'm like,
fish fish thing, fish ladder, that's what that?
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I'm assuming because I don't know
how else you get over a dam, right, once something
artificial like that's been put in place. This is all
to say it is worth our time at least to
probably as humans think about tire alternatives. There have been
many over the years potential tire alternatives that either use
(49:00):
the same rubber materials but in a very different way,
or use a different lattice structure, things that we've again,
we talked about this on the show so many times.
It is worth our time as humans to really invest
in this. At some point, maybe if we can convince
one of those billionaires that's trying to get to the
stars to like, I don't know, focus down here for
(49:21):
a little bit, would be we could make something happen.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Make ecological hygiene sexy again, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Oh, okay, we're going to have to workshop that because
it doesn't quite I don't think it quite lands linguistically
for a chant, but something like that, Matt, and you
gave us these fantastic articles too in these sources. I
was unaware of this specific issue. I think we support
(49:51):
the indigenous peoples that are are fighting for ecological justice here.
There was a point in the Rocky Mountain Outlook article
that you share where one of the one of the
boffins says, it's we're focused on this one chemical, but it's.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Oh yeah, could you talk about that just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Well, it's just the fact that there are a lot
of additives to the rubber and metal and stuff, all
the things that create what a modern tire is. And
a lot of those chemicals again, they all break down,
right because the rubber. If you've ever been to get
a check up on your tires, they check the depth
of your tire, and that is because it's physically wearing
(50:33):
down as that rubber hits the road and it doesn't
just go away or you know, dissipate into the atmosphere.
When that rubber goes away, it goes onto the streets
and it gets run off. And because again, a tire
is a complicated kind of cool thing, an invention that
(50:54):
humanity has created.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
And it lasts a lot, you know, relatively long time.
I mean, I would say it's not like planned obsolescence,
Like no one has invented forever tires yet, right.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Correct, And you can rebuild those tires. There's a whole
there's a whole industry of basically replacing the outer layer
of a tire to continue its functionality. That's right, and
it's there are a lot of chemicals in there to
make it what it is. Most of them aren't great
for wildlife.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I mean that beautiful new car smell is also not
great for the people smelling it all. Like in that case,
it's VOCs, right, volatile organic chemicals. But this is perfect
strange news because this is something I would argue that
doesn't get the national mainstream attention that it really needs.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Yeah, oh man, one of the I guess worst things
about that article. Oh no. It was from the Puget
Sound Institute and it was an article written in twenty
twenty one, and it was covering the tire related chemicals
and how cohosam and are being affected, how the populations
are being affected, and how they had just basically these
(52:03):
groups had just worked their butts off to get the
co host salmon population back up, and they seem to
be thriving, and then all of a sudden, they're like, wait,
what the heck's happening now? And it turns out it
was this tire runoff somehow that was affecting specific areas
of where they travel when they go to reproduce. Check
out Huget Sound Institute dot org and the article titled
(52:27):
discovery of tire related chemical that kills co host Salmon
sparks widespread response from August twenty twenty one. Oh and
one last thing to check out Department of Ecology, State
of Washington. They've got a great article on here. It's
super short, but it explains pretty succinctly like what the
problem is and it uses a couple of infographics that
(52:47):
are very helpful.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
And with that, folks, we cannot wait to hear from you.
Thank you as always for tuning in this evening. Several
of us are riding the highway right now on some
of those car tires. Tell us what you think about
the larger issue here, tell us what you think about
inn FT's and lasers non consensually in your eyes, and
(53:12):
of course, enjoy your chicken nuggets.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Uh. Can we hear about some heights on the listener
mail episode to follow this?
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Oh, did we mention the heist on air? We did?
Speaker 3 (53:22):
We did, did did, But we're at a time we
don't want to give a short shrift. So let's see, right.
We had a little bit of a preamble beginning to
this episode. But these are fun and to Matt's point,
off Mike, they're very evergreen.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
Well we will see, yes, agreed and great catch Noel,
uh Samon jokes. Uh, so we are going to return
very soon. We want to thank everybody. We had a
run of classic episodes. Uh, several of us were on
the road. Recently we're back in the saddle or back
on our fish ladder, as they say. Uh, and we
(53:56):
can tend.
Speaker 3 (53:59):
I too done.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Well, it's a we're continually migrating to twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
I was on the road to Wellville.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
There we go and we were, oh, guys, did you
see this weird like bowling jacket looking holding cow?
Speaker 3 (54:15):
Where'd you get that? On the roads?
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Join an organization, not a flashy We're starting with a
y it somewhere in there.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
So so, speaking of joining organizations, we would love for
you to gather with us in the campfire around the
figurative darkness. We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
Correct to Mundy Mundo whatever. You can find this at
the handle conspiracy stuff, where we exist on x nay, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook,
where we have a group called Here's where it gets
Crazy that you can join if that's your thing. Also,
you can find it to the handle Conspiracy Stuff show
on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Hey, why not swim up the old phone lines and
spawn a voicemail call it. We are one eight three
three st d WYTK. You've got three minutes when you
call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let us
know if we can use your name and message on
the air. Hey, if you don't want to do that,
but you still want to contact us, why not instead
(55:16):
send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
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
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learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noah. They call
me Ben.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
We're joined as always with our super producer, all mission
control decads. Most importantly, you are here, and that makes
this the stuff they don't want you to know. Strange
news for strange days, strange days. Indeed, we're going to
explore some irony in the world of NFTs. We're going
(00:49):
to explore us some regulation, the consequences thereof, and the
necessity thereof. And before we get into any of that, uh,
we found now that there's always a list of heist
every time we do this strange news segment. I don't
(01:10):
know if we want to save those for the end
or if we want to just run through them. Now,
what do you guys think?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh? Man, you know I love a good ridiculous heist.
I'd say dealer's choice.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Frankly, I think at the end would be great. Okay, Well,
you know one thing we haven't done. Have we spoken
a loud about how much fun we had at the
This Is Important Live show.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Oh, we have that publicly, we should make a statement.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Yes, let's put it out and let's get you know,
I actually am applying to be a notary later, so
we can we can stamp stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Yeah, just like.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
What is a little bit easier than the other. Actually
we could do you.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Get your own personalized like stamp one of those big, thick,
chunky boys. I think you too, awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
We could the three of us could make a day
of it. If you guys want to go become notaries.
I think it's a very unnecessary power. But you know
who doesn't love stamps.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
It's a cool micro superpower. I would argue. There you go.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Well, despite none of us currently being notaries, Matt, you
raise an excellent point, we did, indeed get to meet
some of our I think it's fair to call the
guy's comedy heroes.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Would we agree with that?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, definitely guys that we look up to because they're
about our same age. They've been incredibly successful and created
some of the most iconic characters that were on TV
for years. So yeah, I mean the workaholics guys. You
now have a show called This Is important. If you
don't know about it, you should be listening to it.
If you're okay with let's call it blue humor.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Maybe.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
But it was just a tremendously fun show and those
guys as individuals were extremely kind and not what you
expect when you get warned all the time about meeting
somebody you look up.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
To and that won't do it.
Speaker 2 (02:57):
Yeah, that was not the case with those guys.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
It so cool too, Like I had. The venue they
performed at was this really posh, cool theater where they
often do like ballets and like you know, like classical
music performances, the cob Energy Center, And I've only been
there one time prior to see the Icelandic art rock
band seeger ROAs. It was just it just felt like
such an interesting swath of creativity from siegar ROAs to
(03:20):
Workaholics guys you know talking about tie Buttholes. It was.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
It was fantastic and Workaholics was a fantastic show. Before that,
they did something called mail Order Comedy on YouTube where
you can see you can see some of the early
pure sketch work that they did. We're talking about our
our pals, Adam Kyle Blake and Onders. These guys were,
(03:48):
as you said, Matt, absolutely electric in their live show.
We got to meet them briefly after the show, and yeah,
it was just it was just a fantastic time, you
know what. Shout out as well to our pal super
producer an A. Josnier, who was the entire reason we
(04:09):
got to hang out.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
The proverbial hookup, no question about it. Yeah, no, I
got fat. As the Beatles would say, a fantastic time
was guaranteed for all. I think that's how they said it. Yeah,
a splendid time perhaps. Speaking of which, guys, leading with
a little fun news story that does really quickly. Have
you guys seen this terrible new AI driven Beatles video
(04:32):
for this like.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Song, Don't love it.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
It's so bad. It's like, this is what AI should
never be used for. They used AI on the audio
of John Lennon's vocal that he recorded on a cassette
just to make it sound nicer, and then they, you know,
the Living Beatles overdubbed their parts and stuff. But the
video is just the most quintessentially bad. Like green screen.
It's like, you know, modern day Paul McCartney, modern day
(04:56):
Ringo star superimposed with like Sergeant Pepper era George Harrison,
like he's right there, but it looks so flat and weird,
and it's just it's really bad. Shame on you, Peter Jackson,
Shame on you. I know, I know he can't win
them all.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
But also I think it's a fantastic, fantastic arrow in
the quiver of sag Aftra's argument about the AI characterization.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
I wonder if that was intentional on mister Jackson this
or our dear friend of the show, Jordan runtalg has
a theory then, because you know, obviously the Get Back
documentary was such a smash and really brought the Beatles
back into the top of people's minds, you know, in
the modern era, a lot of people discovering them for
the first time. And his theory is that Peter Jackson
is so integral to like the next phase of Beatles,
(05:47):
like you know, marketing and selling and figuring out how
to like restore old stuff with his like proprietary AI technology,
that they just let him run with whatever piece of
he turned in because they didn't want to cross him.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I love it, conspira.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
I think it's an interesting it's very on brand with
the show. So sorry. I didn't mean to to derail.
I think that's just a neat story that was bugging me,
and I think probably bugging It's basically become an instant
meme because it's so laughably absurd looking.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
We do live in the era of uh. We do
live in the era of miracles and wonders and instant memes,
and sometimes it's difficult not to weep. Shout out to
Paul Simon, Yes here as an AI avatar sometime in
the future.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Please God. That song is so good? Is that it's
You're a boy with the Boy in the Bubble, Boy
in the Some of my most heart wrenching songs are
by Simon and Garfunkle and Paul Simon, like the song
The Only Living Boy in New York. Every time that
song comes on, I weep openly. I'm not going to lie.
I weep openly.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
Losing love is like a window in your heart. You
know everyone can see the wind blow this. This may
be this feeling of great loss, may be something people
are encountering. If you are, like many of us out there,
a fan of chicken nuggets, a super convenient food admittedly
not super great for you, and it turns out that
(07:15):
chicken nuggets are in a bit of a crossroads at
the moment. Quite recently, the gargantuan food producer Tyson Foods,
which specializes in poultry, announced that it is quote voluntarily
unquote recalling around thirty thousand pounds of chicken nuggets. That
(07:39):
would be thirteen six hundred and eight kilograms for everybody
outside of the United States. And they're doing this massive
recall because pieces of pliable metal were found in these products.
These are specifically, get this, the fun nuggets, which is
(08:00):
the official word for official term for the dino shaped.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Yeah, the vaguely triceratopsy and stegosaurus and nuggets.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Aka the one Matt fed his son for you.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Oh, I love them. You know what, you nailed it.
They did it right with the brand, and they're fun.
You can play a little games with them, be like,
I know.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Right, it's almost like an embedded lesson about uh empowerment.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
You know, now, I eat the t rex.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
So the the issue here is, of course, chicken nuggets
occupy their own space and the pantheon of Internet memes
and nomenclature, So this gets a lot of attention. But
we wanted to give it some attention, specifically to explore
some aspects of this story that apply to larger issues.
(08:57):
So Tyson released a statement and you can read it
free online at their website. They said they're voluntarily recalling
approximately thirty pounds of quote frozen fully cooked chicken fun
nuggets sold in twenty nine ounce packages. They take pains
(09:18):
to say no other Tyson brand products are affected, and
again this is the official source. They're saying. A limited
number of consumers have reported they found small, pliable metal
pieces in the product, and Tyson says, out of an
abundance of caution, we are recalling this products as far
(09:40):
as we can tell right now. According to the US
Food Safety and Inspection Service or THYSIS, there was one
report of a minor oral injury, so one person essentially
cut the inside of their cheek or their tongue when
eating these. I wanted to bring this up because this
(10:01):
reminded me of an excellent conversation we had not too
long ago about automobile manufacturer recalls.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
And the formula that they talk about in Fight Club,
right like, if X plus Y plus blah blah blah
divided by so and so equals the is less than
the cost of a recall, then they don't do it.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, there's something else that just happened in the news
and I'm trying to recall it right now DLS. Yeah, well, yeah, exactly.
It's decals that go on the front of steering wheels
that it's apparently a popular thing that I was unaware of.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Therese like emblem things or like the badge badge type deals.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Oh yeah, maybe that's exactly what it is. But you
put it literally on your steering wheel, like where the
horn might be or in that area where the air
bag deploys.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Something additional. I mean, like my car has the car
logo in the center of the steering wheel.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
It's a it's a third party, aftermarket thing that goes
on top of like where the logo would be. And
there was one case gosh it was tangentially related to
another recall. But it becomes a projectile, like especially ones
that have rhinestones on them, that that's a very popular thing,
like you get some bird shot.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Basically, yeah, it's like a chuck on blast of the face.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
I didn't think rhinestones could be worse than they already are. Wow, Okay,
because this is new to me, Matt, I was. I
was immediately thinking maybe it's the aftermarket, you know, the
grips that go around wheels that have all kinds of
nasty chemicals in them, or.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
The fuzzy ones. Have you ever seen the fuzzy ones
like troll doll hair.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Well, be safe, folks, and maybe maybe take off the
vanity stickers. You know. The scary thing about the world
and humanity is there's probably someone who has a little
vanity badge right there in the center of the steering wheel.
But it's a mirror, so they watch themselves American psycho
(12:03):
style while they drive.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
That seems extra dangerous and fame and maybe sort of like,
you know, maybe you got it coming. No one, no
one deserves that. But boy, that would explode because you know,
if the if the airbag deployed, it would just be
like a final destination scenario, you know, even with a
little small mirror potentially.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Yeah, well, even like you were saying, with a with
any kind of textured badging there, right, because you can
look at a steering wheel and usually you can see
the creases or perforations, yes, where there's in the way. Yeah, yeah,
Relief's a good way to put it so, recalls are important.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
They are a part of business for automobile manufacturers. They
are also, it turns out, a part of business for
large monopolistic food manufacturers. And this is not the first
brush Tyson Foods has had with recalls or recalls. There's
(13:07):
a great article we want to shout out from BBC
News by annabel Leong, and in this the journalist points
out that as recently as twenty nineteen, Tyson Foods had
another recall of chicken nuggets. This time it was not small,
pliable metal pieces, just random pieces of blue rubber.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Again, it sounds like a case where in the giant
manufacturing process to make these something fell in right and
got ground up nice and good.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
With the rest of the chicken pieces and all the grasshoppers.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
That's there's no doubt in there. As well, after Tyson's
recent acquisition of that insect protein company.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
The soldier flies.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Sir, sorry, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Respect their service.
The soldier flies the internet, pay me no mind. This
is not what's happening. This is definitely I'm serious.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
So we already know that there is an ongoing controversy
with these formed chicken proteins, right. You find them in Tyson,
you find them anywhere in the United States, often at
fast food locations. Of course, McDonald's has to take the hit.
(14:28):
McDonald's famously a real estate company that happens to sell snacks.
They also get in trouble.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
What I would.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Say every two year basis a bi annual basis for
certain controversies about what they're actually putting in their nuggies,
as the Internet calls them. Interesting to know. Also, you guys,
the same year, twenty nineteen, Tyson recalled millions of pounds
of chicken strips because of concerns, again a proactive voluntary recall,
(15:04):
concerns that they might also be contaminated with metal and
matt To your point, I believe you are correct. I
believe that it's a problem of scale, right, and a
problem of subcontracting out to things. There is a growing
controversy which will probably be even more mainstreamed in coming
(15:27):
months or years, regarding the use of child labor in
some of these agricultural concerns. And I know, I think
it was just last year Tyson shut down several chicken
processing plants in the United States because during the pandemic.
Demand for chicken started to go down until at inflection point.
(15:54):
I hate you that term, but it's true. It's apt
here an inflection point occurred beef and pork in general
became more and more expensive. We all remember that part, right,
do you guys?
Speaker 3 (16:06):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (16:07):
Did you get sticker shocked at some point?
Speaker 3 (16:10):
This it's definitely been a bell weather by which a
lot of folks are measuring inflation and just in general,
how much more expensive it is to like live is
grocery bells.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
There's a oh gosh, I want to say, a three
star restaurant in Belfest that is shutting down because it's
too expensive to carry on creating food at the level
that they want to create food. So they said, it's
just impossible to get enough people who are able to
pay for the food into their restaurant now, even in
(16:42):
a major city like Belfast, they just can't do it.
So they're gonna completely redo this three Michelin star restaurant
into something that's affordable for people to eat.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
Wow, I mean, and that's something people who are in
the restaurant industry, many of our fellow conspiracy realist can
witness anywhere and their own neck of the global woods.
You know, restaurants have always been a cutthroat business with
razor thin margins, and if anything shifts in the wrong direction,
(17:12):
then your business all of a sudden is non viable
unless you become a nonprofit you know what I mean.
So what we're looking at here is a problem of
monopolistic control over things. It's simply like, yes, it's all
grand and Pollyannon fiddle dd to say to say, oh,
(17:35):
I am at a point in life where I only
get organic food, I only get farm to table stuff.
I know the name of every animal I eat. But
that's simply not realistic for the vast majority of people,
which means that these businesses, these large interests, are going
to continue. At this point, before we go to our
(17:57):
ad break, we've got to say it's a bit of
a it's a bit of a dilemma. Tyson does feed people.
The livestock industry, especially the poultry industry, as it exists today,
is a horror show by most measures, by almost any
ethical measure. I would like to end by saying we
(18:18):
are going to follow up on this. Good luck to
the people at Tyson who are reporting to their shareholders.
We're reporting their latest quarterly earnings on November thirteenth, and
shout out to the latest Rick and Morty episode as
we record for anyone who hasn't seen it, it is
(18:38):
exactly about stuff like this, and it starts with a
story about spaghetti. So we're gonna pause for a word
from our sponsor and we'll be back with more strange news.
Speaker 3 (18:57):
And we're back, and you know what else is back?
Fellas McRib I hope, So what's what's what's mcribs season?
Speaker 1 (19:07):
It's like it's like a cthulhu?
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Uh, I mean literally, what time of the year is it?
Speaker 1 (19:13):
The theory is it depends on global pork presses.
Speaker 3 (19:17):
I don't know, but okay, maybe I don't.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Think that's actually true.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
And overall it's it's a fun thing to think about. Well,
the pumpkin spice lette is back for sure, which just
goes by PSL. Sometimes people will say PSL for pumpkin
spice lettey and I know it's pronounced lata is being
a fancy boy. But another acronym that hasn't bitted the
news as much lately NFTs. Maybe remember those million dollar
(19:47):
gifts or whatever there were gifts, There were JPEGs there
were you know, ones that moved, there were little video loops. Uh,
it was non fungible tokens.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Oh, I thought it was non fungi tepano.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Yeah. The top of nod, Yeah, it's it's it's it's
a it's a top of nod that does not contain mushrooms,
which is no top of nod of mine, let me
tell you or none that I'm interested in, I uh
in any case, But yeah, NFT, I think the most popular,
or at least the biggest, like celebrity ground swell. There
was that whole beeple crap guy that remember he sold
(20:22):
an n FT for like a billion dollars or something
like that. I'd love to follow up on that guy.
He seems to have cashed out and made a pretty penny.
And obviously, even if you know, whatever tokens he was
paid that in and have have lost their value a
billion dollars, even if it has lost an insane amount
of value, it's probably still some millions of dollars for
(20:42):
old beeple crap. But n FT is the board Ape
yacht club. Do you guys remember that celebrities were getting
in on the fun. It's literally got somebody took his apes.
Somebody just took his apes. There was all this stuff
where people were doing these like wallet like fishing kind
of scams, and you know, people would just totally get
(21:03):
had and they're you know, there's people were stealing the
credentials or literally. What these things are, of course, is
a It's a image that's backed by a receipt that
is tied to the blockchain. That is a contract that
that you know, says that that thing belongs to you.
It's about ownership. We always kind of, I think joked,
or maybe it's not really a joke. It's true. A
lot of this stuff is about fetishization of ownership, sue,
(21:25):
because anybody could take the screenshot of the thing. I
can look at anybody's monkey board ape, which by the way,
these are like generative NFTs, so they're like created by
an algorithm to look different, but they all kind of
look the same. Like Ozzy Osbourne got in on it too.
We have these like Ozzie Bat things that were all
just generated and there'd be a limited number of them,
(21:46):
like Pokemon or whatever. It might be training cards, but
it's all virtual.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Oh uh. One point though, before we get the email, uh,
the technology behind NFTs, the blockchain stuff does have efficacy
for things like.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Absolutely we've talked about that along the way as well.
Not only that marijuana has not been fully recreationally legal
in New York City until very recently, but it was
so decriminalized that there were literal brick and mortar weed
dispensaries and shops. But much like the whole deal, where
like in Atlanta, for the longest time, we had all
(22:21):
these breweries that would not allow you to buy beer
on site at the brewery, so they'd sell you a
tour and they'd give you this little ticket and then
you'd exchange the ticket for your beer at the end
like a gift. And one way that some of these
New York sort of dispensaries, these sort of skirting the
(22:43):
law gray area dispensaries were doing it is they and
I did this one time. You pick out the things
that you want, they quote unquote sell you an NFT
that comes in your email and then they give you
the products that you've requested as a free gift. Oh okay,
it's another very clever use of this.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
This that isn't Yeah, that reminds me of the the
weird gambling loopholes. In Japan, for instance, there are these
pachinko parlors, but gambling straight away is wish wish illegal.
So you win, you win prizes or points, and then
you go up, you literally go across the street and
(23:22):
exchange that thing for any number of stuff.
Speaker 3 (23:26):
So, yeah, not to get too off to but maybe
you can shed some light on this. Ben Here in Atlanta,
gambling is not legal. There's no casinos in Atlanta, but
some gas stations in certain parts of town have these
poker machines and you see people sitting on them feeding
them money. What's up with those? Is it common just
for funzies or is there some payout or is it
(23:47):
just totally flouting the law, if that's even a word.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
I mean, I don't want to derail us too often,
but I do. From what I understand, there are not
infrequent instances where there's a back room marked them toys only,
and that's where I've.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
Seen these in the main room. Like there's one down
the street from me. There's like three or four of
them in the main that's always posted up at him.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
That's the opening, dude, the opening you play there, I
guess you get your points or whatever, and then you.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Go, Okay, well, I guess the back room of n
F T s. Yeah. Again. The point is NFTs famously tanked,
didn't go wells, magic beans, pixie dust, Woozy wazzy whatever,
the character that Matthew McConaughey plays, and Wolf of Wall
(24:39):
Street's talking about for stocks. You know, he's like, nobody
can predict any of this, it's all, you know, yes,
that and that was all apparently Ben's handing on his chest,
that was all apparently improvised. But I love when he
just says tootski and he offers some little cocaine spoon
and then he instructs him on how to order martinis
and keep him coming and all that, and he gives
him this whole spiel. You know how this all ephemeral,
(25:01):
all this stock stuff, and we know that stocks are
less ephemeral than this NFT or crypto stuff, but only
like by only minor orders of magnitude, if that's not
a total misnomer what I just said. But the back
room now has become these like kind of self congratulatory
parties where it's like, no, no, everything's still cool, y'all.
(25:23):
We we're good, we are the ones riding this out.
We're weathering the storm, y'all. And this is a thing
that's been happening since before the crash. And I forget
the exact number, but NFTs have lost just nearly all
of their value, Like like if you average it up together,
I think the value of like NFTs overall is like
practically zero. And I think, like justin Bieber spent a
(25:46):
multimillion dollars on one, it's now worth like thirty thousand dollars.
So it's like, you know, just the amount of loss
practically equals it flatlining. But in Hong Kong, this this
is one of these very exclusive, you know, NFT community parties.
Is this happened again despite the climate, the board Ape
Yacht Club through this event, the organizer of it being
(26:11):
Yuga Labs, the company based in the US that's originated
the board Ape Yacht Club and that whole deal, and apparently,
you know, this is it's kind of thing you might
think like sort of a techno bro party type thing,
like an activation like it south by Southwest, but very
specifically focused on these board apes. So you'll see like
(26:31):
animated apes djaying with lots of light shows and lasers
and video projections, and you know, any number of hangers
on of the crypto and an FT world having booths
and things like that, trying to get people riled up
for the next wave, which unfortunately I don't think is
gonna happen. But it's called Apefest, which is funny in
and of itself because you know what does an ape do?
(26:53):
The word ape even like aping someone else's behavior. That's
kind of what all this is about. It's like not
wanting to miss so I'm gonna copy what this other
rich guy's doing because I don't want to like lose out.
I don't want to have fomo. So it's like Apefest.
And yeah, and this event took place at Kai Tac
Cruise terminal and it was all honky dories, like maybe
a couple hundred people, very high ticket price, probably upwards
(27:17):
of one thousand dollars if not more than that. I'm
not seeing the exact entry price right this second. But
point being party time, you know, animated monkeys, dancing, all
the good stuff, smoke machines, lasers, black lights, most importantly neon.
A lot of people. The next day wake up with
(27:37):
a different kind of hangover. You guys, not just like,
oh no, that took too much molly and drank too
much cosa dragonas or whatever. No is molly ecstasy. Molly
is ecstasy, yes, MDMA whatever. It's still a pretty popular
dance party kind of club drug for the elites. You know.
(27:57):
I see you shaking your head and bewilderment. Pen my scene.
It's not my scene. I just know from what I've
read it's not never been my thing.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
But that makes sense, you would say, because that drug
in particular causes extreme dehydration.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Detridration, headache, dysphoria. They say.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
The crash from that is often quite bad because it
dumps your serotonin, right.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
It does. It's more so than I think even like cocaine,
because it gives you such an insane high and it
just gives you, you know, just shoots you, rushes you full
of all this good feeling juice, and then the next
day you're left feeling like a bit of a husk.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Okay, So people wake up with a some some sort
of deleterious feeling that cannot be attributed to the substances
they ingested.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
They're just not quite sure what it is, Okay, And
people take to the Internet, and it start to kind
of you know, pull the community. Hey, anybody else wake
up with your eyeballs feeling like they've been burnt out
of your skull? Anybody else? Am I blind? Having blurred vision?
You know? Anybody else literally feel like I've got a
(29:05):
sunburn on your corneas as Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
And a lot of people confirmed, right.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
People are like, yeah, yeah, what's up with that? And
it turns out that some of those laser light dealis
that I was talking about maybe were the wrong kind.
Have you guys ever heard of a syndrome called welder's eye, Yeah, photokeratitis,
that's the word. Ben, You nailed it, Matt. You ever
(29:36):
seen like those you know, welders they wear those crazy hoods,
those crazy you know whatever. Well, it's a mask masks, yeah,
or there are versions of it that are just really sharp,
tight you know goggles as well.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Right, And it's kind a lens on it that's a
particular color that is meant to stop certain frequencies of
light from entering your eye over and over and over.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
That's correct, if I'm not mistaken. It might be a
little different with welding, but this case we're dealing with
the uh, the product of ultraviolet light, a KA radiation
that has has a very deleterious effect on people who
are exposed to it for too long, which is again
why these uh, these you know folks that work around
(30:18):
did protect themselves. So it came out that Yeah, in fact,
somebody actually took to the Internet and wrote a pretty
extensive you know post saying, hey, this is real. Some
friends of mine borderline have lost their vision. If you
were at this event, you need to seek medical help
before it's too late, because this is the kind of
(30:39):
thing that, if left unchecked, could absolutely lead to long
term vision loss potential blindness. So the symptoms let's see. Yeah,
here we go. This guy, yeah, Adam Zadunski z d
u n c z y k. This is what he
(31:00):
had to say. He was the guy I was just
mentioned on x nay Twitter to all my friends who suffer,
Now go get your eyes checked. You've likely most literally
got your eyes burned with UV like I did, which
requires medications, eye drops, eye protection, antibiotics, and specialist care.
Don't ignore this health hazard. Without proper treatment, it may
cause long lasting vision impairment and other serious damage. So
(31:26):
what happened exactly, like we all know that sometimes if
you go to a certain concert or a certain film,
there'll be a trigger warning about strobes that could potentially
affect people with say epilepsy, that can be a very
serious medical thing, but it doesn't burn out your eyeballs.
And you know, typically lasers, while dangerous if pointed directly
(31:47):
at the eye, you know, into the eye, that could
cause problems if it stuck there long enough. But that's
not something that you hear people complaining about going to
raves or are these kind of parties. So something is amiss.
So what happened you know that this is this seems
like something got switched. Was it nefarious with somebody like
some you know, v for Vendetta type character trying to
(32:10):
target these these revelers, you know and make them pay.
I mean, the irony is so thick you could cut
it with a whatever, a knife of some kind, a laser.
Perhaps we're talking about people who paid a bunch of
money so they could get a picture of a monkey,
an ape or whatever, and they you know, so they
could presumably look at it, go to an event. You know,
(32:30):
that's almost like partying on the deck of the Titanic
as it sinks, but like a year later kind of
like and then now they're now they're potentially blind and
can't look at anything anymore. It's it's too much, it's wild.
So what ended up happening, we think, or is the theory,
is that some of these light tubes, these bulbs, they
(32:53):
accidentally somehow we don't know again how we're switched out.
Like there are these certain grades of light that would
be like a black light leads like Spencer's to make
a velvet poster of a dragon, you know, look like
all shiny and stuff. And then there's something else, something
called the Phillips TUV thirty watt G thirty eight bulb,
(33:13):
which is a light bulb that emits twelve watts of
uv C radiation and is used for disinfection purposes. This
would be like one of those lights right like you
see in those hotel room exposs maybe where they shine
the thing and that's you know, every and you notice
when they do that, people usually put on glasses, don't they.
(33:34):
If they're doing it for a while, they usually pass
out some little glasses. And I guess presumably there were
tons of these, and people also had burns on their skin,
not only on their eyes.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
Isn't this Yeah, isn't this used to like it's a
light based germicide?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
That's it? Really? Maybe I'm getting it wrong, you know
what we did talk about Remember during COVID people were
saying UV light could potentially kill COVID, but it was
also mixed up with a bunch of other bs claims.
But yes, absolutely, I'm sure this could potentially be a disinfectant.
But you would, again, if it's been emitting that much
actual radiation, you would protect yourself. And if enough of
(34:15):
these were installed, that could be really really good news.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Could it be a translation error or some sort of
like I'm with you Nol on the idea that this
was not a malevolent action, right, But could it be
a matter of someone just getting the wrong item in
an invoice or working in English versus working in Chinese
(34:40):
characters and idiograms like.
Speaker 3 (34:42):
It's certainly possible that I haven't seen that exact speculation.
One thing I did see, though, and I will wrap
it up with this was just a comment from the
organizers essentially not claiming any responsibility. This is the kind
of thing that you know, they would never claim onsibility.
They would pass the buck to some supplier, some mistranslation,
(35:04):
like you said, Ben, and all all all this to
say that they're looking into it, you know, and that
they're going to do everything they can to make people whole. Whatever.
But holly cow, what a what a tail?
Speaker 2 (35:16):
I've been watching a video on loop over here on
x for quite a while, hosted by Crypto Turk, and
it's an actual video of the fest, and I'm trying
to discern which lights are actually the ones we've been
talking about. And Guys, there's like just kind of a
blue light hue going on, like that's shown over everybody
(35:38):
that you can't really tell the source of. And then
they've got these crazy violet lights that are just kind
of flying around, you know, like shining down on everybody.
I feel like if you were laser blasting folks with that,
if that was the one we're talking about, it would
not be good. If you just a couple times in
the night glanced up and saw that thing like right
in your eyes.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
It's interesting stuff. Somebody would pay at the very least,
you know, someone will get their finger pointed at them,
potentially a bony monkey finger cartoon. And Ben, I think
you found another story of something kind of similar to this,
a similar whoopsie mix up happening at some kind of
sneakerhead conference.
Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah yeah, apparently hype Beast back in twenty Back in
twenty seventeen, they had a pop up at a place
called The Landmark that had similar symptoms. And it looks
like it was the same It was the same light.
So maybe maybe it's just easy for people to confuse
(36:39):
the two when they're working on a big venue at scale.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Well, they need to get that looked into. Toot sweet,
because yeah, this is not a good look for anybody.
And again and should to see who takes the fall
for this. But let's take a quick break here a
word from our sponsor, and then come back with some
more strange news.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
And we've returned. Hey, guys, do you like tires?
Speaker 1 (37:10):
I love that they exist, and I hate paying for them. Matt,
I just had to buy some tires before I left
town for a while, just to keep a car and
running condition. And I cheaped out, which I don't usually
do on a car, but I cheaped out. I didn't
get all four tires, I just got the front to
you have to at least buy them in a pair, right.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
Well, yeah, what are you gonna do about your you're
what they what do they call that? Rotation man? And
all your alignment and whatever.
Speaker 1 (37:39):
I'll do that on my own.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
I know how to do that.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
But those are all real things that you gotta worry about. Yeah. Yeah,
And tires are made out of rubber and a bunch
of other compounds that assist in rubber continuing to be rubber.
And that's what this story is gonna be about. This
is actually something we've brought up before in the past
when we talked about vehicle, we talked about infrastructure, and
we talked about pollution. I think we actually mentioned this
(38:05):
specific chemical before. But today there's it's back in the
news and it is worth our time. All Right, here
we go. I'm gonna read from several different sources here,
but I have a little verbatim. I apologize, but let's
go ahead and do some shout outs. First shout out
is to Rocky Mountain Outlook. Yeah, they've got an article
(38:26):
here written by Mark Theeson three days ago as we
record this, so Wednesday, November fifth, remember remember sorry, sorry,
it's just the way slices, remember remember the fifth of November.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
For the Matrix. Yeah, I didn't do that, please carry it.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
So here's the title US regulators that should be the
EPA will review car tire chemical that kills salmon upon
request from West Coast tribes and by West Coast tribes,
it means indigenous tribes in the United States or living
within the United States territories that exist on US soil. Okay, what,
(39:23):
First of all, there's a chemical in tires that kills salmon.
That doesn't sound good, let's dig in. Okay, So there
is in fact a chemical, one chemical that's used in tires.
And again there are a lot of chemicals, but one
of them that is used to prevent that rubber from
breaking down as quickly as it normally would. This is
(39:44):
a weird chemical, and let's just get it out of
the way. It's known as six ppd six pp d,
so if you ever want to refer to it as
a thing, just call it six ppd. But here's the
full thing, ready, Yeah, N one to three dimethyl beutle
(40:05):
n phenyl p phenal and a diamine broke.
Speaker 1 (40:12):
Dude, let's take a moment and admire that pronunciation.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
Well, you're welcome. Its spent way too long on that,
but so what this chemical does is hanging out there
with the rubber in the tire that you're rolling around on,
all four of them, hopefully, and it reacts with oxygen
and ozone, so two different forms of the oxygen molecules,
(40:37):
and it oxidizes or ozonidizes, if there's a there's a
term for it. But that chemical itself is the thing
that reacts with the oxygen in the in the atmosphere
around the tire, rather than that oxygen and ozone reacting
with the rubber itself. Right, Does that make sense?
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, yeah, because if the rubber interacted with the oxygen,
it would break down and flake away the way you've
seen rubber breakdown, maybe in an old pencil or something,
or you've probably just seen old rubber objects that have
just busted up completely.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Like a ball.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Oh yeah, that's just a natural process of what occurs
with rubber. These chemicals, these additives are meant to stop
that from happening as quickly as it would. And when
that chemical six PPD reacts with ozone specifically and oxygen,
it creates a separate chemical what do you call it.
(41:32):
It's an it's a product of that chemical plus ozone
They call this six ppd Q or quenone six ppd
dash queenone. This is the thing. This like after effect
right of six ppd interacting with ozone. That's the thing
(41:52):
that's dangerous because if you imagine the four tires on
a car rolling down a highway over and over and
over and over again in one specific part of highway.
Now imagine that it rains, and on top of that
highway where all those tires have gone over, this chemical
has been leeching off onto the ground right for every
(42:14):
tire that goes across it. When it rains, the water
interacts with those chemicals and runs all of those chemicals
off wherever that water's gonna flow. Generally, it's gonna flow
into a creek or something like that. When it gets
in there, it continues flowing down to that wherever that
water goes into. And if salmon and a couple other
(42:35):
types of fish happen to live in that water, this
chemical is lethal to them, so not great. Here's the
big problem, y'all. This chemical has been entires since the
nineteen fifties. Human beings have known that this is a
byproduct of the chemicals we've been using. Entires since the
(42:55):
nineteen fifties for about that long.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Well did that episode on The Michelin Man, The Michelin
Tires on ridiculous History, and like there was a whole
history of like crazy gnarly chemicals and tires that was
like essentially almost like a cover up.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Right, If you want to see some conversational parkour or
hears some you can also tune into several car stuff
episodes on tires. You're right, Matt, it's been uh, it's
been kind of nasty for a while, but it was
easy to ignore I think for many people. And to
your point about the Interstate's modern pavement to the problem
(43:36):
is arguably exacerbated because the chemical composition of the pavement
is such that it absorbs water or transfers water differently
than plain old dirt.
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Oh yeah, If you want to get those same lessons, Ben,
head on over to the website for the US Tire
Manufacturers Association, because in there they've addressed these issues and
the fact we didn't even say yet will jump back
in just a moment, but they've addressed these issues, and
you know, provided all this information about previous studies about
this particular chemical, about potential fixes which would both get
(44:15):
rid of that chemical or reduce that chemical and maintain
the safety standards in tires for vehicles on roads in
the United States, because that is the main argument for
keeping this six PPD around. It is the most reliable
chemical to prevent tire breakdown that exists and that is
known of right now. And if you've ever seen a
(44:36):
tire explode on the highway, whether from you know, an
eighteen wheeler or just a regular car, you know how
dangerous that can be. How it can potentially kill the
driver and another driver or a bunch of drivers cause
a major accident, or the debris from a tire can
cause a major accident itself. Like that's scary stuff, really
(44:56):
really scary stuff. So I understand the tire manufacturers saying, hey,
this has been working. We need a solution. But we
got to remember that this is working. But they list
a bunch of stuff like, hey, one potential thing we
could do is rubber treat all the asphalt on the highways,
So the asphalt itself is rubber treating. You're like, well, guys,
(45:18):
I don't know if that does the right thing. But again,
there was a study in two thousand and six that
the Arizona Department of Transportation conducted and they found, Hey,
you can reduce tirewear by fifty percent if you rubber
treated the road too.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Anyway, doesn't that seem like a miss like just an interject, Matt,
Does that not seem like a bad faith argument. They're saying, well,
we could do things. Here's our solution. Put the rubber
on the entirety of the United States roads.
Speaker 3 (45:54):
Where the rubber meets the road. Guys.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
Yeah, literally. There are other ideas like, well, why don't
we just use chopped up tires to make these things
on the sides of highways to trap some of the chemicals.
And again I get it. It's the tire manufacturers Association saying, hey,
how do we benefit from this thing? I get it.
I understand.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Like when they wanted to make coral reefs out of
old tires. Yeah, spoiler didn't work out.
Speaker 3 (46:20):
It could have.
Speaker 2 (46:21):
Who knows, that's the thing. Gotta give things a try.
But if there's motivations behind it that are pretty clear,
we should probably just be open about those motivations. The
whole reason this is even happening that the Environmental Protection
Agency has even taken a look at this chemical is
because those tribes got together and they made a huge
petition saying, hey, this specific type of salmon is really
(46:43):
important culturally to us, and this chemical is wiping out
the populations along the Puget Sound, along all these other
areas in the Northwest. Let's call out these tribes. It's
the Uruk tribe in California, the Port Gamble Sclullum, and
the Yallop tribes in Washington. They all got together and
(47:04):
they asked the e P a, hey, help us out.
It's specifically Coho salmon c o h O salmon.
Speaker 3 (47:11):
Isn't that the kind that's sort of like the real
pink kind that you get like at the regular just
the store.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
I honestly don't know a ton about this specific.
Speaker 3 (47:19):
Heard of it, and but I'm trying to remember if
it's like basic kind of like you know, the lowest
tier salmon, or if it's a nicer one. But that
doesn't matter. I know I've heard the name before. Yeah, No,
Coho versus Sake versus King, So like Sake and King
are the fancy ones. Coho is still kind of fancy.
It's it's it's like definitely up there, but it's a
(47:40):
little less fancy than the sake or the king.
Speaker 1 (47:42):
Because it's not farm raised. I think that's you get
the wild caught, so you get the you get the
extra edible parasites. That's true.
Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yea. Also, no fish is pink like that. It's just
not a it's yellow, you know.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
But but also, uh, they're already I believe coho or
wild caught salmon is already in a bit of a
pickle because a bunch of farm raised salmon escaped recently.
Speaker 2 (48:09):
Anyway, Yeah, they're also in trouble because there are a
bunch of dams that have been built on you know,
salmon travel very specific routes to get back to their
spawning areas, and you know, if you build a dam
over the route, probably.
Speaker 3 (48:23):
Fish ladders or no. Is that a thing that salmon
will cooperate with? And I'm not sure, I just cause
came up recently, the idea of fish ladders. I was
talking to my kid about the Hoover dams. She's like
one of those things that the fish go up. I'm like,
fish fish thing, fish ladder, that's what that?
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah. Yeah, I mean I'm assuming because I don't know
how else you get over a dam, right, once something
artificial like that's been put in place. This is all
to say it is worth our time at least to
probably as humans think about tire alternatives. There have been
many over the years potential tire alternatives that either use
(49:00):
the same rubber materials but in a very different way,
or use a different lattice structure, things that we've again,
we talked about this on the show so many times.
It is worth our time as humans to really invest
in this. At some point, maybe if we can convince
one of those billionaires that's trying to get to the
stars to like, I don't know, focus down here for
(49:21):
a little bit, would be we could make something happen.
Speaker 1 (49:23):
Make ecological hygiene sexy again, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (49:28):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (49:30):
Oh, okay, we're going to have to workshop that because
it doesn't quite I don't think it quite lands linguistically
for a chant, but something like that, Matt, and you
gave us these fantastic articles too in these sources. I
was unaware of this specific issue. I think we support
(49:51):
the indigenous peoples that are are fighting for ecological justice here.
There was a point in the Rocky Mountain Outlook article
that you share where one of the one of the
boffins says, it's we're focused on this one chemical, but it's.
Speaker 3 (50:09):
Bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (50:10):
Oh yeah, could you talk about that just a little bit.
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Well, it's just the fact that there are a lot
of additives to the rubber and metal and stuff, all
the things that create what a modern tire is. And
a lot of those chemicals again, they all break down,
right because the rubber. If you've ever been to get
a check up on your tires, they check the depth
of your tire, and that is because it's physically wearing
(50:33):
down as that rubber hits the road and it doesn't
just go away or you know, dissipate into the atmosphere.
When that rubber goes away, it goes onto the streets
and it gets run off. And because again, a tire
is a complicated kind of cool thing, an invention that
(50:54):
humanity has created.
Speaker 3 (50:55):
And it lasts a lot, you know, relatively long time.
I mean, I would say it's not like planned obsolescence,
Like no one has invented forever tires yet, right.
Speaker 2 (51:04):
Correct, And you can rebuild those tires. There's a whole
there's a whole industry of basically replacing the outer layer
of a tire to continue its functionality. That's right, and
it's there are a lot of chemicals in there to
make it what it is. Most of them aren't great
for wildlife.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
I mean that beautiful new car smell is also not
great for the people smelling it all. Like in that case,
it's VOCs, right, volatile organic chemicals. But this is perfect
strange news because this is something I would argue that
doesn't get the national mainstream attention that it really needs.
Speaker 2 (51:42):
Yeah, oh man, one of the I guess worst things
about that article. Oh no. It was from the Puget
Sound Institute and it was an article written in twenty
twenty one, and it was covering the tire related chemicals
and how cohosam and are being affected, how the populations
are being affected, and how they had just basically these
(52:03):
groups had just worked their butts off to get the
co host salmon population back up, and they seem to
be thriving, and then all of a sudden, they're like, wait,
what the heck's happening now? And it turns out it
was this tire runoff somehow that was affecting specific areas
of where they travel when they go to reproduce. Check
out Huget Sound Institute dot org and the article titled
(52:27):
discovery of tire related chemical that kills co host Salmon
sparks widespread response from August twenty twenty one. Oh and
one last thing to check out Department of Ecology, State
of Washington. They've got a great article on here. It's
super short, but it explains pretty succinctly like what the
problem is and it uses a couple of infographics that
(52:47):
are very helpful.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
And with that, folks, we cannot wait to hear from you.
Thank you as always for tuning in this evening. Several
of us are riding the highway right now on some
of those car tires. Tell us what you think about
the larger issue here, tell us what you think about
inn FT's and lasers non consensually in your eyes, and
(53:12):
of course, enjoy your chicken nuggets.
Speaker 3 (53:15):
Uh. Can we hear about some heights on the listener
mail episode to follow this?
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Oh, did we mention the heist on air? We did?
Speaker 3 (53:22):
We did, did did, But we're at a time we
don't want to give a short shrift. So let's see, right.
We had a little bit of a preamble beginning to
this episode. But these are fun and to Matt's point,
off Mike, they're very evergreen.
Speaker 1 (53:34):
Well we will see, yes, agreed and great catch Noel,
uh Samon jokes. Uh, so we are going to return
very soon. We want to thank everybody. We had a
run of classic episodes. Uh, several of us were on
the road. Recently we're back in the saddle or back
on our fish ladder, as they say. Uh, and we
(53:56):
can tend.
Speaker 3 (53:59):
I too done.
Speaker 1 (54:00):
Well, it's a we're continually migrating to twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3 (54:06):
I was on the road to Wellville.
Speaker 1 (54:07):
There we go and we were, oh, guys, did you
see this weird like bowling jacket looking holding cow?
Speaker 3 (54:15):
Where'd you get that? On the roads?
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Join an organization, not a flashy We're starting with a
y it somewhere in there.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
So so, speaking of joining organizations, we would love for
you to gather with us in the campfire around the
figurative darkness. We try to be easy to find online.
Speaker 3 (54:36):
Correct to Mundy Mundo whatever. You can find this at
the handle conspiracy stuff, where we exist on x nay, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook,
where we have a group called Here's where it gets
Crazy that you can join if that's your thing. Also,
you can find it to the handle Conspiracy Stuff show
on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Hey, why not swim up the old phone lines and
spawn a voicemail call it. We are one eight three
three st d WYTK. You've got three minutes when you
call in, give yourself a cool nickname and let us
know if we can use your name and message on
the air. Hey, if you don't want to do that,
but you still want to contact us, why not instead
(55:16):
send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (55:39):
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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An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.