April 27, 2026 • 73 mins
In this week's strange news segment, Ben, Matt and Noel discuss: the Onion's all-but-certain acquisition of Alex Jones's Infowars, pasta heists and pasta surveillance, zoonotic threats on the horizon, fuel concerns in the EU, and the hilarious fact of Meta/Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg creating his own AI avatar to skip meetings.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nol.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. If you are tuning in
to our strange news program the evening, it publishes Welcome
to April twenty seventh, two thousand and twenty six, year
(00:51):
of Our Lord, etc. Guys, quick check in. How are
we feeling well?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
You know, fair to Midland.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah, just just watching as the straight of horror
moves opens and closes, and ships get fired upon and
blockades are vaulting out, and it's really crazy just to
watch the the global elite make tons of money on
stock markets as the insanity ensues.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Market manipulation for sure. That's a genuine conspiracy there, Matt.
And also it reminds me of one of my favorite
old adages from the US military, which was it goes
like this, if we don't know what the we're doing,
then the enemy cannot either.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Yeah, we're crazy.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Thanks for the beet, Dylan.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
What is it that people keep talking about the madman
theory like they're comparing a lot of Trump's activities to
Richard Nixon? Just this notion that like there's a certain
unhinged quality at play, Willie or won't he? Who knows?
Is he gonna press the button? And did you also
hear that there was apparently a meeting where he requested
the new codes and.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
We're gonna get to that, Okay, okay, well hopefully dudes.
By the way, yes, I love the Madman theory you're
mentioning there, Noel, because imagine if the president of the
United States pulled in Alex Jones and walked off, walked
into the anchor room from the darkness without a shirt
(02:21):
and said, they're skinned walkers. They're stealing your body, They're
trying to steal your skin, and.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
They're turning the frogs gay and Ben. What a great
bit of foreshadowing. I would love to lead off with
a bit of Alex Jones news. Maybe after the break.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Sure, let's go to the break and then let's revisit
Alex and the Onion. Ben.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
I gotta say, Alex and the Onion sounds like a
very obscure bible parable there an.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Old doll book, like the sequel to James and the
Giant Piece.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, and an onion, though that sounds like not a
good hang. The peach is a little more conducive to.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Get to their layers. To the onion thing.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Boy, Ben, you're on fire man, You're You're a flaming onion.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Onions bloomin onion. Alex Jones for a quick catch up,
everybody is from Earlier, from Earlier did a great cameo
in a film we all recommend called Waking Life. Was
known as a radio personality for quite some time and
then became synonymous with the idea of a conspiracy. Theorist
(03:32):
gotten super duper trouble by accusing the the surviving family
members who lost children in Sandy Hook of being what
we call crisis actors.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Yeah, and of the whole affair being essentially either a
false flag attack or just some sort of manufactured outrage. Uh,
you know, triggering events designed to potentially shut down gun ownership.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Isn't that just nailed it? Yeah, and he you know,
he definitely was a slippery character for quite a while,
saying some pretty inflammatory things about a lot of things,
and you know, getting away scott free, but ended up
not being the case, and his mouth finally caught up
with him, and he is certainly in big trouble. His company,
(04:20):
info Wars is more or less bankrupted, I guess, for
lack of a better term, at least in terms of
the idea, that he owes all of this reparation money
to the families of Sandy Hook. And the question then becomes, well,
what does that mean for info Wars? And what does
that mean for the idea of someone acquiring info Wars?
(04:42):
And I think we've all been following this story involving
The Onion, the famous satirical news site The Onion, and
their bid to acquire info Wars through a parent company.
I believe it's got to be satirically manufactured Global Tech Trihedron.
This is the supposed purported parent company of The Onion.
(05:04):
But I guess I didn't really hear anything about it
until a lot of these sort of fake news releases
or satirical news releases came out regarding their bid to
purchase or to acquire info Wars started circulating with like
these very cryptic messages signed by a CEO of Global Tetrahedron,
which just has the ring of Illuminati to it. I mean,
(05:25):
it very much seems like a manufacturer bit, very onion zy,
but it does turn out that we are reaching a
new stage of this actually becoming a very real thing.
The Onion says that it has reached a deal to
take over info Wars officially. Ben Collins, a young guy,
(05:46):
very very sharp dude, the CEO of The Onion's parent company,
Global Tetrahedron, announced the deal in a post on Blue Sky,
saying it was made with the help of the Sandy
Hook families. So they were to take some of that
money that they were given or that they were due awarded,
very very righteously, and use it to essentially turn info
(06:10):
Wars from, you know, one of the most notorious conspiracy
theory pedaling kind of fearmongering fake news type websites into
a satire of itself, headed up by none other than
Tim Hideker.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yes, that is correct. I think there's another person involved
as well, Tim Heideker. Absolute legend. It's going to be
a let me get this correct. It is going to
be Tim Hideker and Mia di Pascuale who's going to
be head of programming.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
That's right, and I believe Tim is the creative director.
He will serve as the creative director. He's already made
some appearances coinciding with his news where he's kind of
doing his best Alex Jones impression, which he is quite
good at. He does the voice to a t. Yeah.
It does turn out though, the Global Tetra Heating is
a real entity. It is a digital media company founded
(07:09):
pretty recently in twenty twenty four, based in Chicago, and
it is the parent company officially on paper of the Onion.
But it would it would seem that it was created
in conjunction with this whole deal. Yes, yeah, because I
mean again, the shadowy cabalness of a name like Global Tetrahedron,
(07:30):
I mean, would be right at home with Illumination Global Unlimited,
our parent company. Of course. We love you guys, yes,
please don't disappear us. The company was revealed to be
the purchaser of Info Wars in a move that was
backed by Sandy Hook Families in order to dismantle the
platform and essentially just you know, hamstring, its legacy of
(07:54):
spreading misinformation, the irony of a name like info Wars,
and the fact that they are so known for their
proliferation of these very very divisive and damaging conspiracy theories.
And I think that's what's so interesting about the Sandy
Hook thing, because it really gave teeth to this notion
(08:16):
of you can't just say anything. It's not all just
fair game in the service of free speech if you
are doing actual harm, because the things that Alex Jones
was putting out there was causing irreparable harm to these
family members, not to mention just the pain of having
to relive and re litigate the worst thing that could
(08:36):
ever happen to a parent in their entire life, the
loss of a child God forbid for any reason, but
worst of all, in the most preventable and you know,
horrific way possible. That is a direct result of some
of the questionable laws we have in this country around
the reality to acquire these very deadly weapons.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
And what to point out real quick here, you know
you and I pre the full fall off and crash
out of Alex Jones in full disclosure that you and
I would routinely check in with info Wars in the
early years just to see what was sort of in
the zeitgeist at the moment.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I don't want to say anything positive about Alex Jones
because I know how you listening out there feel about him,
probably and I know how the world kind of views him.
To your point, Ben, we used to look at Alex
Jones and info Wars as kind of a bell weather,
as a check in, as you said, with info Wars,
see what they're saying about a particular let's say, happening
(09:42):
like the like the Boston Marathon bombing, like the Sandy
Hooks shooting, like Canary, Right, Yeah, you just kind of
check and see what is info Wars saying. Right You never,
at least we would never take them at their word
anything that was coming out of that. But some But
this is what I'm trying to say, Info Wars and
(10:02):
Alex Jones played an important part I think in American
culture from like the late nineties onwards, which was a
public questioning of both authority and official events and things
like that. It doesn't mean they're right about that, but
it means I, at least I think personally hold the
(10:23):
opinion that it's right to think about those things and
question official stories and those kinds of things. It's just
they do it in a way that's so different than
a satirical show like The Daily Show would analyze events.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Or seeing in or Brightbart for instance.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Yes, one hundred percent, Ben.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I always triangulate. That's where you have to do focus.
You have to triangulate the sources for a story. That's
part of why we like ground News.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
We do love ground News. We're not sponsored by them,
but we're huge fans and Matt, you're absolutely right. There
was a time where they made sense to be that
kind of canarian the conspiracy coal Mine to see what
was being discussed. A big part of the we describe
the show as we look at the science, we look
at the Internet chatter, we look at like what the
zeitgeist represents about a particular topic. We think of it
in terms of thought experiments. There's any number of triangulation
(11:12):
points or you know, prongs to approach these kinds of
topics from. And there was a point where Alex Jones
and Info Wars represented a way of kind of peering
through the veil and seeing where these things sort of
shook out At least in terms of like how widely
adopted they were stuff like that. But it's been a
slow decline from those days to what ultimately led to
(11:33):
his downfall. And I think that's just the thing that
happens a lot of times when you drink your own
kool aid and start to think of yourself as bigger
than God or something or in a particular space, or
being the word you know, the end all be all
around this particular area of discussion, and when by that
I just means conspiracy theories in general. So he ultimately
(11:53):
led to his own undoing by thinking he could do
no wrong and thinking that he was protected by this
unilat application of free speech. And the reason this whole
downfall story is so fascinating is because it was an
indicator that that's not always going to be the case.
If you shout fire, you know you are get in trouble.
And that's certainly what he was doing, because you know,
(12:15):
what he was saying was provably false. He was saying
was doing actual harm to actual human beings. So I
saw even calling for.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Harm, calling for harm to like sicking his crisis actors,
you know, his his fans are you know, the people,
the real hardline Info Wars followers, and that kind of
stuff was ruining people's lives.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
So we already know that part of the story Alex
Jones's toast, but now we actually have a pathway towards
uh the Onion taking over. They've already changed their logo
to like the most LGBTQ plus friendly rainbow version of
the Info Wars thing, and it's all it's more than
an effort to clown Alex Jones. It represents something bigger
(12:56):
than that. The CEO that I was mentioning, super young guy,
really I saw him talking about on a podcast, like
why he really felt the need to not just have
this be a news item that the Onion is going
after in full wars in terms of acquiring it, because
that already sounded like an Onion article in and of itself,
but to actually follow through with it. He said it
(13:16):
was that moment in any person's life where you get
to decide how committed you are to what you believe in,
And in his mind, this was his ability to completely
recontextualize something that had been incredibly divisive and harmful and
turn it into a way to shine the light on
(13:37):
those types of things by exposing how absurd it is
and turning it into what I mean, gosh, guys, I
mean some of those Alex Jones things, they've been parodied
to death because it just represents that extreme level, even
the production value and just the types of things he
would say. I mean, it's just absolute, seemingly absolute satire.
But it's not. It is so over the top and
(14:00):
absurd that it just seems like it would be obvious
that there's no way to take this seriously. But the
truth is many people did take it seriously. In fact, guys,
you'll recall Alex Jones in court argued that no reasonable
person should ever take him seriously and that he was
playing a character and all of that was essentially thrown out.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
It was the bad chili that made him while out.
This also reminds me, by the way, this is breaking news, Dylan,
can we get a breaking news cue?
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Hell?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, there is a report coming out speaking of controversial
figures that the ufologist David Wilcock has passed away. It's
it's still muddy on what's happened. There hasn't been, you know,
a confirmed autopsy or anything. But David Wilcock, you know,
(14:48):
a legend in the field of controversial UFO thought very
much sort of in the sphere of Alex Jones has
been reported to have taken his own life quite recently.
The news is again still coming out. I do want
to mention it for all of us who are following
UFO stories in general. Willcox's longtime friend and former GUYA colleague,
(15:13):
Corey Good has apparently confirmed the report of his death
in a video that was just uploaded as we're recorded
on Wednesday, April twenty second to the sphere being Alliance
YouTube channel. So David Wilcox, whom we've discussed in the past,
may no longer be with us. It's a strange time
(15:34):
to be in that sphere.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
It's super strange for sure, and this is strange news.
So what better place to discuss this kind of stuff. Yeah, no,
I'm interested to hear more about the details surrounding Willcox's passing,
but some further details around this Onion acquisition. It's pretty neat, actually,
it's just something that I I don't know. This seems
like a first of its kind kind of deal. The
(15:57):
deal involves and I'm not any kind of you know,
IP lawyer or expert on these matters, So surely there
are precedents for this kind of thing, but it does
seem a little unique to me. The initial deal, which
will still require the approval of a judge, would have
the Onion's parent company pay eighty one grand a month
to license the content at InfoWars dot com and all
the IP surrounding it and the branding and stuff from
(16:21):
Gregory Milligan, who is the appointed court appointed manager of
the site. The licensing deal would last for an initial
six months, with an option to renew for another six months,
and I believe at that point an option to buy
the whole deal outright. So a little confused as to
why there are these like kind of little periods of
(16:41):
licensing before at outright purchase. But y'all will probably notice
that Alex Jones didn't like go away. He's still in
the studio, like making videos and stuff like. It would
seem that all of this Sandy Hook stuff certainly put
a dent in his wealth, but didn't exactly, you know,
(17:02):
rob him of his platform. Yet what would happen if
the Onion deal goes through in full is that he
would no longer have access to any of that stuff,
and then they would have access to all of the
archival material that they could then recontextualize and do edits
of and have fun with in any number of ways,
(17:22):
you know, at the behest of creative direction of Tim Hydeker.
I just think this is fascinating, and I sent it
to a handful of folks, I believe, including yourselves, and
just said this rules. It's like Afroman in court level,
you know, sticking it to the man.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
And Tim Hideker's podcast Office Hours. Pretty good, tone, fabulous,
really really great.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Can I just say, Alex Shilones is the reason why
the David Wilcock potential passing is really interesting to me,
because he is Alex Jilones is perhaps the reason why
I would connect will Cox's potential death to Nick Pope's
battle with cancer when he passed away earlier, just very recently,
(18:09):
and then connecting that to Eric von Danikin's passing in January.
So you have literally three of the top UFO UAP commentators,
researchers authors that pass away in quick succession, similar to
the mcasslin thing that we're following right now. But seriously, guys,
I don't want to give I'm not trying to give
(18:29):
Alex Jones Flowers. I just it's tragic that it turned
out this way because he was such an entertaining source
at times versus that other side that we've described really
well in this episode, that kind of violent, kind of
dangerous version of him.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
It just it.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I would reiterate the thing you talked about, Noel with
an inflated ego, and then what that can do to
a person, to deteriorate them from the inside, and then
how that can like play on your fears paranoia, and
then all the stuff that I think Alex Jones to
some extent probably really truly believed some of the more
heinous things that he would say. I think he probably
(19:11):
believed some of that stuff. And with that thing you're
talking about, make you think you're seeing stuff that nobody
else can see. It's just a dangerous combination, and I
think it's something we should all watch out for.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, Merlin, for sure, Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's Court,
that's the best example. And also we have to admit,
you know, Walt Whitman, another imperfect character, said we are vast,
we contain multitudes, and was correct about that. You can
be good, you can be entirely noble in some ways,
(19:44):
and then that doesn't mean you can't be bad or
a pos later. And that's something we have to remember
because often these narratives and these stories are taught to
us or communicated to us in quite a binary way.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
We love our simple he wrotes, We love our simple villains,
and the reality is that most living things are neither
one hundred percent one nor one hundred percent the other.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
For sure. No, well, said Ben, and speaking of that,
megalemmania on full display. Alex Jones crashed and info Wars
live stream recently to express his discontent with this whole deal,
and of course he had to be bare chested, because
how else are you gonna, you know, have people take
(20:34):
you seriously? He said when he stormed on this live stream.
Just because you're wearing my shirt doesn't mean you're me.
And he's referring to I believe Tim Heideker's live posts
or a stream, doing his very best Alex Jones impression
and actually referring to himself by that name. Jones fifty
two said this is from the Daily Beast after crashing
(20:54):
an Info Wars livestream bare chested, you can't take something
over and then act like you're somebody, even if you
say it's a parody. The Onion, whom Jones called body Snatchers,
secured a deal to license InfoWars on Monday. According to
The New York Times, the brand's newly appointed creative director,
comedian Tim Heideker, rubbed the purchase in Jones's face on
said stream. It's looking very likely, he said in the
(21:17):
stream in his best Alex Jones voice, that Global Tetrahedron
will seize control of info Wars in the coming days.
We're looking forward to relaunching the site soon in the
next coming months. Jones, who appeared on the live stream
wearing only jeans, fumed about the Onions plans for his
right wing site. They're going to misrepresent that. They're us
to confuse people and quote rip people off like Alex
(21:40):
Jones did. Jones ranted, they're going to make money. The
whole thing's about defaming me. Yeah, buddy, sorry, I mean
he kind of did it to yourself. When you reach
that level of absurdity, it's sort of in the in
the public's best interest for someone to just professionally punk
you like that. Don't know what else to say. Yeah,
(22:02):
that's my two cents on the whole thing. What do
you guys think? Pretty neat?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
It's really weird that the site's called info Wars and
it's being shut down taken over by a satirical group.
But we find ourselves amidst potentially the most heated moments
in the information wars that exist out there, because of
the Internet, because of our phones, because of so much
(22:29):
information on social media being out there, and we're just
bombarded constantly by information that is often false or miss
or dis and it's really tough to know what's what nowadays.
And I don't know there's something to that. Guys, maybe
you could say better than I can, but it is
(22:51):
it is strange to me that that is happening in
this time.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
It is pretty trippy. Last thing from Jones here, I
think this is the kicker. He says, you can do
a parody of somebody, but none of you took something
from them. I've already checked with lawyers, so they're in deep.
He said, Uh, this is going to backfire big time. Folks.
You may try to take our skin, to your point
Ben about the skin walkers of it all, you may
(23:17):
try to take our clothes, but we are still the
real Info Wars and you will never take our freedom.
I don't know, man, I think it's gonna I think
it's interesting. I think it's gonna gonna something to watch
for sure. And I just want to correct something I
said before Info Wars. The Onion actually lost an attempt
previously to take over w Yeah, and that was due
(23:39):
to bankruptcy Minutia. So this is a new path forward
for them, and that is probably why it required a
little bit of hoop jumping in terms of these uh,
these these periods of licensing before they can actually fully
take over the site. They are describing it as being
turned into potentially a digital platform and comedy network and
(24:02):
the profits will help repay the Sandy Hook families. Well,
let's keep an eye on this one, guys. I think
we're all intrigued to see where it goes. But for now,
let's take a quick break here, aware from our sponsors,
and then return with more strange news.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And we've returned switching some gears here, guys. A little
while back, we talked about a strange deer disease. They
call it the zombie deer disease. It's also known as
chronic wasting disease or CWD. We talked about it spreading
across the Americas, groups of CWD deer kind of making
(24:42):
their way around the country and heading south a bit.
We've got a story coming out of sid RAP, that's
the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. This is
coming to us on April ninth. It's written by Mary
van Busicum. I don't think that's how you say it, Mary, Sorry,
(25:03):
but that is what it looks like to me. Here's
the story. Vampire bats in Mexico may feed on CWD
positive deer, spreading disease and posing species jump threat zoonotic guys,
when's the last time we talked about bats potentially transferring
a disease from one species to another.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
That would be COVID nineteen believe, Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
The pandemic, the pandemic that we went through, okay, which continues.
Just making sure I understand that, okay, well, really quickly
for everyone's information. Sid RAP is a global leader in
addressing public health preparedness and emerging infectious disease response. It
was founded in two thousand and one as a part
of the Research and Innovation Office at the University of Minnesota.
(25:54):
Here's what they're talking about. I'm gonna read some of
this verbatims, so please check out that source if you
have time on your own time. It is really good
because it talks about this person named Peter Larson, who
is a PhD. In twenty twenty two, he's on a
field expedition he is studying vampire bats. He at one
point falls asleep in an open air house in Guyana
(26:16):
where he's studying these bats, and he's awakened by the
sensation of wetness down by his foot. Checks it out,
turns out there's a vampire bat feeding on his foot
through the mosquito net and it was his blood that
was the wetness, dear, And in that moment, he had
this thought, well, hold on a second, vampire bats really
(26:37):
will feed on a lot of things. Often the things
that they get to feed on are deer, elk, moose,
other cattle, other animals that they're around, specifically in Mexico
and in parts of Africa and just where these bats exist.
And he thought, hold on, what if these things get
(26:59):
a hold of CWD deer deer that have these prions
inside them that cause the infections that become chronic wasting disease.
We've talked about the prions before. Oh yeah, weird, weirdly
misfolded proteins. That's all they really are. It's not the
same as a bacteria or a virus. You can't fight
(27:21):
them in the same way. They're just proteins that are
going to misfold. And as they do that, they I
mean they yeah, they they change the organism that in
fact that they're infected by. This is where you get
mad cow disease.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
This is why we shout out to X Files second
season twenty fourth episode Our.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Town talking about cannibalism there with human beings and how
we can get prions prions in us and they can
cause things to occur. The scary thing would be, I
think this particular version of prions infecting animals in CWD,
particularly with deer. We talked about it. You can watch
(28:06):
a video on Instagram about this. They call it zombie
deer disease because an animal infected with it will walk
around and drink a ton of water and urinate a
whole bunch and it just kind of loses all other necessities.
They just kind of ramble and shamble about and if
(28:26):
they don't pay attention to the things that that animal
normally would pay attention to. They lose a lot of
their drive, let's say, for anything else, and it would
be scary as hell if human beings were infected by this.
Then time passes because the prions don't show themselves, the
chronic wasting disease doesn't even show up for potentially years
(28:47):
after infection, and then all of a sudden, everybody starts
turning into zombies. Good God, Good God. Here's why it's
really creepy. Climate change, according to this article, is driving
vampire bats northward in Mexico, and they are predicted to
arrive in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas in the next
(29:08):
ten to fifteen years. And at the same time, the
CWD positive servids are being pushed south, or small herds
of them are being pushed south and CWD infected deer
and other servids. They do have the potential to infect
others again through this constant drinking urinating cycle that they
(29:28):
go through. The article continues to say, common vampire bats
in northern Mexico may already be feeding on CWD positive servids.
It's a possibility, again, just a possibility. There's a lot
of research that probably should be done here. We have
to say, though, even according to this article, according to
(29:48):
a lot of the experts who are weighing in on this,
they are saying that it's massively hypothetical to be thinking
this way. At this point. There isn't a or frequent
interaction between infected animals or these deer and the vampire bats,
at least not yet, and there are no models suggesting
(30:09):
that this could happen. For that reason, you need to
weigh these interpretations with caution. That is a quote from
Rodrigo Morales, PhD. Of the University of Texas Medical School
at Houston. However, Sidrap and the authors of these studies
are saying that they recommend conducting some kind of assessments,
some kind of risk assessments. But guys, this is making
(30:31):
me think about those other bat populations again. Stuff that
was going down in that laboratory that we're supposed to
not think that COVID nineteen came from. I think that's
the official line.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
The wet market or the lab. Yeah, oh, everybody pay
attention to something else.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
The wet market's one thing. I lap it was the lab.
I think it was the lab guys.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Is just the plausible to be honest problem a lot less,
a lot less racist and sophobic. Also, look, when we're
saying hypothetical, what's important to realize, folks, is that scientists
deal with these hypothetical things all the time because you
do need to make contingency plans. So this is not
(31:14):
like just folluting off into the wind, which is a
phrase made I love it, thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Grand faluting, but folluting aside. The way you conduct these
risk assessments is to create things like transmission experiments, and
you figure out, oh, if CWD does get transferred, how
would it transfer. So we in order to prove that,
we need to transfer CWD via vampire bat into human cells.
(31:44):
Oh that's how it would work. Well, now we've got
a lab that has specific versions of CWD that can
transfer to humans.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
That's a scary thing about the research that was going
on with Wuhan was figuring out, oh, how how would
the most virulent version of this become a thing. Well,
we've got to create it, I guess, and figure out
all those transmission pathways and assess all that stuff and
do the what is that called.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Gain of function Gain of function research? Yeah, finding finding
the vectors, and we've discussed this in the past, we have,
but kind of like it's kind of like enriching nuclear material. Right,
any kind of biological research about preventing an outbreaking the threshold,
(32:31):
it gets very close to the same research. You would
need to create an outbreak.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Right, Yes, similar to AI, right, and you would need
to you need to make your AI system so strong
and powerful that it could hack absolutely anything. So it
understands however it all hack can occur and then sky hopefully,
hopefully nobody gets access to it right right, just as
story story, the sorry story already came out that yeah,
(32:59):
it's already been accessed by third parties, are via third
party access to the brand new, shiny thing that's supposed
to be the ultra AI. The author of this study, Larsen,
called for the US Department of Agriculture to consider this
mode of CWD transmission. Here's a quote. We know that
some percentage of pigs and cattle are susceptible to CWD prions.
(33:21):
We also know that sheep and goats are susceptible. But
if the vampire bats develop their own susceptibility, we have
no idea what the species boundaries of those prions are.
It just makes me very truly hope that there is
no mad person out there that thinks, Oh, we are
(33:42):
going to be getting rid of all the jobs for
all these humans with all of this new AI tech.
What are we going to do with all the humans? Oh,
I've got it. We'll give them all zombie disease and
they'll just die off on their own. That's crazy. Nobody
would think that, I don't think anyway. Moving on last
quick thing, which is an update to a story we
(34:03):
talked about before. A little thing called the Atlantic Meridional
overturning circulation or the AMOCK. This is a critical current
system that exists in the Atlantic Ocean. What does it
do well, It's really important. It brings sunwarmed tropical water
to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and then
(34:24):
sinks to form a deep return current. It's a nice
little loop of hot, hot water that goes up north,
gets cold, and then comes back down and it's a
continual cycle. It does a lot of things, very helpful
for creatures that live in the ocean, also very very
helpful for weather patterns, for climate patterns above the surface
(34:45):
of that water. We talked a little bit. Actually, I
think it was years ago, guys, where there was new
research coming out looking at models of whether or not
this current is going to slow and there's a tipping
point that would be reached if it slowed down to
a certain point.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
It also points for weather or not nice bind met.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
It's also really important for stuff that happens above the surface.
There are new models coming out about this thing, models
that are attempting to take into account observational data. Before
it was all kind of simulated. This is what could
be happening if it slows down to a certain point
the current system. If it slows down to a certain
(35:29):
tipping point, then the whole thing collapses and there's no
more ocean current there that exists. And the assessment was,
what is that tipping point? How slow we'll have to
get before we're in real trouble, and is there a
point where we could say, oh crap, guys, it's going
to collapse in a certain amount of time. Jumping to
an article by Damien Carrington for The Guardian, critical Atlantic
current significantly more likely to collapse than thought. That tipping
(35:54):
point was shouted out in twenty twenty one when they
found warning signs we're basically on the way. And this
research as it's combining, as we said, ocean observations in
the real world comparing them to the models, they realized
that the most reliable ones, the most reliable models that
(36:15):
they found were like the worst case scenario models. So
what we're seeing in the real world is the worst
case scenario. They found an estimated slowdown of forty two
to fifty eight percent by the year twenty one hundred, which, guys,
is not that far away. My kids will be alive.
(36:35):
We won't, but my kids will be alive.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
Speak for yourself.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And they are saying that that is a level almost
certain to end in collapse, So we don't have an
exact date for how long it will take to fully
collapse once it reaches that level. What would a full
collapse do well, According to the article and the research here,
it would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many
(37:02):
millions of people rely on to grow food. It would
plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts,
and it would add somewhere between five hundred and one
hundred centimeters to sea levels all around the Atlantic Ocean
doesn't sound that scary and bad. But we do know
that the ocean systems are all connected. It's all connected, guys,
(37:24):
all of the ecosystems the entire planet, it's all connected.
And when one major thing like that collapses and then
the climate begins to shift even further, there is no
doubt that other systems would be affected. And you could
have a global cooling event or a global drought event
that's going to affect a lot of a lot of
the northern hemisphere. It's pretty horrifying. You can read a
(37:47):
whole bunch more about it. If you want to get rest,
maybe don't, or just check it out and see what
you think. It will stick with you.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Though.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Let's say that, jumping to a story out of ap
News written by John Lester, Europe has maybe six weeks
of jet fuel left. Energy agency head warns, ah, what
that doesn't sound good. That's according to the head of
the International Energy Agency. They said. That was written on
(38:18):
April sixteenth. They said in a wide ranging interview their
warning of possible flight cancelations very soon if oil supplies
remained blocked by the Iran war. This is IEA executive
director fatigue birol. They're talking about the largest energy crisis
they have ever faced, and they're all talking about it's
(38:40):
from the Strait of Hormuz being closed off. And this
is just to point out there we've talked many a
time when analyzing things like the war in Ukraine, the
Iran War, other global conflicts and energy interests, just how
big a deal it is when when the oil supplies
(39:01):
run out. Right, if the oil supplies are low, then
that's great for energy companies because they can charge a
butt ton per gallon, right, but they got to get
more energy though, They got to get more of that oil.
They gotta get more stuff out. And if you can
get more stuff out and then ease the tensions, you've
just made bank on all the gas that you've got.
(39:22):
So there is some kind of weird stuff going on here,
some strange stuff at play when it comes to manipulating
these energy markets. Because that's what's happening. We just have
to kind of keep our ears and our eyes open
to see what's coming and try and get ahead of
it so at least your car can have some gas
in it. That's all I've got. We're gonna hear a
(39:44):
word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back with
more strange news.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
And we have returned for our last act of this
strange news program. Gents, I propose we do something that
I'm gonna call pasta on pasta pasta pasta. So we're
gonna you guys like pasta rights.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Yeah, and he also loves the old pasta and pasta
dad joke.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And as impossible as it might sound, we're going to
be able to pull this off by bookending our last
act here with some pasta related stories you might not expect.
Now we're going to We're gonna do the fun when first,
because we do love a heist. This is something several
of us were clocking. Uh, you guys are fans of Legos,
(40:44):
right or we're at some point in your life.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Yeah, I love big.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Time leg masterficial Master.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
No, No, I've got the designation.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
You have to earn it. This is uh, there are
One of the things about the Lego brand has always been,
or I guess in recent years, it's always been a
matter of affordability. Right, Lego are known to be pricey,
and shout out to all the parents who have had
(41:14):
to had to have some real come to Jesus moments
figuring it out if they're going to get that sick
Lego set for their kid. Some people have resorted to
Lego related crimes. So if we go to CTV news
from Eleana lev Thank you Eleiana, we see that police
have arrested a man there is our heist thing again,
(41:35):
who replaced about thirty four thousand dollars worth of Lego
pieces with dried semolina pasta.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Impossible.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Impossible And that's really That is a direct quote, by
the way, from an Instagram post by the Irvine Police.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
How did he get it in there?
Speaker 4 (41:57):
That's right now. I see what he was sort of
doing a spin on the old steal the thing and
return it for the refund kind of situation. But he
did it kind of in reverse in a very interesting way.
I love this so much, Ben give it to us.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Our story takes us to Irvine, California, where some entrepreneurial
person with a lack of moral compass had taken a
bunch of Lego boxes from targets across the United States
and in some cases had replaced them with drives pastas.
So we're going to give you a pun ridden description
(42:36):
from Get This folks the actual Irvine Police Department there
in California. They say, quote, everything was awesome in this
Lego crime spree until we got involved.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
That was a lem joke too, because the song you
know from.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
The movie everything was awesome everything suspect They continue purchased
Lego sets from Target and removed valuable minifigures and piece
from the boxes and in some cases replace them with
dried pasta. You read that correctly. We are talking about
Durham wheat semolina pasta and what we are calling a
(43:10):
pastitively terrible plan. So they say right, and Target reported
They continue at least seventy thefts nationwide tied to the
same suspect, stacking up about thirty four thousand USD in losses.
That's a lot of missing pieces, But like most bad bills,
(43:31):
they keep going, this one didn't hold together. IPD detectives
snapped into action. Jesus guys conducted surveillance and identified the suspect.
Jarrell Augustine, twenty eight, of Paramount to California, was arrested
for grand theft and booked at the Orange County Jail.
If your master plan involves swapping Lego's war linguini. We
(43:52):
can promise you your plan will be cooked al dente.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
He's definitely cooked, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
I'm mean to your god.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Just the pun density, the wordplay. This was someone's best day.
Positively diabolical, but.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
It is fine.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I wonder if this story would have gotten as much
interest if they didn't do that. Do you guys think
there would be a difference in the interest if it
was just straightforward.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
I don't you know, that's a good question, Matt. I
would say the interest would still be there just because
of the ridiculosity.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Well, think about you know what I mean. It's just
it's an odd thing that one would not associate with
that level of stored value, but it is it very much.
Is that because a lot of these sets are incredibly valuable,
uh and expensive, and they can even have collectibility qualities
to them as well.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Absolutely, that's a great point as well. And just to
just to finish out that thought, ridiculosity is a word
we meant, we made up. It means the nature of
as and the velocity of that absurdity. So ridiculosity is
it makes sense when you think about it, and it's English,
so we can make up whatever.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Very close to ridiculousness, yes, but it's its own, it's
its own thing ridiculousness.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Don't get out of it. So also, don't steal Lego pieces
because you know you might be stealing from children, which
is uncool.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
No, it's definitely uncool. But you know, to your point, Ben,
I think you mentioned it in the piece. You were
quoting a lot of these. He's not like stealing the
whole set. He's just stealing the mini figs. He's just
stealing some of the parts that are incredibly limited drops.
Because the funny thing about Lego sets, it's not funny,
it's sort of the by design is they're all kind
of interchangeable pieces except for the minifigs.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
Often some yeah, some specialty pieces, you know what I mean,
particularly if we're looking at the brand partnerships where you
got the Star Wars Universe or the Marvel Universe, Marvel
Cinematic Universe, and then they have special minifigs, right like
the Hulk, which is larger than your regular your average
(46:10):
John or Jane Netherlands or Jane Gray or Jean Gray
also a could cop.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
But those little minifigs oftentimes are the limited drop component
that you know, on its own is sellable, resellable, collectible,
whereas the other larger pieces in the sets, you'd have
to have it assembled, or you'd have to have it
like in the original box. You could. You could fence
and traffic in minifigs all day long.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
You could, You definitely could. What are the questions I
think we all had? Not just gonna say this is
my opinion, but what are the questions I think all
of us had reading this initially? Was why put the
dried pasta there in the first place? You know what
I mean, It's not like Target has a weight sensitive shelf.
You could have just taken that hulk MANI it's.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Like Indiana Jones replacing the sacred relic with the bag
of sand. You know, Yeah, you do gotta wonder. I mean,
maybe it's just And again I'm a little confused because
it does seem like he was. You would to your point, Ben,
if it was just the mini fig. Most of these
sets at most come with four and I don't know
that would change the weight or the feel or the
(47:21):
shakiness of the package enough to raise any red flags.
So what's what gives? Do you have an answer to
that question?
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Man? We don't yet. We're gonna have to hear from
the alleged criminal has not been convicted yet.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
Just costa pun for perpetrator, pasta trader. There you go,
because it was right there the whole time.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
It was right.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
If you had it, man, you had it, you nailed it.
So we're gonna move on and we're going to first off,
we're going to give you an everybody is safe message.
You may have heard a viral claim going around in
the past few days this April alleging that the president
all of the United States tried to obtain nuclear codes
(48:04):
during a meeting about the war with Iran. We are
happy to report I would say that at least this
case so far, there's not hard evidence of this yet.
It's kind of like what we're talking about with our
episode on whether or not Jeffrey Epstein was a spy.
(48:26):
A guy named Larry Johnson, former CIA officer, was speaking
on a YouTube show Judging Freedom, so think of it
kind of like a podcast, right, and he claimed the
current president, Donald J. Trump, tried to access nuclear codes
talking during a conversation about the conflict in Iran, but
he was stopped by one guy who stood up General
(48:48):
Dan Caine, who is the CJ cos he's the big
guy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he's their chairman.
Speaker 4 (48:57):
Probably going to be sending out resume is pretty soon,
I would imagine.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
You know. Also, he survived this long career wise.
Speaker 4 (49:08):
It's just nice to hear any sort of remaining check
and or balance in play, especially when it comes to
something this irreversible.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
And this frightening as well. Because I don't know about
everybody else, I don't want to make assumptions, but nuclear
war from everything we've studied about it, it's a dangerous thing,
right and irreversiby stand by.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
I mean, yeah, let that out the you know, let
that genie out of the bottle. It has so many
knock on consequences downstream, and it just upsets the whole
apple cart. And there's that whole idea of mutually assured destruction.
It just seems like a bad bag of badgers.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Very much so. It is a bad bag of badgers.
It's also going to create a feedback loop as soon
as one country fires past a certain threshold.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
So you think he'd at least wait until the the
bunker is finished under the east wing, right.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Right, or at least wait until the market is favorable,
you know what I mean. So we can tell his
friends in polymarket and uh, some put some bets out there, right.
So from what we could tell at this point, the
claim has been made by this single voice, and we're
not well acquainted with this voice, but has no corroborating evidence.
(50:29):
So the world is not ending just yet, other than
the fact it's ending for someone every day. Maybe it'll
just be AI at the end, you know, maybe maybe
in the lifetime of this show, all the humans will
be gone. It'll be like Ray Bradberry when soft rains come,
and we'll just have a bunch of AI avatars aping
(50:53):
out and imitating the ordinary passage of the world. And sorry,
speaking of grieving, that's that's my surviving cat.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Man, all right, p Doctor Bankman, Ben, Does this play
in any way into your thinking about the latest walk
back of this ceasefire deadline that seems very open ended
now when it once had a clock on it. We
walked back the first time. He's walked it back again
(51:21):
because of intervention by a Pakistani military official, he claims,
And it just seems like we're like there is no
new deadline because all of the rhetoric was around this
idea of blowing up the entire country, raining down hell
on Earth, etc. Now that he realizes that maybe it
ain't that easy, do you think he's been neutered a
(51:42):
little bit?
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Or what do you think that is speaking of? I
love the phreeze back of badgers. That is a different
bag of badgers, perhaps for an episode. Because there are
serious considerations on both sides of the manufactured political divide
of the United States, serious considerations regarding the mental capabilities
(52:07):
of the current commander in chief. So it may be that,
similar to the later years of the Reagan administration, our
guy at the wheel is not as at the wheel
as we would hope him to be. Like, that's a
big thing. We can't we can't dismiss. But we also
know that there are a lot of factors and a
(52:28):
lot of influences from foreign powers that are affecting the
conversation on Iran, both with the timing of the escalation
of the conflict as well as to your point, Noll,
the back and forth regarding blockade, what can and cannot
be used. It does not seem that the United States
is functioning in a fully independent manner at this point,
(52:51):
which I hate to say it that way, and I
know that might get some people's standard up, but it
is objectively true at this point.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Agreed. I know I wish there was like good news,
and I wish there was a little bit more transparency
into what that even means. Because is it a matter
now of how beholden we are to Israel? Is it
a matter of how behold and potentially we are to Russia?
Is it because of secret compromise? Is it because of
(53:19):
the allegiances that are just too big to fail? A
lot of questions that we've had, you know, over the
years about these seemingly unquestioning alliances, you know, like one
with Israel, Like you really start to get up against
this idea of man, they got to have something on us,
They got to have something on this.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
Guy right past a certain threshold. And you know, I
wish we could ask Mark Zuckerberg about this, but we
can probably soon do the next best thing. Going back
to that Ai reference, we saw the news. It's a
while back, but we haven't mentioned it on the show
aside from a brief mentioned perhaps Mark zucker if you
(54:00):
can't get him in a meeting in person the meetbag himself.
You may be able to meet the AI clone that
he is building to replace him, identical.
Speaker 4 (54:10):
To the real thing as it turns out similarly. Yeah,
maybe even a little bit better personality.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
He's the new cooke of Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
So shout out to Emma Roth writing for the Verge
dot com. We're big fans of yours. Emma, this is
weirdly to what you just said, Nold. This is weirdly
humanizing to me because who hasn't had an office job
where you wished you could dodge a couple of meetings.
Speaker 4 (54:38):
Only I could just clone myself.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
Yeah, peep behind the curtain, folks, myself and Tennessee and
Matt and Noel, we have all of it in situations
in a group chat where we'll say, hey, I can't
make it to this meeting we have to go to
Can I get a recap from you later? Just hold
down the fork. Maybe we should take a page from Zucks.
You know, this thing is interacting with and providing feedback
(55:03):
to employees. The original source is from the Financial Times,
but we did not break the paywall on that one.
It's gonna have his image, it's going to have his
voice along with his quote matterism's tone and public statement,
so that employees might feel more connected to the founder
through interactions with it.
Speaker 4 (55:25):
This is a precursor to the thing that we've talked
about a lot lately of like what happens then when
that thing gets legal personhood and can actually make controlling
decision decisions, or like you know your point about aiifying
a dead person like Henry Kissinger and then putting them
in charge of the war room. You know, this is
an early version of that. It would seem the seemingly
(55:47):
innocuous internal version, But what's the next step.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
It reminds me a lot of a sleeper hit from
nineteen seventy one called THX eleven thirty eight the directorial
day View of George Lucas, produced by Copola.
Speaker 4 (56:03):
By the way, pretty art sci fi like good yeah,
good stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Yeah, and weird as hell, though it is very weird.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
It is not a optimistic sunshine kind of film. But
in that narrative, there is this commonplace sort of like
a christ atm you could call it a christ phone booth,
where you go in as part of your religious duties
in this world and you speak to an automated version
(56:31):
of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4 (56:33):
I mean, we call that a confession booth here.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
Yeah, yeah, and it's it's really trippy. Bears a rewatch
if you're looking for something to check out on a
lazy afternoon. But I would argue it's prescient because that
science fiction is increasingly approaching science fact. I mean, what
would you guys do if you were at a job,
(56:57):
say podcasting, and your boss was unavailable and they said, oh,
don't worry, speak to my chatbot.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yeah, this is exactly what I get into, Ben, Because
why do we have meetings? Is it so that information
can be just bestowed upon you from on high like
what you're describing there, Ben, Or.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
Do we have a meeting for collaboration ideally or for
some sort of brainstorming human interactions?
Speaker 3 (57:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Or if you're getting the ear of your superior let's say,
let's say somebody else in the C suite needs to
have a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg. Is it just so
that Mark Zuckerberg can say things to you or at you,
and now you're going to be good to go and
you got what you need?
Speaker 4 (57:46):
Yeah? No, how'd you like it?
Speaker 2 (57:49):
What the hell is this? It's another invention? Of the
c suite folks who are so attached to and obsessed
with AI because they feel like they think that it
is somehow making them more efficient in clearing their days
up and their calendars up and making everything better for them.
Now they have a clear vision and all the ideas
(58:09):
they've got to execute things. They're great ideas, and it's
just this insane We have AI psychosis of the boardroom
and of the c suite right now.
Speaker 4 (58:19):
Well, I guess what you're putting down there mat too,
because a big part of that too is like getting
permission to do something, is running a thing by an
official who has yay or nay power? Does the BOT
have that same agency?
Speaker 2 (58:31):
Is? Then that's the question and in the nuclear codes
to the dang dude we were talking about, right, if
you let your AI make decisions.
Speaker 3 (58:41):
Yeah, if you give it that agency? Right, how much
agency does the AI agent have?
Speaker 4 (58:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (58:46):
And then also, as you know, if you've ever worked
in a place, as a lot of meetings, the in
person meeting to the earlier question is an opportunity to
follow up on something else right instantly related to that meeting.
So there's a lot of oh, while I have you
what do you think about this related thing? So, if
(59:07):
you know, I'm wondering how chatbody Zuck two point oh
is going to become like is this if it if
it does roll out and happen often, is it going
to be like the chat GPT issue where every idea
someone proposes is phenomenal and great and then Zuck but
(59:29):
there's no follow up, right, or Zuckerberg Prime has to
deal with what Zuckerberg two point oh did you know
and say, actually, sorry, we can't replace every profile picture
on Instagram with a picture of a Ruta bagap it
was a different Mark who told you that was an
awesome idea? And Dylan you had something on this one.
Speaker 6 (59:51):
Yeah, I just I've been seeing this quote a lot lately.
It's from a nineteen seventy nine IBM training manual. It's
a phrase, a computer can never be held accountable. Therefore
a computer must never make a management decision.
Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Yes, it's hugely the prescient, that's me clapp.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
But corporation coundnot make a decision as the people. But
the people can't be held accountable. That is, the corporate
needs that are being serviced. Who the hell can be accountable? Guys?
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
What if we united the citizens.
Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
Shut it down.
Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Okay, okay, okay, before we get talunteered.
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
We'll make you for my whisper beepstilling.
Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
We'll go to one more We'll go to one more story.
We didn't get to the Great Pacific garbage patch. There's
a lot of myth busting, do there. Yes, parts of
Japan will pay you twenty thousand and yen if you
use tender. However, keep in mind that's about one hundred
and twenty five bucks and a little less than fifty cents.
But good luck, everybody, we promised youypastas. So we're going
(01:00:56):
to end on some pasta speaking.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
I got a quick addition to ben after you're done,
just oh no, go down. It's a quick one. Marilla Barrilla,
the pasta company. They have Spotify playlists that are the
exact length of how long it takes to perfectly cook
each of their various pasta offerings. And I think that's
really cute. That's all from me.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
I bet there's a lot of rage against the machine
in those playlists, huh.
Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
I guess so yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Can you guys imagine like cook your pasta to like
the system of a down well.
Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
I mean I guess the you know, sorry doesn't take,
but I mean, does this include the time it takes
to boil the water? I gotta now, we'll have to
look up. We'll let to look into it a little deeper.
Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
And we'll follow up on that more immediately. This is
a story we couldn't wait to share for you. It
just broke yesterday April twenty. First your pasta Sauce maybe
part of the surveilled state folks shout out to Prego.
They have not sponsored this podcast. We haven't checked with
(01:02:02):
them about it, but we did check in with Aaron Leong,
writing for Hot Hardware. Prego Gentlemen has yeh website.
Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Sorry has debuted.
Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Prego has debuted a recording device for the dinner table
in collaboration with an outfit that I actually quite enjoy
called story Core. Uh. They're what they're doing is make
They've made something called a connection Keeper, and the concept
is you cook your prey, go past the dish, you
(01:02:34):
put this thing in the middle of your dining table,
and it records all your family dining room conversation. So
is the connection keeper the as Leong says, is it
the perfect Mother's Day present? Or is it a privacy
nightmare waiting to happen, if you guys.
Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
Be right, yeah, yeah? Is it localized or is it
connected to the cloud?
Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
And then that it looks like it looks like a
fancy jar of caviar. That's how THEOG puts it. It
looks like a kind of like a gold painted Prego
Prego branded hockey puck.
Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
And if anyone is a familiar, story corps is all about.
I think Dylan did some work for story Core actually
back in the day, if I'm not mistaken, but you
essentially record stories of your family members, of loved ones,
of various people that then sometimes make it onto the
story Coore broadcast. But the most important part of it
is they get they get archived in the Library of Congress.
Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Right, that's correct?
Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
Is that right, Dylan?
Speaker 6 (01:03:37):
Yeah, I was the story Core Atlanta producer for a
few years.
Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
I thought something.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Dude, Yeah, Dylan, you were perfect casting for that.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Holy crap, dude, I'm telling you guys, Tennessee is a
big deal. Thanks for slving it with us. Man, I'm
telling you, so we know that to that earlier question,
the connection keeper is it? He goes you brought this up.
The connection Keeper is not a device that's just putting
things on, say a card that you would have to
manually plug in somewhere. It is syncing to the cloud
(01:04:08):
on the story Core portal, and so then you can save, organize, reshare,
revisit your meal time conversations later. What do you guys think,
good idea, bad idea?
Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
I have to implementation. I guess you know, it always
the opportunity for things like that to be hacked or
leaked or misused. But in theory, I think it's kind
of neat.
Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
It's a beautiful concept. To have a conversation around the
dinner table is a massively important thing that's overlooked a lot.
But there is this move away from that moment that
a lot of folks have nowadays, having a good conversation
over a meal and actually talking about something of substance.
(01:04:49):
And if these what do they call them, prompt cards
that are meant to spark dinner time conversations, If those
work for families, that's awesome, But I don't I don't
think maybe a lot of people need to record those conversations.
It probably it'd be great if we didn't think about
recording those conversations and we could just have open discussion
(01:05:12):
about hard things.
Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
I kind of see where they're going with this, though,
because to do the story core proper requires making an appointment,
requires going, and doing a thing requires being very intentional
about it. And it's the kind of thing some people
in this you know, crazy world we find ourselves in
might neglect doing and then all of a sudden, your
loved ones have passed and you don't have any of
these things. So I could see this being a convenient
(01:05:35):
way to make sure that you will have some of
these things or access to some of these things. And
it's a really good setting to capture some of these
things outside of a traditional formal sit down with somebody
like Dylan. So I get the intent, and I think
it could benefit some folks who maybe this is the
only way that fits into their life that they're going
(01:05:55):
to be able to capture this stuff. I'm curious a
little bit more about the cataloging, the searchability of it,
how it figures into the larger play of story Core
or is it like just a very independent like you
make an account when you get this thing. Yeah, and
also like the prego of it all.
Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
Right, prego of it all. Yeah. So I want to
step back and clarify something I said there. It is
cloud access, but you do have to use a USB
C port for charging and for transferring the file, so
you do have a air gap there, right. If you're saying,
you know, Uncle Nigel's crazy stance on the Welsh is entertaining,
(01:06:34):
but it stays here with us. I want it on
a file, but I don't want it to be able
to become targeted by hackers or whatever. Sandra Clark, the
CEO at story Corps, announced it by saying, at story Core,
we believe listening is a profound way to order and
connect with our loved ones, and that some of the
most meaningful stories are shared in everyday moments like around
(01:06:56):
the table. We're proud to partner with Prego registered trademark
to help families be present with one another and to
preserve their stories for generations to come. No screen, no speakers,
no wireless connectivity. Here's why I'm not quite ready to
trust it.
Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
It's going on sale for twenty dollars.
Speaker 5 (01:07:17):
That's not a bad price's leader, that's a lost leader price.
Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
It's a lost leader price. But also I was going
to add with all of the difficulty facing public radio
in terms of funding. I could see why now is
the time we're going to start doing some of these
corporate tie ins to get a little bit of cash injected,
because I mean, story Core is its own thing, I think,
but it is very much of the public radio world. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
But do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 4 (01:07:46):
Freakingly, I see what you're saying, the lost Leader, and
it implies that you're the product, right Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Are there any other partners on this that you may
have connections to intelligence agency?
Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
I know?
Speaker 4 (01:08:01):
Perhaps?
Speaker 3 (01:08:02):
Yeah, what is it in Q tell?
Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
Atlanta, by the way, we even get to this, I
don't know if it's going to be well, it should
be news, but we don't want to make it self
cidered folks in Atlanta has become acknowledged as the most
surveilled city in the United States. Hell yeah, I was
talking about the friends on Daily's Guys a little bit earlier,
and we've all we've talked about the way mos before,
(01:08:24):
We've talked about the flock cameras that are proliferating. I
don't know about you, guys, but I've been driving just
the places that make me look like a more interesting person.
So the surveillance network will say, oh, wow, this guy
goes to you know, the Buddhist temple right after his yoga, right,
and oh he goes to the good co op man.
Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
That's a good idea, Ben.
Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
Hack, the hack the surveillance, right.
Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
It's trying to figure out what my thought is. Do
we all see this note about the quote unquote Palinteer manifesto?
Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
Yes, yeah I did. Yeah, it sounds like my favorite
response to is it sounds like a super villain monologue. Right.
We have a duty to the script, we have a
duty to work with big Brother, we have duty for
the state.
Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Yes, then make everything all powerful and make sure AI
is the cornerstone of all of that stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
And then just how does that boot taste pale?
Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
You do?
Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
You just chopped down?
Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
But it feels like we're the boot. Is not that
the boot is not on all of our necks already,
but you know, it's it feels like people saying you
are to love the boot. The boot is a part
of you. If not for the boot, then what would
we be?
Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
We are but extensions of the boot.
Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Well, we're about to celebrate America, right two Around fifty
years everybody's making a huge deal about they're talking about
a whole bunch. I think about how America got started.
We've talked about endlessly on this show. The conversations that
occur over dinner tables or over a bar table, right
or you know, around the back of the bar where
(01:10:15):
everybody's meeting, where the conversations are had, where people are saying,
what's the line, ben, harumph, harrumph umph. Something must be
done and there is the That is how revolutions begin.
When there's something that's really really wrong, and it certainly
feels like something some things are very very wrong. It
(01:10:36):
does feel like conversations are being had actively right now
and maybe should be being had actively right now. But
what are we doing if we're encouraging everybody to record those,
you know, every moment. Well, we're already doing that right
with our phones and social media and the push for
all of that. Now, we're going to just set it
(01:10:57):
on the table and say, all right, everybody, what thoughts
you're having right now?
Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:11:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
And one of the thoughts that we had recently, R
I had recently is how often is Prego in the
Epstein files, Kitdting, Prego Kitty. We're all friends. We're big
fans of story Core. We're big fans of you, fellow
conspiracy realists. Thank you so much for tuning in. We
cannot wait to hear your stories. And also thank you
to everybody who responded. We had so much feedback on
(01:11:27):
our Trucking is in Trouble episode, so we're going to
hear from our fellow listeners about a lot of that
in our upcoming listener mail segment. In the meantime, if
you want to be part of the show, reach out
and touch faith. We want to hang with you. You
can find us on the lines. You can call us
on a phone. You can always send us an email.
Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
Correct. You can find us on the lines at the
handle Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your
favorite flavor of social meds. If you don't want to
do that, there's also a way to get in touch
with us in a more analog way.
Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Yes, you can call one STDWYTK. That's our voicemail system.
When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and
let us know if we can use your name and
message on the air. If you want to send us
an email, you can do that too.
Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
We are the entities the read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, Ye's unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, this is an awesome way to reach out
to us. We will give you a random fact. You
can give us one in return. And the reason that
was important, I guess am I to mention the unfortunate
(01:12:35):
passing of David Wilcock is that we interviewed him back
in twenty eighteen. So if you would like to hear
more of David Wilcox's research, his work, his views, check
out our interview above Majestic with David Wilcock and tell
us what you think. We'll see you out here in
the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Nol.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. If you are tuning in
to our strange news program the evening, it publishes Welcome
to April twenty seventh, two thousand and twenty six, year
(00:51):
of Our Lord, etc. Guys, quick check in. How are
we feeling well?
Speaker 4 (00:58):
You know, fair to Midland.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah, just just watching as the straight of horror
moves opens and closes, and ships get fired upon and
blockades are vaulting out, and it's really crazy just to
watch the the global elite make tons of money on
stock markets as the insanity ensues.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Market manipulation for sure. That's a genuine conspiracy there, Matt.
And also it reminds me of one of my favorite
old adages from the US military, which was it goes
like this, if we don't know what the we're doing,
then the enemy cannot either.
Speaker 4 (01:40):
Yeah, we're crazy.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Thanks for the beet, Dylan.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
What is it that people keep talking about the madman
theory like they're comparing a lot of Trump's activities to
Richard Nixon? Just this notion that like there's a certain
unhinged quality at play, Willie or won't he? Who knows?
Is he gonna press the button? And did you also
hear that there was apparently a meeting where he requested
the new codes and.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
We're gonna get to that, Okay, okay, well hopefully dudes.
By the way, yes, I love the Madman theory you're
mentioning there, Noel, because imagine if the president of the
United States pulled in Alex Jones and walked off, walked
into the anchor room from the darkness without a shirt
(02:21):
and said, they're skinned walkers. They're stealing your body, They're
trying to steal your skin, and.
Speaker 4 (02:27):
They're turning the frogs gay and Ben. What a great
bit of foreshadowing. I would love to lead off with
a bit of Alex Jones news. Maybe after the break.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
Sure, let's go to the break and then let's revisit
Alex and the Onion. Ben.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
I gotta say, Alex and the Onion sounds like a
very obscure bible parable there an.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Old doll book, like the sequel to James and the
Giant Piece.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
Yeah, and an onion, though that sounds like not a
good hang. The peach is a little more conducive to.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Get to their layers. To the onion thing.
Speaker 4 (03:03):
Boy, Ben, you're on fire man, You're You're a flaming onion.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Onions bloomin onion. Alex Jones for a quick catch up,
everybody is from Earlier, from Earlier did a great cameo
in a film we all recommend called Waking Life. Was
known as a radio personality for quite some time and
then became synonymous with the idea of a conspiracy. Theorist
(03:32):
gotten super duper trouble by accusing the the surviving family
members who lost children in Sandy Hook of being what
we call crisis actors.
Speaker 4 (03:44):
Yeah, and of the whole affair being essentially either a
false flag attack or just some sort of manufactured outrage. Uh,
you know, triggering events designed to potentially shut down gun ownership.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
Right.
Speaker 4 (03:58):
Isn't that just nailed it? Yeah, and he you know,
he definitely was a slippery character for quite a while,
saying some pretty inflammatory things about a lot of things,
and you know, getting away scott free, but ended up
not being the case, and his mouth finally caught up
with him, and he is certainly in big trouble. His company,
(04:20):
info Wars is more or less bankrupted, I guess, for
lack of a better term, at least in terms of
the idea, that he owes all of this reparation money
to the families of Sandy Hook. And the question then becomes, well,
what does that mean for info Wars? And what does
that mean for the idea of someone acquiring info Wars?
(04:42):
And I think we've all been following this story involving
The Onion, the famous satirical news site The Onion, and
their bid to acquire info Wars through a parent company.
I believe it's got to be satirically manufactured Global Tech Trihedron.
This is the supposed purported parent company of The Onion.
(05:04):
But I guess I didn't really hear anything about it
until a lot of these sort of fake news releases
or satirical news releases came out regarding their bid to
purchase or to acquire info Wars started circulating with like
these very cryptic messages signed by a CEO of Global Tetrahedron,
which just has the ring of Illuminati to it. I mean,
(05:25):
it very much seems like a manufacturer bit, very onion zy,
but it does turn out that we are reaching a
new stage of this actually becoming a very real thing.
The Onion says that it has reached a deal to
take over info Wars officially. Ben Collins, a young guy,
(05:46):
very very sharp dude, the CEO of The Onion's parent company,
Global Tetrahedron, announced the deal in a post on Blue Sky,
saying it was made with the help of the Sandy
Hook families. So they were to take some of that
money that they were given or that they were due awarded,
very very righteously, and use it to essentially turn info
(06:10):
Wars from, you know, one of the most notorious conspiracy
theory pedaling kind of fearmongering fake news type websites into
a satire of itself, headed up by none other than
Tim Hideker.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yes, that is correct. I think there's another person involved
as well, Tim Heideker. Absolute legend. It's going to be
a let me get this correct. It is going to
be Tim Hideker and Mia di Pascuale who's going to
be head of programming.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
That's right, and I believe Tim is the creative director.
He will serve as the creative director. He's already made
some appearances coinciding with his news where he's kind of
doing his best Alex Jones impression, which he is quite
good at. He does the voice to a t. Yeah.
It does turn out though, the Global Tetra Heating is
a real entity. It is a digital media company founded
(07:09):
pretty recently in twenty twenty four, based in Chicago, and
it is the parent company officially on paper of the Onion.
But it would it would seem that it was created
in conjunction with this whole deal. Yes, yeah, because I
mean again, the shadowy cabalness of a name like Global Tetrahedron,
(07:30):
I mean, would be right at home with Illumination Global Unlimited,
our parent company. Of course. We love you guys, yes,
please don't disappear us. The company was revealed to be
the purchaser of Info Wars in a move that was
backed by Sandy Hook Families in order to dismantle the
platform and essentially just you know, hamstring, its legacy of
(07:54):
spreading misinformation, the irony of a name like info Wars,
and the fact that they are so known for their
proliferation of these very very divisive and damaging conspiracy theories.
And I think that's what's so interesting about the Sandy
Hook thing, because it really gave teeth to this notion
(08:16):
of you can't just say anything. It's not all just
fair game in the service of free speech if you
are doing actual harm, because the things that Alex Jones
was putting out there was causing irreparable harm to these
family members, not to mention just the pain of having
to relive and re litigate the worst thing that could
(08:36):
ever happen to a parent in their entire life, the
loss of a child God forbid for any reason, but
worst of all, in the most preventable and you know,
horrific way possible. That is a direct result of some
of the questionable laws we have in this country around
the reality to acquire these very deadly weapons.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
And what to point out real quick here, you know
you and I pre the full fall off and crash
out of Alex Jones in full disclosure that you and
I would routinely check in with info Wars in the
early years just to see what was sort of in
the zeitgeist at the moment.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
I don't want to say anything positive about Alex Jones
because I know how you listening out there feel about him,
probably and I know how the world kind of views him.
To your point, Ben, we used to look at Alex
Jones and info Wars as kind of a bell weather,
as a check in, as you said, with info Wars,
see what they're saying about a particular let's say, happening
(09:42):
like the like the Boston Marathon bombing, like the Sandy
Hooks shooting, like Canary, Right, Yeah, you just kind of
check and see what is info Wars saying. Right You never,
at least we would never take them at their word
anything that was coming out of that. But some But
this is what I'm trying to say, Info Wars and
(10:02):
Alex Jones played an important part I think in American
culture from like the late nineties onwards, which was a
public questioning of both authority and official events and things
like that. It doesn't mean they're right about that, but
it means I, at least I think personally hold the
(10:23):
opinion that it's right to think about those things and
question official stories and those kinds of things. It's just
they do it in a way that's so different than
a satirical show like The Daily Show would analyze events.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
Or seeing in or Brightbart for instance.
Speaker 4 (10:41):
Yes, one hundred percent, Ben.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
I always triangulate. That's where you have to do focus.
You have to triangulate the sources for a story. That's
part of why we like ground News.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
We do love ground News. We're not sponsored by them,
but we're huge fans and Matt, you're absolutely right. There
was a time where they made sense to be that
kind of canarian the conspiracy coal Mine to see what
was being discussed. A big part of the we describe
the show as we look at the science, we look
at the Internet chatter, we look at like what the
zeitgeist represents about a particular topic. We think of it
in terms of thought experiments. There's any number of triangulation
(11:12):
points or you know, prongs to approach these kinds of
topics from. And there was a point where Alex Jones
and Info Wars represented a way of kind of peering
through the veil and seeing where these things sort of
shook out At least in terms of like how widely
adopted they were stuff like that. But it's been a
slow decline from those days to what ultimately led to
(11:33):
his downfall. And I think that's just the thing that
happens a lot of times when you drink your own
kool aid and start to think of yourself as bigger
than God or something or in a particular space, or
being the word you know, the end all be all
around this particular area of discussion, and when by that
I just means conspiracy theories in general. So he ultimately
(11:53):
led to his own undoing by thinking he could do
no wrong and thinking that he was protected by this
unilat application of free speech. And the reason this whole
downfall story is so fascinating is because it was an
indicator that that's not always going to be the case.
If you shout fire, you know you are get in trouble.
And that's certainly what he was doing, because you know,
(12:15):
what he was saying was provably false. He was saying
was doing actual harm to actual human beings. So I
saw even calling for.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Harm, calling for harm to like sicking his crisis actors,
you know, his his fans are you know, the people,
the real hardline Info Wars followers, and that kind of
stuff was ruining people's lives.
Speaker 4 (12:34):
So we already know that part of the story Alex
Jones's toast, but now we actually have a pathway towards
uh the Onion taking over. They've already changed their logo
to like the most LGBTQ plus friendly rainbow version of
the Info Wars thing, and it's all it's more than
an effort to clown Alex Jones. It represents something bigger
(12:56):
than that. The CEO that I was mentioning, super young guy,
really I saw him talking about on a podcast, like
why he really felt the need to not just have
this be a news item that the Onion is going
after in full wars in terms of acquiring it, because
that already sounded like an Onion article in and of itself,
but to actually follow through with it. He said it
(13:16):
was that moment in any person's life where you get
to decide how committed you are to what you believe in,
And in his mind, this was his ability to completely
recontextualize something that had been incredibly divisive and harmful and
turn it into a way to shine the light on
(13:37):
those types of things by exposing how absurd it is
and turning it into what I mean, gosh, guys, I
mean some of those Alex Jones things, they've been parodied
to death because it just represents that extreme level, even
the production value and just the types of things he
would say. I mean, it's just absolute, seemingly absolute satire.
But it's not. It is so over the top and
(14:00):
absurd that it just seems like it would be obvious
that there's no way to take this seriously. But the
truth is many people did take it seriously. In fact, guys,
you'll recall Alex Jones in court argued that no reasonable
person should ever take him seriously and that he was
playing a character and all of that was essentially thrown out.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
It was the bad chili that made him while out.
This also reminds me, by the way, this is breaking news, Dylan,
can we get a breaking news cue?
Speaker 5 (14:28):
Hell?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, there is a report coming out speaking of controversial
figures that the ufologist David Wilcock has passed away. It's
it's still muddy on what's happened. There hasn't been, you know,
a confirmed autopsy or anything. But David Wilcock, you know,
(14:48):
a legend in the field of controversial UFO thought very
much sort of in the sphere of Alex Jones has
been reported to have taken his own life quite recently.
The news is again still coming out. I do want
to mention it for all of us who are following
UFO stories in general. Willcox's longtime friend and former GUYA colleague,
(15:13):
Corey Good has apparently confirmed the report of his death
in a video that was just uploaded as we're recorded
on Wednesday, April twenty second to the sphere being Alliance
YouTube channel. So David Wilcox, whom we've discussed in the past,
may no longer be with us. It's a strange time
(15:34):
to be in that sphere.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
It's super strange for sure, and this is strange news.
So what better place to discuss this kind of stuff. Yeah, no,
I'm interested to hear more about the details surrounding Willcox's passing,
but some further details around this Onion acquisition. It's pretty neat, actually,
it's just something that I I don't know. This seems
like a first of its kind kind of deal. The
(15:57):
deal involves and I'm not any kind of you know,
IP lawyer or expert on these matters, So surely there
are precedents for this kind of thing, but it does
seem a little unique to me. The initial deal, which
will still require the approval of a judge, would have
the Onion's parent company pay eighty one grand a month
to license the content at InfoWars dot com and all
the IP surrounding it and the branding and stuff from
(16:21):
Gregory Milligan, who is the appointed court appointed manager of
the site. The licensing deal would last for an initial
six months, with an option to renew for another six months,
and I believe at that point an option to buy
the whole deal outright. So a little confused as to
why there are these like kind of little periods of
(16:41):
licensing before at outright purchase. But y'all will probably notice
that Alex Jones didn't like go away. He's still in
the studio, like making videos and stuff like. It would
seem that all of this Sandy Hook stuff certainly put
a dent in his wealth, but didn't exactly, you know,
(17:02):
rob him of his platform. Yet what would happen if
the Onion deal goes through in full is that he
would no longer have access to any of that stuff,
and then they would have access to all of the
archival material that they could then recontextualize and do edits
of and have fun with in any number of ways,
(17:22):
you know, at the behest of creative direction of Tim Hydeker.
I just think this is fascinating, and I sent it
to a handful of folks, I believe, including yourselves, and
just said this rules. It's like Afroman in court level,
you know, sticking it to the man.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
And Tim Hideker's podcast Office Hours. Pretty good, tone, fabulous,
really really great.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
Can I just say, Alex Shilones is the reason why
the David Wilcock potential passing is really interesting to me,
because he is Alex Jilones is perhaps the reason why
I would connect will Cox's potential death to Nick Pope's
battle with cancer when he passed away earlier, just very recently,
(18:09):
and then connecting that to Eric von Danikin's passing in January.
So you have literally three of the top UFO UAP commentators,
researchers authors that pass away in quick succession, similar to
the mcasslin thing that we're following right now. But seriously, guys,
I don't want to give I'm not trying to give
(18:29):
Alex Jones Flowers. I just it's tragic that it turned
out this way because he was such an entertaining source
at times versus that other side that we've described really
well in this episode, that kind of violent, kind of
dangerous version of him.
Speaker 4 (18:48):
It just it.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I would reiterate the thing you talked about, Noel with
an inflated ego, and then what that can do to
a person, to deteriorate them from the inside, and then
how that can like play on your fears paranoia, and
then all the stuff that I think Alex Jones to
some extent probably really truly believed some of the more
heinous things that he would say. I think he probably
(19:11):
believed some of that stuff. And with that thing you're
talking about, make you think you're seeing stuff that nobody
else can see. It's just a dangerous combination, and I
think it's something we should all watch out for.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeah, Merlin, for sure, Connecticut Yankee and King Arthur's Court,
that's the best example. And also we have to admit,
you know, Walt Whitman, another imperfect character, said we are vast,
we contain multitudes, and was correct about that. You can
be good, you can be entirely noble in some ways,
(19:44):
and then that doesn't mean you can't be bad or
a pos later. And that's something we have to remember
because often these narratives and these stories are taught to
us or communicated to us in quite a binary way.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
We love our simple he wrotes, We love our simple villains,
and the reality is that most living things are neither
one hundred percent one nor one hundred percent the other.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
For sure. No, well, said Ben, and speaking of that,
megalemmania on full display. Alex Jones crashed and info Wars
live stream recently to express his discontent with this whole deal,
and of course he had to be bare chested, because
how else are you gonna, you know, have people take
(20:34):
you seriously? He said when he stormed on this live stream.
Just because you're wearing my shirt doesn't mean you're me.
And he's referring to I believe Tim Heideker's live posts
or a stream, doing his very best Alex Jones impression
and actually referring to himself by that name. Jones fifty
two said this is from the Daily Beast after crashing
(20:54):
an Info Wars livestream bare chested, you can't take something
over and then act like you're somebody, even if you
say it's a parody. The Onion, whom Jones called body Snatchers,
secured a deal to license InfoWars on Monday. According to
The New York Times, the brand's newly appointed creative director,
comedian Tim Heideker, rubbed the purchase in Jones's face on
said stream. It's looking very likely, he said in the
(21:17):
stream in his best Alex Jones voice, that Global Tetrahedron
will seize control of info Wars in the coming days.
We're looking forward to relaunching the site soon in the
next coming months. Jones, who appeared on the live stream
wearing only jeans, fumed about the Onions plans for his
right wing site. They're going to misrepresent that. They're us
to confuse people and quote rip people off like Alex
(21:40):
Jones did. Jones ranted, they're going to make money. The
whole thing's about defaming me. Yeah, buddy, sorry, I mean
he kind of did it to yourself. When you reach
that level of absurdity, it's sort of in the in
the public's best interest for someone to just professionally punk
you like that. Don't know what else to say. Yeah,
(22:02):
that's my two cents on the whole thing. What do
you guys think? Pretty neat?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
It's really weird that the site's called info Wars and
it's being shut down taken over by a satirical group.
But we find ourselves amidst potentially the most heated moments
in the information wars that exist out there, because of
the Internet, because of our phones, because of so much
(22:29):
information on social media being out there, and we're just
bombarded constantly by information that is often false or miss
or dis and it's really tough to know what's what nowadays.
And I don't know there's something to that. Guys, maybe
you could say better than I can, but it is
(22:51):
it is strange to me that that is happening in
this time.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
It is pretty trippy. Last thing from Jones here, I
think this is the kicker. He says, you can do
a parody of somebody, but none of you took something
from them. I've already checked with lawyers, so they're in deep.
He said, Uh, this is going to backfire big time. Folks.
You may try to take our skin, to your point
Ben about the skin walkers of it all, you may
(23:17):
try to take our clothes, but we are still the
real Info Wars and you will never take our freedom.
I don't know, man, I think it's gonna I think
it's interesting. I think it's gonna gonna something to watch
for sure. And I just want to correct something I
said before Info Wars. The Onion actually lost an attempt
previously to take over w Yeah, and that was due
(23:39):
to bankruptcy Minutia. So this is a new path forward
for them, and that is probably why it required a
little bit of hoop jumping in terms of these uh,
these these periods of licensing before they can actually fully
take over the site. They are describing it as being
turned into potentially a digital platform and comedy network and
(24:02):
the profits will help repay the Sandy Hook families. Well,
let's keep an eye on this one, guys. I think
we're all intrigued to see where it goes. But for now,
let's take a quick break here, aware from our sponsors,
and then return with more strange news.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
And we've returned switching some gears here, guys. A little
while back, we talked about a strange deer disease. They
call it the zombie deer disease. It's also known as
chronic wasting disease or CWD. We talked about it spreading
across the Americas, groups of CWD deer kind of making
(24:42):
their way around the country and heading south a bit.
We've got a story coming out of sid RAP, that's
the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. This is
coming to us on April ninth. It's written by Mary
van Busicum. I don't think that's how you say it, Mary, Sorry,
(25:03):
but that is what it looks like to me. Here's
the story. Vampire bats in Mexico may feed on CWD
positive deer, spreading disease and posing species jump threat zoonotic guys,
when's the last time we talked about bats potentially transferring
a disease from one species to another.
Speaker 4 (25:25):
That would be COVID nineteen believe, Oh.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
The pandemic, the pandemic that we went through, okay, which continues.
Just making sure I understand that, okay, well, really quickly
for everyone's information. Sid RAP is a global leader in
addressing public health preparedness and emerging infectious disease response. It
was founded in two thousand and one as a part
of the Research and Innovation Office at the University of Minnesota.
(25:54):
Here's what they're talking about. I'm gonna read some of
this verbatims, so please check out that source if you
have time on your own time. It is really good
because it talks about this person named Peter Larson, who
is a PhD. In twenty twenty two, he's on a
field expedition he is studying vampire bats. He at one
point falls asleep in an open air house in Guyana
(26:16):
where he's studying these bats, and he's awakened by the
sensation of wetness down by his foot. Checks it out,
turns out there's a vampire bat feeding on his foot
through the mosquito net and it was his blood that
was the wetness, dear, And in that moment, he had
this thought, well, hold on a second, vampire bats really
(26:37):
will feed on a lot of things. Often the things
that they get to feed on are deer, elk, moose,
other cattle, other animals that they're around, specifically in Mexico
and in parts of Africa and just where these bats exist.
And he thought, hold on, what if these things get
(26:59):
a hold of CWD deer deer that have these prions
inside them that cause the infections that become chronic wasting disease.
We've talked about the prions before. Oh yeah, weird, weirdly
misfolded proteins. That's all they really are. It's not the
same as a bacteria or a virus. You can't fight
(27:21):
them in the same way. They're just proteins that are
going to misfold. And as they do that, they I
mean they yeah, they they change the organism that in
fact that they're infected by. This is where you get
mad cow disease.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
This is why we shout out to X Files second
season twenty fourth episode Our.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Town talking about cannibalism there with human beings and how
we can get prions prions in us and they can
cause things to occur. The scary thing would be, I
think this particular version of prions infecting animals in CWD,
particularly with deer. We talked about it. You can watch
(28:06):
a video on Instagram about this. They call it zombie
deer disease because an animal infected with it will walk
around and drink a ton of water and urinate a
whole bunch and it just kind of loses all other necessities.
They just kind of ramble and shamble about and if
(28:26):
they don't pay attention to the things that that animal
normally would pay attention to. They lose a lot of
their drive, let's say, for anything else, and it would
be scary as hell if human beings were infected by this.
Then time passes because the prions don't show themselves, the
chronic wasting disease doesn't even show up for potentially years
(28:47):
after infection, and then all of a sudden, everybody starts
turning into zombies. Good God, Good God. Here's why it's
really creepy. Climate change, according to this article, is driving
vampire bats northward in Mexico, and they are predicted to
arrive in New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas in the next
(29:08):
ten to fifteen years. And at the same time, the
CWD positive servids are being pushed south, or small herds
of them are being pushed south and CWD infected deer
and other servids. They do have the potential to infect
others again through this constant drinking urinating cycle that they
(29:28):
go through. The article continues to say, common vampire bats
in northern Mexico may already be feeding on CWD positive servids.
It's a possibility, again, just a possibility. There's a lot
of research that probably should be done here. We have
to say, though, even according to this article, according to
(29:48):
a lot of the experts who are weighing in on this,
they are saying that it's massively hypothetical to be thinking
this way. At this point. There isn't a or frequent
interaction between infected animals or these deer and the vampire bats,
at least not yet, and there are no models suggesting
(30:09):
that this could happen. For that reason, you need to
weigh these interpretations with caution. That is a quote from
Rodrigo Morales, PhD. Of the University of Texas Medical School
at Houston. However, Sidrap and the authors of these studies
are saying that they recommend conducting some kind of assessments,
some kind of risk assessments. But guys, this is making
(30:31):
me think about those other bat populations again. Stuff that
was going down in that laboratory that we're supposed to
not think that COVID nineteen came from. I think that's
the official line.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
The wet market or the lab. Yeah, oh, everybody pay
attention to something else.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
The wet market's one thing. I lap it was the lab.
I think it was the lab guys.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
Is just the plausible to be honest problem a lot less,
a lot less racist and sophobic. Also, look, when we're
saying hypothetical, what's important to realize, folks, is that scientists
deal with these hypothetical things all the time because you
do need to make contingency plans. So this is not
(31:14):
like just folluting off into the wind, which is a
phrase made I love it, thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
Grand faluting, but folluting aside. The way you conduct these
risk assessments is to create things like transmission experiments, and
you figure out, oh, if CWD does get transferred, how
would it transfer. So we in order to prove that,
we need to transfer CWD via vampire bat into human cells.
(31:44):
Oh that's how it would work. Well, now we've got
a lab that has specific versions of CWD that can
transfer to humans.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Right.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
That's a scary thing about the research that was going
on with Wuhan was figuring out, oh, how how would
the most virulent version of this become a thing. Well,
we've got to create it, I guess, and figure out
all those transmission pathways and assess all that stuff and
do the what is that called.
Speaker 3 (32:10):
Gain of function Gain of function research? Yeah, finding finding
the vectors, and we've discussed this in the past, we have,
but kind of like it's kind of like enriching nuclear material. Right,
any kind of biological research about preventing an outbreaking the threshold,
(32:31):
it gets very close to the same research. You would
need to create an outbreak.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Right, Yes, similar to AI, right, and you would need
to you need to make your AI system so strong
and powerful that it could hack absolutely anything. So it
understands however it all hack can occur and then sky hopefully,
hopefully nobody gets access to it right right, just as
story story, the sorry story already came out that yeah,
(32:59):
it's already been accessed by third parties, are via third
party access to the brand new, shiny thing that's supposed
to be the ultra AI. The author of this study, Larsen,
called for the US Department of Agriculture to consider this
mode of CWD transmission. Here's a quote. We know that
some percentage of pigs and cattle are susceptible to CWD prions.
(33:21):
We also know that sheep and goats are susceptible. But
if the vampire bats develop their own susceptibility, we have
no idea what the species boundaries of those prions are.
It just makes me very truly hope that there is
no mad person out there that thinks, Oh, we are
(33:42):
going to be getting rid of all the jobs for
all these humans with all of this new AI tech.
What are we going to do with all the humans? Oh,
I've got it. We'll give them all zombie disease and
they'll just die off on their own. That's crazy. Nobody
would think that, I don't think anyway. Moving on last
quick thing, which is an update to a story we
(34:03):
talked about before. A little thing called the Atlantic Meridional
overturning circulation or the AMOCK. This is a critical current
system that exists in the Atlantic Ocean. What does it
do well, It's really important. It brings sunwarmed tropical water
to Europe and the Arctic, where it cools and then
(34:24):
sinks to form a deep return current. It's a nice
little loop of hot, hot water that goes up north,
gets cold, and then comes back down and it's a
continual cycle. It does a lot of things, very helpful
for creatures that live in the ocean, also very very
helpful for weather patterns, for climate patterns above the surface
(34:45):
of that water. We talked a little bit. Actually, I
think it was years ago, guys, where there was new
research coming out looking at models of whether or not
this current is going to slow and there's a tipping
point that would be reached if it slowed down to
a certain point.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
It also points for weather or not nice bind met.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
It's also really important for stuff that happens above the surface.
There are new models coming out about this thing, models
that are attempting to take into account observational data. Before
it was all kind of simulated. This is what could
be happening if it slows down to a certain point
the current system. If it slows down to a certain
(35:29):
tipping point, then the whole thing collapses and there's no
more ocean current there that exists. And the assessment was,
what is that tipping point? How slow we'll have to
get before we're in real trouble, and is there a
point where we could say, oh crap, guys, it's going
to collapse in a certain amount of time. Jumping to
an article by Damien Carrington for The Guardian, critical Atlantic
current significantly more likely to collapse than thought. That tipping
(35:54):
point was shouted out in twenty twenty one when they
found warning signs we're basically on the way. And this
research as it's combining, as we said, ocean observations in
the real world comparing them to the models, they realized
that the most reliable ones, the most reliable models that
(36:15):
they found were like the worst case scenario models. So
what we're seeing in the real world is the worst
case scenario. They found an estimated slowdown of forty two
to fifty eight percent by the year twenty one hundred, which, guys,
is not that far away. My kids will be alive.
(36:35):
We won't, but my kids will be alive.
Speaker 4 (36:37):
Speak for yourself.
Speaker 2 (36:39):
And they are saying that that is a level almost
certain to end in collapse, So we don't have an
exact date for how long it will take to fully
collapse once it reaches that level. What would a full
collapse do well, According to the article and the research here,
it would shift the tropical rainfall belt on which many
(37:02):
millions of people rely on to grow food. It would
plunge western Europe into extreme cold winters and summer droughts,
and it would add somewhere between five hundred and one
hundred centimeters to sea levels all around the Atlantic Ocean
doesn't sound that scary and bad. But we do know
that the ocean systems are all connected. It's all connected, guys,
(37:24):
all of the ecosystems the entire planet, it's all connected.
And when one major thing like that collapses and then
the climate begins to shift even further, there is no
doubt that other systems would be affected. And you could
have a global cooling event or a global drought event
that's going to affect a lot of a lot of
the northern hemisphere. It's pretty horrifying. You can read a
(37:47):
whole bunch more about it. If you want to get rest,
maybe don't, or just check it out and see what
you think. It will stick with you.
Speaker 4 (37:56):
Though.
Speaker 2 (37:57):
Let's say that, jumping to a story out of ap
News written by John Lester, Europe has maybe six weeks
of jet fuel left. Energy agency head warns, ah, what
that doesn't sound good. That's according to the head of
the International Energy Agency. They said. That was written on
(38:18):
April sixteenth. They said in a wide ranging interview their
warning of possible flight cancelations very soon if oil supplies
remained blocked by the Iran war. This is IEA executive
director fatigue birol. They're talking about the largest energy crisis
they have ever faced, and they're all talking about it's
(38:40):
from the Strait of Hormuz being closed off. And this
is just to point out there we've talked many a
time when analyzing things like the war in Ukraine, the
Iran War, other global conflicts and energy interests, just how
big a deal it is when when the oil supplies
(39:01):
run out. Right, if the oil supplies are low, then
that's great for energy companies because they can charge a
butt ton per gallon, right, but they got to get
more energy though, They got to get more of that oil.
They gotta get more stuff out. And if you can
get more stuff out and then ease the tensions, you've
just made bank on all the gas that you've got.
(39:22):
So there is some kind of weird stuff going on here,
some strange stuff at play when it comes to manipulating
these energy markets. Because that's what's happening. We just have
to kind of keep our ears and our eyes open
to see what's coming and try and get ahead of
it so at least your car can have some gas
in it. That's all I've got. We're gonna hear a
(39:44):
word from our sponsor, and we'll be right back with
more strange news.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
And we have returned for our last act of this
strange news program. Gents, I propose we do something that
I'm gonna call pasta on pasta pasta pasta. So we're
gonna you guys like pasta rights.
Speaker 4 (40:17):
Yeah, and he also loves the old pasta and pasta
dad joke.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
And as impossible as it might sound, we're going to
be able to pull this off by bookending our last
act here with some pasta related stories you might not expect.
Now we're going to We're gonna do the fun when first,
because we do love a heist. This is something several
of us were clocking. Uh, you guys are fans of Legos,
(40:44):
right or we're at some point in your life.
Speaker 4 (40:47):
Yeah, I love big.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Time leg masterficial Master.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
No, No, I've got the designation.
Speaker 3 (40:54):
You have to earn it. This is uh, there are
One of the things about the Lego brand has always been,
or I guess in recent years, it's always been a
matter of affordability. Right, Lego are known to be pricey,
and shout out to all the parents who have had
(41:14):
to had to have some real come to Jesus moments
figuring it out if they're going to get that sick
Lego set for their kid. Some people have resorted to
Lego related crimes. So if we go to CTV news
from Eleana lev Thank you Eleiana, we see that police
have arrested a man there is our heist thing again,
(41:35):
who replaced about thirty four thousand dollars worth of Lego
pieces with dried semolina pasta.
Speaker 4 (41:43):
Impossible.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Impossible And that's really That is a direct quote, by
the way, from an Instagram post by the Irvine Police.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
How did he get it in there?
Speaker 4 (41:57):
That's right now. I see what he was sort of
doing a spin on the old steal the thing and
return it for the refund kind of situation. But he
did it kind of in reverse in a very interesting way.
I love this so much, Ben give it to us.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
Our story takes us to Irvine, California, where some entrepreneurial
person with a lack of moral compass had taken a
bunch of Lego boxes from targets across the United States
and in some cases had replaced them with drives pastas.
So we're going to give you a pun ridden description
(42:36):
from Get This folks the actual Irvine Police Department there
in California. They say, quote, everything was awesome in this
Lego crime spree until we got involved.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
That was a lem joke too, because the song you
know from.
Speaker 3 (42:49):
The movie everything was awesome everything suspect They continue purchased
Lego sets from Target and removed valuable minifigures and piece
from the boxes and in some cases replace them with
dried pasta. You read that correctly. We are talking about
Durham wheat semolina pasta and what we are calling a
(43:10):
pastitively terrible plan. So they say right, and Target reported
They continue at least seventy thefts nationwide tied to the
same suspect, stacking up about thirty four thousand USD in losses.
That's a lot of missing pieces, But like most bad bills,
(43:31):
they keep going, this one didn't hold together. IPD detectives
snapped into action. Jesus guys conducted surveillance and identified the suspect.
Jarrell Augustine, twenty eight, of Paramount to California, was arrested
for grand theft and booked at the Orange County Jail.
If your master plan involves swapping Lego's war linguini. We
(43:52):
can promise you your plan will be cooked al dente.
Speaker 4 (43:56):
He's definitely cooked, that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
I'm mean to your god.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
Just the pun density, the wordplay. This was someone's best day.
Positively diabolical, but.
Speaker 4 (44:11):
It is fine.
Speaker 2 (44:12):
I wonder if this story would have gotten as much
interest if they didn't do that. Do you guys think
there would be a difference in the interest if it
was just straightforward.
Speaker 3 (44:23):
I don't you know, that's a good question, Matt. I
would say the interest would still be there just because
of the ridiculosity.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Well, think about you know what I mean. It's just
it's an odd thing that one would not associate with
that level of stored value, but it is it very much.
Is that because a lot of these sets are incredibly valuable,
uh and expensive, and they can even have collectibility qualities
to them as well.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
Absolutely, that's a great point as well. And just to
just to finish out that thought, ridiculosity is a word
we meant, we made up. It means the nature of
as and the velocity of that absurdity. So ridiculosity is
it makes sense when you think about it, and it's English,
so we can make up whatever.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Very close to ridiculousness, yes, but it's its own, it's
its own thing ridiculousness.
Speaker 3 (45:16):
Don't get out of it. So also, don't steal Lego pieces
because you know you might be stealing from children, which
is uncool.
Speaker 4 (45:26):
No, it's definitely uncool. But you know, to your point, Ben,
I think you mentioned it in the piece. You were
quoting a lot of these. He's not like stealing the
whole set. He's just stealing the mini figs. He's just
stealing some of the parts that are incredibly limited drops.
Because the funny thing about Lego sets, it's not funny,
it's sort of the by design is they're all kind
of interchangeable pieces except for the minifigs.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
Often some yeah, some specialty pieces, you know what I mean,
particularly if we're looking at the brand partnerships where you
got the Star Wars Universe or the Marvel Universe, Marvel
Cinematic Universe, and then they have special minifigs, right like
the Hulk, which is larger than your regular your average
(46:10):
John or Jane Netherlands or Jane Gray or Jean Gray
also a could cop.
Speaker 4 (46:16):
But those little minifigs oftentimes are the limited drop component
that you know, on its own is sellable, resellable, collectible,
whereas the other larger pieces in the sets, you'd have
to have it assembled, or you'd have to have it
like in the original box. You could. You could fence
and traffic in minifigs all day long.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
You could, You definitely could. What are the questions I
think we all had? Not just gonna say this is
my opinion, but what are the questions I think all
of us had reading this initially? Was why put the
dried pasta there in the first place? You know what
I mean, It's not like Target has a weight sensitive shelf.
You could have just taken that hulk MANI it's.
Speaker 4 (47:00):
Like Indiana Jones replacing the sacred relic with the bag
of sand. You know, Yeah, you do gotta wonder. I mean,
maybe it's just And again I'm a little confused because
it does seem like he was. You would to your point, Ben,
if it was just the mini fig. Most of these
sets at most come with four and I don't know
that would change the weight or the feel or the
(47:21):
shakiness of the package enough to raise any red flags.
So what's what gives? Do you have an answer to
that question?
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Man? We don't yet. We're gonna have to hear from
the alleged criminal has not been convicted yet.
Speaker 4 (47:36):
Just costa pun for perpetrator, pasta trader. There you go,
because it was right there the whole time.
Speaker 2 (47:42):
It was right.
Speaker 3 (47:42):
If you had it, man, you had it, you nailed it.
So we're gonna move on and we're going to first off,
we're going to give you an everybody is safe message.
You may have heard a viral claim going around in
the past few days this April alleging that the president
all of the United States tried to obtain nuclear codes
(48:04):
during a meeting about the war with Iran. We are
happy to report I would say that at least this
case so far, there's not hard evidence of this yet.
It's kind of like what we're talking about with our
episode on whether or not Jeffrey Epstein was a spy.
(48:26):
A guy named Larry Johnson, former CIA officer, was speaking
on a YouTube show Judging Freedom, so think of it
kind of like a podcast, right, and he claimed the
current president, Donald J. Trump, tried to access nuclear codes
talking during a conversation about the conflict in Iran, but
he was stopped by one guy who stood up General
(48:48):
Dan Caine, who is the CJ cos he's the big
guy of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he's their chairman.
Speaker 4 (48:57):
Probably going to be sending out resume is pretty soon,
I would imagine.
Speaker 3 (49:02):
You know. Also, he survived this long career wise.
Speaker 4 (49:08):
It's just nice to hear any sort of remaining check
and or balance in play, especially when it comes to
something this irreversible.
Speaker 3 (49:16):
And this frightening as well. Because I don't know about
everybody else, I don't want to make assumptions, but nuclear
war from everything we've studied about it, it's a dangerous thing,
right and irreversiby stand by.
Speaker 4 (49:33):
I mean, yeah, let that out the you know, let
that genie out of the bottle. It has so many
knock on consequences downstream, and it just upsets the whole
apple cart. And there's that whole idea of mutually assured destruction.
It just seems like a bad bag of badgers.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Very much so. It is a bad bag of badgers.
It's also going to create a feedback loop as soon
as one country fires past a certain threshold.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
So you think he'd at least wait until the the
bunker is finished under the east wing, right.
Speaker 3 (50:03):
Right, or at least wait until the market is favorable,
you know what I mean. So we can tell his
friends in polymarket and uh, some put some bets out there, right.
So from what we could tell at this point, the
claim has been made by this single voice, and we're
not well acquainted with this voice, but has no corroborating evidence.
(50:29):
So the world is not ending just yet, other than
the fact it's ending for someone every day. Maybe it'll
just be AI at the end, you know, maybe maybe
in the lifetime of this show, all the humans will
be gone. It'll be like Ray Bradberry when soft rains come,
and we'll just have a bunch of AI avatars aping
(50:53):
out and imitating the ordinary passage of the world. And sorry,
speaking of grieving, that's that's my surviving cat.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
Man, all right, p Doctor Bankman, Ben, Does this play
in any way into your thinking about the latest walk
back of this ceasefire deadline that seems very open ended
now when it once had a clock on it. We
walked back the first time. He's walked it back again
(51:21):
because of intervention by a Pakistani military official, he claims,
And it just seems like we're like there is no
new deadline because all of the rhetoric was around this
idea of blowing up the entire country, raining down hell
on Earth, etc. Now that he realizes that maybe it
ain't that easy, do you think he's been neutered a
(51:42):
little bit?
Speaker 3 (51:42):
Or what do you think that is speaking of? I
love the phreeze back of badgers. That is a different
bag of badgers, perhaps for an episode. Because there are
serious considerations on both sides of the manufactured political divide
of the United States, serious considerations regarding the mental capabilities
(52:07):
of the current commander in chief. So it may be that,
similar to the later years of the Reagan administration, our
guy at the wheel is not as at the wheel
as we would hope him to be. Like, that's a
big thing. We can't we can't dismiss. But we also
know that there are a lot of factors and a
(52:28):
lot of influences from foreign powers that are affecting the
conversation on Iran, both with the timing of the escalation
of the conflict as well as to your point, Noll,
the back and forth regarding blockade, what can and cannot
be used. It does not seem that the United States
is functioning in a fully independent manner at this point,
(52:51):
which I hate to say it that way, and I
know that might get some people's standard up, but it
is objectively true at this point.
Speaker 4 (52:59):
Agreed. I know I wish there was like good news,
and I wish there was a little bit more transparency
into what that even means. Because is it a matter
now of how beholden we are to Israel? Is it
a matter of how behold and potentially we are to Russia?
Is it because of secret compromise? Is it because of
(53:19):
the allegiances that are just too big to fail? A
lot of questions that we've had, you know, over the
years about these seemingly unquestioning alliances, you know, like one
with Israel, Like you really start to get up against
this idea of man, they got to have something on us,
They got to have something on this.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
Guy right past a certain threshold. And you know, I
wish we could ask Mark Zuckerberg about this, but we
can probably soon do the next best thing. Going back
to that Ai reference, we saw the news. It's a
while back, but we haven't mentioned it on the show
aside from a brief mentioned perhaps Mark zucker if you
(54:00):
can't get him in a meeting in person the meetbag himself.
You may be able to meet the AI clone that
he is building to replace him, identical.
Speaker 4 (54:10):
To the real thing as it turns out similarly. Yeah,
maybe even a little bit better personality.
Speaker 3 (54:15):
He's the new cooke of Zuckerberg.
Speaker 2 (54:17):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:18):
So shout out to Emma Roth writing for the Verge
dot com. We're big fans of yours. Emma, this is
weirdly to what you just said, Nold. This is weirdly
humanizing to me because who hasn't had an office job
where you wished you could dodge a couple of meetings.
Speaker 4 (54:38):
Only I could just clone myself.
Speaker 3 (54:39):
Yeah, peep behind the curtain, folks, myself and Tennessee and
Matt and Noel, we have all of it in situations
in a group chat where we'll say, hey, I can't
make it to this meeting we have to go to
Can I get a recap from you later? Just hold
down the fork. Maybe we should take a page from Zucks.
You know, this thing is interacting with and providing feedback
(55:03):
to employees. The original source is from the Financial Times,
but we did not break the paywall on that one.
It's gonna have his image, it's going to have his
voice along with his quote matterism's tone and public statement,
so that employees might feel more connected to the founder
through interactions with it.
Speaker 4 (55:25):
This is a precursor to the thing that we've talked
about a lot lately of like what happens then when
that thing gets legal personhood and can actually make controlling
decision decisions, or like you know your point about aiifying
a dead person like Henry Kissinger and then putting them
in charge of the war room. You know, this is
an early version of that. It would seem the seemingly
(55:47):
innocuous internal version, But what's the next step.
Speaker 3 (55:52):
It reminds me a lot of a sleeper hit from
nineteen seventy one called THX eleven thirty eight the directorial
day View of George Lucas, produced by Copola.
Speaker 4 (56:03):
By the way, pretty art sci fi like good yeah,
good stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:07):
Yeah, and weird as hell, though it is very weird.
Speaker 3 (56:10):
It is not a optimistic sunshine kind of film. But
in that narrative, there is this commonplace sort of like
a christ atm you could call it a christ phone booth,
where you go in as part of your religious duties
in this world and you speak to an automated version
(56:31):
of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 4 (56:33):
I mean, we call that a confession booth here.
Speaker 3 (56:36):
Yeah, yeah, and it's it's really trippy. Bears a rewatch
if you're looking for something to check out on a
lazy afternoon. But I would argue it's prescient because that
science fiction is increasingly approaching science fact. I mean, what
would you guys do if you were at a job,
(56:57):
say podcasting, and your boss was unavailable and they said, oh,
don't worry, speak to my chatbot.
Speaker 2 (57:06):
Yeah, this is exactly what I get into, Ben, Because
why do we have meetings? Is it so that information
can be just bestowed upon you from on high like
what you're describing there, Ben, Or.
Speaker 4 (57:22):
Do we have a meeting for collaboration ideally or for
some sort of brainstorming human interactions?
Speaker 3 (57:28):
Right?
Speaker 2 (57:29):
Or if you're getting the ear of your superior let's say,
let's say somebody else in the C suite needs to
have a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg. Is it just so
that Mark Zuckerberg can say things to you or at you,
and now you're going to be good to go and
you got what you need?
Speaker 4 (57:46):
Yeah? No, how'd you like it?
Speaker 2 (57:49):
What the hell is this? It's another invention? Of the
c suite folks who are so attached to and obsessed
with AI because they feel like they think that it
is somehow making them more efficient in clearing their days
up and their calendars up and making everything better for them.
Now they have a clear vision and all the ideas
(58:09):
they've got to execute things. They're great ideas, and it's
just this insane We have AI psychosis of the boardroom
and of the c suite right now.
Speaker 4 (58:19):
Well, I guess what you're putting down there mat too,
because a big part of that too is like getting
permission to do something, is running a thing by an
official who has yay or nay power? Does the BOT
have that same agency?
Speaker 2 (58:31):
Is? Then that's the question and in the nuclear codes
to the dang dude we were talking about, right, if
you let your AI make decisions.
Speaker 3 (58:41):
Yeah, if you give it that agency? Right, how much
agency does the AI agent have?
Speaker 4 (58:46):
Right?
Speaker 3 (58:46):
And then also, as you know, if you've ever worked
in a place, as a lot of meetings, the in
person meeting to the earlier question is an opportunity to
follow up on something else right instantly related to that meeting.
So there's a lot of oh, while I have you
what do you think about this related thing? So, if
(59:07):
you know, I'm wondering how chatbody Zuck two point oh
is going to become like is this if it if
it does roll out and happen often, is it going
to be like the chat GPT issue where every idea
someone proposes is phenomenal and great and then Zuck but
(59:29):
there's no follow up, right, or Zuckerberg Prime has to
deal with what Zuckerberg two point oh did you know
and say, actually, sorry, we can't replace every profile picture
on Instagram with a picture of a Ruta bagap it
was a different Mark who told you that was an
awesome idea? And Dylan you had something on this one.
Speaker 6 (59:51):
Yeah, I just I've been seeing this quote a lot lately.
It's from a nineteen seventy nine IBM training manual. It's
a phrase, a computer can never be held accountable. Therefore
a computer must never make a management decision.
Speaker 4 (01:00:03):
Yes, it's hugely the prescient, that's me clapp.
Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
But corporation coundnot make a decision as the people. But
the people can't be held accountable. That is, the corporate
needs that are being serviced. Who the hell can be accountable? Guys?
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
What if we united the citizens.
Speaker 4 (01:00:26):
Shut it down.
Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Okay, okay, okay, before we get talunteered.
Speaker 2 (01:00:31):
We'll make you for my whisper beepstilling.
Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
We'll go to one more We'll go to one more story.
We didn't get to the Great Pacific garbage patch. There's
a lot of myth busting, do there. Yes, parts of
Japan will pay you twenty thousand and yen if you
use tender. However, keep in mind that's about one hundred
and twenty five bucks and a little less than fifty cents.
But good luck, everybody, we promised youypastas. So we're going
(01:00:56):
to end on some pasta speaking.
Speaker 4 (01:00:59):
I got a quick addition to ben after you're done,
just oh no, go down. It's a quick one. Marilla Barrilla,
the pasta company. They have Spotify playlists that are the
exact length of how long it takes to perfectly cook
each of their various pasta offerings. And I think that's
really cute. That's all from me.
Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
I bet there's a lot of rage against the machine
in those playlists, huh.
Speaker 4 (01:01:23):
I guess so yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Can you guys imagine like cook your pasta to like
the system of a down well.
Speaker 4 (01:01:30):
I mean I guess the you know, sorry doesn't take,
but I mean, does this include the time it takes
to boil the water? I gotta now, we'll have to
look up. We'll let to look into it a little deeper.
Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
And we'll follow up on that more immediately. This is
a story we couldn't wait to share for you. It
just broke yesterday April twenty. First your pasta Sauce maybe
part of the surveilled state folks shout out to Prego.
They have not sponsored this podcast. We haven't checked with
(01:02:02):
them about it, but we did check in with Aaron Leong,
writing for Hot Hardware. Prego Gentlemen has yeh website.
Speaker 4 (01:02:11):
Sorry has debuted.
Speaker 3 (01:02:13):
Prego has debuted a recording device for the dinner table
in collaboration with an outfit that I actually quite enjoy
called story Core. Uh. They're what they're doing is make
They've made something called a connection Keeper, and the concept
is you cook your prey, go past the dish, you
(01:02:34):
put this thing in the middle of your dining table,
and it records all your family dining room conversation. So
is the connection keeper the as Leong says, is it
the perfect Mother's Day present? Or is it a privacy
nightmare waiting to happen, if you guys.
Speaker 4 (01:02:53):
Be right, yeah, yeah? Is it localized or is it
connected to the cloud?
Speaker 3 (01:02:58):
And then that it looks like it looks like a
fancy jar of caviar. That's how THEOG puts it. It
looks like a kind of like a gold painted Prego
Prego branded hockey puck.
Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
And if anyone is a familiar, story corps is all about.
I think Dylan did some work for story Core actually
back in the day, if I'm not mistaken, but you
essentially record stories of your family members, of loved ones,
of various people that then sometimes make it onto the
story Coore broadcast. But the most important part of it
is they get they get archived in the Library of Congress.
Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
Right, that's correct?
Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
Is that right, Dylan?
Speaker 6 (01:03:37):
Yeah, I was the story Core Atlanta producer for a
few years.
Speaker 4 (01:03:40):
I thought something.
Speaker 2 (01:03:40):
Dude, Yeah, Dylan, you were perfect casting for that.
Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Holy crap, dude, I'm telling you guys, Tennessee is a
big deal. Thanks for slving it with us. Man, I'm
telling you, so we know that to that earlier question,
the connection keeper is it? He goes you brought this up.
The connection Keeper is not a device that's just putting
things on, say a card that you would have to
manually plug in somewhere. It is syncing to the cloud
(01:04:08):
on the story Core portal, and so then you can save, organize, reshare,
revisit your meal time conversations later. What do you guys think,
good idea, bad idea?
Speaker 4 (01:04:20):
I have to implementation. I guess you know, it always
the opportunity for things like that to be hacked or
leaked or misused. But in theory, I think it's kind
of neat.
Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
It's a beautiful concept. To have a conversation around the
dinner table is a massively important thing that's overlooked a lot.
But there is this move away from that moment that
a lot of folks have nowadays, having a good conversation
over a meal and actually talking about something of substance.
(01:04:49):
And if these what do they call them, prompt cards
that are meant to spark dinner time conversations, If those
work for families, that's awesome, But I don't I don't
think maybe a lot of people need to record those conversations.
It probably it'd be great if we didn't think about
recording those conversations and we could just have open discussion
(01:05:12):
about hard things.
Speaker 4 (01:05:13):
I kind of see where they're going with this, though,
because to do the story core proper requires making an appointment,
requires going, and doing a thing requires being very intentional
about it. And it's the kind of thing some people
in this you know, crazy world we find ourselves in
might neglect doing and then all of a sudden, your
loved ones have passed and you don't have any of
these things. So I could see this being a convenient
(01:05:35):
way to make sure that you will have some of
these things or access to some of these things. And
it's a really good setting to capture some of these
things outside of a traditional formal sit down with somebody
like Dylan. So I get the intent, and I think
it could benefit some folks who maybe this is the
only way that fits into their life that they're going
(01:05:55):
to be able to capture this stuff. I'm curious a
little bit more about the cataloging, the searchability of it,
how it figures into the larger play of story Core
or is it like just a very independent like you
make an account when you get this thing. Yeah, and
also like the prego of it all.
Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
Right, prego of it all. Yeah. So I want to
step back and clarify something I said there. It is
cloud access, but you do have to use a USB
C port for charging and for transferring the file, so
you do have a air gap there, right. If you're saying,
you know, Uncle Nigel's crazy stance on the Welsh is entertaining,
(01:06:34):
but it stays here with us. I want it on
a file, but I don't want it to be able
to become targeted by hackers or whatever. Sandra Clark, the
CEO at story Corps, announced it by saying, at story Core,
we believe listening is a profound way to order and
connect with our loved ones, and that some of the
most meaningful stories are shared in everyday moments like around
(01:06:56):
the table. We're proud to partner with Prego registered trademark
to help families be present with one another and to
preserve their stories for generations to come. No screen, no speakers,
no wireless connectivity. Here's why I'm not quite ready to
trust it.
Speaker 4 (01:07:11):
Guys.
Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
It's going on sale for twenty dollars.
Speaker 5 (01:07:17):
That's not a bad price's leader, that's a lost leader price.
Speaker 4 (01:07:21):
It's a lost leader price. But also I was going
to add with all of the difficulty facing public radio
in terms of funding. I could see why now is
the time we're going to start doing some of these
corporate tie ins to get a little bit of cash injected,
because I mean, story Core is its own thing, I think,
but it is very much of the public radio world. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:07:43):
But do you see what I'm saying?
Speaker 4 (01:07:46):
Freakingly, I see what you're saying, the lost Leader, and
it implies that you're the product, right Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:07:52):
Are there any other partners on this that you may
have connections to intelligence agency?
Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
I know?
Speaker 4 (01:08:01):
Perhaps?
Speaker 3 (01:08:02):
Yeah, what is it in Q tell?
Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
Atlanta, by the way, we even get to this, I
don't know if it's going to be well, it should
be news, but we don't want to make it self
cidered folks in Atlanta has become acknowledged as the most
surveilled city in the United States. Hell yeah, I was
talking about the friends on Daily's Guys a little bit earlier,
and we've all we've talked about the way mos before,
(01:08:24):
We've talked about the flock cameras that are proliferating. I
don't know about you, guys, but I've been driving just
the places that make me look like a more interesting person.
So the surveillance network will say, oh, wow, this guy
goes to you know, the Buddhist temple right after his yoga, right,
and oh he goes to the good co op man.
Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
That's a good idea, Ben.
Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
Hack, the hack the surveillance, right.
Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
It's trying to figure out what my thought is. Do
we all see this note about the quote unquote Palinteer manifesto?
Speaker 3 (01:09:04):
Yes, yeah I did. Yeah, it sounds like my favorite
response to is it sounds like a super villain monologue. Right.
We have a duty to the script, we have a
duty to work with big Brother, we have duty for
the state.
Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
Yes, then make everything all powerful and make sure AI
is the cornerstone of all of that stuff.
Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
And then just how does that boot taste pale?
Speaker 2 (01:09:32):
You do?
Speaker 3 (01:09:33):
You just chopped down?
Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
But it feels like we're the boot. Is not that
the boot is not on all of our necks already,
but you know, it's it feels like people saying you
are to love the boot. The boot is a part
of you. If not for the boot, then what would
we be?
Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
We are but extensions of the boot.
Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Well, we're about to celebrate America, right two Around fifty
years everybody's making a huge deal about they're talking about
a whole bunch. I think about how America got started.
We've talked about endlessly on this show. The conversations that
occur over dinner tables or over a bar table, right
or you know, around the back of the bar where
(01:10:15):
everybody's meeting, where the conversations are had, where people are saying,
what's the line, ben, harumph, harrumph umph. Something must be
done and there is the That is how revolutions begin.
When there's something that's really really wrong, and it certainly
feels like something some things are very very wrong. It
(01:10:36):
does feel like conversations are being had actively right now
and maybe should be being had actively right now. But
what are we doing if we're encouraging everybody to record those,
you know, every moment. Well, we're already doing that right
with our phones and social media and the push for
all of that. Now, we're going to just set it
(01:10:57):
on the table and say, all right, everybody, what thoughts
you're having right now?
Speaker 1 (01:11:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:11:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
And one of the thoughts that we had recently, R
I had recently is how often is Prego in the
Epstein files, Kitdting, Prego Kitty. We're all friends. We're big
fans of story Core. We're big fans of you, fellow
conspiracy realists. Thank you so much for tuning in. We
cannot wait to hear your stories. And also thank you
to everybody who responded. We had so much feedback on
(01:11:27):
our Trucking is in Trouble episode, so we're going to
hear from our fellow listeners about a lot of that
in our upcoming listener mail segment. In the meantime, if
you want to be part of the show, reach out
and touch faith. We want to hang with you. You
can find us on the lines. You can call us
on a phone. You can always send us an email.
Speaker 4 (01:11:46):
Correct. You can find us on the lines at the
handle Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your
favorite flavor of social meds. If you don't want to
do that, there's also a way to get in touch
with us in a more analog way.
Speaker 2 (01:11:58):
Yes, you can call one STDWYTK. That's our voicemail system.
When you call in, give yourself a cool nickname and
let us know if we can use your name and
message on the air. If you want to send us
an email, you can do that too.
Speaker 3 (01:12:14):
We are the entities the read each piece of correspondence
we receive. Be well aware, Ye's unafraid. Sometimes the void
writes back, this is an awesome way to reach out
to us. We will give you a random fact. You
can give us one in return. And the reason that
was important, I guess am I to mention the unfortunate
(01:12:35):
passing of David Wilcock is that we interviewed him back
in twenty eighteen. So if you would like to hear
more of David Wilcox's research, his work, his views, check
out our interview above Majestic with David Wilcock and tell
us what you think. We'll see you out here in
the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
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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