Listener Mail: That's a Bummer

Yes, it's listener mail time once more, this time with e-mails about B.U.M.M.E.R. social media platforms, planetary defense, the Tingler, psychedelics and more. 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I
Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you, welcome to Stuff
to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and
I'm Joe McCormick, and we're coming at you with some
listener mail today. A really good crop this month, I believe. Yeah.
I think one of the key reasons is, you know,

(00:23):
on one hand, people send a nice listener mail, but
also our robot, our mail bot, Carney has had more
free time to uh to to properly collect it and
assemble it and present it to us. That's right. That's
because Carney quit social media. That's right. He got off Facebook,
got off Twitter, stopped scrolling, he listened to our episode

(00:46):
on Bummer and uh now he's he's bummer free. Uh though,
on the other hand, he has in fact turned into
a manual social media robot of his own uh and
no behavior modification. Instead, he just rolls around the world,
delivering messages directly between people by shouting them them at you. Yeah,
it it takes a little longer, but but he never stops.

(01:08):
That's the cool thing, you know. It's like the he's
like the monster and it follows. He just makes a
straight line from from cinder to recipient and he'll get there.
Most of the time he just zips up and says
like yes or heart or or just presents the proper
emoji in place of, you know, actual emotional investment. He

(01:29):
also deals in um in memes quite a lot as well.
Oh yeah, well, I can't fix everything at once. Okay, Well,
I think we should jump right into it with a
for this first one is not a single bit of
listener mail, but it is a theme we got. So
let's start by talking about our episode on The Tingler.
This was about fear and about the nineteen fifty nine

(01:50):
William Castle movie The Tingler. Super fun episode. I really
enjoyed that one. Yeah, and hopefully we inspired more than
a few people to actually go check this film out,
you know, for the first time, or to revisit it
and admire its weirdness. Absolute camp classic. It is wonderful.
But I wanted to start up front. We usually, if
we get any corrections, we try to put these upfront

(02:11):
most often, and so I'm doing that right now. In
our episode on The Tingler, in talking about the influence
of our gut flora on our brains. Specifically, we were
talking about the ways and the evidence that changes in
gut flora could have an effect on animal fear response,
including perhaps human fear response. I mentioned an estimate that
the number of microbial cells in our bodies around ten

(02:34):
times the number of human cells in our body. Now,
this used to be a commonly cited figure, but several
listeners got in touch to point out that the more
recent and probably more accurate estimates have revised that number down,
so it's probably closer to a two to one or
a one to one ratio. But even on the lowest end,
that fact remains about as astonishing to me. On the

(02:57):
conservative estimate by sheer cell count, only half the cells
in your body are human cells. Yeah, and and that
is that is amazing to consider. The Tingler, of course,
uh involved for anyone who didn't listen to that episode,
and easy reminder, uh. It involved a plot line about
this weird centipede like creature that resides along all of

(03:18):
our spines and when we when we fear, when we
when we really gripped by intense fear, it constricts around
our spinal column and if we don't scream to to
you know, to drive it back into seclusion. It will
like snap our spine in half, right, when the fear
starts flowing, you get those spines cracking. Right. But of course,

(03:40):
the one of the whole weird aspects of the whole
plot was there's a thing living inside you that's not you.
And of course the more we we we know about
the human body and uh, the microbiome, we know that
that is a reality. Like you said, half of our
selves are not our own. Half of we are half
Tingler at all times. Except the only way I might

(04:01):
argue with that is that maybe those cells are best
thought of as you, even though they don't share you,
say your d n A. And they are bacterial cells,
not mammal cells. In what sense are they not you?
If they share body space with you, if they have
control over your feelings and your thoughts and your behaviors.
I don't know, it's kind of hard to argue that
those bacterial cells aren't you in some way. This is

(04:25):
another reason we we really need to do the fly
yeah show. You know, probably the Cronenberg version, that's version
as opposed to Vincent Price, uh is that's the one
that I'm I'm most attracted to. But you get into
a lot of this in that film as well, like
the idea of your genetic identity being disrupted by the

(04:46):
by an interloper, in human interloper that flies into the
telepod with you. But of course we already have so
many interlopers that are just part of the package that
are I guess going. They have to be attract and
we assembled by the computers that are maintaining the telepods.
To begin with, it's okay, we're all brundle fly. Okay,

(05:06):
do we want to look at our next email about
the Tingler? I think this one starts off being in
response to a question we asked in that episode, which
was could having a sort of imaginary personification of your
fear response be helpful in overcoming your irrational fear response?
Liken thinking of it as some kind of animal that
you have to contend with that's separate from you. Uh,

(05:29):
does that give you some kind of power over it?
And our listener Anna got in touch with several thoughts.
But first off, I think that's what she's talking about,
all right, She writes, Hi, Robert and Joe, I've been
listening to your podcast for a while now and really
enjoyed other podcasts I listened to. I find interesting when
I am listening to them, but then I move on.
But with yours, I find myself having lots of thoughts

(05:49):
about the topic you were discussing. Oh no, in one
of your recent podcasts that you were discussing anxiety and
if it could be personified it would be easier to
deal with. I suffer from some anxiety myself, and one
analogy I found useful was the image of a smoke alarm.
The smoke alarm is there to go off if there
is a fire, but often goes off if you burn
or toast, or forget to put the fan on above

(06:11):
the stove. The smoke alarm responds the same whether it
is a major disaster or a minor incident. I find
this useful way of describing my anxiety to others. I
often forget to put the fan on above the oven
and the smoke alarm comes off. I keep a broom
nearby so I can poke the button on the smoke
alarm with the broomstick. Perhaps I should imagine poking my

(06:32):
anxiety with a broomstick. I think that's a really good analogy.
You also discussed why you enjoy horror films and this
reminded me of something I read in a Newal gaming book.
It was in the introduction to the Coraline and Other
Stories book. He was saying it was a shame that
modern children's literature wants to avoid scaring children, but some
of the best children's stories are scary. He quoted Ogden

(06:55):
Nash quote. Where there is a monster, there is a miracle.
He says. A world in which there are monsters and
ghosts and things that want to steal your heart is
a world in which there are angels and dreams, and
above all, a world in which there is hope. And
from there she goes on to make a reading recommendation
that we may come back to in a future episode,
but she closes out by saying, keep up the great work. Annah. Yeah.

(07:17):
Uh so this is a really interesting thought. Now, Robert,
I think you've sort of covered that idea on the
show before, right this. I think this was before I
came on the show. But you did something a long
time ago about children children's like scary kids stories. Yeah. Yeah,
there's an older episode on that about because there was
there was a study about like terrifying elements and children's literature.

(07:38):
It would be interesting perhaps to look at it again
and see if there's gon't have been any new scholarship
on it. Uh, And of course there are all there's
always the you know, observations of like the horrific aspects
of not only like Grimm's fairy Tales, like that's a standard,
but you know you expect it from the brothers Grim
But then you look at Disney films as well. Yeah,

(07:58):
and the you know, at a ton of replexing, lye
traumatic moments that occur in those films. Yeah, it's um,
it's it's it's interesting. Of course, the whole argument about
like you know, you've got to have the monster so
you can have the angels. Um. I think maybe that's
part of it. I mean, that's also kind of a
theological argument for the existence of horrible things in the

(08:21):
world that sometimes people take issue with. So I don't know, well,
I don't I don't know if you should take like
the angels thing literally there, because like I sometimes have
the thought, obviously, we want a better world, you know,
you want pain to be taken away and like more
good things to happen to more people all the time.
But there is a part of you that says like

(08:43):
if I never faced any kind of pain or any
kind of struggle or anything, something about that seems very
scary in itself. There's a kind of like brave New
World is kind of quality to that that there's some
part of us I do think that yearns for struggle,
and that would maybe feel like life was meaningless if

(09:03):
everything was always good and happy. I've been thinking about
about some of this recently, I mean, particularly with with
with say horror and uh in dystopia. You know, at
times we have like just extremely grim models of this,
and I feel I feel like, you know, obviously, fiction
is always going to speak to the time in which
it is created. It's going to speak to the experience

(09:27):
of the people that created and and I don't mean
to like, you know, make a you know, to to
over inflate that and try and make an outrageous overstatement
of the obvious here, But but you know, I think
I feel like at times, maybe the horror is dwelt
on in times and by people you know who do
not who who have the privilege of not having to

(09:47):
confront uh such horrors head on. But then what happens
is later on, in a more horrific time, or a
time when the horror is more obvious to us. We
still have those same stories to look back on, and
they don't always match up, you know, they don't always
deliver what we need to either make sense of the

(10:08):
world that is occurring around us or to escape from it. Um.
And then the other thing I was thinking of two
is the the idea of you know, personifying anxiety, uh,
you know, and about how it often seems like I
often feel like, you know, there's there is the shape
of of the anxiety that must be filled with something,

(10:30):
you know, and if if I'm not worrying about this thing,
like something else is going to fill that shape. And
I think that's just part of of like how we evolved,
you know, like we evolved to be a being that
would always encounter that shape. That shape would be there,
perhaps very physically in the form of a predator or
just you know, in the form of the you know,

(10:52):
the hurdle of surviving in a in a hostile world.
And as we remove ourselves from that world of just
pure survival, you know, we have we still have that
shape in our lives and it will be filled with something.
It cannot remain a vacuum Um, it may fill up
with paper tigers if that's all it has in your life,
or it just may fill up with dreads about things

(11:14):
that may occur or certainly will occur in your future. Um.
And then yeah, I guess we have to poke it
with a broomstick. That's the only thing to do, or
we'll wait. I'm I'm not sure. Were you suggesting that
it's possible that the that that shape could be filled
in with sort of fictional exercises as well, like that
this is a value of scary or or challenging scenarios

(11:36):
and so yeah, I think so, I mean there, I
try to think of times where I've I've done that
either like consciously subconsciously, and I think I have. But
they were often sort of simpler times in my life too,
where not to say the world was simpler, but maybe
I was just more oblivious, you know, to the you know,
the dangers of saying you know, geopolitical situations or you know,

(11:59):
or less um, you know, if it's familiar with you know,
the state of my own privilege, that sort of thing. Uh.
And so yeah, you just sort of lump a horror
film in there, like imagine this and uh and then
I don't know. I feel like later on I reached
a point where it's like, oh, I don't have to
imagine that that like this is this is all real,
and that's what gets sucked into the into the vacuum
of the shape. If that's making sense, all right. We

(12:21):
also have another Tingler related a bit of a listener
mail here, and this one comes to us from Jonathan.
Jonathan Rites, thanks for choosing a film that dates back
to my generation. I was eight when I saw The
Tingler in the theater. I wasn't sitting in a vibrating seat,
but at the moment when the creature walks across the
projection screen, the theater momentarily shut off its emergency floor lights.

(12:43):
What frightened me, though, were the sudden screams from the audience,
multiplied by the screams on the soundtrack. Those live screams
seem chilling at the time. I'm not proud to say
that I thought this was the best horror film I
had ever seen, and going to the movies to watch
Saturday matinee horror films was a regular part out of
my life. In the years since, I've experienced way too
much cortisol to enjoy horror anymore. Amazing how you can

(13:07):
create such a fascinating episode on such an unlikely topic.
Oh thanks Jonathan. Yeah, that's great that we got to
hear from someone who was actually there for not only
The Tingler, but other horror matinee films. I need to
I need to write Jonathan back and ask him, you
know what, what are some more memorable entries from the
Horror Mountain matinee that he remembers seeing turning off the

(13:28):
exit lights. I envied the people who got to have
the experiences before, like insurance demands on theaters would prevent
those kinds of stunts, right opposed from like whatever kind
of like gimmicky insurance. Uh that William Castle might have
been proclaiming to the film. Alright, So we next are

(13:48):
going to turn to a message from our listener Cody
about our episode on the asteroid twenty nineteen okay, which
passed very close to the Earth not too long ago.
Cody writes, Hey, guys, just listen to your episode about
the nineteen okay. I actually work in the field of
planetary defense. Amazing. Uh, So sometimes we ask for messages
like this and sometimes we get them. Cody continues, and

(14:10):
there is unfortunately quite a lot of misinformation on this subject,
mostly spread by academicians and journalists who don't actually work
in this field or sit on any policy discussions. So
let me get this out of the way. The nuclear
option is, by leagues, the better tool available to us.
So let me explain why, with the caveat that these
are my personal opinions on the subject as someone who

(14:32):
works in this field, not the position of any particular organization. Alright,
so we're gonna get a nuclear nuclear weapon in space, advocate, right,
and really the first like pro nuclear weapon argument, I
think we've really properly entertained on this show. What about
this is good, you know, finally finding a good use
for nuclear weapons that isn't killing people. Okay, uh, Cody continues.

(14:54):
Every asteroid that is ever going to hit the Earth
is going to go through a very long period of
having a vanishingly small probability of doing so. This is
because the probability of an impact is calculated by taking
the ratio of the cross section of its probable location
when it passes Earth. With errors factored in, this looks
like a big ellipse with the Earth inside. To the

(15:16):
cross section of the Earth itself. For asteroids detected foreign advance,
this ratio is close to zero i e. A very
large number divided by a relatively small number. This is
still true for asteroids that will strike the Earth. This
is just how errors factor into the calculation of probability.

(15:36):
The really dangerous aspect of this is that at the
time scales that would be required for something like a
gravity tractor to work, the probability you would calculate for
an impact is you guessed it basically zero. So who
in their right mind is going to spend the billions
of dollars required on such a mission when there's almost
an absolute certainty from an accountant's perspective that it's a

(15:58):
waste of money. This is also true of any painting
or mirror or solar sale venture that's been proposed. We
just don't have infinite money to play those kinds of
games on asteroids that were not certain are even going
to strike the Earth. Now, by the time we are
much more certain of an impact, like let's say we
have calculated a five percent chance, the only remaining tools

(16:21):
that stand a chance of working are a kinetic impact
or or a nuclear standoff. Explosion, nobody actually contemplates blowing
it up in this field. At that point, the cost
of the mission still controls the equation. Here, a kinetic
pusher will be moving at the same speed as a
nuclear device when it reaches the asteroid, and pound for pound,
a nuclear device just delivers more energy for the cost

(16:44):
of delivering it to the asteroid. Let's not forget the
US does not currently possess any vehicle capable of delivering
a kinetic impact or of sufficient mass to be relevant
to anywhere in the Solar System. We need a Saturn
five to just to even try the expanse version of
space travel isn't here yet. As for elegance, nuclear winds

(17:05):
there too. Since any kind of explosion next to an
asteroid causes the near part of the asteroid to heat
up and blow off for quite a while, you're not
just pushing it, you're turning the asteroid into a rocket.
As for turning the asteroid into a radioactive asteroid, I'm
sorry to say, everything in space is already radioactive, and
an asteroid we'd be trying to deflect would find our

(17:28):
attempts to make it radioactive cute by comparison to what
the Sun already does love the episode. And yes, there
are actually people working very hard on this problem. Cody. Well,
this is great. I mean we you know, we we
we knew there were people working on this problem, and
we celebrate them. And it's great to actually hear from
someone like this. So you know, keep up the great work, Cody,

(17:50):
because we need it. This is this is, as I've
said in multiple times, like this is one of the
those those few endeavors that can actually you know, have
the potential to save the earth. Uh um and uh
and we should absolutely celebrate it, acknowledge it, and end
above all things funded. This is a really great example
of how firsthand knowledge of working with a problem in

(18:11):
a field can inform your decisions better than just thinking
about the problem. And you know, from an abstract point
of view for not very long can because like a
lot of these astrophysicists that you talk about would say, okay,
you know, like the gravity tractor sounds like a great idea,
and it is a great idea except for the considerations
that Cody mentions here, right, the idea of calculating the

(18:32):
probability of an impact far enough in advance for it
to work. It seems like we would have to have
the ability to predict with much greater accuracy than we
can right now whether something would hit us way away
in advance. And I don't know what it would take
for that kind of accuracy to come online. Maybe we
just can't ever expect that it would, I guess, unless
we want to go, you know, put gravity tractors on

(18:54):
all kinds of things, which, as it points out, nobody's
going to show out the money to do, right, Yeah,
yeah it is. So it does make a I think
a strong argument for this being the far more practical
choice as well. Alright, well, on that note, let's take
a quick break, and when we come back, we will
roll into some bummer email than alright, we're back, So
the next batch of emails is going to concern our

(19:16):
episodes on social media the bummer business model, as so
dubbed by Jarren Lanier. And we got quite a few
of these, so we might try to roll through some
of them pretty quickly. But but well, well, I guess
we'll stop to comment wherever we can, right, and just
reminder every everybody. Bummer was Lanier's acronym for what behaviors
of users modified and made into an empire for rent um,

(19:39):
which which which? Which is nice and eloquent, But then
when you get down to it, like bummer just feels appropriate.
So now I just refer to all social media as
bummer just in my daily conversations. I'm probably really annoying
some people in the process. But anyway, first we heard
from Hannah Hannah Wrightson and says, hello, I'll just listen
to the social media bummer episode, and I thought it
would shy. I'm in As a junior in college, I

(20:01):
took a substance abuse class, and our semester long project
was to give up something we were addicted to for
the semester. A lot of my classmates chose coffee, soda,
and one or two even chose cigarettes. I chose Facebook.
When my classmates found out, many of them seemed surprised.
Most of them said they could never give up Facebook,
and some even admitted to being addicted to Facebook, like oh,

(20:23):
I'll quit cigarettes, but Facebook, Yeah, so she continues. For
the first week or so, it was really hard. I
found myself to be grouchy and bad tempered, almost like
I was kicking a chemical habit. I guess I kind
of was in a way, because social media is primed
to reward our brains in a way that encourages more
usage of social media. However, I found something interesting after

(20:43):
and after the initial withdrawal. I found I was actually
much happier without social media. After the semester ended, I
created a new account, but found that I didn't really
want to use it anymore, and found that it actually
made me anxious and sometimes even depressed. The same is
true of other social media platforms, include Instagram. I find
that I am happier and less anxious and generally more

(21:03):
productive without them. I still stay in touch with all
my close friends, many of whom live out of state,
and I feel that I actually feel more connected to
those around me without the use of these platforms. Just
thought i'd chime in with my two cents. Keep up
the good work. Well thanks for sharing, Hannah. Yeah, I
have to agree. When I got out of my personal accounts,
I've I felt a lot better. I felt a lot

(21:24):
better in so many ways. I still have to have
work accounts for the show and others, but you know,
I use them less and I don't use them for
personal things that I just log in when I have to.
Basically and Uh, yeah, and I totally identify with this experience. Yeah,
and uh, for anyone who is you know out there
is just toying with the idea. I think we've mentioned

(21:45):
this before in previous episodes. I can't stress enough the
value of if you're not going to delete your accounts,
delete your shortcuts, delete your apps, because I mean one
way of describing it is like, oh, it makes it
harder for me to find it, like I have to
work more to log in. And I think that's absolutely
key because you're destroying those sort of automatic responses, you know,

(22:07):
where we all find like your fingers just kind of
move on their own. It's almost like a wig board
experience of suddenly you're you're in Facebook, suddenly you're scrolling
in Facebook, and then you're you know, you're, you're you're
feeling the roller coaster of of of emotions that is
going to happen, that initial surge followed by that that
downward trend. Yeah. Well, one more thing I can say

(22:31):
that sort of came up when I was emailing back
and forth with the listener who got in touch about
his social media experiences. I will say that if you
find yourself wanting to pull back from the most negative
aspects of social media, but unable to delete your accounts
for some reason. Maybe you need them to stay in
touch or to coordinate on certain issues, or you need
them for work or whatever. I would say that probably
the best thing you can do is do everything in

(22:53):
your power to not consume any algorithmically recommended content on
these platforms. That means, if you're on Facebook, don't ever
scroll the feed, Just don't scroll, don't click on anything
that is recommended or suggested. Know exactly what you're going
to on the site and go there and just go
to that. The same thing applies to other sort of

(23:16):
semi social media platforms. Don't just scroll, don't click recommended
videos on YouTube. If you're gonna watch a video on YouTube,
know what you're gonna watch, and then go watch that
and just that. Likewise, if you're you're thinking of yourself, Oh,
I wonder what John Hodgman is the tweeting about, just
go go to his Twitter page. Yeah, don't depend upon
the stream, the scroll, et cetera. Yeah, don't let it

(23:38):
decide what you see next. Of course, that's a lot
easier said than done. I mean, these platforms are designed
to be very enticing with the automatic recommendation of the
content you see next. Sometimes you might not even realize
you're doing it, but you clicked the next video that
was recommended, or you started scrolling. So it can be
hard to catch yourself. But to whatever extent it's it's
in your power to do this. Don't let it tell

(24:00):
you what to see next. Yeah, it's a continuing struggle,
and it's a continuing struggle for us. So yeah, we
encourage you all to just hang in there. Okay. This
next one is from our listener, Sarah. Sarah says, Hi, guys,
I just listen to the social media as a bummer episode.
Coming on the heel of a week long social media cleanse.
One of the main reasons I still use Facebook is
to keep up to date with my roller Derby team.

(24:22):
In fact, because of deleting the app, I missed a
skate park meet up someone was trying to organize for
extra practice. In that way, social media directly connects me
to real life social activities. At the same time, I
do often find myself scrolling mindlessly, particularly in situations like
the bus or other times I don't really know anyone.
It keeps me from talking to new people and meeting

(24:44):
strangers because it becomes something to turn to in moments
I could just talk to the person next to me.
I find it hard to balance these two opposing forces.
I'm trying to be better about how long I'm on
the app, but there is a fear that I won't
see posts I truly do care about, like a Friends
May your Life announcement or a street festival. I want
to go to the Friends Shares anyway, keep up the

(25:04):
good work. I'm a graduate student in genetics and have
incorporated your podcast into the assignments of a science and
society class i'm designing. Thanks Sarah, and Sarah also taunts
us for being uh initially unable to pronounce jarn Lanier's
last name as Linear because she points out that we
are in Atlanta, which is just a little bit south
of Lake Lanier. Yeah, I have to have been. I'd

(25:24):
never put those two together, you know, I reading his
name over and over again, I never thought of Lake Lanier. Um,
And even after I started saying his name correctly, I
did not associate it with Lake Lanier. Uh So, one
thing I will say is that this is one of
the insidious things about platforms, especially Facebook. That Facebook, more
than all the others I think is the problem here

(25:45):
because it has it has captured many elements of life
where it's now just expected that people will be on Facebook. Well,
it's the model of of disruption, right, instead of disrupting
a particular market or area of commerce, it's the disruption
of social interaction, which is is even more insidious. I mean,

(26:07):
that's I think part of their business model is they
want people to schedule events on Facebook as and to
get people to only schedule events through Facebook, so that
you will be in exactly the situation you'll be worried.
Oh if I don't log on to Facebook, I'm going
to miss things that I want to go to. Yeah,
so I can see where there's definitely this is a
great example if there's a value in it, at the

(26:29):
very least sustaining a certain you know, percentage of the
population that is not on Facebook and is and and
and informs people I'm not on Facebook as if nothing
else to keep this from being the predominant way of
communicating with each other, you know, I mean it already
is I've been in the same boat. I've missed stuff
in real life because I got an invite on Facebook,

(26:50):
and I never logged into Facebook and never saw it. Right. Well,
I'm thinking too about say more official things like like
like school related stuff like thankfully. Uh, you know, I
get a lot of different communications from my son's school,
but like Facebook is not the primary uh connection point,
Like they're still depending on on emails, on on text

(27:13):
messages and uh and robo calls. You know, it's weird
to say something nice about robo calls, but at least
it's not bummer uh in this in this instance anyway.
Uh So, yeah, it's I I would be far more
afraid of a situation where everyone is like, oh, make
sure you've signed up for Facebook so you can get
updates about your child. Oh man, one more thing. I

(27:33):
just had a quick thought about the idea of always
being able to scroll the feed when you're just otherwise
idol and you're not doing anything. I think there could
actually be other risks to this too, not just taking
you out of the moment, out of your surroundings. I
think this could be establishing bad habits in the brain.
I just finished reading a book by by the computer
scientist Cal Newport called Deep Work. It's a it's a

(27:56):
book that's sort of it's one of the most self
helpy books I think I've actually enjoyed, but it is.
It was full of a lot of interesting ideas about
the value of sustained attention and focus and how a
lot of our our business and technological world is sapping
our ability to stay focused on long, deep intensity uses

(28:17):
of attention. And one of the things he talks about
is the way that you can always just look at
your phone whenever you're bored sort of trains your brain
to have extremely low tolerance for low intensity stimulation. And
so this also, he thinks, makes us worse at focusing
on tasks because we have learned that whenever we're feeling like,

(28:37):
you know, less than peak stimulation, you just look at
something else. Right, we're potentially forgetting how to be bored,
and how to how to roll with being bored, how
to use our imaginations. And I should say, with more
and more uh people using their phones at the urinal
and in the bathroom of public bathrooms, we're not reading

(28:58):
the stall walls and the other wall above the y.
There's so much, you know, sharpie based ingenuity that is
just not being appreciated anymore. All right, Let's look at
this next email. And also I'll also have that that
perhaps there has been a drop off in the quality
of of of of restroom graffiti since more people probably

(29:21):
have phones than have sharpies. Well, I think there's been
a drop off in quality of all literature. That's one
of it. No, I don't know if that's true. I'm
not gonna be that negativity bias guy. Okay, let's look
at this next email. This one comes from case Son. Waiter,
are you gonna do this? Robert? Sure? I'll read this one, um, dear,
stuff to blow your mind cast. I just recently listened
to your social media as a Bummer a podcast and

(29:43):
wanted to share my experience. I actually just deleted my Facebook, Twitter,
and Instagram a little over a month ago, while I
am still on Snapchat occasionally. I have seen an overall
improvement in my life. I have been having more meaningful conversations,
connecting with others better, and focusing on life improvements. I've
been working out and have seen a general increase in
curiosity and desire for understanding. I have the feeling I

(30:05):
won't be getting back on social media until I see
some changes for the better within it. Keep exploring reality, Cason. Well,
thanks Kayson. Uh do you want to go straight onto
this next one from Nathan to do you want to
read this? This is from Nathan. Friends, your show keeps
me company through the challenging bouts of boredom at work.
Thank you for your efforts. I felt the need to
respond to your recent social media episode after listening. Depression

(30:28):
has been a big part of my life in the past,
and I took a hard look at the way Facebook
affected my mood and deleted my account after saying goodbye
to my friends. I had had that account for a decade,
registering while in UNI when Facebook was still closed to
the general public and only available to students. I had
watched the many ways it changed during the period and
was very unimpressed with the direction things were headed. Afterwards,

(30:52):
have again to more carefully dissect other areas of my
life to extract more fulfillment, ultimately moving across the country
and setting up my life in an area I knew
to be heavily community oriented with much better weather. I
then said about fixing the variety of things that caused
the bouts of depression, and I can say I am
I am mostly stable person. Now with a much better

(31:13):
handle on my mood and life in general. I was
recently informed by my ESSO that you can now use
Facebook Messenger without needing a Facebook account, so I have
the light version of Messenger to keep in contact with
friends and events. I obviously also use Instagram and read it,
but delete the apps off my phones every time I
finished using them, which has reduced my mindless scrolling to

(31:34):
almost zero. I engage in local community through volunteering and
in person gatherings. Life without Facebook is bliss. I encourage
anyone who is able to delete their accounts to do so.
It has literally turned my life around. Nathan. Wow, well, yeah,
thanks for getting in touch Nathan. That that really hits home. Okay,
let's take a look at this next one. That is

(31:55):
a response just a short response to our episode on
the Bones of the Plumed Serpent ur geom Oology episode
about ketzel Koadal. This is from there. Our listener, Bridget
Bridget says, I enjoyed the show overall, but I really
emailed to respond to your Godzilla comments near the end
of the episode. I love the Japanese Godzilla movies. I

(32:15):
went over two hours out of my way to see
shin Godzilla in the theater. That's that's that. I also
agree that the bureaucracy going on in the movie added
to it. This isn't to say I didn't enjoy Big
G rampaging through the city. I hope Toho does a sequel. Also,
if you're fans of the Radioactive Dino, there is a
great book called The Godzilla Fact Sorry I did not

(32:35):
underline I'm on my phone. That's okay, bridget. It has
a lot of history about Big G, Tohoe, actors, directors, producers,
special effects and so on. Awesome, Yeah, shin Godzilla. We've
we've mentioned before a recent Japanese Godzilla movie that is
just enthralling. Uh so much of it is bureaucratic response

(32:56):
to what is going on. And weirdly enough, the thing
that it that I've seen recently that reminded me the
most of is the HBO mini series Chernobyl. Oh. Yeah,
you know a lot of lineups here, you know, especially radiation.
Radiation does play into the sort of the origin of
of Godzilla as a as a fictional um you know, contemplation.

(33:18):
But uh, but you know, both both films have a
lot of like meetings about what is happening and our
on our in our very enthralling. I give a slightly
higher rating to Chernobyl for for a few different reasons,
but but yeah, Shin Godzilla is terrific. All right Now,
we already did a whole listener mail episode that was
just responses to our five part series on psychedelics with

(33:40):
the special focus on psilocybin, and uh we a lot
of people got in touch with their thoughts and experiences
after that one. We got some other really good mail
on that, so I didn't think we could ignore it,
so I think we will take a look at a
few more emails that came in about the psychedelic series, right,
so yeah, so the next few emails are are definitely
going to deal with psychedelic substances, so just bear that

(34:02):
in mind. Yeah, uh, should I do this? First one
from Zerich here hit us with the Zerik email. Okay,
this is from Zerreg. Zeric says, hey, guys, this was
a really wonderful series on psychedelics. I really loved it,
and I hope you have the chance to dedicate more
future episodes to some more specific topics in the area,
though at least a short break is probably in order. Uh,

(34:23):
it might be a while before we come back to
it in any deep way. Yeah. Um, I'll resist the
urge to make nine thousand comments and suggestions. But one
thing that's particularly interesting to me is the relationship between
classical psychedelics and serotonergic antidepressants such as S sr eyes,
snur eyes, etcetera. Without boring you with too much neurobiology,
psychedelics seemed to induce the changes that antidepressants induce over

(34:46):
weeks or months in just one experience or day. Rather
than serotonin being the happiness chemical, it would seem that
these drugs antidepressant effects are more about decreasing it than
increasing it. Though, as you rightly pointed out, serotonin does
a ton of diverse things at different receptors, in different
parts of the brain and in different contexts. Either it's

(35:07):
a long term elevation with an s s R I
that causes down regulation of the excessive serotonin signaling, or
a one time massive stimulation with the classical psychedelics that
does it, but the result is apparently similar. What remains
unclear and intriguing to me is exactly what the relationship
between those mood effects and the sensory gating effects that

(35:28):
make psychedelics so unique and interesting. Is some think that
what they have in common is just the idea that
it's a kind of global reboot of the brain slash mind.
So I think the answer is probably a lot more
interesting than that. Here's one idea for a related topic.
What would a world with normalized psychedelic use actually look like?
Paullen talks about this a little, but I wish he'd

(35:49):
explored it a bit more. Should we take the medical route,
the spiritual and or religious route, a totally secular legalization
as in a free for all, or something else. Maybe
they're not mutually exclusive. My instinct is that it would
be better if psychedelics were not bound to medical, religious,
or capitalistic institutions, but I don't really know what that

(36:09):
would look like. I also think it's very important that
they be introduced and used in safe, educated, enlightening contexts,
though I don't have a ton of confidence in our
society's ability to do this kind of thing. Are there
any precedents? What should the age limit be? Compared to
Pollen's idea about psychedelics being wasted on the young? Keep
doing what you're doing, I'm only twenty four, but I've

(36:32):
been listening to the show for something like ten years
and it's been a rewarding and consistent part of my life.
I'm a graduate student in neuroscience currently, and I definitely
give the show credit for inspiring and motivating me to
this point and some psychedelics as well. Best Zarek, Well,
thanks so much THEREK was always delighted to hear, especially
from from long term listeners, like that, Yeah, really really

(36:53):
nice to hear that we may have helped inspire you
to go into the sciences. Now that the part I I,
you know, react to the most here, of course, It's
just that that question what would normalize psychedelic use actually
look like? Um? And I do agree with the with
his read that it would be better if corporations, um,
you know, the large religious organizations and in the medical

(37:17):
industry didn't have you know, a complete strangle hold on
these substances. But it is difficult to imagine what it
would look like. I mean, really, I think that the
models you have to compare it to are the more
you know, traditional societies such as you know, Amazonian cultures, etcetera,
or more or ancient societies that we often don't have

(37:39):
a completely clear picture of how, how or what specific
psychedelics were involved in their their daily life. Yeah, I
mean it does make me think about how even though,
as we discussed in the episode, from a physiological point
of view, psychedelics are relatively very safe compared to most
other recreational drugs that people take, and not to say

(37:59):
there are no risks, but like compared to uh, you know,
cocaine and stimulants and opioids and all that kind of stuff,
that the risks are very low. But I don't At
the same time, I don't think that means that there
couldn't be really damaging, unhealthy uh systems of use for them.
I just wonder what if if there was like a

(38:21):
an industry controlling psychedelics the same way that there's an
industry controlling tobacco or alcohol somehow that I don't I
don't know. It's something about that seems like it could
go to a very bad place. I don't know exactly
how right. I mean, we've we've we've seen what happens
when say somebody like say that the CIA tries to

(38:43):
use a psychedelic for their own purposes, uh, and it's like,
that's not an enlightened vision of the future. Uh, you know,
I don't. I don't think that, you know, ultimately, it's
not something that that really showed a lot of promise
from mind control in the long run, and so you
didn't see programs like mk ultra continue. But but yeah,

(39:05):
you would hate to see it, you know, controlled by
a corporation. You would hate to see it controlled by
like a you know, a religious um organization that was
using it for more nefarious purposes or ultimately trying to
use it for the same thing that that MK ultra
was interested in the Giltra project, interested in controlling people
through them. Uh, you know, it should be used for

(39:29):
personal liberation. Uh, you know, I believe that is the stronger,
more pervasive argument made by uh, you know people throughout
the decades and most recently in Michael Pollan's book. Um,
I mean, it's it's a very this is a very
imperfect analogy. But I think to something like like yoga
for instance, like a yoga practice can be very good

(39:52):
for one's body and state of mind. You can also
injure yourself through it. If if a teacher doesn't know
what they're doing, they could potentially help you injure yourself. Um. Likewise,
you can make comparisons though to more like thoroughly regulated
practices such as medicine. So yeah, it's it's kind of
uncharted territory because the price the more primal examples that

(40:17):
we can look to in the past you had it
was the domain of the shaman, and the shaman kind
of fulfilled you know, multiple roles in in a particular society.
Though above all they were a healer and and in
Western society, and most of our our healer roles or
are rather tightly control you know, it's certainly medical healing, uh,

(40:40):
some of the more you know, various other therapeutic practices
as well. So it's one of these things where we
would have to sort of create a new um, a
new class of of of healer in our society. You
would really have to bring back some form of shamanism.
But then who controls the shamans? Right it are they
a part of some uh you know, larger religious institution

(41:03):
where they are they corporate in nature? We get back
to these same problems again. Yeah, whether it's religious organizations,
corporations and business or governments. I mean the world is
full of institutions that are inherently interested in promoting their
own power and control. And uh, and yeah, it seems
like all kinds of you know, cultural practices or substances

(41:25):
are seized one way or another by one of these
institutions primarily. And yeah, it is hard to imagine. I
think this is a really tough question. I don't know
if if we have a good answer for it. Well,
you know, one thing that Poland gets into in the
book is he talks about going out and finding a
essentially a shaman, essentially a psychedelic guide to to take

(41:48):
him on this experience. And he talked a little about how,
you know, some of the people he scouted, uh, you know,
it was it was an easy pass. You know, it
was like that I just I don't this is not
the right person. But other people he was very impressed with. So,
I mean, I guess that's part of it. Is like
even if it's completely you know, unregulated in the way

(42:10):
that it's going to be, it is currently you know,
largely unregulated. And since it is you know completely uh
you know underground, you're gonna have uh, you know, it's
just going to be the market of of of Shaman's
maybe it's a review based or is just word of mouth.
I don't know, but but but I guess that's a
section of the book where he does get into the
question a little bit. So anyway, yeah, kind of rambling there,

(42:32):
but especially since I have no answer. Uh so, you know,
the short answer, though, is it's an open question. All right,
I guess we need to take a break, but when
we come back, we'll do a few more of these
Psychedelic listener mails and then go on to a few
other topics than Alright, we're back. So here's a short
one in response to our Psychedelics episode. This is from

(42:54):
our listener, Tatiana. Tatiana says, hey, guys, short time binge listener,
love the show, especially enjoyed the five part series on psychedelics.
Do you guys have any plans to delve deeper into
talking about the self? I know you guys referenced Alan
wattson the Psychedelic series once or twice. Maybe you've already
done an episode on him. But like I said, short
time listener, I don't think we have no never he

(43:16):
comes up from time to time, you know, because he
had something to say about a lot of these a
lot of the issues that we talked about on the show,
but but never like a real like Alan Watts themed episode.
He would be interesting to cover. Yeah, he's uh, kind
of like Terrence mckinna. He's one of those people who's
a very captivating public speaker. I find listening to his
talks is just kind of magical. He's He's definitely an

(43:39):
individual who I've I've heard more than I've I've read.
Uh and and I still smile whenever I hear a
sample from Alan Watts pop up in a mix sort
of electronic track or even occasionally an industrial track. I
bet he is. His lectures are one of the most
highly sampled of any Yeah, I would, I would, I
would bet so it's like him and Blade on her.

(44:01):
But his voice is very musical and very whimsical. But
wise Yeah, yeah, he sounds like a wizard. But anyway, so, uh,
she continues. I think his book The Taboo Against Knowing
Who You Are would be an excellent follow up to
the series and mail bag. The book eloquently sums up
those ineffable experiences on psychedelics into a cohesive theory about

(44:21):
the nature of reality and existence at least to me.
I firmly believe so so many people could benefit from
understanding Watt's worldview. And I'm tired of sounding like a
hippie to people when I tried to explain it. Please,
you guys have much better words than I. I I don't
know about that, but oh. She also says she subscribed
to Invention. Good work, Tatiana. Everybody should follow your lead

(44:42):
and subscribe to Invention. Yeah. I would love to do
an episode on Watts in the future. And uh, and
I've I've given up trying to not sound like a hippie.
I think that's probably just what it's going to be
like for the duration. All Right, you want to do
this next email? This one? I know this one, got
your got your anten, I poked up. This one comes
to us from the home dad abroad. That is how

(45:02):
this listener identifies themselves. Hey, those of the blown mind.
Although I am painfully aware that none of my emails
have elected enough interest to make it on a listener
mail episode, it is still my hope that they were
read and may have sparked some type of response around
the office. Regardless of the past, I do have a
question that I would love to have addressed through a
means which would expose others to the possibility. Extending out

(45:24):
from previous and controversial set of episodes delving into the
bicameral mind. You yourselves have occasionally brought up the idea
of the bicameral mind hypothesis when discussing many other topics. However,
it has largely been in jest, or at least in
a lightened hearted manner um. I would say that it's
sometimes come up in a lighthearted or addressful manner in

(45:44):
in other episodes, but I think when we I would argue,
when we discussed them originally, you know, we we gave
it a lot of serious consideration. Yeah, I mean, I
would say it's still one of those things that I'm
not convinced by the idea like it, you know, it
it asks you to accept a lot, though I think
he makes a really interesting case. So it's one of
those that I'm not convinced to buy, but I take

(46:06):
seriously and remain interested in and would always be open
to evidence for though I'm not super hopeful that evidence
for it will ever show up. Alright, Your recent episode
on Psychedelics and the following feedback episode often referred to
experiences on psychedelics encompassing in some case a sense of
ego loss, and in other cases as having encounters with God.

(46:28):
In many of Your Your and other criticisms of Julian
Jane's ideas, there has been the claim that, even if
his ideas are correct, there is no way to test
for an older form of mental structure in which the
subconscious mind speaks to the conscious mind as a disconnected being,
since we are not built that way. And yet here
exists substances which allow one to view themselves from without,

(46:49):
substances that seem capable of freeing God from the confines
of our deep unconscious selves for us to examine an
even question. Additionally, as we know, ego loss is the
separation from the sense of self, which defines our own
conscious awareness of who we are. In James book and
other works, he relates the idea of the God voice

(47:10):
coming from within and describes humans as experiencing the world
from a surface perspective, with longer term planning coming from
that personal God voice or the God voice of a
stronger personality like that of a leader priest. To spell
it out from a quick surface vantage point, that there
would seem to be distinct similarities between the effects of
psychedelics and the hypothesized functioning of the bicameral mind. To

(47:32):
further argue this relationship, psychedelic experiences don't seem to be
burdened by language, but instead by imagery and visualizations that
are open to interpretation. This is much like the non
linguistic side of the brain, which is still capable of
communication even with a severed corpus colossum, only through visual means. Anyway,
there is a question in there somewhere the home data abroad. Well, yeah,

(47:55):
that's an interesting idea. I don't know if I'm fully
following all the way, but but I see some of
the connections you're making there. Yeah. And um, you know, uh,
Terence Terence McKenna, who had discussed in Psychedelics episodes a bit.
You know, he actually references Jane's work a few times,
once in Food of the Gods, but also in some
of his other writings and talks that I've been looking at. Um.

(48:15):
But in a nutshell, mckinneth thought that the concept was
very interesting. I mean, James and McKenna both were contemplating
the same thing, right, The emergence of the modern mind
from its more primal predecessor. And as we've discussed, this
is a shift that that did occur over the course
of our evolution. I mean the details of it in
the you know, the exact mechanism of it or or

(48:37):
what we're so so many people were trying to figure out.
But I mean, certainly the consciousness, the state of mind
that we have today is not the state of mind
that are you know, are more ancient ancestors had. At
least you can get into discussions about where the change occurs,
how gradual the changes. But certainly, uh, I think we

(48:57):
can we can state, uh, you know, on a quickly
that that the way that we think now is not
the way that our pre human ancestors thought. Right. Well,
I mean, one thing that McKenna and Jane's both have
in common is that they posit a sort of point
of shift with with a with a cause that can
be identified through which modern consciousness in humans came into play,

(49:19):
as opposed to a lot of other people would probably
assume that the way the human mind is now is
something that sort of gradually and continuously evolved over time.
There wasn't like a point of shift where something changed
in a really important way, right, But even in a
more gradual scenario, you do end up like contemplating, like, well, okay,
is is everybody at the same rate in this race

(49:41):
towards modern consciousness? Or is it You're gonna have a
situation where some people are are more h you know,
modern le conscious than others. Yeah, it is weird. I
mean it's hard to imagine, you assume, I don't know.
I mean, is there even a way to measure levels
of consciousness? That seems it seems hard to do. Yeah, so,

(50:03):
um so, Yeah. Then mckinna does bring up James's work
in some of his own writings. McKenna's main criticism, though,
was that Jane's rarely considered hallucinatory substances in his hypothesis. Um,
you know, it comes up a time or two in
Jane's key work, but really almost in passing. And you know, granted,

(50:25):
James tend to tended to focus on the areas and
languages of of of his own expertise, and was rather
upfront about that, like, you know, pointing out that he
did not speak Mandarins so he or read Mandarin, so
he did not explore Chinese culture. For examples of the
bicameral mind. UM. And mckinna was, of course laser focused
on the on the role of psychedelics in their role

(50:46):
in the past, the present, in the future of our species.
So he seems to have admired a lot about bicameralism,
but felt that, you know, that this was a glaring
hole in the overall work. Um, which I mean, I
I kind of agree with McKenna on on that, you know,
I mean too well. I mean, he yeah, he's naturally
got a very hallucinogen centric view, right, and and I

(51:09):
mean it's a strong case to be made for the
use of these substances in various ancient societies. And if
you're trying to form a model of uh, you know,
like James's model, uh, it does seem that you should
incorporate hallucogens in there in some way, shape or form.
But anyway, UM, I guess the other way you could

(51:31):
look at it is if someone, some enterprising person out
there wanted to, you know, create a combined theory of
like McKinnon bicameralism, um. You know, that would that would
be interesting. I'd probably read that if you put it
in essay form now I do think the email are
too an approximation basically identified. My you know, main issue
with with the bicameral mind hypothesis, and would also somewhat

(51:54):
apply to the mckinna hypothesis, is that to whatever extent
the case they pers and already lines up with known evidence.
It's one of those things that I won't I'm not
going to say it's impossible to have, you know, better evidence.
That people use the word prove, I don't. I don't
know if prove is ever a very useful word in
like historical scientific theories, because you're not dealing with like

(52:16):
a mathematical proof, but if you're just talking about like
presenting you know, really conclusive evidence for some kind of
historical hypothesis, and that is sometimes done in you know,
physical historical sciences like paleontology and stuff. I won't say
it's impossible, but I will say I imagine it's going
to be very hard, even if one of these theories

(52:39):
happens to be correct, to find the evidence that would
show that it was correct. You could you can kind
of like tinker around at the margins, you know, and
say like, oh, here's something that would kind of fit
with what with what chains or what McKenna was saying.
But unfortunately, as like fun and interesting as these theories
can be, I think there's it's very likely there's just
always going to be the evidence gap. They're like, how

(53:02):
do you go farther with it? Now? One key difference
between mckinna and UH and James is of course that
that James was primarily interested in the past, but but
mckinna was also extremely interested in the future. So I
think that like the other side of of mckinna's writings, Uh,
you know, concerned the question of where are we going

(53:22):
from here? And how could psychedelic substances play a role?
How how many they have not only played a role
in the evolution of consciousness, how could they play a
role in the necessary continued evolution of consciousness? Could they
help us reach a place that we need to achieve
in order to avoid the essentially, you know, the catastrophes

(53:45):
of the modern age and and ultimately even like leave
the planet and become a planetary species something that he said,
he argues is is incompatible with our current state of consciousness? Yeah,
uh yeah, yeah, And I mean he he had a
lot of resting metaphors about that kind of thing, like
he remember one talk of his I listened to where
he talked about the the brain being a computer that's

(54:07):
running an operating system, and that operating system is culture. Uh,
and that you know that psychedelics are like a way
of wiping the hard drive, like erasing the operating system
and getting back to the deeper level of the machine,
which obviously was the thing that he was like Advocating
metaphors like that can be really compelling, but they also
show that McKenna was not just concerned Yeah, like you're saying,

(54:30):
like Jane's with coming up with the theory that explains
some mysteries about the past and about the human mind,
but was he was an advocate for a worldview He
was like human humanity should be more like this. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Though it doesn't make it brings them back to our
previous email talking about who who will be the masters
of the psychedelic substances? If you're making an argument that

(54:52):
um that that a psychedelic evolution is necessary for in
a planetary trap all um an interplanetary culture, Uh, I
mean interplanetary travel is a megaproject generally best left to
major institutions that can control people, or at least, you know,
can control massive projects. Uh So, if you're going with

(55:15):
that argument, maybe, uh, the psychedelics should be in in
uh in control of of like you know, corporate or
or governmental shamans. I don't know, I don't particularly like
that that idea, but if you're if you're lumping uh,
you know, psychedelics and space travel together, Uh, it sounds

(55:35):
like that's where you would place the trust. All right. Next,
I think we're gonna look at a couple of messages
from our episode about Surviving a Great Falls is an
episode where we talked about stories of people surviving falling
from extremely great heights, such as out of an airplane,
and like, what do these stories tend to have in common? Uh? So?
The first one is in response to what we mentioned
about how being bigger is worse when you're falling, even

(55:58):
though it increases your surface area, which should increase your
drag through the air. Why does gravity win out over
drag as you get bigger? Like? How come? I think
it was Haldane who said, you know, the mouse will
survive a fall down a mind shaft, but a horse
will splat uh, will splash or something. This is from
our listener, Jeremy. Jeremy says, Hi, Robert and Joe, big
fan of the show. Just a quick comment on the

(56:20):
episode about surviving a fall. The reason why if you're bigger,
gravity wins over air resistance is because mass goes up
on the cube, but surface area only goes up on
the square. Kind regards Jeremy short to the point, and
I think that's correct. I think that's a similar problem
you encounter when you imagine organisms getting bigger and bigger
and having more of a problem dissipating heat from their bodies, right,

(56:42):
because as they grow, as they get up there, their
their mass goes up in a cubic way, which means
they're going to have more and more heat issues inside
the body. But the surface area on which to dissipate
that heat only goes up on a square. All right.
Just when comes to us from Phil, Greetings, Robert and Joe.
I just finished listening to your episode how to Survive
a Great Fall. It reminded me of the two thousand
nine TV remake of Day of the Triffids. Towards the

(57:06):
beginning of the film, a massive solar eruption renders everyone
on a particular flight blind, including the pilots, save for
one man played by Eddie Izard, who happens to be
napping at the time. As the plane goes down, Iszard
takes this opportunity to grab as many flotation devices as
possible and pat himself within the airplane bathroom. The plane
crashes and Izard finds himself to be the sole survivor.

(57:26):
Based on what I learned in the podcast from anecdotal evidence,
this seems like he could be a viable option for survival,
albeit a just wanted to share this tidbit as I
believe I've heard you guys mentioned both Iszard and Day
of the Triffids in the past, and it seems to
tie in neatly with the episode. Hope you both found
this interesting. Keep up the great work, Phil. I have

(57:47):
to admit I have I've never read nor seen any
of that adaptations of Day of the Triffids, but I
know that I should. I know that this is uh.
This is a key hole in my like my sci
fi key hole key hole that is, it is a
It is a is a notable hole in my viewing history,
but also potentially a way that I might unlock new

(58:08):
thoughts and ideas if I were just to finally view it.
Good save there. Okay, this next one comes from our
listener Josh. This is also about falling out of an airplane.
Robert and Joe just finished listening to your episode on
how to Survive a Great Fall. As always, it was fantastic.
Leve all your work and your podcast is what got
me started on podcast in general. I'm running today about
a personal connection to the idea of landing on snow safely.

(58:30):
In the nineteen fifties, my grandfather was in the army
and based out of Alaska. His unit was on ski
patrol across Alaska, watching for Russian activity. The belief of
his commanders at the time was that if the Russians
were to attack Alaska, they could have troops jump out
of a plane at low altitude with no parachute and
land on the snowpack fairly safely. They estimated any such

(58:53):
Russian unit would be fifty combat effective after no parachute.
After a no parachute jump onto a snow pack. I
suppose what they would give up in casualties they would
gain in the surprise advantage of not having big targets
hanging in the air. I wish I could provide more
details with My grandfather is long passed, and I just
remember the story he told us when we were young.
Thanks for all you do, Josh. I was looking for

(59:15):
evidence of this. I couldn't find anything to back up
the idea that the Russians would actually intentionally jump out
of planes without parachutes. But I did find other references
on the Internet to this rumor as like being shared
by members of the American Armed forces. Uh so it
does look to me like at least some American you know,
military leaders thought this. Well you could imagine it being,

(59:39):
you know, something that would be factored into the Cold
War competition of just saying like, okay, here's something that
is feasible. Maybe they are doing it, or I mean,
it could also be something where the Russians, uh where
either side really could have could have just put it
out there as a as a bit of false information
to discuss this before. It's like the Russians have psychic assassins,

(01:00:01):
Well we need psychic assassins. Actually nobody had psychic assassins.
But it's just like one of those uh, pointless excitations
of the other side's fomo about certain war powers. Maybe
we should be throwing people out of airplanes into snow banks. Uh.
You know, if the enemy is doing it, then we
need to look into it as well. All right, here's
another one. This one comes to us from Cindy, Hi, Robert,

(01:00:23):
and Joe. This is the third time I have written.
I know you guys get tons of emails, so you
can't right back. So I'm going to trust it when
you say that you still read all of them. You
may already be aware of this book or even own
it already, but if not, I highly recommend it. It
is quite simply awesome, and it is well written as well.
I believe it would be up at least one of
your alleys. I think it would be up both of

(01:00:44):
our alleys. Uh. The book is titled Paperbacks from Hell
by Grady Hendricks and Uh. I have not picked up
a copy of this yet, but it is a subtitle
The Twisted History of seventies and eighties Horror Fiction, and
it seems to be to revolve entirely or around like
the amazing, often skull based artwork that you find on
these old paperbacks, paperbacks that just that enraptured me when

(01:01:08):
I was a child, and still whenever I encounter them,
either in a used bookstore, uh on a like, or
if I'm on Amazon just looking around at old books,
or if I am at a beach house and I
find one of these squirreled away, I instantly geek out.
So this does look amazing, all right. We got a
couple of emails about our episode on the Electric micro Bland.

(01:01:28):
This first one was from Jamie. It includes a photo.
I'm sorry that you out there can't see it. We'll
try to describe it. Jamie says, Hey, guys, just listen
to your episode on the Electric micro Bland and heard
you talking about the garden gnome with light up eyes.
Now this was something I think we didn't talk about
having seen. We just proposed, right, yeah, that it must exist. Okay,

(01:01:49):
Jamie's got the inside scoop. Jamie says, my sister in
law has a fear of garden gnomes. So one day
when I was in a local grocery store and happened
upon this electric garden gnome, I had to take a
photo to share with her, and now I can share
it with you too. Imagine looking out into your garden
to see these glowing eyes staring back at you. Thanks
for another show, Jamie, and Jamie attaches a photo that

(01:02:11):
is a regular sort of I don't know your stone
colored garden noome with the beard and the cute little
stubby fingers, except has these nightmare welding goggle eyes with
with the it's got the look inside of like the
highly reflective backing with the powerful led bowl. But I
don't know. It looks like it would shine through your soul. Yeah,

(01:02:32):
it looks like it looks like the dead lights. That's
what they looked like. Um. It is a horrifying gnome
if I've ever seen one, But I'm glad that Jamie
sent it in. Do you want to do this? Next
one from Kegan? Should we close out here? Sure, let's
do it. Hi, Robert and Joe, I've been listening to
your podcast for a bit more than a year and
a half now, occupying my time at a variety of
jobs between parking rental cars and working on governmental contracts.

(01:02:54):
I love listening to your insights on into all the
all the different topics and thought experiments you cover, But
one that I particularly love is when Robert gets into
Dungeons and Dragons creatures and either their feasibility in the
real world creatures that may have inspired them, or just
how this topic could make a great dungeon creature adventure.
I'm curious, Robert, have you ever thought about doing a
more D and D related episode or possibly starting up

(01:03:17):
a personal podcast delving into such things, possibly a Facebook
group that homebrews based on your episodes. Uh. Dungeons and
Dragons is a hobby close to my heart and bring
in bringing real world inspirations into it or getting into
interesting real world topics because of it makes me just giddy.
Your most recent episode, Electric microbe Land, is already giving

(01:03:37):
me a few ideas for a news that can shoot
out wires to either drain its enemies or pump them
full of electricity and use this ability to heal its neighbors,
regardless of whether you decide to make something separate or
interject a reference every once in a while. Thanks for
bringing a favorite hobby of mine into such an amazing podcast, Robert,
and thank you for asking so many questions when it

(01:03:58):
comes up. Joe, keep on rolling strong, Keagan, Oh well,
thanks Keegan. Um Yeah, I mean I love talking about
you know, the Dungeons and Dragons mythos, So you know,
to whatever extent we can incorporate more entries from the
Monster Manual in the future, I would I would love
that we have talked about potentially doing an episode on

(01:04:18):
like Dungeons and Dragons and role playing in sort of
the psychology of it. I've kind of done a little
uh uh in nosing around for potential sources on that UM.
But I can say, you know, without a shadow of
doubt that that more monsters will come up on the
show in the future. I'm not sure which ones, but
there's just so many great monsters in the in the

(01:04:41):
in the Monster Manual, no doubt. I keep getting envious
that this is gonna be like the saddest, nerdiest statement
anybody has ever made. But it's that I've always wanted
to play D and D. Yeah, I mean, it's it
can be hard to find, you know, the right opportunity
to I went for like what twenty years or more

(01:05:01):
without playing probably more probably like twenty five years between
playing it in UM like junior high and then playing
it again as an adult. So it's but it's it's
still there. It's it's thriving it's uh, and you know
you can. It's more it's more publicly accessible and acceptable
these days. I feel I've been around people playing it,

(01:05:22):
and I may have mentioned this on the show before,
but something that always struck me about it is that,
maybe more so than any other activity I'd ever witnessed,
it seemed like a thing that could be magical if
you have the right group, but that one person can
easily completely ruin it. Yeah, I mean it is a
social my my philosophy on it anyway, is it it

(01:05:43):
is a social communal exercise and and and as such, Yeah,
everybody has to be kind of on the same wavelength.
Everyone has to You've got to have the group has
to have a certain vibe for it to work. So
I've talked to people who are like, yeah, I tried it,
and I felt like the d M was a bit
Tyranne Nicole or you know, some people were taking it
serious and some people were goofy about it, and uh,

(01:06:06):
you know, that's that is one of the challenges. You
gotta find the right group. You got to find a
you know, a group that you fit in with, either
in you know, in real life, in a physical gaming setting,
or even if you're doing something remote, which a lot
of people do these days. All right, we have one
last email, and it brings us back, as all things should,
to the Sacred Mountain. Right, let's go up that slope.

(01:06:28):
This is from Kyle. Kyle says, Hi, guys, I'm still
at work, but couldn't resist your call to mountaineers as
I have a personal story to share related to your
Sacred Mountain episodes. So I'll make this a quick one.
I hiked to Everest base camp in fifteen and had
a very strange experience the night before we arrived at
base camp over five thousand meters or seventeen thousand feet,

(01:06:49):
I woke in the middle of the night and completely
believed time was running backwards, a feeling that is difficult
to describe the way it involved, a panic sensation as
though I would lose my prog rest by having to
rewind my previous grueling day of hiking, possibly backwards, and
a feeling of total helplessness. I remember walking back and forth,
practicing walking, checking that time was indeed working. I think

(01:07:13):
I convinced myself time was okay when I saw somebody
else walking perfectly normally, not backwards, to the toilet, not
what I would call a toilet. I think the strange
experience lasted about five to ten minutes or uh he
sugg maybe minus ten minutes, so not exactly quick. The
next day I was fine, relatively as I was already

(01:07:33):
suffering minor headaches from that altitude. I asked around in
the morning and most of the experienced hikers and locals
thought it was a weird one too. A Serba recommended
that lots of garlic and from memory, I think this
affects dilation of blood capillaries. Definitely required fact checking. It
seemed to help anyway, as I did not experience any
more hallucinations over the next week or so. On the

(01:07:55):
way down side, note, just imagine the smell of a
nineteen year old guy who has not showered properly in
two weeks, heavily eating garlic with daily strenuous activity. I
was almost proud. I was nineteen years old at the time,
traveling with some friends from the Raise and Give Society
from the University of Leeds, UK, with no mental illness

(01:08:16):
and was relatively fit. To date, I have not experienced
any similar reality bending episode, and in the end it
had caused me no harm, though I confess I am
tempted sometimes double checked the bedside clock if I stir
in the night. I've never emailed you guys before, though
you have accompanied me in my headphones for many years now,
I believe, even perhaps on my Himalayan hike before my
phone died, and writing in has been on my perpetual

(01:08:39):
to do list. So I would like to say thank
you to the whole team. I recommend you and your
other podcasts whenever in conversation. Uh, and I drop a
fact theory explanation for our weird universe that you guys
have armed me with all the best. Kyle, Oh, well
that's not that's great to hear. I mean, the the
last part the trials and the mountains informative to hear.

(01:09:00):
But but I can see that that was that was
an ordeal. Yeah, well, I mean it was part of
what we're talking about, like this question about the effects
of altitude on possible hallucinations, especially in people who didn't
experience hallucinations in other contexts. Yeah, that's interesting. And then
also like the I assume the effects of like all
that um that hiking and climbing on the mental state,

(01:09:22):
you know it reminds me of you know, we we've
discussed dreams again recently, but when you've when I've been
in the water on a boat or in the surf,
and then you have that sensation of remaining in it
and it kind of affects your your your mental state
and even your dreams. I wonder if that's playing a
role here to this idea of of marching forward and

(01:09:43):
that being a rate of passage through time. Has an
interesting uh, interesting bit of listener mail there. Yeah, and
there's still more. That's the sad part. We we were
not able to get to all of it. There's an
excellent fatberg a listener mail. We're just going to have
to hold till next time. But let's let's try not
to forget that, right, But we're gonna put it. We're
gonna put it away in the fat bird cooler and

(01:10:06):
we'll return to it in the meantime. Hey, everybody there,
there are plenty of other episodes of Stuff to Blow
your Mind over at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot
com and if you want to look up invention, that's
it Invention pod dot com. Those are the I guess
you could say the twin mother ships that you can
check out Those are the O and OH websites for
our show. But of course you can find our shows
just about anywhere wherever you get your podcast, and we

(01:10:29):
we asked that wherever you do get them, if there's
a way to rate, review and subscribe to our shows,
just do that. That's a great way to have help us.
And of course just tell folks about it about these
shows in the real world. That also helps big time.
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Maya Cole.
If you would like to get in touch with us

(01:10:50):
with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest
topic for the future to maybe have your mail featured
on future listener Mail episode, you can email us at
contact that's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

(01:11:12):
to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.