January 18, 2011 • 29 mins
Pain is a fundamental sensation. While it is by no means pleasant, it is certainly useful. In this podcast, Robert and Julie look at the newest scientific research and experimentation designed to exploit the biological responses to pain.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And uh,
pain pretty much, Yeah, that's what we're talking about. That's right,
No pain, no gain. They say House of Pain, Cards
(00:27):
of Pain, Yeah, one of them. But it's more specifically
the Future of Pain, which, which I think is a
pretty jazzy title for a podcast, makes me want to
listen to it and find out what we're going to
talk about. Yeah, And it turns out that the future
of pain is both stark and there's some hope there
as well, and also kind of like the present and
(00:49):
past of pain, which is humans figuring out how to
make more of it and uh, sometimes how to make
less of it. That's right, right, And then there's this
whole duality of pain is better than killing? Right maybe? Maybe? Yeah? Yeah?
So I mean, if you have the choice to die
or have pain inflicted on you, which would you choose. Well,
(01:12):
it's it's a matter of degree, right, I Mean, if
it's like a choice between death and an Indian burn,
I'm probably going to go for the Indian burn. But
I don't know. My brother can have like the mean
game burn is he still administering Indian birds sometimes? But
actually I was I was thinking about this quote from
Scientific American and it says pain is intimately tied to
(01:35):
brain functions that govern behavior and decision making, including expectation, attention,
and learning. So it makes sense that we can experience
pain and we would alter our behavior to avoid it
as much as possible. I mean, most of us would
write it tends not. It's generally one does not argue
in favor of pain when you're like stubbing your toe
(01:56):
to death on the coffee table at like three in
the morning. But because at that point you're kind of like,
all right, I get it. I should not ram my
little toe into the coffee table. And you know, and
and yes, my the nail is not supposed to be
halfway off. Now, you know, It's like like you kind
of reach this frustration point with your body where you
just kind of like quit letting me know obviously this.
(02:18):
You know that the pain signals selling me I should
not do this, I should correct this action, or that
there's something broken with me. But you know, after a while,
you're kind of like I got the memo, I'll you know,
write it on my hand. Stop giving me, you know,
incessant pain. That's right, I'll stop touching the hot stove
unless I'm Bart Simpson, of course. So I think what
this is getting to is that pain is actually really
(02:40):
useful and and learning how to um avoid it. But
also it's been really useful for for bunch of people.
And I think what we're talking about today more specifically
is government entities and it's it's a way to uh
control crowds. Um. And I'm thinking about the pain ray. Yeah,
(03:02):
the pain right, which sounds like a at once a
fantastic you know sci fi idea, you know, and and
and also a terrifying one because it's I mean the
pain right because on one level, you hear and you're like,
it brings to mind this sort of like clean like
electronic You're not shooting people in the face with rubber bullets.
You're just like making them, you know, maybe feel a
(03:22):
little discomfort. And then you know, as a corrective action
kind of like a you know, like when when you
have to put like a shot collar on a dog
um where you're which you know, may not be that
humane in some in some interpretations. But for the most part,
you're not like whipping the dog with a bull whip
or something, so like on that level, yeah, I can
see that, you know, making sense. But on the other level,
(03:43):
like it's like you're pointing a ray gun at somebody
and making them like like cringe and pain. It's it's
about as horrible as any kind of pain infliction method
that we've ever had. And yeah, and to be more
specific about it, it's actually a beam of sixty four
giga hurts radio waves and it can cover our person's
entire body and it can cause agonizing pain as it
(04:05):
heats water and fat molecules beneath the skin surface. So
it's like being microwaves sort of. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And
supposedly it's only in three seconds um increments And so
the Department of Defense who created this and actually over
a two decade period um, they claim that the person
(04:25):
is not burned because of the shallow penetration in the
short time span and the low energy levels employed. But
but then again, this also implies that the person using
the weapon UH is following a set of guidelines or
rules right right right there. That always comes down to
user error because it's like tasers. You know, in theory,
(04:46):
a taser is a far more humane method of administering,
you know, a corrective measure against somebody. But if you're
misusing it, if you're just shooting people in the face
with the taser the drop of a hat instead of
say employing other policing techniques, which is you know, verbal communication,
well you know, then then that's not an ideal situation.
So right, right and um and it's it's interesting that
(05:08):
you call it a taste because it really is like
the Uber taser. I mean, the beam can hit someone
up to a third of a mile away, and of
course they're only relieved of the pay when they move
out of the way. So this was really something that
um that the Department of Defense wanted to use in Iraq,
and at the time they couldn't clear the legal hurdles.
And then they actually had it in Afghanistan, but they
(05:31):
removed it really without any explanation, and they claimed that
they had never used it on anyone there. So right
away you can already see like mmmmm, maybe this is
not perhaps the best idea. Although it was made as
a non lethal weapon to have crowd control without killing anyone,
(05:51):
I mean that was the point, right, So in a
sense it's more humane. Of course, we can't say non
lethal anymore, right, and the new preferred term is less lethal. Yeah,
you're right, less lethal, And I guess that comes down
to you to error, right, Like, Okay, it's supposed to
be spurted out and the three second increments, but who's
to say that you can continue to do those three
seconds over and over again? Yeah, because if long, I've
(06:12):
long found like the quote less lethal weapons that are
often some sometimes the more horrific seeming if used wrong,
because like I think of like you'd see those guns
like shoot a big wad of paste, you know, or
some sort of view and the ideas you like stick
somebody to in place with it, you know, And it's
like every time I would see that, all I could
imagine if somebody being like shot in the face within suffocating,
and it was like that just seems like a horrific weapon. Uh,
(06:35):
you know I've used improperly, like every weapon is eventually used, right, right,
And actually that's why they started saying less lethal, because
say rubber bullets that close range of those can kill,
Which brings us to this this rifle which is called
a less lethal rifle, which again you know, rifle less
lethal Okay, Um, this is the variable velocity rifle. That's
(06:59):
the one. Yeah. Lund Technologies makes it, and those those
folks are also responsible for the tickle me Elmo and
our kidding. It's so they were warming up to this
with with first let's get well a little develop the
tickle me Elmo and then the next logical leap is
um a rifle, right right, how do we use combustion
technology now now that we've mastered tickle me Elmo. Um.
(07:22):
But this, this is the less part of the gun
is that it uses in an explosive gas mixture in
the chamber behind the projectile, say like a rubber bullet,
rather than a conventional propellant patter like gunpowder. Okay, so
you get less like a muzzle flash kind of a situation.
Well yeah, and it allows you to actually calibrate the
(07:43):
amount of pressure that you'd like, and it does that
in tandem with a laser ranger ranger offinder that um
range funder rather that measures the distance of the target
in the gun. So then it can sit there and say,
okay that that person's a hundred feet away I'm going
to you know, put in the chamber this amount of
explosion so that it doesn't actually kill the person. Right.
So yeah, they're close range, it kind of nerves them
(08:05):
to a certain respect at least, you know, ballistically speaking,
very painful nerve. Yeah, and if they're farther away, because
it's kind of like rifles, Um, you know, anytime you
you hear about like people firing up rifles that have
like just tendn't have de tremendously long range, and you're
like like you're you really sure that there's nothing, you know,
and then you know this within this distance. But but yeah,
(08:27):
it's like a shorter you know, the variable range. It'll
in theory, you know, only have as much punch as
it needs, right the target, right exactly. And so I
mean in theory it sounds good, right, Yeah, But then
there's the whole user er, and then there's the whole
fact that the Pentagon. The Pentagon laid out some cash
for for the prototype here, and um, they requested that
there was an actual shoot to kill option so they
(08:50):
can override the non lethal part of it and switch
over to yeah dead, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's that.
Then Then then you get into sort of like sort
of lazy policing, lazy um you know, soldiering kind of
situation where it's like, well, I'd rather just you know,
shoot to kill, so I'll just you know, switch the trigger,
(09:11):
right or if I imagine, if you're in the thick
of things and you have a ton of stress and
confusion and chaos going on, uh, you know, you might.
I mean, maybe you wouldn't need to switch over to
the shoot to kill option, but it's you know, we're humans,
and that's a tremendous amount of pressure to be under.
And yes, you're you're you know, if if the purposes
(09:32):
to disperse the crowd, then you do have this rifle
to do so. But yeah, the sort of decisions that
happen in that split second you just never know. So
and and it's difficult to even like judge that, you know,
having never been enough like a combat situation, like you know,
if you're in a situation, you know, suddenly it's like
we should I said this to to lethal or nerf
and uh, you know, my life as at stake or
(09:52):
the life you know, the lives of innocent civilians or
you know, the people I'm fighting with yeah. And what
I think interesting about both of these technologies, the beam
and the rifle, is that clearly there's a need for
for something to to allow for crowd control, particularly if
you're in Afghanistan or Iraq. But you know, you you
(10:15):
you have to you have to probably weigh the Okay,
we want to have the hearts and minds of people
against the we need some sort of force to control
the crowd situation. And so I do wonder, particularly with
the beam, if that's one of the reasons why I
didn't necessarily make it through there. I mean, well, also,
I mean I hope that it didn't actually like have
the name pain Ray, because that's just that's just shy um,
(10:38):
you know, marketing. It's like, hey, we've got this great thing.
It's called the pain ray, and it's a totally humane way.
It's like, whoa, it sounds kind of creepy. Can't you
call it something like very like you know, variable velocity
rifle that sounds the police stand back rifle? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
And actually that rifle is nicknamed the Big Hurt, the
Big Hurt, which again, come on, guys, marketing, Yeah, or
(11:02):
maybe you know, it's like it needs a separate title
for the guys using it, so they'll feel like they're
not going out there like like, all right, guys, if
these guys get out of hand, you'll need to pull
out your discomfort wand on them because that, you know,
how how can you like confidently stride out into into
battle or know to face the crowd? Okay, I just
I just imagine someone with like Little Wizard's cloak on
(11:23):
with their wand um, which would seem much more benevolent,
I suppose. UM. But I was thinking about this too,
is is if it were to be put in use
both of those technologies, would it really help the situation?
And the reason I asked that is because I'm thinking
about whether or not people could become desensitized to that
sort of pain. Um. There was an article published in
(11:45):
nineteen fifty three by a Harvard and enthusiologist and he
was basically saying that the soldiers wounded in battle complained
a lot less than those who had similar pains or
injuries in a civilian hospital. And the idea is that
the wound was less important in the face of survival
and that and there's also sort of an honorable connotation
(12:07):
to it. UM. So It's sort of made me wonder
if you had this constant barrage of pain inducing beams,
would would it become a badge of honor to undergo
something like that? And also would your own endorphins kick
in and and and block the pain. Yeah, I mean
it's like you see you know these these like riot
uh you know images from around the world where will
(12:27):
be like, you know, the riot guards lined up, and
they'll be something like just some guy just you know,
really just manning up or berserking you know out and
just running at them, or you know, throwing a rock
or you know or some sort of like a you know,
flaming stick or something. And and yeah, it's like it
could with a slight discomfort beam really work in that
situation or right right, And not that humans are rats,
(12:49):
but there is one study um that that was conducted
jointly by the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and u c
l A. And they found that rats don't respond to
pain uh simuli in the presence of a predator or
in an environment that provokes fear. So if there's an
imminent danger, it actually suppresses the experience of pain through
(13:10):
endogenous opioids. So I mean, you know, again we're not rats,
but you have to sort of look at that correlation
and say, is it the same thing that when you
have a fear response that you do have these endorphins
going through your body, and particularly in something like that,
what you're you're in danger and I mean you're we
already know this with athletes who not so they're in danger,
(13:33):
but they're performing these crazy high levels and when they
become injured, the dopamines kick in and they're able to
slug through the race and limp off the field or
the track or or what have you and experienced that
pain later. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's a that
definitely raises a lot of questions about about less lethal
(13:54):
weapons are just sort of like the just the idea
of you know, using pain as a corrective measure and
high density uh you know confrontations like maybe like feelings
of ickiness are better, like if you shame and ickiness. Yeah,
like if you were to sort of like you know,
sort of like a Ghostbusters to slime gun, you know,
wherever you sort of like hose everybody Betty down in
that like it doesn't not enough pressure to like you know,
(14:16):
knock people down. Or you know, actually inflict physical pain,
but suddenly everybody feels kind of gross and they just
want to go home take a shower, right, I mean,
And there are the alternative there's like the long range
acoustic signals that are you know, that horrible shrieking, um
piercing sound that will disperse a crowd for certain um.
I think that one of the concerns though, particularly with
the beam, is that there's a company called Raytheon which
(14:39):
is conducting a case study in a California detention center
and they're using that beam on prisoners there, which is
sort of like WHOA okay, And of course the a
c l U has stepped in to say, well, you know,
we might have some civil rights issues here, guys. Yeah,
because it's an it's an auditory pain kind of ray. Basically,
it's like we're gonna blast you with physically painful noise. Yeah.
(15:03):
And I get against another situation when you have a
prison riot, the six are really high. You do want
something there to help you manage the situation. But again,
the potential for misuse is pretty high. I gotta say,
you know, I'm not Johnny Cash here, like doing a
concert for for the prisoners. I get that, you know
(15:23):
that there are certain things going on there that you
need to try to control, but it does seem to
me a little bit of auspicious. Yeah, it comes down
to like flipping a button to inflict pain versus like
beating somebody with a baton, Like both are are in
a in a way, both are equally inhumane, but one
is far easier. And I don't know, you can do
(15:45):
a lot of philosophical questions when when it comes down
to how do you choose to inflict pain on people?
And and and ultimately how do you get around doing it?
To begin with? Right? And then I guess to your points,
you start to objectify the person even more. Yeah, yeah,
and does that make a does that make the situation
better or worse? These are the actual philosophical questions. But nonetheless, yeah,
(16:08):
you gotta ask them. But you know, then you look
at the flip side, and you know, out of the
military and all all out of all the warfare, particularly
in I Rif and Afghanistan, you have a lot of
soldiers returning and they've got um horrible injuries and major
amounts of chronic pain. And that's a real problem too.
(16:29):
So you have pain on the other side here, and
I guess the flip side of that would be, how
do you lessen pain? We've we've figured out how to
inflict it, but is there a good viable way to
deal with pain um in the in the best of
the future sense, you know, the abilities that we have, Yeah,
because I mean basically, I mean if if if we
(16:50):
can prevent pain, you know, or or or lessen it,
uh to some degramming that that helps, just in the
treatment of the core problems, you know, right, like like
you know, no nobody should have to live with chronic pain. Basically, Yeah,
that's the key. And of course we've got drugs to
help with it. But the problem with that is that
they're pretty addictive. Yeah, because because the drug is doing
(17:11):
generally doing more than just removing the pain. It's also
it also has an opiate effect to it, right, and
especially in cases where it's you know, stuff like oxy cotton,
you know, just you know, classic morphine um situation all
that stuff. Right. So it's removing the plant, it's blocking
the pain, but it's also providing a high which you know,
put your body in that loop and gets all your
(17:33):
receptors all lined up. To say, hey, more and more UM.
But the good news is that there's a team of
doctors who actually see the future of wartime pain control.
UM in a new form of anesthesia called continuous peripheral
nerve block, and it takes a more targeted approach by
switching off only the pain signals coming from the injured limb,
so it leaves the patient's vital signs intact in the
(17:55):
cortical functions unimpaired. And the good news with that is
that you know you can you can help treat the
source of the pain without creating that loop of addiction. Yeah,
or just my understanding is also you're not turning off
that limb, so it's not like, oh, I can't feel
my leg anymore because I don't want my need to hurt.
It's it's it's more targeted than that, yeah, which has
(18:16):
got to help when you're recuperating from an injury or
dealing with chronic pain like that. But if you think
about it, UM, it's it's sort of like an elementary
form of UM an epidrol block. It's just much more targeted.
Of course, in the epadrol you you know you can't
feel your legs or anything but uh or so people say,
But this is this is a lot smarter choice. And
(18:41):
and you know, of course, warfare is never going to
go away, so being able to use something like this
is really great for soldiers who are returning. Warfare might
go away. Let's let's not completely rule it out. Feeling
like a pessimist this morning. This presentation is brought to
(19:04):
you by Intel sponsors of tomorrow. But these blocks are
actually made possible by this invention of small microprocess or
controlled pumps. So they bathe nerves in this these non
addictive drugs, and that's what blocks the transmission of pain signals.
And the cool thing about this is that the pumps
(19:24):
can also be used after they're treating in the hospital,
so they can use this for a couple of weeks,
administer the pump themselves and be able to control the pain.
Cool but without yeah, without but without self administering an
opiate effect exactly, Yeah, generally not be good. Yeah. And
then in the same category, we've got another sort of
(19:47):
erasing pain technology. Yeah, this is the one that seen
in a couple of different articles. They make the inevitable
comparison to the movie Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind
the um what Charlie Kaufman screenplay Jim carry Yeah, about
the whole like, Oh, I have a painful memory, go
(20:07):
in and erase that memory so I don't have to
deal with it anymore. Right, I'm gonna be tortured by
this horrible breakup or this awful thing that happened. Um
And they don't necessarily erase specific memories, though, is its
right with this technology? Yeah? This, this technology is not
quite as far fetched in surgical it's a yeah. It
comes from researchers at the University of Toronto, So Korea
(20:31):
and Bristol UM and Bristol uh. And it's uh, it's
specifically designed for chronic pain. And we're talking generally, like,
you know, high levels of chronic pain, like not just
a list. Oh I'd rather sleep in, but oh I
need to take something so I can get out of bed,
you know, in the morning. That's generally what they're they're
talking about here, not like stubbed toes and or even
(20:52):
you know, you know, sort of marginally sort backs specific
specifically you know, intense pain um and and and also
people who have malfunctioning um um pathways and their synapses
which which got them to re experience the pain due
to abnormal persistence of their mental record of that pain.
(21:13):
So it is kind of tight. It's kind of tied
into the memory of the pain, you know, but but
not like oh you know, it's not not not like
an emotional thing like in the movie. Um. They mainly
they do this by inhibiting a molecule called p k
m zeta, and this is a molecule involved in the
storage of memories that reside um and a part of
the brain involved in the perception of pain. So they've
(21:36):
successfully eliminated they can access successfully eliminate the painful memory
at the heart of some of some kinds of neuropathic pain.
And so far apparently the tested worked on mice. Yeah. Yeah,
And so it's sort of and that what I thought
was interesting about this. It's it's jamming that, right, So
it's basically saying, okay, you can't the number of receptors
get reduced and then the memories of that disappear. And
(22:00):
that's what they've seen in the mice at least. Yeah,
So I guess that begs the question of it, can
you know they can develop drugs to inhibit painful memories
by targeting this molecule, but what about other forms of
memory or yeah, you know what does that do to
the mice? You know, the the memories that they have
are how their brain functions. Yeah, because again we we
(22:22):
go back to like the purpose of pain, and you know,
the meaning of pain, and it has as much as
we're like, oh, you know, I wish I you know,
wouldn't have to suffer. It's like it's it's a vital
part of who we are. Like to steal a quick
quote from William Faulkner, he's had given the choice between
the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain
or U. C. S. Lewis had a bit and of
(22:43):
course he wrote the problem of pain, and uh, this
is you know, this is more of a theological um
you know, standpoint. But he says, God whispers to us
in our pleasures, speaks in our conscious but shouts in
our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
So I mean, you know, you get into Buddhism to
where it's pain. You know, suffering is a part of
who we are and you can't have if you just
(23:04):
seek out pleasure, you're gonna get you're gonna get more pain.
You gotta have that balance, so I can't have one
without the other. Yeah, it's just part of the feedback system.
You know. It's kind of you know, it's kind of
like when they're coming up with you know, trying to
come up with robots that can that can can move
and interact in a social environment, you kind of have
to come up with like a kind of a pain sensation.
You have to sort of create it, you know, for
(23:24):
for robots to a certain extent, or at least a
machine version of pain. Well, that's really interesting to think
about that. That's like it's almost like the robots have
the inability, like the congenital inability to to feel pain. Um,
and so yeah, they if we didn't program that, then
they might smush us into little pieces. Yeah, or you know,
(23:44):
it's just it's just like it's a it's again, it
just comes down to am I Am I touching a pan?
It's too hot? Should I be wearing you know, a glove?
Oh did I burn my finger? And I need to
have correct you know, do something. And then also just
like behavior stuff. You know, it's like, um, you you
have that really painful mistake be at a physical pain
or emotional pain, and uh, that tends to be something
(24:05):
you don't do again. You know, you've learned from that pain.
So so yeah, what if we end up, you know,
erasing or lessening pains that are shaping who we are? Like,
what what happens? Then you're get into some weird ground there, potentially. No, No,
it's an interesting proposition. Do I mean, could you You're right,
I mean, I guess the question is could you experience
(24:27):
happiness at all if you didn't know the difference? Because
we've all encounted those people who seemed happy all the
time and they're just boring, you know, we are. Yeah,
that's that's when I just pinch them. Yeah they're learn
from that. Yeah, all right, I don't I think we've
covered the future of pain as much as we can
with this topic. I mean, this topic is fascinating and
(24:47):
there's so many different ways we can go with it.
But yeah, next time you see someone who's happy, pinch them, yeah,
and then and then quiz them on what they've learned. So, hey,
we have a little uh listener, may here, Let's see
what do we have? Well, let's see, um, all right,
we have some listener mail from one Laverne and uh
(25:11):
they ride. Hey guys, my name is Laverne Um and
that's it. No, there's more. I was just listening to
your show about vertical living, and the scenario as you
described it would be logically impossible. The reason I say
that is because if you really lived on, say the
two hundred floor of that building, and all the work
was done by robots, I agree that would be great.
But if all the work is done by robots, I
(25:31):
wish you would explain to me how you're going to
learn to you're going to be able to earn money
to buy food to keep your yourself alive. Even if
it's grown in the building, they're still costs involved in
growing it, and there is no way that it would
be free um. And they're going to expand on this
little more and then say so. My prediction is it
will never happen, or if it does, then it will
(25:51):
be the start of the end of civilization because if
money drives innovation, innovation will stop and in another century
the robots will be worn out and no one would
have this else to survive. But that's just the theory
of a stone worker stuck in my shop listening to
podcasts while working. So if you disagree with me, please
let me know. This listener raises some important to you know, questions,
(26:12):
because yeah, as we if we find ourselves in a
situation where we hand over and increasingly large slice of
our lives to machines, and you, I mean, you get
into the just the basic problem of utopia and uh yeah,
and actually you and I sort of had this outside
conversation about this. Yeah, um, because when we were talking you,
I think you were making me feel better about the
technological singularity, and I think you were saying like that
(26:35):
the best case scenario would be that we just we
don't exchange money anymore, there is no need for money. Yeah,
you'd have to it, would you know, be more of
like a just a complete like socialist kind of situation,
A situation like I always keep coming back to the
Culture series by E. N. M. Banks, where he describes
a future, far future culture where humans basically do what
(27:00):
they want and leave leave the lead this anarchist head
and his lifestyle, and the robots are more or less
their caretakers that take care of everything. And in the
way he he doesn't know, like he lays it out
in in a in a way where you you get
a sense of loss, there's something that's missing, um, but
from humanity. But then it's also then you know, people
are still doing what they want and they're you know,
(27:21):
engaging in their hobbies, et cetera. So it's you know,
it's problematic, uh and thought provoking. But but yeah, it
also ties really into to this podcast, like the whole
idea of pain, like utopia. I was just thinking about
that too. Are they are they they're being served by
the robots, but they're probably going around pinching each other. Yeah,
just to say I remember, yeah, do they just turn it?
(27:42):
Is it? You know, it basically turns into any of
the other Wes Anderson movies, Like I'm thinking about the
The Darshing Limited where it just where there's not an
actual father figure and it's just about three like rich
privileged guys that are horrible. Yeah. Yeah, so like life
becomes that film them as opposed to the life Aquatic. Wow,
(28:02):
I guess that's not my favorite life Aquatic. I love
ars No No, me too. But there there's some interesting scenes. Actually,
that opening mini movie is pretty interesting. Oh yeah, yeah,
that was beautifull shot starcle but anyway, uh Laverne, thanks
for the thoughts that I think it's it's all copper
poking stuff, thought provoking. Thank you. And on a much
(28:24):
smaller email we received from one Nick and Nick Right
wrote in to say, listen to your podcast Life on
the last night, and after hearing about your interests talking
about me in battles on sky bridges, I threw this
together in MS paint paint. Hope you like it. I'll
hold it up to the microphone, but you can't really
(28:44):
hear it, um, but heat do an awesome MS paint
image of stick figures fighting on the skybridge. So yeah,
that's pretty awesome. We need to post on our Facebook page.
I should, yes, yes, when this comes out, I'll try
and remember to post it because it's exactly like it
appeared in my brain. You you dropped right into his
brain there next. So there you have it. If you know,
(29:05):
if you want to check out this image UM that
we're talking about, or um you know, engage with us
in the social media's, then you know, you can come
by our Twitter or Facebook pages where Blow the Mind
on both of those. You can also drop us an
email at Blow the Mind at how stuff Works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(29:28):
Is it how stuff works dot com. To learn more
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iPhone app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And uh,
pain pretty much, Yeah, that's what we're talking about. That's right,
No pain, no gain. They say House of Pain, Cards
(00:27):
of Pain, Yeah, one of them. But it's more specifically
the Future of Pain, which, which I think is a
pretty jazzy title for a podcast, makes me want to
listen to it and find out what we're going to
talk about. Yeah, And it turns out that the future
of pain is both stark and there's some hope there
as well, and also kind of like the present and
(00:49):
past of pain, which is humans figuring out how to
make more of it and uh, sometimes how to make
less of it. That's right, right, And then there's this
whole duality of pain is better than killing? Right maybe? Maybe? Yeah? Yeah?
So I mean, if you have the choice to die
or have pain inflicted on you, which would you choose. Well,
(01:12):
it's it's a matter of degree, right, I Mean, if
it's like a choice between death and an Indian burn,
I'm probably going to go for the Indian burn. But
I don't know. My brother can have like the mean
game burn is he still administering Indian birds sometimes? But
actually I was I was thinking about this quote from
Scientific American and it says pain is intimately tied to
(01:35):
brain functions that govern behavior and decision making, including expectation, attention,
and learning. So it makes sense that we can experience
pain and we would alter our behavior to avoid it
as much as possible. I mean, most of us would
write it tends not. It's generally one does not argue
in favor of pain when you're like stubbing your toe
(01:56):
to death on the coffee table at like three in
the morning. But because at that point you're kind of like,
all right, I get it. I should not ram my
little toe into the coffee table. And you know, and
and yes, my the nail is not supposed to be
halfway off. Now, you know, It's like like you kind
of reach this frustration point with your body where you
just kind of like quit letting me know obviously this.
(02:18):
You know that the pain signals selling me I should
not do this, I should correct this action, or that
there's something broken with me. But you know, after a while,
you're kind of like I got the memo, I'll you know,
write it on my hand. Stop giving me, you know,
incessant pain. That's right, I'll stop touching the hot stove
unless I'm Bart Simpson, of course. So I think what
this is getting to is that pain is actually really
(02:40):
useful and and learning how to um avoid it. But
also it's been really useful for for bunch of people.
And I think what we're talking about today more specifically
is government entities and it's it's a way to uh
control crowds. Um. And I'm thinking about the pain ray. Yeah,
(03:02):
the pain right, which sounds like a at once a
fantastic you know sci fi idea, you know, and and
and also a terrifying one because it's I mean the
pain right because on one level, you hear and you're like,
it brings to mind this sort of like clean like
electronic You're not shooting people in the face with rubber bullets.
You're just like making them, you know, maybe feel a
(03:22):
little discomfort. And then you know, as a corrective action
kind of like a you know, like when when you
have to put like a shot collar on a dog
um where you're which you know, may not be that
humane in some in some interpretations. But for the most part,
you're not like whipping the dog with a bull whip
or something, so like on that level, yeah, I can
see that, you know, making sense. But on the other level,
(03:43):
like it's like you're pointing a ray gun at somebody
and making them like like cringe and pain. It's it's
about as horrible as any kind of pain infliction method
that we've ever had. And yeah, and to be more
specific about it, it's actually a beam of sixty four
giga hurts radio waves and it can cover our person's
entire body and it can cause agonizing pain as it
(04:05):
heats water and fat molecules beneath the skin surface. So
it's like being microwaves sort of. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And
supposedly it's only in three seconds um increments And so
the Department of Defense who created this and actually over
a two decade period um, they claim that the person
(04:25):
is not burned because of the shallow penetration in the
short time span and the low energy levels employed. But
but then again, this also implies that the person using
the weapon UH is following a set of guidelines or
rules right right right there. That always comes down to
user error because it's like tasers. You know, in theory,
(04:46):
a taser is a far more humane method of administering,
you know, a corrective measure against somebody. But if you're
misusing it, if you're just shooting people in the face
with the taser the drop of a hat instead of
say employing other policing techniques, which is you know, verbal communication,
well you know, then then that's not an ideal situation.
So right, right and um and it's it's interesting that
(05:08):
you call it a taste because it really is like
the Uber taser. I mean, the beam can hit someone
up to a third of a mile away, and of
course they're only relieved of the pay when they move
out of the way. So this was really something that
um that the Department of Defense wanted to use in Iraq,
and at the time they couldn't clear the legal hurdles.
And then they actually had it in Afghanistan, but they
(05:31):
removed it really without any explanation, and they claimed that
they had never used it on anyone there. So right
away you can already see like mmmmm, maybe this is
not perhaps the best idea. Although it was made as
a non lethal weapon to have crowd control without killing anyone,
(05:51):
I mean that was the point, right, So in a
sense it's more humane. Of course, we can't say non
lethal anymore, right, and the new preferred term is less lethal. Yeah,
you're right, less lethal, And I guess that comes down
to you to error, right, Like, Okay, it's supposed to
be spurted out and the three second increments, but who's
to say that you can continue to do those three
seconds over and over again? Yeah, because if long, I've
(06:12):
long found like the quote less lethal weapons that are
often some sometimes the more horrific seeming if used wrong,
because like I think of like you'd see those guns
like shoot a big wad of paste, you know, or
some sort of view and the ideas you like stick
somebody to in place with it, you know, And it's
like every time I would see that, all I could
imagine if somebody being like shot in the face within suffocating,
and it was like that just seems like a horrific weapon. Uh,
(06:35):
you know I've used improperly, like every weapon is eventually used, right, right,
And actually that's why they started saying less lethal, because
say rubber bullets that close range of those can kill,
Which brings us to this this rifle which is called
a less lethal rifle, which again you know, rifle less
lethal Okay, Um, this is the variable velocity rifle. That's
(06:59):
the one. Yeah. Lund Technologies makes it, and those those
folks are also responsible for the tickle me Elmo and
our kidding. It's so they were warming up to this
with with first let's get well a little develop the
tickle me Elmo and then the next logical leap is
um a rifle, right right, how do we use combustion
technology now now that we've mastered tickle me Elmo. Um.
(07:22):
But this, this is the less part of the gun
is that it uses in an explosive gas mixture in
the chamber behind the projectile, say like a rubber bullet,
rather than a conventional propellant patter like gunpowder. Okay, so
you get less like a muzzle flash kind of a situation.
Well yeah, and it allows you to actually calibrate the
(07:43):
amount of pressure that you'd like, and it does that
in tandem with a laser ranger ranger offinder that um
range funder rather that measures the distance of the target
in the gun. So then it can sit there and say,
okay that that person's a hundred feet away I'm going
to you know, put in the chamber this amount of
explosion so that it doesn't actually kill the person. Right.
So yeah, they're close range, it kind of nerves them
(08:05):
to a certain respect at least, you know, ballistically speaking,
very painful nerve. Yeah, and if they're farther away, because
it's kind of like rifles, Um, you know, anytime you
you hear about like people firing up rifles that have
like just tendn't have de tremendously long range, and you're
like like you're you really sure that there's nothing, you know,
and then you know this within this distance. But but yeah,
(08:27):
it's like a shorter you know, the variable range. It'll
in theory, you know, only have as much punch as
it needs, right the target, right exactly. And so I
mean in theory it sounds good, right, Yeah, But then
there's the whole user er, and then there's the whole
fact that the Pentagon. The Pentagon laid out some cash
for for the prototype here, and um, they requested that
there was an actual shoot to kill option so they
(08:50):
can override the non lethal part of it and switch
over to yeah dead, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that's that.
Then Then then you get into sort of like sort
of lazy policing, lazy um you know, soldiering kind of
situation where it's like, well, I'd rather just you know,
shoot to kill, so I'll just you know, switch the trigger,
(09:11):
right or if I imagine, if you're in the thick
of things and you have a ton of stress and
confusion and chaos going on, uh, you know, you might.
I mean, maybe you wouldn't need to switch over to
the shoot to kill option, but it's you know, we're humans,
and that's a tremendous amount of pressure to be under.
And yes, you're you're you know, if if the purposes
(09:32):
to disperse the crowd, then you do have this rifle
to do so. But yeah, the sort of decisions that
happen in that split second you just never know. So
and and it's difficult to even like judge that, you know,
having never been enough like a combat situation, like you know,
if you're in a situation, you know, suddenly it's like
we should I said this to to lethal or nerf
and uh, you know, my life as at stake or
(09:52):
the life you know, the lives of innocent civilians or
you know, the people I'm fighting with yeah. And what
I think interesting about both of these technologies, the beam
and the rifle, is that clearly there's a need for
for something to to allow for crowd control, particularly if
you're in Afghanistan or Iraq. But you know, you you
(10:15):
you have to you have to probably weigh the Okay,
we want to have the hearts and minds of people
against the we need some sort of force to control
the crowd situation. And so I do wonder, particularly with
the beam, if that's one of the reasons why I
didn't necessarily make it through there. I mean, well, also,
I mean I hope that it didn't actually like have
the name pain Ray, because that's just that's just shy um,
(10:38):
you know, marketing. It's like, hey, we've got this great thing.
It's called the pain ray, and it's a totally humane way.
It's like, whoa, it sounds kind of creepy. Can't you
call it something like very like you know, variable velocity
rifle that sounds the police stand back rifle? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
And actually that rifle is nicknamed the Big Hurt, the
Big Hurt, which again, come on, guys, marketing, Yeah, or
(11:02):
maybe you know, it's like it needs a separate title
for the guys using it, so they'll feel like they're
not going out there like like, all right, guys, if
these guys get out of hand, you'll need to pull
out your discomfort wand on them because that, you know,
how how can you like confidently stride out into into
battle or know to face the crowd? Okay, I just
I just imagine someone with like Little Wizard's cloak on
(11:23):
with their wand um, which would seem much more benevolent,
I suppose. UM. But I was thinking about this too,
is is if it were to be put in use
both of those technologies, would it really help the situation?
And the reason I asked that is because I'm thinking
about whether or not people could become desensitized to that
sort of pain. Um. There was an article published in
(11:45):
nineteen fifty three by a Harvard and enthusiologist and he
was basically saying that the soldiers wounded in battle complained
a lot less than those who had similar pains or
injuries in a civilian hospital. And the idea is that
the wound was less important in the face of survival
and that and there's also sort of an honorable connotation
(12:07):
to it. UM. So It's sort of made me wonder
if you had this constant barrage of pain inducing beams,
would would it become a badge of honor to undergo
something like that? And also would your own endorphins kick
in and and and block the pain. Yeah, I mean
it's like you see you know these these like riot
uh you know images from around the world where will
(12:27):
be like, you know, the riot guards lined up, and
they'll be something like just some guy just you know,
really just manning up or berserking you know out and
just running at them, or you know, throwing a rock
or you know or some sort of like a you know,
flaming stick or something. And and yeah, it's like it
could with a slight discomfort beam really work in that
situation or right right, And not that humans are rats,
(12:49):
but there is one study um that that was conducted
jointly by the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee and u c
l A. And they found that rats don't respond to
pain uh simuli in the presence of a predator or
in an environment that provokes fear. So if there's an
imminent danger, it actually suppresses the experience of pain through
(13:10):
endogenous opioids. So I mean, you know, again we're not rats,
but you have to sort of look at that correlation
and say, is it the same thing that when you
have a fear response that you do have these endorphins
going through your body, and particularly in something like that,
what you're you're in danger and I mean you're we
already know this with athletes who not so they're in danger,
(13:33):
but they're performing these crazy high levels and when they
become injured, the dopamines kick in and they're able to
slug through the race and limp off the field or
the track or or what have you and experienced that
pain later. Yeah. So yeah, I think that's a that
definitely raises a lot of questions about about less lethal
(13:54):
weapons are just sort of like the just the idea
of you know, using pain as a corrective measure and
high density uh you know confrontations like maybe like feelings
of ickiness are better, like if you shame and ickiness. Yeah,
like if you were to sort of like you know,
sort of like a Ghostbusters to slime gun, you know,
wherever you sort of like hose everybody Betty down in
that like it doesn't not enough pressure to like you know,
(14:16):
knock people down. Or you know, actually inflict physical pain,
but suddenly everybody feels kind of gross and they just
want to go home take a shower, right, I mean,
And there are the alternative there's like the long range
acoustic signals that are you know, that horrible shrieking, um
piercing sound that will disperse a crowd for certain um.
I think that one of the concerns though, particularly with
the beam, is that there's a company called Raytheon which
(14:39):
is conducting a case study in a California detention center
and they're using that beam on prisoners there, which is
sort of like WHOA okay, And of course the a
c l U has stepped in to say, well, you know,
we might have some civil rights issues here, guys. Yeah,
because it's an it's an auditory pain kind of ray. Basically,
it's like we're gonna blast you with physically painful noise. Yeah.
(15:03):
And I get against another situation when you have a
prison riot, the six are really high. You do want
something there to help you manage the situation. But again,
the potential for misuse is pretty high. I gotta say,
you know, I'm not Johnny Cash here, like doing a
concert for for the prisoners. I get that, you know
(15:23):
that there are certain things going on there that you
need to try to control, but it does seem to
me a little bit of auspicious. Yeah, it comes down
to like flipping a button to inflict pain versus like
beating somebody with a baton, Like both are are in
a in a way, both are equally inhumane, but one
is far easier. And I don't know, you can do
(15:45):
a lot of philosophical questions when when it comes down
to how do you choose to inflict pain on people?
And and and ultimately how do you get around doing it?
To begin with? Right? And then I guess to your points,
you start to objectify the person even more. Yeah, yeah,
and does that make a does that make the situation
better or worse? These are the actual philosophical questions. But nonetheless, yeah,
(16:08):
you gotta ask them. But you know, then you look
at the flip side, and you know, out of the
military and all all out of all the warfare, particularly
in I Rif and Afghanistan, you have a lot of
soldiers returning and they've got um horrible injuries and major
amounts of chronic pain. And that's a real problem too.
(16:29):
So you have pain on the other side here, and
I guess the flip side of that would be, how
do you lessen pain? We've we've figured out how to
inflict it, but is there a good viable way to
deal with pain um in the in the best of
the future sense, you know, the abilities that we have, Yeah,
because I mean basically, I mean if if if we
(16:50):
can prevent pain, you know, or or or lessen it,
uh to some degramming that that helps, just in the
treatment of the core problems, you know, right, like like
you know, no nobody should have to live with chronic pain. Basically, Yeah,
that's the key. And of course we've got drugs to
help with it. But the problem with that is that
they're pretty addictive. Yeah, because because the drug is doing
(17:11):
generally doing more than just removing the pain. It's also
it also has an opiate effect to it, right, and
especially in cases where it's you know, stuff like oxy cotton,
you know, just you know, classic morphine um situation all
that stuff. Right. So it's removing the plant, it's blocking
the pain, but it's also providing a high which you know,
put your body in that loop and gets all your
(17:33):
receptors all lined up. To say, hey, more and more UM.
But the good news is that there's a team of
doctors who actually see the future of wartime pain control.
UM in a new form of anesthesia called continuous peripheral
nerve block, and it takes a more targeted approach by
switching off only the pain signals coming from the injured limb,
so it leaves the patient's vital signs intact in the
(17:55):
cortical functions unimpaired. And the good news with that is
that you know you can you can help treat the
source of the pain without creating that loop of addiction. Yeah,
or just my understanding is also you're not turning off
that limb, so it's not like, oh, I can't feel
my leg anymore because I don't want my need to hurt.
It's it's it's more targeted than that, yeah, which has
(18:16):
got to help when you're recuperating from an injury or
dealing with chronic pain like that. But if you think
about it, UM, it's it's sort of like an elementary
form of UM an epidrol block. It's just much more targeted.
Of course, in the epadrol you you know you can't
feel your legs or anything but uh or so people say,
But this is this is a lot smarter choice. And
(18:41):
and you know, of course, warfare is never going to
go away, so being able to use something like this
is really great for soldiers who are returning. Warfare might
go away. Let's let's not completely rule it out. Feeling
like a pessimist this morning. This presentation is brought to
(19:04):
you by Intel sponsors of tomorrow. But these blocks are
actually made possible by this invention of small microprocess or
controlled pumps. So they bathe nerves in this these non
addictive drugs, and that's what blocks the transmission of pain signals.
And the cool thing about this is that the pumps
(19:24):
can also be used after they're treating in the hospital,
so they can use this for a couple of weeks,
administer the pump themselves and be able to control the pain.
Cool but without yeah, without but without self administering an
opiate effect exactly, Yeah, generally not be good. Yeah. And
then in the same category, we've got another sort of
(19:47):
erasing pain technology. Yeah, this is the one that seen
in a couple of different articles. They make the inevitable
comparison to the movie Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind
the um what Charlie Kaufman screenplay Jim carry Yeah, about
the whole like, Oh, I have a painful memory, go
(20:07):
in and erase that memory so I don't have to
deal with it anymore. Right, I'm gonna be tortured by
this horrible breakup or this awful thing that happened. Um
And they don't necessarily erase specific memories, though, is its
right with this technology? Yeah? This, this technology is not
quite as far fetched in surgical it's a yeah. It
comes from researchers at the University of Toronto, So Korea
(20:31):
and Bristol UM and Bristol uh. And it's uh, it's
specifically designed for chronic pain. And we're talking generally, like,
you know, high levels of chronic pain, like not just
a list. Oh I'd rather sleep in, but oh I
need to take something so I can get out of bed,
you know, in the morning. That's generally what they're they're
talking about here, not like stubbed toes and or even
(20:52):
you know, you know, sort of marginally sort backs specific
specifically you know, intense pain um and and and also
people who have malfunctioning um um pathways and their synapses
which which got them to re experience the pain due
to abnormal persistence of their mental record of that pain.
(21:13):
So it is kind of tight. It's kind of tied
into the memory of the pain, you know, but but
not like oh you know, it's not not not like
an emotional thing like in the movie. Um. They mainly
they do this by inhibiting a molecule called p k
m zeta, and this is a molecule involved in the
storage of memories that reside um and a part of
the brain involved in the perception of pain. So they've
(21:36):
successfully eliminated they can access successfully eliminate the painful memory
at the heart of some of some kinds of neuropathic pain.
And so far apparently the tested worked on mice. Yeah. Yeah,
And so it's sort of and that what I thought
was interesting about this. It's it's jamming that, right, So
it's basically saying, okay, you can't the number of receptors
get reduced and then the memories of that disappear. And
(22:00):
that's what they've seen in the mice at least. Yeah,
So I guess that begs the question of it, can
you know they can develop drugs to inhibit painful memories
by targeting this molecule, but what about other forms of
memory or yeah, you know what does that do to
the mice? You know, the the memories that they have
are how their brain functions. Yeah, because again we we
(22:22):
go back to like the purpose of pain, and you know,
the meaning of pain, and it has as much as
we're like, oh, you know, I wish I you know,
wouldn't have to suffer. It's like it's it's a vital
part of who we are. Like to steal a quick
quote from William Faulkner, he's had given the choice between
the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain
or U. C. S. Lewis had a bit and of
(22:43):
course he wrote the problem of pain, and uh, this
is you know, this is more of a theological um
you know, standpoint. But he says, God whispers to us
in our pleasures, speaks in our conscious but shouts in
our pains. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.
So I mean, you know, you get into Buddhism to
where it's pain. You know, suffering is a part of
who we are and you can't have if you just
(23:04):
seek out pleasure, you're gonna get you're gonna get more pain.
You gotta have that balance, so I can't have one
without the other. Yeah, it's just part of the feedback system.
You know. It's kind of you know, it's kind of
like when they're coming up with you know, trying to
come up with robots that can that can can move
and interact in a social environment, you kind of have
to come up with like a kind of a pain sensation.
You have to sort of create it, you know, for
(23:24):
for robots to a certain extent, or at least a
machine version of pain. Well, that's really interesting to think
about that. That's like it's almost like the robots have
the inability, like the congenital inability to to feel pain. Um,
and so yeah, they if we didn't program that, then
they might smush us into little pieces. Yeah, or you know,
(23:44):
it's just it's just like it's a it's again, it
just comes down to am I Am I touching a pan?
It's too hot? Should I be wearing you know, a glove?
Oh did I burn my finger? And I need to
have correct you know, do something. And then also just
like behavior stuff. You know, it's like, um, you you
have that really painful mistake be at a physical pain
or emotional pain, and uh, that tends to be something
(24:05):
you don't do again. You know, you've learned from that pain.
So so yeah, what if we end up, you know,
erasing or lessening pains that are shaping who we are? Like,
what what happens? Then you're get into some weird ground there, potentially. No, No,
it's an interesting proposition. Do I mean, could you You're right,
I mean, I guess the question is could you experience
(24:27):
happiness at all if you didn't know the difference? Because
we've all encounted those people who seemed happy all the
time and they're just boring, you know, we are. Yeah,
that's that's when I just pinch them. Yeah they're learn
from that. Yeah, all right, I don't I think we've
covered the future of pain as much as we can
with this topic. I mean, this topic is fascinating and
(24:47):
there's so many different ways we can go with it.
But yeah, next time you see someone who's happy, pinch them, yeah,
and then and then quiz them on what they've learned. So, hey,
we have a little uh listener, may here, Let's see
what do we have? Well, let's see, um, all right,
we have some listener mail from one Laverne and uh
(25:11):
they ride. Hey guys, my name is Laverne Um and
that's it. No, there's more. I was just listening to
your show about vertical living, and the scenario as you
described it would be logically impossible. The reason I say
that is because if you really lived on, say the
two hundred floor of that building, and all the work
was done by robots, I agree that would be great.
But if all the work is done by robots, I
(25:31):
wish you would explain to me how you're going to
learn to you're going to be able to earn money
to buy food to keep your yourself alive. Even if
it's grown in the building, they're still costs involved in
growing it, and there is no way that it would
be free um. And they're going to expand on this
little more and then say so. My prediction is it
will never happen, or if it does, then it will
(25:51):
be the start of the end of civilization because if
money drives innovation, innovation will stop and in another century
the robots will be worn out and no one would
have this else to survive. But that's just the theory
of a stone worker stuck in my shop listening to
podcasts while working. So if you disagree with me, please
let me know. This listener raises some important to you know, questions,
(26:12):
because yeah, as we if we find ourselves in a
situation where we hand over and increasingly large slice of
our lives to machines, and you, I mean, you get
into the just the basic problem of utopia and uh yeah,
and actually you and I sort of had this outside
conversation about this. Yeah, um, because when we were talking you,
I think you were making me feel better about the
technological singularity, and I think you were saying like that
(26:35):
the best case scenario would be that we just we
don't exchange money anymore, there is no need for money. Yeah,
you'd have to it, would you know, be more of
like a just a complete like socialist kind of situation,
A situation like I always keep coming back to the
Culture series by E. N. M. Banks, where he describes
a future, far future culture where humans basically do what
(27:00):
they want and leave leave the lead this anarchist head
and his lifestyle, and the robots are more or less
their caretakers that take care of everything. And in the
way he he doesn't know, like he lays it out
in in a in a way where you you get
a sense of loss, there's something that's missing, um, but
from humanity. But then it's also then you know, people
are still doing what they want and they're you know,
(27:21):
engaging in their hobbies, et cetera. So it's you know,
it's problematic, uh and thought provoking. But but yeah, it
also ties really into to this podcast, like the whole
idea of pain, like utopia. I was just thinking about
that too. Are they are they they're being served by
the robots, but they're probably going around pinching each other. Yeah,
just to say I remember, yeah, do they just turn it?
(27:42):
Is it? You know, it basically turns into any of
the other Wes Anderson movies, Like I'm thinking about the
The Darshing Limited where it just where there's not an
actual father figure and it's just about three like rich
privileged guys that are horrible. Yeah. Yeah, so like life
becomes that film them as opposed to the life Aquatic. Wow,
(28:02):
I guess that's not my favorite life Aquatic. I love
ars No No, me too. But there there's some interesting scenes. Actually,
that opening mini movie is pretty interesting. Oh yeah, yeah,
that was beautifull shot starcle but anyway, uh Laverne, thanks
for the thoughts that I think it's it's all copper
poking stuff, thought provoking. Thank you. And on a much
(28:24):
smaller email we received from one Nick and Nick Right
wrote in to say, listen to your podcast Life on
the last night, and after hearing about your interests talking
about me in battles on sky bridges, I threw this
together in MS paint paint. Hope you like it. I'll
hold it up to the microphone, but you can't really
(28:44):
hear it, um, but heat do an awesome MS paint
image of stick figures fighting on the skybridge. So yeah,
that's pretty awesome. We need to post on our Facebook page.
I should, yes, yes, when this comes out, I'll try
and remember to post it because it's exactly like it
appeared in my brain. You you dropped right into his
brain there next. So there you have it. If you know,
(29:05):
if you want to check out this image UM that
we're talking about, or um you know, engage with us
in the social media's, then you know, you can come
by our Twitter or Facebook pages where Blow the Mind
on both of those. You can also drop us an
email at Blow the Mind at how stuff Works dot
com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(29:28):
Is it how stuff works dot com. To learn more
about the podcast, click on the podcast icon in the
upper right corner of our homepage. The How Stuff Works
iPhone app has a ride. Download it today on iTunes
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