February 13, 2019 • 59 mins
Smart phones have fundamentally changed the world -- at times, it's difficult to imagine life without one of these handy computers. There's a world of people you can call, a universe of information at your fingertips and millions of specialized programs to make everyday life that much easier. In fact, it sounds too good to be true... and, according to some critics, that might just be the case. So how do we separate the fact from fiction when it comes to smart phones and cancer?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined
with our super producer Paul Michig controlled decade. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know, whether you are
listening on a laptop, a tablet, or your phone, which
is overwhelmingly likely. Right, Hopefully you're not listening to your
(00:47):
phone through the earpiece that's designed to listen when you're talking,
as like an actual phone, because that would be silly
to listen to a podcast that way. Don't do that.
What do you mean, which one? You mean? Like the
little like as if you're taking a call holding it
up to your ear. Don't listen to partcast. Surely there's somebody,
probably a Williamsburg, who is listening to this on a
(01:07):
landline rotary phone. Look, yeah, it's like the audio signal
is just interpreted as a series of clicks. Yeah, I
listen to all my podcasts after I burned them. To vinyl,
like I cut them to vinyl and then I listen.
I'm a cassette guy nowadays. Just this is This is
weird though, because we are talking about how quickly technology
(01:31):
evolves today, and we're also talking about the unintended ripple
effects of of technology. And it's strange because not only
are we seeing continual breakthroughs in multiple areas of technical innovation,
we're also seeing the frequency of those breakthroughs increase. You
(01:55):
know what I mean. Like, if you if you look
across the span of human civilization, maybe it took us
several thousand years to figure out something we consider very
basic today. And now it seems that all you have
to do is not check the news for about a week,
and when you check back in you will find something new,
amazing and horrified. Yeah, it's a brave new world. Every time,
(02:18):
every single time, I have a personal question that I
thought would be a good way to kick off today's episode.
This is for you, guys. This is also for you
listening out there in internet land, fellow conspiracy realist. The
question is this, when did you get your first cell phone? Also,
side question, I think we talked about this on a
(02:39):
previous episode. Who had a beeper. I had a beeper.
I had a beeper, remember the codes. I had one
of those nice little clear green Motorola's. Yeah. I didn't
sell drugs, guys, so I never had Matt. Matt the
judgment just for keeping up the pals. I'm totally joking.
I just never had one. I wished that I had
when I had friends that had beepers. But uh, I
(03:00):
guess nowadays that's what they're used for, if they're used doctors. Actually,
they're tremendously popular in the medical field with like getting one,
like you need to be here certain places, I hear
an intercom system and you get a get a beat,
buzzes you. Um. I think I must have come in
right on the tail end of of beeperdom because I
don't remember having one for much longer than a school year.
(03:22):
And then I was right into cell phone land that
you know that totally checks out, like the point where
they became affordable for you know, every everyday people like us,
to the point where cellular technology like jumped up. I
think that's probably about right. I remember friends with doctor
parents having car phones that came in those bags. You
(03:43):
know that what you need to hold each story, like
in the little where the emergency brake would be between
the seats of their lexus and it would have maybe
a half hour of juice. Maybe. Yes, this is the
first cell phone I had. I think was probably a Nokia,
and that means that it probably still works. Little Nokia,
(04:06):
probably a little Nokia. And then a flip phone, which
I thought was so cool. Yeah, I had one of
those at one time. Um. But it's strange because we've
talked about this often on this show, the alarming, the
alarming speed at which the oddest things become normal, not
just here in the US, but in any human society.
(04:29):
And nowadays, if you're like most people, this is the
craziest thing across the world. It's most people. If you
were like most people, your mobile device has become an
essential companion. It's become your other brain, and we have
to face it. For a lot of folks want to
if we want to put it in a crass way.
For a lot of folks, going to the restroom without
(04:51):
your phone is the new version of going off the grid,
you know what I mean. The days of Uncle John's
bathroom reader are in decline, because now you can learn
almost anything nigh instantaneously. I was recently without a phone
for about three days time, and I felt like just
completely unconnected from society, and it was it was. It
(05:12):
was both kind of liberating and terrifying. Dude. I didn't
look at my phone for about ten minutes while I
was at a restaurant establishment with my family, and I
miss like I missed a bunch of communication that ended
up being very important. Uh. And because I didn't look
at my phone for like ten minutes, it's it's strange
(05:32):
to you know. The thing is the conversation. The phoneless
conversations are proven to be more substantive, and studies show
that when people have conversations without the phones around everyone
involved it tends to in retrospect feel that it was
a good conversation or a better conversation. And I am
saying that more substantive is a tricky word because that
(05:56):
doesn't mean it was necessarily pleasant, you know what I mean.
Could have been a breakup conversation, could have been a
fight with your fourth cousin or something. But regardless, we
do notice the times that we do not have these
mobile devices, they stand out to be phoneless. I also
in two thousand and eighteen. I think I didn't have
(06:18):
a phone for a few days and I was way
more productive, to be honest. But how did this become
the new normal? How did the concept of mobile cell
phone technology? Uh? How did it propagate throughout global society?
And what are the consequences? First we have to start,
(06:40):
as the Mad Hatter was wont to say at the beginning,
with a brief history of cell phones. So here are
the facts. During the First World War, the German military
did test wireless phones on military trains running between Berlin
and Zolson, and then later in wireless phones were tested
on train janes running between Berlin and Hamburg. And these,
(07:03):
let me say wireless phones. Of course, these are not
like a Samsung Galaxy or an iPhone. And even before
the First World War there was an inventor who claimed
that he had discovered this technology, but he was thought
to be a full on crack pot with these have
maybe looked like those crazy backpack phones you see in
uh in some war films. Not nearly as advanced at
(07:24):
that point, you know, but they would still be quite
bulky and probably yeah, needed huge antennas, right. And then
during the Second World War, we've talked about this before.
Wars drive innovation. Military forces around the globe started making
use of radio telephony links, and starting in around handheld
(07:45):
radio receivers were widely available. They were not inexpensive by
any means, but it allowed military forces to communicate from
battlefields to other locations. Huge advantage if you had use
of that technology. Game changer, and all of these technologies
eventually inspired researchers at Bell Labs to create a mobile
(08:09):
phone system for vehicles. This allowed people to place and
receive calls inside their automobiles. We can only imagine how
accidents may have spiked at the time. What's set these
apart from just like walkie talkie or radio communication. It's
a it's an excellent question, and yes, yes, that's foreshadow
we'll get to there in just a second. Because at
(08:32):
the time, people who really needed these mobile communications abilities
installed these radio telephones in their cars, and they were
different from walkie talkies first off, and that they had
a better range. Walkie talkies have a relatively limited range,
but they also had a lot of constraints. So there
was one central antenna tower in every city, and that
(08:55):
city had maybe twenty five channels available, meaning twenty five
places where you could talk on the radio right wirelessly
because there was only one antenna. This meant that if
you had a phone in your car, you also needed
a powerful transmitter large enough to transmit forty to fifty
miles away, you know, because otherwise just get a walkie talkie. Right.
(09:16):
It also meant that not many people could use these
telephones concurrently, there just weren't enough channels bandwidth. Person number
twenty six is s O L you know, which means
straight out of luck on a family show. That's interesting
because that is obviously the way this technology progresses to
be much more useful to a larger amount of people
is with this idea of bandwidth. Yeah, exactly. Eventually a
(09:40):
ten T and Bell Labs would introduce what we know
as cellular technology. Instead of one big central antenna, will
have multiple antenna is divided into a cellular grid, and
this will allow us to re use frequencies multiple times
in areas covered by low power transmitters. This meant the
mobile phone for the first time in history could be
(10:01):
more than a pipe dream. If you believe the official story,
and there are other people who tell you that this
technology was actively suppressed by the US government, but at
this time they became an economically feasible product, and the
second nation to develop this technology officially was the good
old U. S. S R. Did they get it from
(10:23):
acts of espionage or did they just go buy a
phone and figure it out. That's the subject of today's episode.
We we'd like to hear from you. But let's go
back to the question you present an all, which is
tremendously important. Why is a cell phone better than a
waukee talkie or why is it better than say a
CB radio citizen band radio. In the most basic form,
(10:46):
a cell phone is just that it's a two way radio.
Got a transmitter, got a receiver. So Matt calls super
producer Paul mission control decand on his cell phone, and
his phone converts his voice to an electronic signal. It's
then transmitted via radio waves to the nearest cell tower.
This network of cell towers goes ping, ping, ping, ping, ping,
(11:08):
relays the radio wave to Paul's cell phone, and that
converts it to an electrical signal and then back to
sound again. So at its basic form, it works just
like a walkie talkie. But the genius of the cell
system is that it again divides a city or an
area into smaller cells that are often mapped hexagonally. This
(11:31):
allows us to reuse all these frequencies, so if, for instance,
I call null, then we can still have a conversation
despite the fact that Matt and Paul are also using
cell phones to speak with each other. A good way
to understand it is to compare it to a CB
(11:51):
radio walkie talkie. It goes without getting too far in
the weeds, it goes into something called full duplex versus
half duplex walkie talkies. C B radios are half duplex devices,
and that means two people are communicating on the same frequency,
so only one person can talk at a time. You
know the bears are up ahead, over so that I
(12:15):
know that I can talk, and then say over you guys,
say copy first, copy, copy over. My my favorite, still
my favorite introduction to c B lingo is in an
excellent song by J. W. Mccaull called convoy. Excellent is
(12:35):
a strong word. Here. Can you give us a little taste? Uh,
it's dark moon on the fifth of June with a
Kinworth holland Hoggs have overpeat with a reef roon and
a Jimmy something something. Yeah, dude, I want to hear
the whole song. It's uh, it's it's interesting because it's
interspersed with conversave, It's interspersed with conversations ostensibly occurring over
(13:00):
or a CB band this. Do you know? Do you
not know about Convoy? Do we've been friends for over
a decade? Are you serious? I don't know. I don't
know about Convoy. You're lyne right. Is this something that's
been very important to you for a long time? Yes,
I just know. I feel like I have been a
bad friend to you, Matt or an excellent friend by
(13:22):
not sending this to you. Anytime a song starts with
that that Caden's shut up, I'm down. I want to
hear that. It's it's essentially it's essentially country rap. I
will send it to you. But but it does contain
(13:42):
that kind of over that that nomenclature because people couldn't
just talk back and forth the way that we're able
to talk on our phones today, even if we're talking
at the same time. So a cell phone in con
fast is a full duplex device, so we're using one
(14:03):
frequency for talking and a second, separate frequency for listening.
We can talk at once. It's a gift and a
curse if you've ever been on a group chat. Right,
And uh, let's let's look at these channels. So walkie
TALKI typically has one channel, a CB radio has forty.
A typical cell phone can communicate on over one thousand channels. Yeah,
(14:27):
that's a that's a lot. So let's also talk about range,
because this is very very important. We've kind of gone
gone over this a little bit more or just already
as we're going through. But a walkie talkie can only
go about a mile. Uh, that's not so great. And
that's using a point to five watt transmitter, so a
quarter watch transmitter. But then a CB radio on the
(14:48):
other hand, because it has a lot higher power out output.
Essentially you're you're putting a lot more power into it,
you can transmit about five miles. Hey there you go
five times a walkie talkie. I'll take that. And that's
jumping up to a five watch transmitter. But since cell
phones operate within these cells for these various areas, they
can switch cells as they move around. Um. The system
(15:09):
gives mobile phones an absolutely incredible, comparatively incredible range. UM,
someone using a cell phone could drive hundreds of miles
and maintain a conversation the entire time, even as it's
getting passed around to these different cell networks. So in
a typical analog cell phone system in the US, the
(15:29):
cell phone carrier receives about eight hundred frequencies to use
across an area and or a city for example. Um,
the carrier chops up the city into these different cells,
and each cell is sized about ten square miles. That's
really not very large. I always think of the cells
as being larger than that. But ten square miles isn't
(15:49):
that huge. Um, and then eight hundred frequencies within that.
But it makes you, it makes you realize why if
you ever go to a big concert or a huge
festival or something, why the cell phone towers get overwhelmed
very quickly. Yeah. Man, nothing worse than being in an
overloaded cell area when you just feel completely unable to escape. Yeah,
(16:12):
because usually it's a place where you feel like you
need your phone. Yes, well, and how are people gonna
find out about all my awesome grams? You gotta save
them up for later and do it later gram. Okay,
So it's true they can get overloaded. There's still better
than a bunch of people running around with walkie talkies
or backpack mounted CP radio's. Cell phones do use radio
(16:35):
waves to communicate. Radio waves just transport that voice or
dead in the form of oscillating electric magnetic fields. We
call these the electromagnetic field or e m F. The
rate of oscillation that's what we call frequency. Radio waves
carry the information they travel through the air. Cell phones
don't have a specific um, a specific point at which
(16:58):
they transmit. They emanate these waves in all direction. They
can be absorbed or reflected by surrounding objects before they
reach the nearest cell tower. This means, for example, when
the phone is placed next to your head the same
way that you alluded Matt to someone listening to this
podcast and without headphones, when it's placed next to your
(17:19):
head during a call, a significant portion of this admitted
energy goes through your body. It's absorbed into your head.
In your body over half of it. In some cases, however,
these radio waves, or what's called radio frequency radiation or
r f R, they are a form of what we
understand to be the not harmful radiation radiation but not
(17:43):
harmful non ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation is the stuff that
can rek havoc. We already know that stuff can recav
it like a X rays. You don't want to have
X rays every day for fun zies because that will
add up. You don't want to throw those extra electrons around.
That's the idea, right. Cell phones contain at least one
(18:04):
radio antenna meant to transmit or receive radio signals, and
some cell phones use one antenna as a transmitter and receiver,
while others, such as iPhones, have multiple transmitting or receiving antennas.
So more more points from which these waves originate, right
or emanate. And I have to say that the image
(18:27):
when you really picture this, with each cellular device that's
out there, whether it is making a phone call or
connected via LTE or five G or four G or whatever,
it is all of us. If you could see it,
if you could see the matrix it's it would be
a crazy thing. We're swimming in it. We are swimming
(18:48):
in it. And you have to imagine how insane the
average city must look to any creature whose vision extends
into this sort of range, anyone that could perceive these waves.
You know, yeah, if if you're flying by as an
extraterrestrial that your sensors can see all that stuff and
(19:08):
you just view it, you would just go nope, yeah,
and well, and some people believe that they have the
ability to sense these things, usually in a way that
is painful or disruptive to their day to day life.
Sort of like um, Saul Goodman's brother in better call Saul.
(19:29):
I wish I could conjure his name, but his brother, Yeah,
who feels that he has this sensitivity. But he's in
the minority. People who wish to avoid cell phones are
in the extreme minority of modern society. There's immense convenience
plumbing prices. This has ensured the stratospheric growth of this industry.
(19:51):
And we have some numbers about it too that you
know what sounds like they are exaggerated, but I assure
you they are not. Over were hundred million cell phones
subscribers just within the United States, and that's according to
the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, who also report that
(20:13):
of Americans use a cell phone, and globally there are
more than five billion cell phone users today. So that
begs the question, all of those phones out there shooting
out waves, uh, is what is their danger here? That's
more than half of the people currently alive, well over half. Yeah.
(20:34):
For decades now, many people from from various various disciplines,
including including learned academics and scientists, and including people more
fringe researchers, have been warning that cell phones might be
too good to be true. They may not be as
fantastic as they're cracked up to be. I do want
(20:55):
to take a second and say that cell phones have
done magnificum is in things for humanity. You guys probably
all remember seeing someone complain about, for instance, a homeless
person as a cell phone and saying, well, things can't
be that bad. Things are still really bad, it's just
now that is a necessity to possess. You know, you're
(21:18):
a veteran on the streets. You were carrying a bunch
of documentation around in a backpack that you hoped wouldn't
get stolen. But now if you have an Internet connection,
you can access all of that information. Right, So these
are an invaluable tool, but they may be a tool
with consequences. There may be a sword that swings both ways.
(21:40):
Because critics will tell us that these devices are a
genuine health risk. Could they be causing unintended medical complications.
More directly, for the purposes of today's episode, could using
a cell phone really give you cancer? We'll answer that
question right after a quick word from our sponsor. Here's
(22:05):
where it gets crazy. Yes, sort of if you happen
to be a rat. It is conclusive that overusing a
cell phone will give you cancer, like a tiny rat
sized cell phone or an outdated sort of cell phone.
A recent US National Toxicology Program study I was released
(22:27):
in November, and they found that exposure equivalent to what
would be created from nine nineties era cell phone technology,
those being two g and three g M second generation
third generation kind of communication is associated with brain tumors
in male rats. I have a typo here. It looks
(22:49):
like I said male rates. The rates of brain cancer
in male rats does increase appear to increase with exposure
to this this type of energy. They found the high
exposure to the RfR, the radio frequency radiation we mentioned earlier,
was associated with several disturbing things. Of first clear evidence
(23:12):
of tumors in the hearts of male rats. These were malignant.
Once you get ready, because this is a weird name,
malignant shuanomas, which sounds like way more fun than it is.
It does sound like fun. Yeah, that's exactly what conjurors
in my head too. Oh gosh, that's such a bad
waynes world joke way to happen. They're so hot that
(23:35):
if they were cancer, they'd be suaoma. So it makes
me think of like a like a like a rap,
you know, a schwar shwarmah delicious w r a p
um So here we here we go. Tumors in the heart,
that's not great. How about tumors in the brain? Yep,
(23:56):
there were some of those two, but only some evidence
of tumors in the brain of these rats. Yes, yes,
there was also some evidence of tumors in the adrenal
glands of these rats. The tumors were both benign and malignant.
Here's here's how it worked to that question of whether
they were using little rat phones, which would have been
way more endearing. They were exposed to radiation with a
frequency of nine mega hurts, which was typical of cell
(24:19):
phones in use when they first came up with the
methodology of the study in the nineteen nineties, and they
were exposed to this for about nine hours a day
for two years. So that's always been on your phone
nine hours a day. The lowest levels of radiation used
in this study were equivalent to the maximum exposure of
phone of this type could cause and still receive regulatory
(24:43):
approval from the FEDS, And the highest rates the animals
were exposed to were four times beyond that. So it's
kind of like those studies where they say this type
of ingredients in your food can give rats cancer, like
the sweet lower or whatever. Right, they give them fifty
times their body weight and sweet and low or whatever,
(25:04):
and that gives them just a little bit of cancer,
just a little bit. So what does this actually mean
when we say that there's clear evidence. It's tempting for
us to say all of those rats got cancer. No,
it turns out that two or three percent of irradiated
male rats developed malignant glioma's compared to none of the
(25:27):
rats in the unexposed control group. Right, So this this
means that there appears to be some correlation. There appears
to be even more importantly, some causation, but it is
not an instant death warrant, you know what I mean. Additionally,
(25:49):
they found some other things. Why are we harping on
male rats because that's where they found the largest results,
But the studies did find lower body weights among newborn
rats and their mothers, and this tendency to be underweight
corresponded with exposure to high levels of r f R
during pregnancy and during the nurse and your lactation period.
(26:11):
But luckily for anyone who is currently um feeling bad
and nuzzling their pet rat, luckily, these rats seemed to
grow to a normal adult size, So whatever happened that
affected their weight when they were younger seems to have
faded away by the time they grew to an adult stage. Well,
(26:32):
you know, there's also a video from the Verge that
discussed this study, and uh, the gentleman made the video
mentions that the male rats that developed cancer actually lived
a little bit longer than the control male rats. So
what's very odd, right, I'm not sure how that works out,
(26:56):
But you know, again, that's according to the gentleman reading
the same study that were or referencing right now. Oh right,
and here's another important aspect. So we said they were
exposed to radio frequency radiation, right, subcategory of EMF electric
and magnetic fields, visible waves of force that's round every
every working electronic device of this nature. The important part
(27:20):
of this study is that from the previously existing official stances,
while the research was messy and at times contradictory, we're
pretty sure that this non ionizing radiation was supposed to
be Okay. You know, it's not like putting an next
ray machine into your head, right, It's not like locking
yourself in a in a Faraday cage kind of human
(27:44):
sized microwave situation. Yeah. And the whole point that is,
you're just not absorbing any of that stuff. There's no
physical change to your atoms or to the chemicals in
your body when you're hit by non or at least
in theory, when you're hit by the non ionizing radio.
Yet this study seems to seems to indicate otherwise. Yeah,
(28:07):
you know, very conscious of this. While while we're recording
this episode, a lot of us are listening to this
on our phones. Yeah, our phones are in this room
with us. To the three of us, Paul, I don't
like man, I don't want to ruin anybody's day. Here.
He's on his phone right now, and he's like, yeah,
look at me to check it out. I hope, I
hope you are listening. Don't have this phone in your lap,
(28:29):
because then you probably won't get HeartWare brain cancer. Okay,
if you know what I'm saying, just nether region cancer.
Yeah yeah, just just an infection in your Australia. Oh
it's in my pocket, I'm getting getting bottom cancer. Okay,
Yeah that is weird. Huh. Yeah, you just just warms
(28:53):
me in a certain way. I do. So this this
is straight as though, and this is this is legitimately,
if not disturbing, it's something that demands more study because often,
for for a long time we've heard these reports, right,
and often they are phrased in such a way that
(29:14):
they would be alarmist or they would be debunking, you
know what they would say, you know, and they would say, well,
this is tinfoil hat cruck pottery. You know, this is
entirely an effort to scare people. Or two, maybe sell
some sort of pseudo scientific device and get a special
e M shield for your cell phone which will prevent
(29:38):
the radiation from touching you, but your phone will still
work somehow. Yeah. Yeah, we don't need any of the
actual radiation, just the radiation that makes the device work. Yeah,
you'd have to come up with a cell phone that
is ostensibly connected to like a like an umbrella that
(29:59):
goes out, and the umbrella is the thing at the
end of that umbrella is actually where the signals coming from.
So you have to aim that at the cell tower.
Are you shark taking us right now? I'm taking you guys. Okay, okay,
I'm a I'm moderately in. But I want isn't that
what they always say? I give us seven billion for
(30:22):
and I own all the rights. Why do they always
want because so they have a controlling interest, right so
they can kick the person out later. I would imagine
she this, This leads us through the realm of scientific
uncertainty to an actual finding, and then you know, it's
it's time for us to answer the question that we
(30:44):
as humans ask ourselves every day. Is it time to panic?
Are we doomed? Are we all doomed? Should we even bother?
Finishing this episode? Don't call anybody though, to let them
know we're doomed. Will decide after a word from our sponsor. Okay,
(31:08):
so we're back. We decided to continue the episode. I'm
on the edge of my seat. Are we doomed? Eventually? Yes?
Well that's a loaded answer. Man. As far as cell phones,
go currently, Um, we don't know yet. Yeah, So first
(31:31):
going back to our earlier conversation about uh nutra sweet
and uh what was that other one? No sweet and
loweet low. Yeah, those artificial sweeteners and the experiments involving
rats don't necessarily translate to human beings just given the
quantities involved. And this means that what translates to rats
(31:54):
and one exposure experiment may not always translate on a
one on one level with human beings. The nature of
the study also leads us to several pretty problematic aspects
of these types of studies, not just this one specifically.
So we used to say there were no available longitudinal
studies of this sort of thing over the span of
(32:16):
human civilization. It's a newer technology at least the way
it's it's used now, and so we would want decades
of measurement, right, We would want maybe even something intergenerational,
like how what what are the rates of a population
that existed pre cell phone? What are the rates of
(32:36):
someone resisting the advent of cell phones? And then what
what what are the rates of cancer, health, problems of cognition,
and what have you? Uh for the successive generation, you know,
for your kids. Well, from my mind, the problem with
this kind of study if you're going to try to
even attempt it now and and start a longitudinal study,
(32:57):
even if you try to do it ten years ago,
all of the other radiation that's being absorbed by all
of these people outside of the cell phone use and
that radio um radiation r f R. Do you think
about the WiFi, think about all the other versions that
are out there, of it is just radio frequencies that
are just hitting us all the time. And how could
(33:18):
you possibly remove somebody from all of that to have
a long enough study with a human being or a
set of human beings for ten twenty thirty years. Well,
I like that point because that also leads us to
ask whether or not it would be ethical to put
someone in that in that type of isolated environment. You know, yeah,
(33:39):
even if you're performing that on rats, like, controlling that
environment is tough first of all to make sure, and
I'm certain that extensive steps are taken to isolate the
control group, But are you isolating them from the WiFi
that's functioning within a lab or from you know, any
of the anything else? I hope. So I got to
(33:59):
get to the National Radio Quiet zone. Right. Also, again,
you know it's controversial. I completely understand and agree with
the body of laws and ethical policies that we have
regarding human experimentation. I believe it's important. Um. I also
(34:19):
believe that people should be allowed to uh consent to
self experimentation or consent to dangerous experiments. So are you
saying that this essentially constitutes human experimentation if there's something
that we don't have definitive proof of the negative outcome,
that we are literally being subjected to human experimentation, whether
by things like this or certain products that we maybe
(34:42):
don't fully know the end game of yet. I mean, hey,
we are. We are doing a species wide improv bit
that's lasted for thousands of years. He's kind of wondering,
is there's something in the terms of service do you
think in cell phone contracts that sort of absolves these
network of any future responsibility. If there is research that
(35:03):
comes out this is actually this has been giving you
cancer all along. They must have been shielding themselves in
some way from that kind of litigation, that kind of
class action. Right. That's fascinating because for people who are
convinced that cell the cell phones do cause various health
maladies for people who believe that the cell phone manufacturers
(35:27):
are functioning on the level of big tobacco or something,
you know what I mean, knowingly covering up the long
term consequences. It's it's a good question. We know that
terms of service. First off, most people never read them,
and that's the way most manufacturers want it, because there's
there's a lot of stuff in the details. There's a
(35:47):
lot of fine print there. I know that there are
health warnings of plenty about how to properly use a
cell phone or a device. You know, don't put this
in the water, don't use this way it was not
intended to be used, you know. And how much of
that is just c y a stuff on the part
of their legal team. How much of that is something
(36:08):
they don't want you to know. It's interesting, it's interesting.
But surely if there were a definitive study proving beyond
the shadow of a doubt that there is a causation
involved with cell phone usage and the rise of cancer,
surely the federal agencies and multiple governments would force manufacturers
(36:29):
to inform people of this. Right. And it's not like sugar,
It's not like sugar. Industry. But it's not like tobacco,
it's not like asbestos. It's not it's maybe it's like
how they all were four decades or is it? Is
it worse? Is the dangerous point I'm making? Is is
it worse because we it would it would be too
late for all of us. All of us would be
(36:51):
too it. No, now we go into the epigenetic argument too. Yeah,
it's done, We're done. Yeah. What's interesting, though, is the
Federal Communications commit should actually set the standard for acceptable
levels of exposure to radio frequencies UM from all kinds
of telecom networks and different corporations that rely on this
technology in the US. But that hasn't been updated since
(37:13):
the nineties. And as we know, we're talking about that
exponential growth of technology and updating these broadband the networks,
especially with things like five G on the horizon. It's
interesting that that has not been looked at UM and
since we don't know, it's probably a good idea and
certainly wouldn't hurt just to maybe not sleep with yourself
phone under your pillow. Maybe I don't know, yeah, or
(37:36):
maybe it's a good place to start. Stop putting it
in your mouth or in your back pocket. Okay, dctor
buzz rendezvous over here. Hey. And if you're really worried
about radiation, um, don't go outside ever. Remain indoors, because
that's not only are the regular radio waves from radios
(37:58):
out there, but the sun is it in you as
well with some serious radiation, most dangerous kind, probably gamma
radiation is out there. It's bombarding you at all times.
Whenever I get stressed out, I like to remember that
there could be a gamma ray burst at any second.
Edits game over for where everyone you just imagine that
(38:19):
the next moment doesn't happen because gamma ray. Good thing
we had. We had Paul edit that and take us
back in time. This, this point about the exponential evolution
of technology is important too because it means even if
(38:40):
we construct solid, longitudinal, long term studies, we have to
take into account that the technology itself keeps improving, evolving,
and changing, which means that we do not have a
constant against which to test these hypotheses. Right, we said
that this two G three G technology and the type
(39:03):
of RfR there that as an association with a rising cancer,
certain types of cancer with male rats. Right, we don't
have anything about that for maybe five G. We have
some worried people, we have some ongoing studies. But if
we were to conduct, as you said, Matt, a test
(39:24):
with five G over say thirty years, see what happens.
People won't still be using those phones in thirty years.
That will be archaic, you know. And we should also
mention that cancer has a is subject to a lot
of misconceptions in popular science. Saying saying cancer is like
(39:47):
saying fruit. You're describing a kind of thing, but there
are thousands of that kind of thing, you know what
I mean? And I'm sure that people would say an
apple is not the same as what's another fruit? Oh
it orange? There you go. I was gonna suggest starfruit.
(40:08):
That's way better. That's way better. Let's let's subout oranges
for perhaps a pomegranate. Is that a fruit? Surely it
must be. I don't know. Tomato that's a fruit? Yeah,
technically true? And people thought it was a poisonous fruit.
Then I think you're so right about the longitudinal study
things in our technology. I was if I was trying
(40:30):
to imagine twenty years ago, twenty years ago, what was
the cell phone back then? What do you guys think
like right right towards it was the matrix phone is
the one I think about that like popped down still,
especially a flip phone that's years ago. That was also
I mean the razor wasn't that far removed from that. Yeah, yeah,
(40:53):
that was sort of looked at it sort of like
the next gen flip phone because I think it had
like color screen or something like that, or it could
have it could go on the Internet in some very
rudimentary way. And what would the network have been at
that time? I have, Yeah, definitely the pigeon pigeon a
T But but think about that twenty years from now,
(41:13):
while we're trying to conduct a longitudinal study on five
G and then like where the technology would be. It's
just been you're so right, dude, it's impossible. There's no
way we can keep up with any of that. And
by that time, it's a we're already dosed and it's
over and the next thing comes along and we're getting
dosed again. Yeah. It's a great point, and it brings
(41:34):
us to one an excellent f a Q from Cancer
dot gov talking about this, wherein they note that not
only is technology evolving rapidly, not only is number of
cell phone users increasing rapidly, but over time, the number
of cell phone calls per day, the length of each call,
(41:56):
the amount of time people use phones in general has increased.
And because of changes in the technology and increases in
the number of base stations for transmitting these signals, the
exposure from cell phone use power output has changed mostly
lowered in many regions of the United States. And what
we what we see here is a a battle of perspectives.
(42:21):
There are multiple variables that we have to include or consider,
and many of these variables change. What is a lightning pace? Right?
We do know that the w h O does consider
cell phones to be a possible human carcinogen. Cell Phones
are listed in a in a grouping called Group to
(42:43):
Be as possible human car synogens. So is this conspiracy theory?
If so, the w h O agrees, But we have
to add some important perspective here. Uh, there are other
things on the list that might surprise you. Group to
Be also contains aloe vera possible human carcinogen as in
topical or ingestion. I don't know, man, Yolo, you ever
(43:07):
had one of those alo vera drinks with the juice
and then a little squishy bits. I hate those, you know,
I get those things. It's gross. It's like chewing on
a gummy bear and drinking a refreshing drink at the
same time, a squishy, squishy gummy bear. See, I can't
do anything like tapioca balls. You don't like, you don't
like it, you don't like for me. The thing with Alivera,
(43:29):
I think is that when I used to go in
the sun, it Olivera would often be something used to
treat sunburns or aches from that very familiar Yeah, so
for completely subjective, unpleasant mnemonic associations, it feels like I'm
(43:49):
drinking sunburns drink aliver just because I associate you know,
the smell in that kind of taste when you've got
some of the sinnesthesia going on too, So it was
probably really close to that. It's yeah, but you know what,
man more Alivera for you know, if you're into those,
and all right, Alivera for everybody. So where does this
(44:14):
leave us? If mobile phones did indeed cause cancer in
a in a huge amount, we could expect to see
a few things, especially now that people have been using
these for decades. We would expect to see a significant
spike in brain cancer rates right following the massive increase
in cell phone usage, and yet there has not been
(44:35):
a change, not that kind of change at least, right, Yes,
according to these studies, brain cancer is actually decreasing, or
the the number of instances of brain cancer are decreasing.
That's pretty great, right, And I mean I'm okay with that.
I think the latest number I saw, I forget the
(44:55):
exact dates it was from, but it was four and
a half brain cancer case is for every one thousand
people in the United States under age sixty five, And
that was okay, So that was from eleven, and previously
that number had been nineteen point one cases for every
one hundred thousand people sixty five or older. So decreasing
(45:18):
that bring cancer to that amount is pretty dang great.
And that has nothing to do with cell phone usage
at least, I don't think unless there's something magical we
don't know about, but wouldn't we wouldn't we reasonably expect
this sort of cancer to accelerate if it increases in
rats in the way that one study showed. Yeah, it's
(45:40):
that whole our rats human beings question that we humans
have been struggling with for so many I love the secret.
Are you talking like like anthropomorphic human being like in
rattitui Sti's great, very fantastic. The book's good too. But
(46:00):
what about five of with uys? What about five? Yeah,
he's a mouse number he went west in the less
louded sequel. Give him the old lazier that's from West.
No way, good memory, man, it's a. It's a. It's
a pivotal part of the plot. The old lazy I
(46:21):
is important. It is it is important to somewhat Uh. Yeah,
we see the areas that absorb radio waves have fewer tumors,
not more. And luckily for everyone involved, the research continues today.
The group responsible for this study is collaborating with other
organizations to develop smaller exposure chambers for additional short term
(46:45):
studies that will take weeks or maybe months instead of
two years. And these studies are meant to target in
and clarify what NTP learned in their long term studies.
And then it was very forward thinking too, in esciate
the possibility of DNA damage and exposed tissues so get
to some eventually potentially some epo genetic stuff. It's also
(47:09):
being designed so studies of different r FR frequencies and
modulations can finally adapt to the changing technologies in the
telecom industry today. Will it work? That remains to be seen.
But we do have to consider that while many of
us may fret about cancer as the as as the
(47:30):
imminent danger posed by cell phones, other people will tell
us that cell phones pose dangers entirely unrelated to cancer
and related instead to um attention span, or related to
our neurochemistry or oh yes, and that one. I feel
(47:51):
like that's so well known. Right. Have we found ourselves
in a bubble, you guys? Or do we believe the
certain things normal that other people would think are crack pottery? No,
not at all. I don't think so. I think everybody
at this point has had a conversation near their phone
and then an AD was served to them, you know,
(48:14):
just coincidentally. And even if it is just everyone functioning
on coincidence, yeah, even if it is bet or minehuff,
it's occurring in a massive scale. And beator, minehuff is
that thing we've mentioned before. Better, mine huff is a
psychological thing where maybe you wake up and you have
a song in your head. Why do you build me up,
buttercup or but whatever song is stuck in your head
(48:36):
and then later you hear it on the radio or
out in the field and you think, holy smokes, is
the matrix broken? Do I have precog abilities, or as
Beta Minehoff would argue, do I just pay more attention
to something like that because I'm looking for it? Like
the first time you hear a specific word, you hear
(48:56):
the word suscerous, you learn the word suscross, and then
over the next week suddenly everybody is saying the word
suscerous to you. Totally. In this instance, it just occurred.
My wife went to the dentist, and her hygienists recommended
a certain type of whitening strips, and immediately after jumping
on an app on her phone there was an ad
(49:17):
served for it. And I think it may be what
you're talking about, Peter Minolf, but anyway, very strange maybe,
But here here's a devil's advocacy exercise, Matt. She saw
this on her phone. She took her phone to the dentist,
Yeather right, So the phone has the capability to know
(49:40):
her GPS knows that she's at the dentist. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you're so enforcement solves crimes with GPS data. Yeah, and
she hasn't turned off all that stuff. I'm just saying,
if you really want to avoid these sorts of situations
or not. I'm not telling people to commit crimes, but
if you if you want to avoid being tracked like that,
(50:03):
you can do uh the old breaking bad trick. You
can leave your cell phone somewhere else. You can tape
it to the underside of a friend's car. I have Okay,
I'll say this on here. This is just between us
and like just between the millions of us. A long
time ago, a friend of mine I will not name
(50:25):
was a you will you seemed to be. I thought
he was a trust fund person, right because he didn't
have a any visible means of employment. But he traveled
a lot domestically and internationally, and he seemed to have adventures.
And one day he told me that he needed me
(50:48):
to do a favor for him, and I thought, oh, am,
I watching a pet. Am I keeping an eye on
a house or an apartment or something. And it was
not that the guy was going to be gone for
two or three weeks, but he wanted me to keep
his phone in my car and drive in the regular
(51:10):
pattern in which I would have driven at the time,
and keep it on and keep it on, dude Ben,
which establishes right, possibly an alibi. But he was he
was also a very paranoid person. So was he prescient
or was he just sketchy? Or was he deluted? Or
was it all a hilarious prank. I think it all
(51:33):
depends on if it was a three G network or
an LTE or five G. Like what are we talking here? Like,
I think that's the most important. Heck, guy gave me
car cancer. So you know, we we noticed the neurochemistry
stuff here, We noticed the big data, the paranoia. It
is true that in many applications social media is one
(51:57):
online games or another. Many applications, the designers, the developers,
the programmers are well aware of human psychology, and they
build these interactions to reward you and to engender what
some would say is addictive behavior. Right. You always get
a little rush of a happy chemical in your brain
(52:17):
when you say, oh, someone liked, retweeted, subscribed, so on.
You know, and that stuff works. No one's invulnerable to it.
We're virtually all human, I would say most of us listening,
I would know Ben Ben did this thing with his
with his jawline just then. It was it was handsome,
(52:40):
It looked very nice, but it was a little chilling. Yeah,
well think about it. There's gonna be at some point,
uh is a machine consciousness that will be able to
listen to all of the podcasts ever made very quickly.
So and then host a conspiracy show. Wouldn't that be great?
(53:03):
Oh we could Uh, we could definitely do with a
machine consciousness. Host would love to hear that perspective. Would
love to hear their take on cancer and cell phones. Um,
what what do you think? There's there's another thing. This
is the I don't know about you guys, but from
my end, this is one of the last things you hear.
A lot of people get a little curmugion curmudgeon lee
right and say, oh, people are always in their phones,
(53:27):
not living in the moment, you know, and that that
is true. It's a very unintentionally um easy thing for
people to do, which is, you know, you're in a
conversation or someone's in a conversation with you, but you're
not there. You're on your phone. But I would challenge
people to look back at photographs of public spaces. In
(53:50):
the age of newspapers, people weren't talking to each other
then they were on the train with a newspaper in
front of their face. But what about before paper? What
about the photographs before paper? Yes? What if you have
a photograph before the invention of paper? Please send it
(54:12):
to us. Oh yeah. What do you guys think though?
Is there is there sand to this? What's what's? What's
the word? Right now? My conclusion would be there's some
disturbing stuff and more studies need to be conducted, you
know what I mean? I would concur and and you know,
my opinion would be that WiFi and cellular technology, radio
(54:36):
signals in general, it's all part of artificial intelligence attempting
to emerge and kill off all of the biological life
with cancer. So there you go, There you go. It's bleak.
Enjoy it, enjoy it? What a way to go? We what?
We got a couple more decades left, maybe one. Are
you one of those people who's more comforted by the
(54:58):
idea that a plan exists, even if it's nefarious, rather
than our earlier assertion that humanity is just one long
improv sketch. Definitely, I don't know. What do you think
phone cancer? Yeah? Like what for it or against it?
What do you what do you think? What do you think?
I mean, it's it sure seems like it's a lot
(55:19):
like rat Sacharin. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It
just seems like again, like we were saying, there are things.
Since we since it's a little bit inconclusive right now,
and we know that we're being bombarded with all kinds
of stuff, it is one thing that we do have
a direct ability to kind of limit if we choose
to do so. So I would say, if you're worried
(55:42):
about it, and maybe use it as an excuse to
stay off your device a little bit, you know, I
don't know. That's that's the best advice I can offer.
I'm certainly not following that advice that I'm giving myself.
And it's a good excuse to have a little more
interaction outside the screen, like you were talking about. But
if you let's use it, let's use it. It's sort
(56:03):
of let it's like the Flora's Lava. The Flora's Lava
cell phones give you cancer, okay, and take all all
your personal information at the same time to sell you
tooth whitening strips. That's so if we can propagate a
perhaps false conspiracy that cell phones do give us cancer,
(56:23):
we can solve a lot of problems. Bern's this is
that what you're saying, somebody out there can Berne's this right,
Someone can, yes, yes, And I can't encourage you to
do that, not officially. We cannot officially say that this
would be a very interesting experience and experiment. We cannot
(56:44):
we can officially say that it would be a rolic
and good time and fascinating. And also, please don't do that.
We're we're being we're joking around here. Matt is definitely joking,
you see your jocularity. Yes, I don't know. I think
it's interesting. I want to hear more. I want to
(57:05):
update this and follow along with the subsequent studies, and
we'd like, we'd like to hear from you, because one
thing is for sure, regardless of how people feel about this,
most people are still using cell phones, just like you said, Noel,
And this means that these things probably aren't going to
(57:27):
go away for some time. Right, So let us know
cell phones cancer connection alarmism cover up. You can find
us on Instagram and find us on Twitter. You can
find us on Facebook. You can meet the best part
of this show, your fellow listeners on our community page.
Here's where it gets crazy, which the memes on there
(57:50):
are getting pretty good. Yeah, yeah, Do you ever go
on do you check in on that? I do? Yeah,
I go to hours and I go to the Ridiculous
History one. Yes, I do. You sweet man, you I
like it? When are when are we going to be
able to cajole you into Oh we can't even say yet.
(58:10):
We we shouldn't say yet about any possible cameos. We
just don't want to make any promises. So people don't
get let down. Don't tell anybody. Uh, the old Genie
is gonna pop out of the bottle over there on
Ridiculous History. You know what happened. What happened, What happened
to Matt Frederick is my southern gentleman Genie, grant you
(58:34):
one wish and that wishes of my choosing. So who
is this big old sassafras. Shouldn't have rubbed that bottle.
That's what my mommy always said, and you're Pappie should
have said it too. Don't rub that bottle or the
genie might bump out yes, yes, you heard it here
first folks, and then he will forcefully give you one
(58:54):
wish that you do not like of his choosing. This
is so sitister, Okay, we have we have to go.
Thank you so much for listen. We're gonna go hunt
down Matt maybe with the help of this somewhat sinister
but you know, overall very endearing southern gentleman. Thank you,
(59:15):
and uh my one wish to be granted to you
right now is to put down your device, stop getting
cancer from it. If you are getting cancer from it,
go about your daily live, live, your laugh, whatever. Goodbye
Conspiracy how Stuff Works dot com
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M Hello,
(00:24):
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Noel. They called me Ben. We are joined
with our super producer Paul Michig controlled decade. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know, whether you are
listening on a laptop, a tablet, or your phone, which
is overwhelmingly likely. Right, Hopefully you're not listening to your
(00:47):
phone through the earpiece that's designed to listen when you're talking,
as like an actual phone, because that would be silly
to listen to a podcast that way. Don't do that.
What do you mean, which one? You mean? Like the
little like as if you're taking a call holding it
up to your ear. Don't listen to partcast. Surely there's somebody,
probably a Williamsburg, who is listening to this on a
(01:07):
landline rotary phone. Look, yeah, it's like the audio signal
is just interpreted as a series of clicks. Yeah, I
listen to all my podcasts after I burned them. To vinyl,
like I cut them to vinyl and then I listen.
I'm a cassette guy nowadays. Just this is This is
weird though, because we are talking about how quickly technology
(01:31):
evolves today, and we're also talking about the unintended ripple
effects of of technology. And it's strange because not only
are we seeing continual breakthroughs in multiple areas of technical innovation,
we're also seeing the frequency of those breakthroughs increase. You
(01:55):
know what I mean. Like, if you if you look
across the span of human civilization, maybe it took us
several thousand years to figure out something we consider very
basic today. And now it seems that all you have
to do is not check the news for about a week,
and when you check back in you will find something new,
amazing and horrified. Yeah, it's a brave new world. Every time,
(02:18):
every single time, I have a personal question that I
thought would be a good way to kick off today's episode.
This is for you, guys. This is also for you
listening out there in internet land, fellow conspiracy realist. The
question is this, when did you get your first cell phone? Also,
side question, I think we talked about this on a
(02:39):
previous episode. Who had a beeper. I had a beeper.
I had a beeper, remember the codes. I had one
of those nice little clear green Motorola's. Yeah. I didn't
sell drugs, guys, so I never had Matt. Matt the
judgment just for keeping up the pals. I'm totally joking.
I just never had one. I wished that I had
when I had friends that had beepers. But uh, I
(03:00):
guess nowadays that's what they're used for, if they're used doctors. Actually,
they're tremendously popular in the medical field with like getting one,
like you need to be here certain places, I hear
an intercom system and you get a get a beat,
buzzes you. Um. I think I must have come in
right on the tail end of of beeperdom because I
don't remember having one for much longer than a school year.
(03:22):
And then I was right into cell phone land that
you know that totally checks out, like the point where
they became affordable for you know, every everyday people like us,
to the point where cellular technology like jumped up. I
think that's probably about right. I remember friends with doctor
parents having car phones that came in those bags. You
(03:43):
know that what you need to hold each story, like
in the little where the emergency brake would be between
the seats of their lexus and it would have maybe
a half hour of juice. Maybe. Yes, this is the
first cell phone I had. I think was probably a Nokia,
and that means that it probably still works. Little Nokia,
(04:06):
probably a little Nokia. And then a flip phone, which
I thought was so cool. Yeah, I had one of
those at one time. Um. But it's strange because we've
talked about this often on this show, the alarming, the
alarming speed at which the oddest things become normal, not
just here in the US, but in any human society.
(04:29):
And nowadays, if you're like most people, this is the
craziest thing across the world. It's most people. If you
were like most people, your mobile device has become an
essential companion. It's become your other brain, and we have
to face it. For a lot of folks want to
if we want to put it in a crass way.
For a lot of folks, going to the restroom without
(04:51):
your phone is the new version of going off the grid,
you know what I mean. The days of Uncle John's
bathroom reader are in decline, because now you can learn
almost anything nigh instantaneously. I was recently without a phone
for about three days time, and I felt like just
completely unconnected from society, and it was it was. It
(05:12):
was both kind of liberating and terrifying. Dude. I didn't
look at my phone for about ten minutes while I
was at a restaurant establishment with my family, and I
miss like I missed a bunch of communication that ended
up being very important. Uh. And because I didn't look
at my phone for like ten minutes, it's it's strange
(05:32):
to you know. The thing is the conversation. The phoneless
conversations are proven to be more substantive, and studies show
that when people have conversations without the phones around everyone
involved it tends to in retrospect feel that it was
a good conversation or a better conversation. And I am
saying that more substantive is a tricky word because that
(05:56):
doesn't mean it was necessarily pleasant, you know what I mean.
Could have been a breakup conversation, could have been a
fight with your fourth cousin or something. But regardless, we
do notice the times that we do not have these
mobile devices, they stand out to be phoneless. I also
in two thousand and eighteen. I think I didn't have
(06:18):
a phone for a few days and I was way
more productive, to be honest. But how did this become
the new normal? How did the concept of mobile cell
phone technology? Uh? How did it propagate throughout global society?
And what are the consequences? First we have to start,
(06:40):
as the Mad Hatter was wont to say at the beginning,
with a brief history of cell phones. So here are
the facts. During the First World War, the German military
did test wireless phones on military trains running between Berlin
and Zolson, and then later in wireless phones were tested
on train janes running between Berlin and Hamburg. And these,
(07:03):
let me say wireless phones. Of course, these are not
like a Samsung Galaxy or an iPhone. And even before
the First World War there was an inventor who claimed
that he had discovered this technology, but he was thought
to be a full on crack pot with these have
maybe looked like those crazy backpack phones you see in
uh in some war films. Not nearly as advanced at
(07:24):
that point, you know, but they would still be quite
bulky and probably yeah, needed huge antennas, right. And then
during the Second World War, we've talked about this before.
Wars drive innovation. Military forces around the globe started making
use of radio telephony links, and starting in around handheld
(07:45):
radio receivers were widely available. They were not inexpensive by
any means, but it allowed military forces to communicate from
battlefields to other locations. Huge advantage if you had use
of that technology. Game changer, and all of these technologies
eventually inspired researchers at Bell Labs to create a mobile
(08:09):
phone system for vehicles. This allowed people to place and
receive calls inside their automobiles. We can only imagine how
accidents may have spiked at the time. What's set these
apart from just like walkie talkie or radio communication. It's
a it's an excellent question, and yes, yes, that's foreshadow
we'll get to there in just a second. Because at
(08:32):
the time, people who really needed these mobile communications abilities
installed these radio telephones in their cars, and they were
different from walkie talkies first off, and that they had
a better range. Walkie talkies have a relatively limited range,
but they also had a lot of constraints. So there
was one central antenna tower in every city, and that
(08:55):
city had maybe twenty five channels available, meaning twenty five
places where you could talk on the radio right wirelessly
because there was only one antenna. This meant that if
you had a phone in your car, you also needed
a powerful transmitter large enough to transmit forty to fifty
miles away, you know, because otherwise just get a walkie talkie. Right.
(09:16):
It also meant that not many people could use these
telephones concurrently, there just weren't enough channels bandwidth. Person number
twenty six is s O L you know, which means
straight out of luck on a family show. That's interesting
because that is obviously the way this technology progresses to
be much more useful to a larger amount of people
is with this idea of bandwidth. Yeah, exactly. Eventually a
(09:40):
ten T and Bell Labs would introduce what we know
as cellular technology. Instead of one big central antenna, will
have multiple antenna is divided into a cellular grid, and
this will allow us to re use frequencies multiple times
in areas covered by low power transmitters. This meant the
mobile phone for the first time in history could be
(10:01):
more than a pipe dream. If you believe the official story,
and there are other people who tell you that this
technology was actively suppressed by the US government, but at
this time they became an economically feasible product, and the
second nation to develop this technology officially was the good
old U. S. S R. Did they get it from
(10:23):
acts of espionage or did they just go buy a
phone and figure it out. That's the subject of today's episode.
We we'd like to hear from you. But let's go
back to the question you present an all, which is
tremendously important. Why is a cell phone better than a
waukee talkie or why is it better than say a
CB radio citizen band radio. In the most basic form,
(10:46):
a cell phone is just that it's a two way radio.
Got a transmitter, got a receiver. So Matt calls super
producer Paul mission control decand on his cell phone, and
his phone converts his voice to an electronic signal. It's
then transmitted via radio waves to the nearest cell tower.
This network of cell towers goes ping, ping, ping, ping, ping,
(11:08):
relays the radio wave to Paul's cell phone, and that
converts it to an electrical signal and then back to
sound again. So at its basic form, it works just
like a walkie talkie. But the genius of the cell
system is that it again divides a city or an
area into smaller cells that are often mapped hexagonally. This
(11:31):
allows us to reuse all these frequencies, so if, for instance,
I call null, then we can still have a conversation
despite the fact that Matt and Paul are also using
cell phones to speak with each other. A good way
to understand it is to compare it to a CB
(11:51):
radio walkie talkie. It goes without getting too far in
the weeds, it goes into something called full duplex versus
half duplex walkie talkies. C B radios are half duplex devices,
and that means two people are communicating on the same frequency,
so only one person can talk at a time. You
know the bears are up ahead, over so that I
(12:15):
know that I can talk, and then say over you guys,
say copy first, copy, copy over. My my favorite, still
my favorite introduction to c B lingo is in an
excellent song by J. W. Mccaull called convoy. Excellent is
(12:35):
a strong word. Here. Can you give us a little taste? Uh,
it's dark moon on the fifth of June with a
Kinworth holland Hoggs have overpeat with a reef roon and
a Jimmy something something. Yeah, dude, I want to hear
the whole song. It's uh, it's it's interesting because it's
interspersed with conversave, It's interspersed with conversations ostensibly occurring over
(13:00):
or a CB band this. Do you know? Do you
not know about Convoy? Do we've been friends for over
a decade? Are you serious? I don't know. I don't
know about Convoy. You're lyne right. Is this something that's
been very important to you for a long time? Yes,
I just know. I feel like I have been a
bad friend to you, Matt or an excellent friend by
(13:22):
not sending this to you. Anytime a song starts with
that that Caden's shut up, I'm down. I want to
hear that. It's it's essentially it's essentially country rap. I
will send it to you. But but it does contain
(13:42):
that kind of over that that nomenclature because people couldn't
just talk back and forth the way that we're able
to talk on our phones today, even if we're talking
at the same time. So a cell phone in con
fast is a full duplex device, so we're using one
(14:03):
frequency for talking and a second, separate frequency for listening.
We can talk at once. It's a gift and a
curse if you've ever been on a group chat. Right,
And uh, let's let's look at these channels. So walkie
TALKI typically has one channel, a CB radio has forty.
A typical cell phone can communicate on over one thousand channels. Yeah,
(14:27):
that's a that's a lot. So let's also talk about range,
because this is very very important. We've kind of gone
gone over this a little bit more or just already
as we're going through. But a walkie talkie can only
go about a mile. Uh, that's not so great. And
that's using a point to five watt transmitter, so a
quarter watch transmitter. But then a CB radio on the
(14:48):
other hand, because it has a lot higher power out output.
Essentially you're you're putting a lot more power into it,
you can transmit about five miles. Hey there you go
five times a walkie talkie. I'll take that. And that's
jumping up to a five watch transmitter. But since cell
phones operate within these cells for these various areas, they
can switch cells as they move around. Um. The system
(15:09):
gives mobile phones an absolutely incredible, comparatively incredible range. UM,
someone using a cell phone could drive hundreds of miles
and maintain a conversation the entire time, even as it's
getting passed around to these different cell networks. So in
a typical analog cell phone system in the US, the
(15:29):
cell phone carrier receives about eight hundred frequencies to use
across an area and or a city for example. Um,
the carrier chops up the city into these different cells,
and each cell is sized about ten square miles. That's
really not very large. I always think of the cells
as being larger than that. But ten square miles isn't
(15:49):
that huge. Um, and then eight hundred frequencies within that.
But it makes you, it makes you realize why if
you ever go to a big concert or a huge
festival or something, why the cell phone towers get overwhelmed
very quickly. Yeah. Man, nothing worse than being in an
overloaded cell area when you just feel completely unable to escape. Yeah,
(16:12):
because usually it's a place where you feel like you
need your phone. Yes, well, and how are people gonna
find out about all my awesome grams? You gotta save
them up for later and do it later gram. Okay,
So it's true they can get overloaded. There's still better
than a bunch of people running around with walkie talkies
or backpack mounted CP radio's. Cell phones do use radio
(16:35):
waves to communicate. Radio waves just transport that voice or
dead in the form of oscillating electric magnetic fields. We
call these the electromagnetic field or e m F. The
rate of oscillation that's what we call frequency. Radio waves
carry the information they travel through the air. Cell phones
don't have a specific um, a specific point at which
(16:58):
they transmit. They emanate these waves in all direction. They
can be absorbed or reflected by surrounding objects before they
reach the nearest cell tower. This means, for example, when
the phone is placed next to your head the same
way that you alluded Matt to someone listening to this
podcast and without headphones, when it's placed next to your
(17:19):
head during a call, a significant portion of this admitted
energy goes through your body. It's absorbed into your head.
In your body over half of it. In some cases, however,
these radio waves, or what's called radio frequency radiation or
r f R, they are a form of what we
understand to be the not harmful radiation radiation but not
(17:43):
harmful non ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation is the stuff that
can rek havoc. We already know that stuff can recav
it like a X rays. You don't want to have
X rays every day for fun zies because that will
add up. You don't want to throw those extra electrons around.
That's the idea, right. Cell phones contain at least one
(18:04):
radio antenna meant to transmit or receive radio signals, and
some cell phones use one antenna as a transmitter and receiver,
while others, such as iPhones, have multiple transmitting or receiving antennas.
So more more points from which these waves originate, right
or emanate. And I have to say that the image
(18:27):
when you really picture this, with each cellular device that's
out there, whether it is making a phone call or
connected via LTE or five G or four G or whatever,
it is all of us. If you could see it,
if you could see the matrix it's it would be
a crazy thing. We're swimming in it. We are swimming
(18:48):
in it. And you have to imagine how insane the
average city must look to any creature whose vision extends
into this sort of range, anyone that could perceive these waves.
You know, yeah, if if you're flying by as an
extraterrestrial that your sensors can see all that stuff and
(19:08):
you just view it, you would just go nope, yeah,
and well, and some people believe that they have the
ability to sense these things, usually in a way that
is painful or disruptive to their day to day life.
Sort of like um, Saul Goodman's brother in better call Saul.
(19:29):
I wish I could conjure his name, but his brother, Yeah,
who feels that he has this sensitivity. But he's in
the minority. People who wish to avoid cell phones are
in the extreme minority of modern society. There's immense convenience
plumbing prices. This has ensured the stratospheric growth of this industry.
(19:51):
And we have some numbers about it too that you
know what sounds like they are exaggerated, but I assure
you they are not. Over were hundred million cell phones
subscribers just within the United States, and that's according to
the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, who also report that
(20:13):
of Americans use a cell phone, and globally there are
more than five billion cell phone users today. So that
begs the question, all of those phones out there shooting
out waves, uh, is what is their danger here? That's
more than half of the people currently alive, well over half. Yeah.
(20:34):
For decades now, many people from from various various disciplines,
including including learned academics and scientists, and including people more
fringe researchers, have been warning that cell phones might be
too good to be true. They may not be as
fantastic as they're cracked up to be. I do want
(20:55):
to take a second and say that cell phones have
done magnificum is in things for humanity. You guys probably
all remember seeing someone complain about, for instance, a homeless
person as a cell phone and saying, well, things can't
be that bad. Things are still really bad, it's just
now that is a necessity to possess. You know, you're
(21:18):
a veteran on the streets. You were carrying a bunch
of documentation around in a backpack that you hoped wouldn't
get stolen. But now if you have an Internet connection,
you can access all of that information. Right, So these
are an invaluable tool, but they may be a tool
with consequences. There may be a sword that swings both ways.
(21:40):
Because critics will tell us that these devices are a
genuine health risk. Could they be causing unintended medical complications.
More directly, for the purposes of today's episode, could using
a cell phone really give you cancer? We'll answer that
question right after a quick word from our sponsor. Here's
(22:05):
where it gets crazy. Yes, sort of if you happen
to be a rat. It is conclusive that overusing a
cell phone will give you cancer, like a tiny rat
sized cell phone or an outdated sort of cell phone.
A recent US National Toxicology Program study I was released
(22:27):
in November, and they found that exposure equivalent to what
would be created from nine nineties era cell phone technology,
those being two g and three g M second generation
third generation kind of communication is associated with brain tumors
in male rats. I have a typo here. It looks
(22:49):
like I said male rates. The rates of brain cancer
in male rats does increase appear to increase with exposure
to this this type of energy. They found the high
exposure to the RfR, the radio frequency radiation we mentioned earlier,
was associated with several disturbing things. Of first clear evidence
(23:12):
of tumors in the hearts of male rats. These were malignant.
Once you get ready, because this is a weird name,
malignant shuanomas, which sounds like way more fun than it is.
It does sound like fun. Yeah, that's exactly what conjurors
in my head too. Oh gosh, that's such a bad
waynes world joke way to happen. They're so hot that
(23:35):
if they were cancer, they'd be suaoma. So it makes
me think of like a like a like a rap,
you know, a schwar shwarmah delicious w r a p
um So here we here we go. Tumors in the heart,
that's not great. How about tumors in the brain? Yep,
(23:56):
there were some of those two, but only some evidence
of tumors in the brain of these rats. Yes, yes,
there was also some evidence of tumors in the adrenal
glands of these rats. The tumors were both benign and malignant.
Here's here's how it worked to that question of whether
they were using little rat phones, which would have been
way more endearing. They were exposed to radiation with a
frequency of nine mega hurts, which was typical of cell
(24:19):
phones in use when they first came up with the
methodology of the study in the nineteen nineties, and they
were exposed to this for about nine hours a day
for two years. So that's always been on your phone
nine hours a day. The lowest levels of radiation used
in this study were equivalent to the maximum exposure of
phone of this type could cause and still receive regulatory
(24:43):
approval from the FEDS, And the highest rates the animals
were exposed to were four times beyond that. So it's
kind of like those studies where they say this type
of ingredients in your food can give rats cancer, like
the sweet lower or whatever. Right, they give them fifty
times their body weight and sweet and low or whatever,
(25:04):
and that gives them just a little bit of cancer,
just a little bit. So what does this actually mean
when we say that there's clear evidence. It's tempting for
us to say all of those rats got cancer. No,
it turns out that two or three percent of irradiated
male rats developed malignant glioma's compared to none of the
(25:27):
rats in the unexposed control group. Right, So this this
means that there appears to be some correlation. There appears
to be even more importantly, some causation, but it is
not an instant death warrant, you know what I mean. Additionally,
(25:49):
they found some other things. Why are we harping on
male rats because that's where they found the largest results,
But the studies did find lower body weights among newborn
rats and their mothers, and this tendency to be underweight
corresponded with exposure to high levels of r f R
during pregnancy and during the nurse and your lactation period.
(26:11):
But luckily for anyone who is currently um feeling bad
and nuzzling their pet rat, luckily, these rats seemed to
grow to a normal adult size, So whatever happened that
affected their weight when they were younger seems to have
faded away by the time they grew to an adult stage. Well,
(26:32):
you know, there's also a video from the Verge that
discussed this study, and uh, the gentleman made the video
mentions that the male rats that developed cancer actually lived
a little bit longer than the control male rats. So
what's very odd, right, I'm not sure how that works out,
(26:56):
But you know, again, that's according to the gentleman reading
the same study that were or referencing right now. Oh right,
and here's another important aspect. So we said they were
exposed to radio frequency radiation, right, subcategory of EMF electric
and magnetic fields, visible waves of force that's round every
every working electronic device of this nature. The important part
(27:20):
of this study is that from the previously existing official stances,
while the research was messy and at times contradictory, we're
pretty sure that this non ionizing radiation was supposed to
be Okay. You know, it's not like putting an next
ray machine into your head, right, It's not like locking
yourself in a in a Faraday cage kind of human
(27:44):
sized microwave situation. Yeah. And the whole point that is,
you're just not absorbing any of that stuff. There's no
physical change to your atoms or to the chemicals in
your body when you're hit by non or at least
in theory, when you're hit by the non ionizing radio.
Yet this study seems to seems to indicate otherwise. Yeah,
(28:07):
you know, very conscious of this. While while we're recording
this episode, a lot of us are listening to this
on our phones. Yeah, our phones are in this room
with us. To the three of us, Paul, I don't
like man, I don't want to ruin anybody's day. Here.
He's on his phone right now, and he's like, yeah,
look at me to check it out. I hope, I
hope you are listening. Don't have this phone in your lap,
(28:29):
because then you probably won't get HeartWare brain cancer. Okay,
if you know what I'm saying, just nether region cancer.
Yeah yeah, just just an infection in your Australia. Oh
it's in my pocket, I'm getting getting bottom cancer. Okay,
Yeah that is weird. Huh. Yeah, you just just warms
(28:53):
me in a certain way. I do. So this this
is straight as though, and this is this is legitimately,
if not disturbing, it's something that demands more study because often,
for for a long time we've heard these reports, right,
and often they are phrased in such a way that
(29:14):
they would be alarmist or they would be debunking, you
know what they would say, you know, and they would say, well,
this is tinfoil hat cruck pottery. You know, this is
entirely an effort to scare people. Or two, maybe sell
some sort of pseudo scientific device and get a special
e M shield for your cell phone which will prevent
(29:38):
the radiation from touching you, but your phone will still
work somehow. Yeah. Yeah, we don't need any of the
actual radiation, just the radiation that makes the device work. Yeah,
you'd have to come up with a cell phone that
is ostensibly connected to like a like an umbrella that
(29:59):
goes out, and the umbrella is the thing at the
end of that umbrella is actually where the signals coming from.
So you have to aim that at the cell tower.
Are you shark taking us right now? I'm taking you guys. Okay, okay,
I'm a I'm moderately in. But I want isn't that
what they always say? I give us seven billion for
(30:22):
and I own all the rights. Why do they always
want because so they have a controlling interest, right so
they can kick the person out later. I would imagine
she this, This leads us through the realm of scientific
uncertainty to an actual finding, and then you know, it's
it's time for us to answer the question that we
(30:44):
as humans ask ourselves every day. Is it time to panic?
Are we doomed? Are we all doomed? Should we even bother?
Finishing this episode? Don't call anybody though, to let them
know we're doomed. Will decide after a word from our sponsor. Okay,
(31:08):
so we're back. We decided to continue the episode. I'm
on the edge of my seat. Are we doomed? Eventually? Yes?
Well that's a loaded answer. Man. As far as cell phones,
go currently, Um, we don't know yet. Yeah, So first
(31:31):
going back to our earlier conversation about uh nutra sweet
and uh what was that other one? No sweet and
loweet low. Yeah, those artificial sweeteners and the experiments involving
rats don't necessarily translate to human beings just given the
quantities involved. And this means that what translates to rats
(31:54):
and one exposure experiment may not always translate on a
one on one level with human beings. The nature of
the study also leads us to several pretty problematic aspects
of these types of studies, not just this one specifically.
So we used to say there were no available longitudinal
studies of this sort of thing over the span of
(32:16):
human civilization. It's a newer technology at least the way
it's it's used now, and so we would want decades
of measurement, right, We would want maybe even something intergenerational,
like how what what are the rates of a population
that existed pre cell phone? What are the rates of
(32:36):
someone resisting the advent of cell phones? And then what
what what are the rates of cancer, health, problems of cognition,
and what have you? Uh for the successive generation, you know,
for your kids. Well, from my mind, the problem with
this kind of study if you're going to try to
even attempt it now and and start a longitudinal study,
(32:57):
even if you try to do it ten years ago,
all of the other radiation that's being absorbed by all
of these people outside of the cell phone use and
that radio um radiation r f R. Do you think
about the WiFi, think about all the other versions that
are out there, of it is just radio frequencies that
are just hitting us all the time. And how could
(33:18):
you possibly remove somebody from all of that to have
a long enough study with a human being or a
set of human beings for ten twenty thirty years. Well,
I like that point because that also leads us to
ask whether or not it would be ethical to put
someone in that in that type of isolated environment. You know, yeah,
(33:39):
even if you're performing that on rats, like, controlling that
environment is tough first of all to make sure, and
I'm certain that extensive steps are taken to isolate the
control group, But are you isolating them from the WiFi
that's functioning within a lab or from you know, any
of the anything else? I hope. So I got to
(33:59):
get to the National Radio Quiet zone. Right. Also, again,
you know it's controversial. I completely understand and agree with
the body of laws and ethical policies that we have
regarding human experimentation. I believe it's important. Um. I also
(34:19):
believe that people should be allowed to uh consent to
self experimentation or consent to dangerous experiments. So are you
saying that this essentially constitutes human experimentation if there's something
that we don't have definitive proof of the negative outcome,
that we are literally being subjected to human experimentation, whether
by things like this or certain products that we maybe
(34:42):
don't fully know the end game of yet. I mean, hey,
we are. We are doing a species wide improv bit
that's lasted for thousands of years. He's kind of wondering,
is there's something in the terms of service do you
think in cell phone contracts that sort of absolves these
network of any future responsibility. If there is research that
(35:03):
comes out this is actually this has been giving you
cancer all along. They must have been shielding themselves in
some way from that kind of litigation, that kind of
class action. Right. That's fascinating because for people who are
convinced that cell the cell phones do cause various health
maladies for people who believe that the cell phone manufacturers
(35:27):
are functioning on the level of big tobacco or something,
you know what I mean, knowingly covering up the long
term consequences. It's it's a good question. We know that
terms of service. First off, most people never read them,
and that's the way most manufacturers want it, because there's
there's a lot of stuff in the details. There's a
(35:47):
lot of fine print there. I know that there are
health warnings of plenty about how to properly use a
cell phone or a device. You know, don't put this
in the water, don't use this way it was not
intended to be used, you know. And how much of
that is just c y a stuff on the part
of their legal team. How much of that is something
(36:08):
they don't want you to know. It's interesting, it's interesting.
But surely if there were a definitive study proving beyond
the shadow of a doubt that there is a causation
involved with cell phone usage and the rise of cancer,
surely the federal agencies and multiple governments would force manufacturers
(36:29):
to inform people of this. Right. And it's not like sugar,
It's not like sugar. Industry. But it's not like tobacco,
it's not like asbestos. It's not it's maybe it's like
how they all were four decades or is it? Is
it worse? Is the dangerous point I'm making? Is is
it worse because we it would it would be too
late for all of us. All of us would be
(36:51):
too it. No, now we go into the epigenetic argument too. Yeah,
it's done, We're done. Yeah. What's interesting, though, is the
Federal Communications commit should actually set the standard for acceptable
levels of exposure to radio frequencies UM from all kinds
of telecom networks and different corporations that rely on this
technology in the US. But that hasn't been updated since
(37:13):
the nineties. And as we know, we're talking about that
exponential growth of technology and updating these broadband the networks,
especially with things like five G on the horizon. It's
interesting that that has not been looked at UM and
since we don't know, it's probably a good idea and
certainly wouldn't hurt just to maybe not sleep with yourself
phone under your pillow. Maybe I don't know, yeah, or
(37:36):
maybe it's a good place to start. Stop putting it
in your mouth or in your back pocket. Okay, dctor
buzz rendezvous over here. Hey. And if you're really worried
about radiation, um, don't go outside ever. Remain indoors, because
that's not only are the regular radio waves from radios
(37:58):
out there, but the sun is it in you as
well with some serious radiation, most dangerous kind, probably gamma
radiation is out there. It's bombarding you at all times.
Whenever I get stressed out, I like to remember that
there could be a gamma ray burst at any second.
Edits game over for where everyone you just imagine that
(38:19):
the next moment doesn't happen because gamma ray. Good thing
we had. We had Paul edit that and take us
back in time. This, this point about the exponential evolution
of technology is important too because it means even if
(38:40):
we construct solid, longitudinal, long term studies, we have to
take into account that the technology itself keeps improving, evolving,
and changing, which means that we do not have a
constant against which to test these hypotheses. Right, we said
that this two G three G technology and the type
(39:03):
of RfR there that as an association with a rising cancer,
certain types of cancer with male rats. Right, we don't
have anything about that for maybe five G. We have
some worried people, we have some ongoing studies. But if
we were to conduct, as you said, Matt, a test
(39:24):
with five G over say thirty years, see what happens.
People won't still be using those phones in thirty years.
That will be archaic, you know. And we should also
mention that cancer has a is subject to a lot
of misconceptions in popular science. Saying saying cancer is like
(39:47):
saying fruit. You're describing a kind of thing, but there
are thousands of that kind of thing, you know what
I mean? And I'm sure that people would say an
apple is not the same as what's another fruit? Oh
it orange? There you go. I was gonna suggest starfruit.
(40:08):
That's way better. That's way better. Let's let's subout oranges
for perhaps a pomegranate. Is that a fruit? Surely it
must be. I don't know. Tomato that's a fruit? Yeah,
technically true? And people thought it was a poisonous fruit.
Then I think you're so right about the longitudinal study
things in our technology. I was if I was trying
(40:30):
to imagine twenty years ago, twenty years ago, what was
the cell phone back then? What do you guys think
like right right towards it was the matrix phone is
the one I think about that like popped down still,
especially a flip phone that's years ago. That was also
I mean the razor wasn't that far removed from that. Yeah, yeah,
(40:53):
that was sort of looked at it sort of like
the next gen flip phone because I think it had
like color screen or something like that, or it could
have it could go on the Internet in some very
rudimentary way. And what would the network have been at
that time? I have, Yeah, definitely the pigeon pigeon a
T But but think about that twenty years from now,
(41:13):
while we're trying to conduct a longitudinal study on five
G and then like where the technology would be. It's
just been you're so right, dude, it's impossible. There's no
way we can keep up with any of that. And
by that time, it's a we're already dosed and it's
over and the next thing comes along and we're getting
dosed again. Yeah. It's a great point, and it brings
(41:34):
us to one an excellent f a Q from Cancer
dot gov talking about this, wherein they note that not
only is technology evolving rapidly, not only is number of
cell phone users increasing rapidly, but over time, the number
of cell phone calls per day, the length of each call,
(41:56):
the amount of time people use phones in general has increased.
And because of changes in the technology and increases in
the number of base stations for transmitting these signals, the
exposure from cell phone use power output has changed mostly
lowered in many regions of the United States. And what
we what we see here is a a battle of perspectives.
(42:21):
There are multiple variables that we have to include or consider,
and many of these variables change. What is a lightning pace? Right?
We do know that the w h O does consider
cell phones to be a possible human carcinogen. Cell Phones
are listed in a in a grouping called Group to
(42:43):
Be as possible human car synogens. So is this conspiracy theory?
If so, the w h O agrees, But we have
to add some important perspective here. Uh, there are other
things on the list that might surprise you. Group to
Be also contains aloe vera possible human carcinogen as in
topical or ingestion. I don't know, man, Yolo, you ever
(43:07):
had one of those alo vera drinks with the juice
and then a little squishy bits. I hate those, you know,
I get those things. It's gross. It's like chewing on
a gummy bear and drinking a refreshing drink at the
same time, a squishy, squishy gummy bear. See, I can't
do anything like tapioca balls. You don't like, you don't
like it, you don't like for me. The thing with Alivera,
(43:29):
I think is that when I used to go in
the sun, it Olivera would often be something used to
treat sunburns or aches from that very familiar Yeah, so
for completely subjective, unpleasant mnemonic associations, it feels like I'm
(43:49):
drinking sunburns drink aliver just because I associate you know,
the smell in that kind of taste when you've got
some of the sinnesthesia going on too, So it was
probably really close to that. It's yeah, but you know what,
man more Alivera for you know, if you're into those,
and all right, Alivera for everybody. So where does this
(44:14):
leave us? If mobile phones did indeed cause cancer in
a in a huge amount, we could expect to see
a few things, especially now that people have been using
these for decades. We would expect to see a significant
spike in brain cancer rates right following the massive increase
in cell phone usage, and yet there has not been
(44:35):
a change, not that kind of change at least, right, Yes,
according to these studies, brain cancer is actually decreasing, or
the the number of instances of brain cancer are decreasing.
That's pretty great, right, And I mean I'm okay with that.
I think the latest number I saw, I forget the
(44:55):
exact dates it was from, but it was four and
a half brain cancer case is for every one thousand
people in the United States under age sixty five, And
that was okay, So that was from eleven, and previously
that number had been nineteen point one cases for every
one hundred thousand people sixty five or older. So decreasing
(45:18):
that bring cancer to that amount is pretty dang great.
And that has nothing to do with cell phone usage
at least, I don't think unless there's something magical we
don't know about, but wouldn't we wouldn't we reasonably expect
this sort of cancer to accelerate if it increases in
rats in the way that one study showed. Yeah, it's
(45:40):
that whole our rats human beings question that we humans
have been struggling with for so many I love the secret.
Are you talking like like anthropomorphic human being like in
rattitui Sti's great, very fantastic. The book's good too. But
(46:00):
what about five of with uys? What about five? Yeah,
he's a mouse number he went west in the less
louded sequel. Give him the old lazier that's from West.
No way, good memory, man, it's a. It's a. It's
a pivotal part of the plot. The old lazy I
(46:21):
is important. It is it is important to somewhat Uh. Yeah,
we see the areas that absorb radio waves have fewer tumors,
not more. And luckily for everyone involved, the research continues today.
The group responsible for this study is collaborating with other
organizations to develop smaller exposure chambers for additional short term
(46:45):
studies that will take weeks or maybe months instead of
two years. And these studies are meant to target in
and clarify what NTP learned in their long term studies.
And then it was very forward thinking too, in esciate
the possibility of DNA damage and exposed tissues so get
to some eventually potentially some epo genetic stuff. It's also
(47:09):
being designed so studies of different r FR frequencies and
modulations can finally adapt to the changing technologies in the
telecom industry today. Will it work? That remains to be seen.
But we do have to consider that while many of
us may fret about cancer as the as as the
(47:30):
imminent danger posed by cell phones, other people will tell
us that cell phones pose dangers entirely unrelated to cancer
and related instead to um attention span, or related to
our neurochemistry or oh yes, and that one. I feel
(47:51):
like that's so well known. Right. Have we found ourselves
in a bubble, you guys? Or do we believe the
certain things normal that other people would think are crack pottery? No,
not at all. I don't think so. I think everybody
at this point has had a conversation near their phone
and then an AD was served to them, you know,
(48:14):
just coincidentally. And even if it is just everyone functioning
on coincidence, yeah, even if it is bet or minehuff,
it's occurring in a massive scale. And beator, minehuff is
that thing we've mentioned before. Better, mine huff is a
psychological thing where maybe you wake up and you have
a song in your head. Why do you build me up,
buttercup or but whatever song is stuck in your head
(48:36):
and then later you hear it on the radio or
out in the field and you think, holy smokes, is
the matrix broken? Do I have precog abilities, or as
Beta Minehoff would argue, do I just pay more attention
to something like that because I'm looking for it? Like
the first time you hear a specific word, you hear
(48:56):
the word suscerous, you learn the word suscross, and then
over the next week suddenly everybody is saying the word
suscerous to you. Totally. In this instance, it just occurred.
My wife went to the dentist, and her hygienists recommended
a certain type of whitening strips, and immediately after jumping
on an app on her phone there was an ad
(49:17):
served for it. And I think it may be what
you're talking about, Peter Minolf, but anyway, very strange maybe,
But here here's a devil's advocacy exercise, Matt. She saw
this on her phone. She took her phone to the dentist,
Yeather right, So the phone has the capability to know
(49:40):
her GPS knows that she's at the dentist. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
you're so enforcement solves crimes with GPS data. Yeah, and
she hasn't turned off all that stuff. I'm just saying,
if you really want to avoid these sorts of situations
or not. I'm not telling people to commit crimes, but
if you if you want to avoid being tracked like that,
(50:03):
you can do uh the old breaking bad trick. You
can leave your cell phone somewhere else. You can tape
it to the underside of a friend's car. I have Okay,
I'll say this on here. This is just between us
and like just between the millions of us. A long
time ago, a friend of mine I will not name
(50:25):
was a you will you seemed to be. I thought
he was a trust fund person, right because he didn't
have a any visible means of employment. But he traveled
a lot domestically and internationally, and he seemed to have adventures.
And one day he told me that he needed me
(50:48):
to do a favor for him, and I thought, oh, am,
I watching a pet. Am I keeping an eye on
a house or an apartment or something. And it was
not that the guy was going to be gone for
two or three weeks, but he wanted me to keep
his phone in my car and drive in the regular
(51:10):
pattern in which I would have driven at the time,
and keep it on and keep it on, dude Ben,
which establishes right, possibly an alibi. But he was he
was also a very paranoid person. So was he prescient
or was he just sketchy? Or was he deluted? Or
was it all a hilarious prank. I think it all
(51:33):
depends on if it was a three G network or
an LTE or five G. Like what are we talking here? Like,
I think that's the most important. Heck, guy gave me
car cancer. So you know, we we noticed the neurochemistry
stuff here, We noticed the big data, the paranoia. It
is true that in many applications social media is one
(51:57):
online games or another. Many applications, the designers, the developers,
the programmers are well aware of human psychology, and they
build these interactions to reward you and to engender what
some would say is addictive behavior. Right. You always get
a little rush of a happy chemical in your brain
(52:17):
when you say, oh, someone liked, retweeted, subscribed, so on.
You know, and that stuff works. No one's invulnerable to it.
We're virtually all human, I would say most of us listening,
I would know Ben Ben did this thing with his
with his jawline just then. It was it was handsome,
(52:40):
It looked very nice, but it was a little chilling. Yeah,
well think about it. There's gonna be at some point,
uh is a machine consciousness that will be able to
listen to all of the podcasts ever made very quickly.
So and then host a conspiracy show. Wouldn't that be great?
(53:03):
Oh we could Uh, we could definitely do with a
machine consciousness. Host would love to hear that perspective. Would
love to hear their take on cancer and cell phones. Um,
what what do you think? There's there's another thing. This
is the I don't know about you guys, but from
my end, this is one of the last things you hear.
A lot of people get a little curmugion curmudgeon lee
right and say, oh, people are always in their phones,
(53:27):
not living in the moment, you know, and that that
is true. It's a very unintentionally um easy thing for
people to do, which is, you know, you're in a
conversation or someone's in a conversation with you, but you're
not there. You're on your phone. But I would challenge
people to look back at photographs of public spaces. In
(53:50):
the age of newspapers, people weren't talking to each other
then they were on the train with a newspaper in
front of their face. But what about before paper? What
about the photographs before paper? Yes? What if you have
a photograph before the invention of paper? Please send it
(54:12):
to us. Oh yeah. What do you guys think though?
Is there is there sand to this? What's what's? What's
the word? Right now? My conclusion would be there's some
disturbing stuff and more studies need to be conducted, you
know what I mean? I would concur and and you know,
my opinion would be that WiFi and cellular technology, radio
(54:36):
signals in general, it's all part of artificial intelligence attempting
to emerge and kill off all of the biological life
with cancer. So there you go, There you go. It's bleak.
Enjoy it, enjoy it? What a way to go? We what?
We got a couple more decades left, maybe one. Are
you one of those people who's more comforted by the
(54:58):
idea that a plan exists, even if it's nefarious, rather
than our earlier assertion that humanity is just one long
improv sketch. Definitely, I don't know. What do you think
phone cancer? Yeah? Like what for it or against it?
What do you what do you think? What do you think?
I mean, it's it sure seems like it's a lot
(55:19):
like rat Sacharin. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It
just seems like again, like we were saying, there are things.
Since we since it's a little bit inconclusive right now,
and we know that we're being bombarded with all kinds
of stuff, it is one thing that we do have
a direct ability to kind of limit if we choose
to do so. So I would say, if you're worried
(55:42):
about it, and maybe use it as an excuse to
stay off your device a little bit, you know, I
don't know. That's that's the best advice I can offer.
I'm certainly not following that advice that I'm giving myself.
And it's a good excuse to have a little more
interaction outside the screen, like you were talking about. But
if you let's use it, let's use it. It's sort
(56:03):
of let it's like the Flora's Lava. The Flora's Lava
cell phones give you cancer, okay, and take all all
your personal information at the same time to sell you
tooth whitening strips. That's so if we can propagate a
perhaps false conspiracy that cell phones do give us cancer,
(56:23):
we can solve a lot of problems. Bern's this is
that what you're saying, somebody out there can Berne's this right,
Someone can, yes, yes, And I can't encourage you to
do that, not officially. We cannot officially say that this
would be a very interesting experience and experiment. We cannot
(56:44):
we can officially say that it would be a rolic
and good time and fascinating. And also, please don't do that.
We're we're being we're joking around here. Matt is definitely joking,
you see your jocularity. Yes, I don't know. I think
it's interesting. I want to hear more. I want to
(57:05):
update this and follow along with the subsequent studies, and
we'd like, we'd like to hear from you, because one
thing is for sure, regardless of how people feel about this,
most people are still using cell phones, just like you said, Noel,
And this means that these things probably aren't going to
(57:27):
go away for some time. Right, So let us know
cell phones cancer connection alarmism cover up. You can find
us on Instagram and find us on Twitter. You can
find us on Facebook. You can meet the best part
of this show, your fellow listeners on our community page.
Here's where it gets crazy, which the memes on there
(57:50):
are getting pretty good. Yeah, yeah, Do you ever go
on do you check in on that? I do? Yeah,
I go to hours and I go to the Ridiculous
History one. Yes, I do. You sweet man, you I
like it? When are when are we going to be
able to cajole you into Oh we can't even say yet.
(58:10):
We we shouldn't say yet about any possible cameos. We
just don't want to make any promises. So people don't
get let down. Don't tell anybody. Uh, the old Genie
is gonna pop out of the bottle over there on
Ridiculous History. You know what happened. What happened, What happened
to Matt Frederick is my southern gentleman Genie, grant you
(58:34):
one wish and that wishes of my choosing. So who
is this big old sassafras. Shouldn't have rubbed that bottle.
That's what my mommy always said, and you're Pappie should
have said it too. Don't rub that bottle or the
genie might bump out yes, yes, you heard it here
first folks, and then he will forcefully give you one
(58:54):
wish that you do not like of his choosing. This
is so sitister, Okay, we have we have to go.
Thank you so much for listen. We're gonna go hunt
down Matt maybe with the help of this somewhat sinister
but you know, overall very endearing southern gentleman. Thank you,
(59:15):
and uh my one wish to be granted to you
right now is to put down your device, stop getting
cancer from it. If you are getting cancer from it,
go about your daily live, live, your laugh, whatever. Goodbye
Conspiracy how Stuff Works dot com
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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