Coronavirus Update: The Rise of Pandemic and Conspiracy

Tune in for this much-needed update on the continually evolving state of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which we explore the new revelations about the spread of the infection, the various ways world governments have responded to the outbreak and, of course, some of the conspiracy theories proliferating across the globe as terrified people search for answers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.

(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is not They call
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul mission controlled decands. Most importantly, you are you,
You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't
want you to know. This is our Coronavirus COVID nineteen
episode or Part two in what unfortunately will be a

(00:48):
continuing series. As we've been doing recently. We wanted to
we want to connect with our fellow listeners on Twitter,
so it's time again for Twitter roll call. Today's message
comes from Grumman six hundred, who says, uh, New Jersey
man charged with terroristic threats for allegedly coughing on Wegman's worker.

(01:14):
It's a headline, um. And then he sends us a link.
Uh and that Wegmans I think is a chain of
grocery stores right in New Jersey. Yeah, that's that's correct.
This this tweet was interesting to me because it's part
of a larger conversation that's happening now, at least in
the US, and it's the idea that people who are

(01:34):
knowingly positive for COVID nineteen and choosing to go to
public gatherings or public spaces may be charged with under
laws that would ordinarily apply to terrorism. As wild as
that sounds, that is in the cards. What's sort of like, um,
if you knowingly have HIV and you know infect someone

(01:55):
without telling them that you can be charged with a
crime for that? Absolutely right, right, right, Yeah. The most
extreme example of that so far as we record, which
we should say, is Wednesday, March uh. The most extreme
example of that came from Japan, where there was a
single a single male individual got tested, knew he was

(02:16):
positive for COVID nineteen and purposely went out to all
the bars and restaurants he could find to try and
spread it. Very strange, very strange. God. Our next Twitter
shout out comes from fraky Fire, who has written into
the show before. Frakie, you said, currently catching up on
some conspiracy stuff episodes and listening to the one on

(02:37):
COVID nineteen from a few weeks ago as a strange experience.
It's like a time capsule of the moment right before
everything went crazy. And you know this, this struck a
chord with me, and I was wondering if it struck
a chord with you guys as well. I went back
and relistened, and we did the best we could with
the facts we had. Yeah, it's most certainly like a

(02:57):
time capsule. We I remember because what it took about
a week for that episode to publish after we recorded it,
and we could feel, we could feel the winds of
chains coming as we were waiting for it to get
out there in the wild. And by the time it
went live, we were like, wow, Wow, this has really

(03:17):
evolved since then, and now it's almost like a completely
different situation, a completely different world that we're living in. Um,
that's why we're making this episode. You know what's interesting
to me is how quickly our brains adapt and normalize
the completely abnormal. Uh maybe it's just me, but even
like going and walking around the grocery stores and now

(03:37):
everyone's wearing these you know, Rubbert gloves and these masks,
and I don't find myself recoiling in you know, complete
and utter terror, and literally had my kid with me
at the grocery store, and I'm seeing this and somehow
your brain kind of tricks you into thinking this is
like normal all of a sudden, you know, Uh, and
it feels like something out of a science fiction movie. Yeah.

(03:58):
It's an interesting core of our species and we we've
talked about it a little bit in the past. It's
astounding and in no small part disturbing how quickly things
become normalized. That's why we throw around phrases like the
new normal and so on. It also makes me think
of the uh, the old what's that old saw that
it takes twenty one days to form a habit in

(04:20):
twenty one to break one. Uh, it's interesting. I don't
know if the science backs it up, but it is true.
You know, You're you're usually about seven days away from
something that would have sounded crazy last week being absolutely
status quo the next week. And it's something you know.
I'm glad you brought that up, because it's something we
need to remember, not just us podcasting and not just

(04:42):
us listening, but everyone we know. We need to remind
them that this doesn't have to be the normal. We're
going through some crazy times, but the fight's not over yet.
In fact, as we'll learn in today's episode. The fight
in a very real way is just againting would you
guys agree most certainly. I'm oscillating between feeling like this

(05:06):
will just be our new normal. And when I say that,
I don't mean necessarily, you know, being sequestered at home,
but the new steps we take in interacting with each other,
um on a personal basis, on something as simple as
using headphones in a shared studio or um, you know,

(05:28):
when you think about getting take out and maybe cleaning
the bag or something, or the containers when you go shopping,
cleaning that before you bring it into your house. It
does feel like we're so aware now of the possibilities.
It doesn't have to be a pandemic for us to
have these memories now what we're going through, and it's

(05:50):
so visceral now because it's like it literally has just
kind of reminded us how vulnerable we all are as humans,
and if anything, it's just kind of like caused us
to of rethink from not to sound too like hippie
dippy about it, but our place in the universe and
how where it's also fragile, you know, and like things
could just take a turn, like on a dime like this,

(06:12):
and it's just really kind of a wake up call, um,
not not to mention some of the issues with the
government and the issues with like healthcare and sort of
bringing to full attention like how fragile our economy is
and how it just takes something like this, you know,
a germ to bring it all crashing down. Like that's
the part that really freaks me out. Yeah, it's it's

(06:35):
important to remember that despite our own, uh incredibly narcissistic
focus on the human species, we are one of a
multitude of different life forms that lives here. And you know,
it's funny, Manto. We're talking about this on a an
episode that came out recently about giants, and there was

(06:55):
this this notion that came up in our discussion about
how Earth, especially if you go with the Gaia hypothesis,
Earth is a superorganism. It is hungry, you know, and
the works of man are not near as permanent as
we may like to believe. Uh, this is a level reset. Uh.
You know. One of the most troubling things about the

(07:17):
current pandemic is that we have to understand as a species, nations, ideologies,
religions aside that this sort of thing has occurred in
the past. It will occur again. We can prepare for it,
we can try to mitigate it, but we cannot prevent it.
Something like this will happen again. We just happened to

(07:40):
be alive at a time when history is being written
in the first pandemic of the hyper connected age of
social media, and we're glad you're here, you know, and
we're grateful for it. We're also back now for everybody
who's listened to our previous episode on the coronavirus. We
noted that due to the ongoing nature of the event,
we it inevitably need to return with an update, a

(08:02):
new look at how the pandemic evolved. And I don't
know if you guys went back and listened to that
previous episode. Who the World Health Organization and not officially
declare COVID nineteen a pandemic, But it seems like all
but a done deal even when we were recording back then.
So what we'd like to do today is update you

(08:23):
with the facts, fiction and conspiracy theories that are springing
up across the planet in reaction to this global infection.
So the best way for us to do that is
to start with what we know today, March. Here are
the facts. So let's just do a little bit of
housekeeping with the kind of the lay of the land

(08:44):
where we are today. Um, we absolutely have a better
understanding of kind of a snapshot of what's going on globally,
and it's not great. Um, it's pretty ugly. We have
confirmed cases in the US UM that have surged tenfold,
likely over fifty thousand as we record this episode, and
the number of confirmed infections globally has reached a whopping

(09:06):
four hundred and fifty two thousand, two hundred and one, right,
and one thing that we don't hear about as often
as perhaps we should, would be the positive side of
this of this infection process. A hundred and thirteen thousand,
one twenty one people are confirmed to have contracted coronavirus

(09:27):
and to have recovered. Of course, it's not all you know,
angel uh farts and trumpets and harpsichords, because some of
those people have serious, lasting damage to their respiratory system.
And the virus, as we know, is fatal. Yeah, it's
killed over eighteen thousand, two hundred people around the world

(09:49):
just so far, and and it really is. It's astounding UM.
And it's troubling because those these are just the cases
that we know. Um, this is the thing that is
really terrifying actually because they're confirmed numbers from people who
got tested that we have identified as having this disease,

(10:12):
of being infected by this virus and then having any
kind of outcome, whether recovery or even death. Well, and
as we know, I mean a big problem is the
lack of available tests and how only people with really
serious symptoms or even getting access to tests unless you're
like don cheatle or something. It seems like all kinds
of celebrity news of people confirming they don't have because

(10:34):
they somehow got a test. I wonder if it's just
like really expensive private healthcare, how they get access to that.
But in general, us mortals are not going to be
able to get tested unless we are presenting some serious symptoms.
And I even read a study that you know, there's
so much stuff coming out every day. Uh, this may
have been debunked, but um that people who are asymptomatic

(10:56):
UM could well have higher viral load and are are
are more prone to shedding the virus and spreading it,
which which is a big part of why this quarantine
thing is so necessary because you just don't know who
has it. Right there, there are a couple of points
that I want to hit their first, Um, I think
I read some of the same stuff. I know it's

(11:16):
not it's not a proven but even if that speculation
turns out to be debunked, it's still a fantastic idea
to self isolate or whatever pc term your government is
using to avoid saying the Q word. It's still a
great idea to do that because you you don't have to.

(11:38):
I know it's a big ask, but don't worry necessarily
about saving your own life. Remember that if if you
don't care about saving your own life, remember that you
may be saving the lives of literally hundreds of thousands
of strangers just because of the way this thing transmits
through carriers. And I appreciate the point about testing. You're right, Matt,

(11:58):
it is it. The numbers that we have are sobering,
but we should add that massive, frankly terrifying caveat Those
are only the confirmed numbers, and they are much much
lower than what's actually happening in a lot of countries,
including the United States. To your point, knowl the average
person has no realistic chance to get tested for COVID nineteen,

(12:20):
and of course that means many many people are spreading
this infection just to hit home. Uh. You know, I
think I predict that the numbers we're gonna see here
in the US at least are going to be indicative of,
uh of a case that like, it'll show us that
someone you know has or had had COVID. That's that's

(12:44):
what we're gonna look at. If we see the trends,
and if we get some transparent numbers, which you know,
a lot of countries don't want to do, Russia being one,
the United States being another. So like, let's let's look
at the the global trends. I think I think we
mentioned earlier the official, the official confirmed number of people

(13:05):
who have contracted this it's north of four hundred thousand.
But what's important here is to realize how we arrived
at that number. So four hundred thousand something, and the
number keeps taking up. Of those four hundred thousand, more
than one hundred thousand cases were confirmed in the past
three days. So from March twenty two to March one

(13:30):
thousand people a fourth of the total official number were confirmed.
That means there have to be more out there. Man. Uh,
the it is pretty terrifying. I'm just gonna give you
guys a quick example just to kind of speak to
this as we're going down here. Um, I know personally
someone who is in an age group and in any

(13:52):
health range that is not considered a high vulnerability for
COVID to be fatal for them, and they they are
fairly sure they quoted me eight positive that they have
COVID nineteen as well as their significant other, and they
even live very close to a hospital in a hospital

(14:13):
system here in Atlanta, but they do not have access
to a test and they cannot get tested to confirm
whether or not they have it, so they just have
to essentially write it out until it becomes bad enough
that they need hospital hospitalization. Are they showing serious symptoms
or what? Yeah, yeah, but not not the intense respiratory

(14:35):
stuff that's associated with the fatality or the fatal nature
of what it turns into. So it's just one of
those things where, especially in this country, that is what
we're dealing with. Probably I can't even estimate the number
of people who are in that same or similar situation
where they know they're sick. They it feels as though
it is this, but they don't have access to a test.

(14:57):
And that's exactly what we're about to talk about here,
um about what what various countries are doing to prevent
further spread or at least, as they say, flatten the
curve right right, And we'll spend some time on that too.
We have enough data now that we can look at.
We can look at the different and distinct responses from

(15:18):
several several countries. UH. For instance, on the extreme authoritarian end,
we have countries like Singapore, South Korea, and Israel. So
Singapore is uh is kind of an honor student here. Uh.
They used contact tracing technology, meaning that they were proactively

(15:40):
testing people, and if you tested positive, then they would
find every place you had been, every person you would
interacted with, and they would also test them. And then
if they tested positive, they would also test everyone that
person interacted with every place they went. Imagine that happening
in the United States. It's just it's it's almost UH

(16:03):
anathema to the culture here. UH. Israel did the same thing.
Of course, the one of the big big differences with
Israel and Singapore is that Israel is still in opposition
to Palestine and Palestine is something that has been you know,
like the Hong Kong protest. It's less and less in
the news as the news is increasingly related to COVID. UH.

(16:26):
To your point about flattening the curve, Matt, China actually
does seem to be flattening the curve. The granted though,
to flatten that curve, they did things that would never
happen in the United States, such as um I think
we talked about this on a previous show, such as
physically welding doors of apartment building shut while people were inside.

(16:47):
Did you guys hear about that. Yeah, it's definitely an
extreme version of what's attempting to be enacted here in
the United States, where it's like, you know, official orders
from your state's govern owner or a mayor of a city,
uh to like stay inside, but uh forcing it to
that level. But there's even caveats in the in the

(17:10):
soft mandates we're getting from our leader our leaders, right,
I mean, obviously going to the grocery store is acceptable,
and there's even you know, mentioned of it's okay to
take a walk around the neighborhood, walk your dog, go
to go to the Park. I honestly feel like, because
so many people are home in my neighborhood, I'm seeing
more people walking around than I typically would, you know,
on a work from home day in normal circumstances. So

(17:33):
I feel like people are absolutely like getting out and
you know, being a little too loose with with those
mandates kind of you know, you know. It's uh, the
way that information circulates nowadays, the way that we're all
hyper connected, UH makes it easy for us to get

(17:55):
information fatigue. And it also it also means that we
are looking at a scenario where people might not take
this threat seriously until someone that they personally know dies,
which is a very grim and absolutist way to look
at it, but it also is a valid observation based
on what we know about human psychology. If you are,

(18:17):
like many of us in the States, one of the
people worried about UM the U s slipping is a
global superpower in recent years, then you may find cold
comfort in the realization that the United States has become
is set to become a world leader once again, and
in one particularly dubious field. UH soon, depending on how

(18:39):
things play out, we will be a world leader. Acknowledged
in COVID nineteen infection, which means, possibly, depending on our infrastructure, Uh,
we will become a world leader in COVID related deaths.
That's a grim note. But don't worry. The stories not
over yet. We're gonna pause for a word from our sponsor,
and then we'll return to walk through some possible scenarios

(19:04):
for the future. These are not predictions, we should say,
and we're back. So this is the big question. It's
one of the things on everybody's minds. Uh, what does
the future hold for our species, for the countries in

(19:25):
which we live, for our families, our friend groups, are
loved ones. Um, I don't know. How do you guys
want to do? What? You want to talk about the
bad scenarios first and end with the good. Or you
want to go to the good just to give us
a little bit of levity. You want to end on
the positive? Yeah? Why not? Bad news first? Right? Sure?
I think so I get it out of the way. Yeah,
A good call. So bad news first. Uh. Here in

(19:49):
the US, we can talk about this country specifically, unemployment
numbers have spiked. How much of they spiked? That is
literally something the federal government does. Don't want you to know,
because they don't want people to panic. If you're in
the US and hearing this, think about it. Do you
know someone who has recently laid off or found themselves unemployed?

(20:12):
I would say that the answer is your answer is
probably likely to be yes at this point. I can't
speak for you, guys, but I personally know multiple people
who have found themselves suddenly out of a job, and
some estimates have projected that the total unemployment numbers will

(20:35):
be thirty percent. However, the Trump administration, we should note,
has specifically asked state leadership to hold off on releasing
any recent unemployment numbers. This has drawn, as you can imagine,
a pretty vocal criticism from his political opponents. Well, another
thing that's that's drawing a pretty vocal criticism is the

(20:55):
Trump administration's uh pushing the stance that hey, everything will
be fined by easter, we need to open back up
for business, you know, and maybe only just the most
at risk people should stay home. I mean, that's not
even taking into consideration the fact that people could not
know they have it and go out. I mean, obviously
the economic uh you know, fallout is is horrible, But

(21:20):
isn't it just gonna get worse if people go out
and return back to business as usual and are sick
and continue to spread this thing. M yeah, well said,
because one of the one of the primary goals for
that somewhat arbitrary easter uh normalcy date is to preserve
the failing economy or to to save it right. But

(21:42):
that could lead us to another worst case scenario wherein
maybe the wave was starting to dip but everything, but
we called it normal too soon, and then we get
hit with a second wave, if you were called. One
example that's been brought up a lot lately is the
Spanish flu epidemic of nine eighteen. The real name for

(22:02):
that is the Spanish flu Epidemic of nineteen to nineteen nineteen. Uh.
That means you know, that means this is probably not
a uh time out for a month scenario. And the
more the like the if we call it too early,
then we may just exacerbate the problems we sought to avoid.

(22:22):
In addition to unemployment and a second wave of infection.
I would say also, this is gonna be tremendously damaging
to people who already lived in oppressed or disadvantaged situations.
I believe at the same time, um snap, which is
food assistance is on the cutting board. Uh. We may

(22:45):
also see, you know, people with disabilities being unable to
get the services and the treatment that they need. Uh.
This is this is looking like like a terrible situation.
If we're going down the negative rabbit hole. What else
do you guys think? Well, I would say, but at
the same time, we're seeing movements within our very divided

(23:07):
government in the United States at least here two unite
a little bit and give some kind of at least
small assistance to everybody across the board. And in a way,
it's this move towards um a bit of socialism, a
bit of not authoritarianism, but but moving towards like attempting

(23:29):
to let the government kind of help everybody in a
way that we haven't really seen since the Great Depression. Honestly,
um or when some tax breaks were given in two
thousand eight during that downturn. It's that, I would say,
is hopeful for everybody, even the you know, the people
who are least served by the government in in those areas.

(23:51):
But at the same time, if you think about the restaurant,
anyone working in the hospitality sectors in this country, right now,
just there are no jobs there right now. It just
doesn't exist, you know, or at least it's dwindling to
the fact of a complete drought in that area. And

(24:11):
those are the people who need things like snap that
you're talking about in people who are or potentially need
something like that. Well, and that's this whole idea of
like this, this sort of half measure of of giving
households a thousand bucks something like that, a one time
thing that's not gonna do much if they're behind on
their rent, you know, months behind. And and I believe
a lot of a lot of you know, states and

(24:34):
and and counties have put a moratorium on evictions, but
not like a rent moratorium. I mean, you're still gonna
oh that back rent, like you know, you can't be
kicked out and they can't shut off your water. But
what's the full measure here? You know, it feels to
me like it's a band aid to say, here's a
thousand bucks, go with God. But it's just gonna create
this ripple effect. It just it just feels like, uh,

(24:56):
it's sort of a hollow gesture. But I see what
you're aim at. It is pointing to a level of
cooperation and a level of like open minded thinking in
a direction that this particular administration has very much maligned.
Well whatever administration, I'm sorry, Ben, last moment, last thing here,
just to me. It speaks to people maybe at least

(25:19):
seeing with an external threat in this way, very much
Watchman style, like, maybe it is worth helping those among
us that need the most help. Um, even though we
sit in you know, those people sit in their high
towers to make those decisions. If we are truly seeing
the unemployment numbers, like Ben was saying at the top

(25:40):
of this discussion, the unemployment numbers, if we got to
see them as they truly were and as they are
going to be over the next few months, um, I
think it's gonna be, um, a harrowing thing that will
hopefully push everybody towards helping each other out. I agree
that that's that's absolutely a silver lining that I hope,
I hope is true as well. Yeah, this this is

(26:02):
interesting because one thing we need to emphasize is that
if you look at the population of the United States
and if you look at the on the ground economy,
so not the not the wall streets, future trading, not
the stock market, that's getting bailed out unsuccessfully. We should
note with some schaden freud, if you look at the

(26:23):
economy that that matters to people on the ground, then
it was not a healthy body when this infection entered.
There is a you know, it's often said that a
large share of people in the United States UH couldn't
cover an emergency four hundred dollar expense. Now, economists, practitioners

(26:44):
of what's called the dismal science, often have their own
political agendas. So you'll hear people on various policy platforms
say that's not entirely true. But what is, you know,
But whatever their opinion or their agenda is, the simple
fact of the matter is that even if COVID nineteen
never hit, financially, a lot of people are in dire straits.

(27:08):
Student loans are affecting a young demographic of this country
at such a massive scale that they're you know, not
having kids, they're not buying houses, They're laboring under something
that even bankruptcy won't erase. UH. Single medical emergency can
render even a well to do American household with two
income earners all the jazz it can, it can render

(27:31):
them bankrupt. They will be out on the street again
that is all before this pandemic hit. And now, um,
to your point, Matt, maybe people are unifying a little
bit more because they're starting to realize, um, how bad
things were before this began. Like, what's what's that old joke?
I'm sure it's a meme that you guys have seen

(27:52):
before where someone says, uh, they're talking to a cashier
and they say, wow, you know here the economy is great,
employment numbers are way up, and the cashier says, yeah,
tell me about it. I have three jobs myself. Um It.
I hate to laugh because maybe it's not the appropriate
time for gallows humor. But if if the depending on
how this is handled, we could we could very easily

(28:16):
enter a depression. Uh. And I don't want to be alarmists,
but it's something that we all need to be cognizant
of in the coming weeks and months well. And the
distribution of wealth too, that that we keep hearing about,
how you know, the top one per cent or whatever.
I mean, it really is this is exposing that rot
kind of and how there's so many people that are

(28:37):
just being eviscerated by this. My my ex wife, who
I'm very very close with, she is a massage therapist
gone no business, It's over, you know. I mean she
had to shut her her shop down. Her husband works
in the film industry, shuttered every single production, no work.
You know. Um, we're we're very lucky that we're able

(28:58):
to keep doing what we're doing from home. I mean,
we're incredibly lucky. I think, knock on wood every every day.
But I know many many people that are affected by
this directly. I have a question for you, guys, how
do you feel about the sort of mothering and the
race baiting elements that are starting to pop up, where
this idea of this as the quote unquote Chinese flu

(29:19):
and like like already setting the cards up to blame
another for this and to create an adversary that we
can actually, you know, fight with. I would say a scapegoat, right, because,
interestingly enough, there were a couple of statements from the
federal government here that blamed the Obama administration, the previous

(29:40):
presidential administration. And I was thinking, you know, as someone
who spends a great deal of time investigating conspiracy theories,
I have a hard time believing political leanings aside that
at some point during his presidency, uh, the Obama administration
said hey, let's release a pandemic in twenties money and

(30:00):
then did like the steeple their fingers all Monty Burn style.
That's just ridiculous. And you're right. You're not only right
about this country, dude, but other countries, as we'll find
later in this episode, other countries have been doing the
same thing. It's a global phenomenon. It's uh, it's unfortunate,
it's laughable, and it has a very it has very

(30:21):
real potential to lead to human deaths. Uh So this like,
you know, here in Atlanta, we've seen Asian American members
of the population get verbally abused. Uh getta get even
not here in Atlanta, that you know, but in parts
of the US, in parts of this country, there are
people who are getting the crap beat out of them

(30:44):
because they happen to look to their racist abusers, to
these criminals, they happen to look Asian. And uh that
that's truly, it's truly a disgusting thing. But I think
it's also indicative of that underwhelming feat or that underlying fear.
You know, people want something, like you're saying, people want

(31:05):
something else to blame. They want something they can hit
that's the same reason why and I'll say it. We
don't talk about too much on on the show, but
I'll say that's the same reason why the tragedy of
September eleventh, two thousand and one lad to UH lead
to a large scale military operation in countries that had

(31:28):
nothing to do with the tragedy. We needed someone to blame,
something to react to. You know what I mean? Am
I sounding crazy? No? No, No, that's exactly what it
is been. I mean, because you can't fight, you know, uh,
a virus. You can't really be angry at a virus.
You know, you can't shake your fist at it and
and call it horrible names. I mean, you could, but

(31:49):
it's a lot easier to assign blame to a country
that maybe we don't fully understand and maybe we already
are at odds with and culturally different than in many
other ways. It's just kind an easy scapegoat, like you say,
And to see that violence happen and actually playing out
with actual neighbors, you know, and people that live with
us and and next to us, is really really sad,

(32:11):
and that that's the that that sides can't handle that
it's just it's it's it's just taking a terrible situation
and just making it worse and allowing it to just
poison daily life and and and create this toxic environment.
I mean, they're already you were talking about the headline
at the top of the show about the gentleman that
was being accused of I believe terrorist threats for you know,

(32:32):
coughing on people. I mean, I'm seeing fights breaking out
at grocery stores where people are like, you know, stay
away from me, or I'll you know, hit you. I
mean that this is another the race thing. This is
literally just people being scared, and the atmosphere is already
one of paranoia and fear. To introduce that hatred into
it is just more than I can handle. You know,

(32:52):
A great way to contract COVID nineteen getting a close
combat situation with somebody, So like, maybe maybe layoff everybody
out there. Um, I'm gonna put something out here because
I know we need to move on. This is just
some I guess more of a shower thought. Let's say, um,

(33:13):
what if this is part of our super organisms move
toward the evolution of our species and toward the towards
the bringing on of this singularity where every not every,
but I would say a ton of people out there

(33:34):
working in some form of coding, some form of situation
where you only need a computer and an Internet connection
can function with their job specifically to assist in some
kind of electronic or um artificially intelligent field. Those jobs

(33:54):
are secure, those people will continue to function, and that
machine will continue to run just perfectly in this situation,
no matter what the pandemic, You can run that stuff
as long as the main, the major systems of electricity
and interconnectivity are functioning. Yeah. Yeah, well, I don't know

(34:15):
what do you think? I I see what I see
what you're saying, because there there's no question that we
are in um. I'll take ownership of this because I
screwed up and introduced the phrase. But we are going
to enter a new normal. You know, imagine a world
where people are so averse to physical interaction that you're

(34:37):
the majority of people you interact with. You do so
through an online platform or some sort of distancing like
a telephone or video conference, and you only meet people
in person on rare, almost ritualistic occasions. You know, you'll
date someone for years online and then you maybe you

(34:57):
meet when you move in together and put your weird
VR battle stations in the same room. And that's true love.
It's not like we don't have a head start already.
I mean, you know what I mean, We're so isolated
in that way through technology already. I mean, even my daughter,
you know, so much of her interactions and her friendships
are internet based. I just took her to see a

(35:20):
movie with a friend that she told me it was
her friends she'd known for years, and I realized they
were meeting for the first time in person that night
at that movie. It was a friend she made like
on this TikTok app with somebody local. And then before
any parents out there say you're crazy to let your
daughter it was somebody was a mutual friend of another friend.
It wasn't just some random person on the internet. But
I was shocked when she said, oh, yeah, I haven't

(35:42):
met her in person before, and she'd known her for
like over a year. I just thought, you know, it's
it's a very we do have a head start towards
that extreme version of the sciety of the already living
in right now that you're describing. You know, yeah, yeah, agreed.
As a matter of fact, you know, many of us
are many of us are a big fans of podcasts,
you know, both making them and listening to them. And

(36:04):
to your point about head start, Uh, you know we
have just just the four of us. Uh. We have
forged what we feel our sincere relationships with many of
our fellow listeners, people that we have never met, but
we know, like, we know stuff about each other, the
kind of details friends know, you know. So shout out

(36:26):
to Simon Workman for instance. Uh, shout out to multiple
people who like we talk to each other. We are
a community which will come into play later. And quick
shout out to Blake, who got a weird call for
me last night while I was in my car. Yeah,
I hope you're doing well. I hope everything's going well, buddy. Yeah.
And and I think that's tremendously important because the human

(36:49):
the human connection, our souls, if you want to use
that word, should not be bound by geography, should not
be bound by location. Um. And before I get to
Ted Talkie, I do want to put in one more
bad scenario. I'll just plan a seed and we can
move on to good stuff. Uh. One one more incredibly

(37:12):
plausible bad scenario that everyone should be thinking about is
this This is the perfect opportunity for an authoritarian government
to crack down on something. This is also the perfect
opportunity for a republic or democracy to shift to an
authoritarian mode of governance. And speaking of headstarts, we kind

(37:37):
of have that too, don't we in place right now?
In terms of the climate, the political climate right now?
You know, I'm I'm not seeing inklings of moving towards that,
But you're right, it wouldn't take much ben you're seeing
are you not seeing? But really, honestly, how how is
the November election is going to happen? Oh? That's a

(38:00):
I've been working on some stuff there. I want to
I want to pitch you guys on this. I I'm
gonna say it's not looking good. I know we're a
long way away. We're a long way away from Are
are we met? Are we? But relatively and given the
severity of what's going on, and depending on what we

(38:21):
see and just the next few days or weeks, especially months, uh,
we could be in a real situation where we have
to like we suspended tax day here in the United States,
or we we pushed it back, at least we pushed
back all kinds of um just within you know, personally,
healthcare deadlines and things like that. All kinds of things

(38:42):
like that are getting pushed back. Why would the November
election not end up getting pushed back for how long?
What does that look like? What does that mean? How
does that change stuff that's written in the constitution. It's
a really weird place we're going to. So why why
is it okay to do the census online but we
can't vote online? I've always wondered that. I've always wondered

(39:04):
why there wasn't more of a robust vote from home
situation or like it seems very antiquated the way we
conduct elections, the technology and the deployment of technology in
the voting process. Again here in the United States, is
is often moving at a glacial pace because every every

(39:25):
side capable of having voice in there, every side capable
of making a decision, has and has an agenda. You know.
It's like it's like with uh, It's like a company.
A corporation's goal is to make it shareholders happy, make
a year over year profit. Right, That's how capitalism works.
A political party's goal is going to tend to be

(39:49):
to strengthen the position of that political party. Therefore, they're
going to be adverse to moves that they see as
helping quote unquote other side, and they're going to be
very bullish on moves that they see as giving them
an advantage. So when it comes to it's like that
old um, that old quotation from India, when elephants wage war,

(40:13):
the grass suffers. Technologically, we absolutely could be voting online
or be voting by mail, but the opportunities for corruption
would have to be addressed in a substantive way. Uh,
you know, to your point, Noel, we can clearly do it.
The technology is there. We have the technology, as they

(40:35):
used to say in the six million Dollar Man, we
don't have the legislation and we don't we frankly do
not have enough honest caretakers of policy for that legislation
to be created, to be approved, and to be implemented. Technology,
as you know, long time listeners will always outpace legislation.

(40:57):
I think we I think it's fair to say you
know that, Uh, this government again just here in the US,
is still kind of playing catch up to television. We
never really figured out how to handle TV, and you know,
let alone MySpace, let alone TikTok. It's it's a crazy
time to be alive. It's true. Should we silver lining

(41:19):
playbook it? Now? What do you think? Yeah, let's go
for it. Good scenarios, Good scenarios. Well, let's look at
the things that came about due to the Great Depression.
Great Depression, horrific time in this country. Uh, it's weird
that it's named the Great Depression for a lot of people. Uh.
But but things that came out of it were things

(41:40):
like the New Deal. These are things that even the
most um even people who find themselves on the most
extreme version of the libertarianism scale, can agree with. You know. Uh,
the New Deal gave us a tremendous amount of infrastructure
that did not exist before. Or it also gave people

(42:01):
tremendous opportunity in terms of employment. And the New Deal
in general objectively made made the US on the ground
a better place. Did it open up doors for overarching
big brother government control? Well yeah, obviously, I mean that

(42:23):
stuff wouldn't pass this week, but who knows a few
months from now, so so there could be a large
scale h readjusting of US society, at least that is
less cruel towards the majority of people living here. I
don't know if that's wealth distribution. I don't know if
that's um better medical care, you know what I mean.

(42:45):
There there's a number of ways that could work out,
but that's one possible good scenario, you know. And then
to Matt's point, maybe we will finally assume humanity's role
as uh midwife for transition an old stage to a
more highly evolved life form. You know, the cyborgs, the
Singularity people, the what would what will we call it? It?

(43:09):
Would it wouldn't be um? Would it be like instead
of Homo sapiens. Would it be like homo whatever means
wise in Latin, right, Homo sagasius. It'll just be you know,
our our metal selves, our electronic versions that that somehow

(43:29):
exists for longer periods and can do anything and everything
that your phone can do. I wanted to give this
to you guys really quickly. Bill Gates came forward yesterday
gave a bit of a ted talk and said that
the best case scenario within the United States is to
have six to ten weeks of total isolation from one

(43:52):
another in order to minimize the economic impacts on on
the country. UH So, like six to ten weeks is
the minimum amount that you could have in order to
see recovery from an economic standpoint within twenty days after that.
And let's not forget he should know. I mean a
lot of the work of the Bill and Melinda Gates

(44:12):
Foundation is fighting disease and in the Third World countries
like malaria and and all of that. So, I mean,
I bet you this. I don't think Bill Gates does
anything like just off the cuff like that. I mean,
I'm sure there's some data going into that statement. He
made a bit of a snark at the administration's you know,
very pie in the sky easter um reopened the country

(44:35):
for business, uh idea and saying, oh, crazy people are
back out buying houses and and and uh going to
restaurants and oh, don't pay no mind to that pile
of bodies over there or whatever. You know. I mean,
he definitely has a pretty dark outlook on on that
idea from the from the government. Yeah, I agree. I

(44:57):
think a lot of people listening, how maybe hold a
lot of distrust for billionaires such as Bill Gates in
in you know, I would have to say personally, I
feel that a lot of times I think you know,
I think we all do a bit, but in a
scenario like that, as as Noel stated there, it is

(45:20):
somebody who has worked with infectious disease across the world.
So I've always thought Bill seemed like one of the
good ones, you know, I don't know, that's just my
my gut feeling about him as as a person. Remember
that episode we did, We're talked about how wealth kind
of changes you as a person in a lot of ways,
not necessarily for everyone, but that's what always Yeah, no,

(45:44):
I agree, that always makes me a little suspicious. I
was holding back for a second. And before we move on,
I want to point out something that may surprise you guys.
Have you heard of Event to zero one? No? Okay,
so uh so back in October, Event two zero one

(46:08):
was hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
This focused on something eerily prescient, emergency preparedness in the
event of a quote severe pandemic. I just want to
plant that seed. Promise will come back to it because
it has a place in the next act of today's episode.

(46:31):
We've painted a little bit of a good a bad scenario.
Now we have to ask ourselves, what if there's more
to this story. We'll answer this question after a word
from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Conspiracy theories

(46:53):
about the novel coronavirus are spreading almost as quickly as
the infection itself. So we we're going along today. UH.
So we can't get to everything that we had planned,
but UH rounded up a few of the more prominent
conspiracy theories making the news today. We want to let

(47:13):
you know ahead of time, conspiracy realists, These do range implausibility.
Some of them are more likely to be true than others.
I'll go and get started here. Early on, as this
story and um, this virus it was all developing, there
were so many people out there saying that the disease
that develops from this virus is not real, that it's exaggerated,

(47:36):
it's not that bad, or it's a hoax entirely, and
it was something that was basically a story that was
put in place to try and distract people from other
things that were going on in the news or the world.
And you know, there were so many different things that
people were pointing to, whether it was an election or
you know, industry and possible um looting problems and actual

(48:02):
grim outlooks on that it just spanned the gamut of
things that this virus was distracting us from really looking at.
And the first idea is that the threat, you know,
is in some way exaggerated. Um, and you know, uh,
we know now that that is certainly not the case, right, Yeah,

(48:22):
So so your name three kind of takes on the
concept of a hoax, that it's entirely a hoax, or
it's that's exaggerated, entirely a hoax, or that it's a
smoke screen for lack of a better phrase. Yeah, you're right, man,
it's not the case. In fact, it appears that leadership
in most countries in the world did the opposite of

(48:43):
exaggerating this. They initially underestimated this virus, both in terms
of its transmission rate and in terms of its deadly nature.
And and a ton of people, often for the best
reasons ever, a ton of people were quick to try
to quell alarmism around COVID nineteen by saying, you know,

(49:04):
it's no worse than the flu. You have probably seen this,
fellow conspiracy realists. Uh, you've seen the statements on social media.
Maybe one of your distant relatives gave you an email
with like seventeen forwards on it. Maybe you heard it
from friends, especially during the early days. Whatever those people's

(49:24):
intentions were, they were categorically demonstrably incorrect. And and now
we have to tackle the the concept that you've heard before, folks,
that COVID itself is not exaggerated. It's not a smoke screen, uh,
or maybe it is, but it's entirely a hoax. All
that stuff you're hearing on the news is made up.

(49:45):
There's another thing people said often in the early days,
and it's a view that some people maintain today. In fact,
the president of the United States, the current president, uh,
called it a hoax earlier. Do you guys remember that?
Oh yeah, yeah, And it's crazy. I heard a thing
on NPR the other day where it was is Hannity,
who's kind of the real bully ish kind of pundit

(50:08):
um who who tends to just like say some of
these more outlandish claims. Um he uh said, He literally said,
imparting some of what the president had said, that this
was a left wing hoax intended to discredit the president
and screw with his re election prospects, right. Um. And
then you know, the president had said something along those lines,

(50:30):
obviously not quite that uh explicit. But then when the
President came out, when things started getting real and started talking,
and he started to kind of shifted and and and said,
you know, sort of doing some revisionist history, saying, oh,
I've we've my administration has been handling this, you know,
with the utmost concern uh and attention from day one.

(50:51):
Hannity then flipped his script and just started praising the
President for his uh, you know, masterful handling of this
of this uh this band amc and I mean talk
about you know, double speak. I mean, it's just it
was mind boggling to me. I want to jump to
the concept that President Trump called the coronavirus a hoax.

(51:12):
Did you guys see the Snopes article on this? I did. Yeah.
So essentially this is I'm just gonna quote this. Everybody
hears this. Um. He was discussing the coronavirus in late
February of in South Carolina, and according to Snopes, he
likened the democrats criticism of his administration's response to the

(51:35):
coronavirus outbreak as their new hoax. So quote, this is
their new hoax. So he does, in a way call
it a hoax, but it's it's interesting. It's just interesting
the way the wording goes to play there, but he's
certainly downplaying the severity and the importance of it. Well,

(51:55):
the president later and later press conferences, and I have
the timeline available. Um, if if you want this just
right to me, I'll send it to you. Uh. He
later denied making that statement the way it was advertised
in the press, and he argued that it was mischaracterized
on purpose. This leads us to something important, and that's

(52:17):
why I'm really glad you brought up the Snopes article,
matt Um. I know that we have to cut a
lot of conspiracies in today's episode, but for this, this
is a tool you can use when you're attempting to
determine the veracity of any claim, whether it's flat Earth
to what sandwich your your friend had on Thursday. Your
first step has to be finding sources that argue for

(52:40):
or against the statement. Then you compare them. So at
this point you will still find people arguing that COVID
nineteen itself is entirely a hoax, and you can consider
them a primary source for that opinion or that viewpoint. However,
if you look at the other side, you will find many, many,
many more people, people with firsthand experience from either contracting

(53:02):
the illness or combating it in the new front line
of this global war, hospitals, clinics, and e r s
across the planet. Those people will all argue that this
is very much real. So, regardless of what we all
may want to be true, the sheer mass, verifiable, proven
sources indicate that COVID is no hoax. But to that

(53:25):
third question you raised, Matt, what if this is an opportunity? Yeah,
this is even more disturbing, UM, and it's something that
we really need to spend a little bit of time on.
Uh So, while COVID probably wasn't planned by a nation
or an institution some kind of uh you know, biological
warfare conspiracy, it certainly presents an opportunity for some unethical

(53:50):
behavior like we talked about earlier. Here are some of
the hypothetical examples. And this goes again with our our
discussions earlier. UM. Shut down protests can't have people gathering,
So no protests, right, depriving people of their civil rights,
you know, under the guise of it being a public
health measure. Right, you could also try and pass some

(54:10):
kind of controversial legislation. Uh. We're seeing how well, as
we discussed earlier, the left and right in encamped sides
of the United States government in Congress are are functioning
right now, just as everyone's coming together. Maybe you could
use this as a way to get something through. Slip
it through while we're all working together. Do we talk

(54:32):
about this on a previous episode, The insider trading that's
going on, and how no one's getting in trouble for it.
It's insane. I mean, look to me, the thing you
just described, Ben is like the political equivalent of price gouging,
like medication that would cure people, you know, I mean
it is so immoral. I I can't even handle it. Uh.

(54:55):
And and and yeah, the whole insider trading thing. I mean,
there's a lawmaker from here in Georgia who just got
popped for it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. And and they
had downplayed the threat, uh and then went to this briefing. Um,
and then you know, sold off millions of dollars worth
of stock. And how that's not insider trading. I don't

(55:15):
know it is it is, But there are there are
a lot of loopholes. So just the name names, and
so everybody doesn't feel like we're picking on one senator
because they happen to be from our state. Uh. The
names that we know now, the four the four senators
across the board who lied to the public while they
were dumping their own stock fortunes like a fire sale.

(55:38):
Are these, uh, Senator Burr, Senator Feinstein, Senator Loafler, and
Senator in Hofe. There's another thing we got to talk about.
This is a fantastic opportunity if you're if you're an
overarching government, there's a fantastic opportunity to nationalize private businesses.
In the time of crisis, many governments are opening the

(56:01):
door uh to there. Well, we're making laws or we're
activating laws that uh that opened the door to widespread
nationalization of key industries like energy, transit, medical, manufacturing, even agriculture.
Now there are some people, of course, will say, well,
that would be a fantastic thing, But of course, on

(56:22):
this show, we're of the mind that fantastic things, uh,
you know, are are even more fantastic when they're transparent.
And of course, as you know, there's another opportunity to
crack down on minority or opposition groups. This is all
happening once, but it's stuff to be aware of. One thing.
One thing I wanted to ask you guys about, Matt Noel,

(56:43):
uh was something I was surprised to find people so
ardent about. It is the concept of five G and
the coronavirus. Have you guys heard about this? I have
not been so multiple people. This surprised me to know
multiple people have been posing a link between COVID nineteen
and five G technology. I guess we should we should

(57:06):
pause for a second. I'm I'm going to defer defer
to you, Matt, what exactly is five G. We we
hear the name thrown around a lot, but like on
the on the most like bare bones level. What what
the heck is that stuff? I literally have no idea. Uh,
it's one more than four G. It's something that we

(57:28):
need to discuss with Jonathan Strickland and have him on
to discuss that. I think we've we've been mentioning a
couple of times to him, so hopefully we can get
him on to truly explain to us what five G is.
Is it like fundamentally different than four G? Is it
a completely different transmission medium. It's gonna be rolled out
a lot differently where the signals are going to be

(57:48):
transferred back and forth from your devices. They're gonna be
located in different places throughout your neighborhood or wherever you live. Um,
it's a you know, it's slightly different frequency bands. There's
all kinds of interesting interesting stuff there, and it's way
too much to unpack right now, but just know that
it is a slightly different version of what you're using

(58:08):
for your cell phone right now, unless you're already using
five G. Yeah, we have a we have an episode
on this where the research is still solid from February
nineteen called cell Phones, five G and Cancer, which which
goes into some of the nuts and bolts of how
five G works. But I think no knowing this, we know,

(58:34):
you know, you don't have to go back and listen
to that episode. Of course we would love it because
every time you listen to an episode, our our boss
sends us a personal text and says, we have one
more day before we're fired, so please tune in. The Uh.
The thing about five G that should trip everybody up
when we hear this is the concept that somehow a

(58:55):
wireless phone field could what a accelerate or exacerbate the
spread of a virus. Here's the initial connection. So the
PRC China turned on some of its first five gen
networks in December, and uh, people who are you know

(59:16):
picking up that kind of xenophobic vibe you described earlier.
All they're quick to say, well, you know, the coronavirus,
if it's real, came from China and they also turned
on their five gen networks for the first time, so
they attempt to draw a link between the two. A casual,
a causual link. We have we have specific examples of

(59:39):
the kind of stuff which that people are talking about
in this regard. Uh, and you can watch it for
yourself on Facebook. Heck, you can join you we found
a group that you can join. Yeah, it's a Facebook
group called stop five g UK Facebook group. Very creative dame. Yeah,
and you know, I mean then these kind of conspiracy
theories abound whenever there's some kind of new tech that
comes out, and a especially you know, people are very

(01:00:01):
skittish about the idea of things transmitted through the air. Um.
But yeah, I think you know, four g is is
is approximately a gigabit Ethernet connection equivalent and five G
would be like multiple gigabit speed. But you're right, the
infrastructure is different. But we do we should get Jonathan
Strickland and to talk about it. But this, so, this, this,
this whole concept seems like a stretch to me. As

(01:00:22):
Ben mentioned, we did talk about it, but we talked
about it well before it was ever actually turned on. Um,
so I'm very much interested in seeing how it's developed,
how it is actually rolling out, because I don't know
if you guys remember we had that uh gentleman on
here named David Ike. Do you remember what he told

(01:00:43):
us about five G? What did he say in that?
Refresh my memory please? He gave us a dire warning
about five G and how it was one of the
most terrifying things that was coming and it was going
to spell essentially the end of the world. I'm gonna
go on record and say, you know that that that

(01:01:04):
that feels a little alarmist. Again, I'm not an expert. Uh.
That interview, I can't remember if we did it before
the seven year study came out that was attempting to
debunk these worries. Uh. But I also want to point
out that you know, when you and I on that interview,
asked David Ike about his accusations of anti Semitism. Uh,

(01:01:31):
he still didn't. I don't know, man, I don't know.
I don't know if he's the best I'm not saying
he's the best source. I'm just saying, in my mind,
what is repeating is what David Ike said to us,
and and he was saying that it was going to
harm people. And I can see why a Facebook group

(01:01:52):
maybe that was either listening to David or other people
talking about five g um would then connect those two,
given that China did activate quite a bit of its
five Gen networks UM in that time frame, right around
December nineteen. So I but I mean, I don't know,
are we really calling into question the origin of the

(01:02:15):
of the COVID nineteen No, that is not what I'm doing.
What about you? I just mean this theory seems to
do that fundamentally. What what is the is the notion
that that all of that is just smoke and that
it's just a cover up for the real, the real
bad actor, which is this technology. I would just say
it's a really bad coincidence that happened to line up

(01:02:38):
in a time frame with some of these fears, I
would say also to your point, um, while we're while
we're playing some pepe A Sylvia, which is which is
a great idea for a board game that would come
out with if I didn't think always Sunny would sue us.
But while we're playing pepe A Sylvia, I want to
point out that, uh, that David Ike was right about

(01:03:00):
the pedophilia UH in in the United Kingdom. No matter
what you want to say about the guy, you can
call mc crank or whatever, but he was right about
the active cover up of child abuse for decades in
the United Kingdom. And also spoiler alert if you don't
want to listen to all the episodes, Yes, the people
who did that are going to get away. There's there

(01:03:22):
apparently above the law. But being you know, a broken
clock can be right twice a day, right, So this
doesn't mean he's automatically right about UH five G predictions. Uh.
The people who are claiming that five G what what
the really what they tend to claim is that, uh,
the delatorious health effects of five G are being conflated

(01:03:45):
with the uh, the symptoms of coronavirus. So it's your point. No,
the people who believe this. Ultimately, the majority of the
moragoning that coronavirus was not actually virus at all. They say,
it's just it something the media is using to cover
up illnesses and death attributed to exposure to five G technology. Um,

(01:04:08):
there's there's one example of this, a guy named Mark Steele,
who I think is an excellent just snapshot here, because
we have to remember a lot of the people participating
with the five G coronavirus conspiracy have just sort of
folded this enormous global panic into their pre existing opposition

(01:04:29):
to five G. Mark Steele was making waves all the
way back in two thousand and eighteen because he said
his local city council was causing pregnant women to miscarry
when they were walking under street lamps that were outfitted
with five G technology. Uh. The local government, by the way,
rejected his allegations. There's no proven link between the tech

(01:04:53):
and COVID. There's also no proven link furthermore, of any
single case of wireless technology spreading a viral infection in general.
You know what I mean, There's no like nobody nobody
got a viral infection because they heard a telegraph message,

(01:05:13):
if that makes sense, right, That's that's what I'm saying, Like,
you know, sure I could see blaming or you know,
being concerned about other health risks associated with the stuff
because it hasn't been tested and we haven't really seen
it rolled out. And you know, the idea that cell
phones cause cancer, we've we've done episodes on that and
we that was that's a little bit the jury is
kind of out, but there's some evidence that maybe there

(01:05:35):
there's some some truth to that. But how does a
transmission of data cause a viral infection or carry a novel,
you know, virus. The the allegation there is that it
is not a virus. It is just effects of the
radiation emanating from the technology and the devices. Shout out

(01:05:58):
to everybody who just looked at there. You just looked
at your phone now and he saw that little five
G icon. Shout out to you. You're gonna be okay.
And here for now is where we leave it. Hang on,
why weren't you guys talking about the religious allegations or
the religious conspiracy theories. Why weren't you talking about the

(01:06:21):
various panaceas and snake oil cures. Why aren't you talking
about the fact that numerous governments have accused other governments
of creating COVID nineteen as a weapon. Well, our answer
to that is that we have to save something for
Part three. Also Peak behind the Curtain, Paul, Mission Control
is going to kill us if we if we make

(01:06:42):
this like a three hour episode. Uh. So on on
the Google hangout, we can see Paul's face down there
below and it looks like a smile but I am
definitely reading it as a scowl right now. No, that's
just a still I know, but it just I can't
tell how angry it is, but it does look so. Uh.
Apologies for not getting to a lot of things I

(01:07:05):
know are very much on the front of our fellow
listeners minds today, but tune in because we will be
doing a Part three, which is even more of a
deep dived into the conspiracy theories that we didn't get
to today. I'm honestly sad about it because some of
them are a little more plausible. Uh. And we're also

(01:07:26):
going to be looking at the developing situation at this
point again March. The scariest conspiracy remains the one we
mentioned in our initial episode on COVID nineteen. China conspired
to keep this quiet. Other countries conspired to downplay the
long term consequences and the threat of this, including the

(01:07:49):
United States, and now the world collectively is paying for
those decisions. We are paying for those conspiracies, and the
bill has yet to come do so. While while you're
hanging out wherever you are right now, staying safe and
isolating yourself, UM, make sure to reach out to us.
We are available on the internet in a ton of places.

(01:08:12):
Were conspiracy stuff on Twitter and Facebook. You can find
our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy. I'll just
go there. We can talk about anything COVID or not
covid UH and just discuss any episodes, give us ideas
for new episodes. If you don't want to do that,

(01:08:32):
go to Instagram. You find us there. We are our
conspiracy stuff show. You can also find us as individual
human people. UH. You can follow our our our quarantine stories.
If you wish mine you can find at Instagram. UM
I am at how now Noel Brown. If you wish,

(01:08:53):
you can find me on Twitter and Instagram. I'm doing
some exciting projects on Twitter. I very much like you
to be a part of them. Check out at them
bullet hs W. You can also follow my various misadventures
on Instagram at then bullet. You can find me at
the untuned Jim Bay. Uh, good luck. I should be

(01:09:13):
there somewhere, tweeting all day long. Um, King Crimson Sun,
I love that. Oh, I don't know. That's wonder If
that's not a really that's not really a thing. You
cannot find me. Do you have an untuned Jim Bay?
Is this? Yes, it's sitting right next to me. I
can't tell because it's very dark in the background there, Yes, yes, yes,
purposeful my friend. If you don't want to do any

(01:09:35):
of that stuff, you can leave us a message. We
have a number you can call. It is well in
eight three three st d w y t K. Give
us a call, leave us a message, and um, you
might be part of the show, especially during these our
new weird times. And if you don't want to do that,
you can always send us a good old fashioned email.

(01:09:56):
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Yeah. Stuff

(01:10:18):
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