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May 15, 2015 53 mins

The news about the so-called "EM Drive" has been all over the headlines... but is it true? Join Matt and Ben to learn more.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to ghosts and government cover ups. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back to the show. My name is Matt I
am Ben and we are here with our super producer

(00:24):
Noel a k A. Ghost Walker Brown an k A.
Warp level nine a k A. What else? Why not
warp level ten as well? I mean both that's dangerous,
that's like super saying Noel Brown, Yes, it's true. And uh.
Before we get started today, we want to thank those

(00:44):
of you who wrote in with some some fantastic feedback
regarding our earlier episode on Jade Helm. Oh. Yes, thank
you for writing in. We got several interesting different perspectives
that were apart from our own respectives on this and
uh man, it's it's great to read your opinions and

(01:05):
even these your little insights. Especially. We had someone who
is a former soldier who wrote in. Yeah. We had
several on YouTube as well, some Facebook messages, some tweets.
We had some people who live in the areas, yes right,
and we had some updates and we had you know,
it's interesting because we had several people who were saying

(01:27):
I can assure you with absolute certainty that nothing at
all is going down. It's just sensationalism, which we asked about.
And then we had several people right in and say,
I can assure you with absolute certainty that something is happening. Yeah,
and I think that that's kind of the space in
which we live. There's a lot of certainty out there,

(01:47):
but but not there's not a lot of evidence. A
lot of times behind those either side of those statements, right, yeah,
Often a certainty is like an opinion or a well
this is a family show, but you know what I mean. Uh. So,
we we just wanted to uh, we just wanted to
thank everybody for checking that out. If you have not

(02:09):
seen or listen to our recent episodes on military exercises
and the one started in July here in the US
called jade Helm fifteen, then please do please do avail
yourself of it, check it out, let us know what
you think. Uh. Today we are talking about something completely

(02:29):
different because you know, as we said, spoiler alert. Uh,
Matt and Noel and I have a few irons in
the fire. We've got some schemes cooking, and as a result,
we have been checking out some of our classic episodes
moving into a new channel. And this week we did
something that I really enjoyed at the time. Um and

(02:53):
I I still am fascinated by it. Yes, alptic energy,
the horonymous machine. Yeah man, it's it's it's a cool idea.
And anytime we talk about free energy or somehow harnessing
energy that just exists in this Star Wars Mediclorean world
that we live in, apparently like radionics or gone. I

(03:17):
won't add Thetan's because technically, against spoiler alert, they are ghosts, yes,
weird's Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right. Alien ghosts, yes,
And well you know, perhaps one day we will learn
how to harness them without because I man, I can't

(03:39):
right be able to harness the Thetan's inside each other.
That's that's interesting. Well, uh, now that now that we
have once again flirted with litigation by the Church of
Scientology at least one time, it's in our contracts, let's
go ahead and just like a quick recap of this

(04:00):
all optic energy. As he said, it's sort of an
ambient thing. It's supposed to be all around us, and
it can be focused through these devices, these hieronymous machines
devices named after the guy who invented them quote unquote T.
Galen Heronymous, exactly fascinating character and interesting story. He was

(04:24):
a he was idolized by a sci fi editor at
the time back and you know, fifties, forties, sixties, and uh,
he did a somewhere in their match. And this guy
Campbell took it a step further and said, not only
do these machines work, but because it's harnessing this unknown

(04:46):
power and listeners, I'm like pointing to my forehead like
a crazy person. Now I assume it's uh. Campbell assumed
it was a psionic power of some sort of psychic ability.
And so Campbell argued that you didn't have to build
the device. You could just draw the schematic of the
diagram right and it would have the same effect. And

(05:10):
you could place things objects in certain areas of this
diagram on a piece of paper that you've drawn it out,
and you could somehow harnessed through that object like a
memory or a There are all kinds of things you
could do with this device with a piece of paper
and the diagram, And you know, with your your mind,

(05:31):
it's all your minds being your own thing. Or being
the primary mover the engine here. Uh. Horonymous himself objected
to this, and and although he thought Campbell's heart was
in the right place, his intentions were good, YadA YadA, YadA. Uh.
He believed that this guy had accidentally set back this

(05:52):
science of radionics by a century or more because the
way that he built these devices is you would take
a substance of some sort of sample, and you would
put it in this little tray or receiving area, and
then you would be able to um, be able to
affect that by modifying or or I guess harvesting, collecting,

(06:15):
and and focusing this uh radionic energy, which is not proven,
certainly not proven. Yeah, I don't think it is out
of the realm of possibilities, especially you know, as we're
starting to tackle what we're going to tackle this episode, right, Yeah,

(06:35):
there might be something there, um, but you know, for now,
we we in no way can prove this and nobody
can I understand. And you know, it is quite possible
that we have yet to encounter all the forms of
energy affecting the reality in which we live. You know,
it would be tremendously arrogant to say that we have

(06:59):
figured it all all out. You know, we are still
in what future historians would likely call the Dark Ages.
But but point being like Horonymous, one interesting thing I
can't remember from made into the video, which you sure
watch if you haven't launched it yet. Uh it's uh,
there's there's this quote he has that we mentioned earlier,
and he's talking about setting back the science a hundred

(07:21):
years or something. He says that this is the thing though, Matt.
He says that those diagrams worked when Campbell did them.
They actually were Horotomous machines because the guy used India Inc.
Which Horonomous said was conductive. I know, I can hear
them more skeptical people in our in our audience now,

(07:41):
just as their eyebrows raise and their eyes roll. Uh.
One of them made it into the studio. Huh, but
but do check it out. And this got us thinking.
This concept of a optic energy got us thinking to
something that you and I have looked at several times before,
like free energy, or suppression of energy or um or

(08:03):
excuse me, suppression of technology, alternative energy, zero point energy,
all these different propositions that we here get lauded and
vilified and uh mostly most often just not accepted by
mainstream science. Today, we're going to talk about the newest

(08:26):
version of that. But before we get there, we have
to ask a question. I have to ask you a question,
and it's it's actually one of our our bosson our
boss's favorite questions. Uh So, our boss is a guy
named Jason. He's our CCO. And one of the questions
you like to ask people is what's your favorite Star

(08:47):
Wars or Star Trek or do you have one? I
think I've addressed this before on this show maybe, and
it is Star Trek. However, I did just get back
from the Star Wars convention and I was starting to
turn a little little bit star star Wars, starting to
turn towards Star Wars, just because when you're around that
kind of fandom, I think it's it's a bit infectious.

(09:10):
Um and especially when you're with someone like Holly Fry,
who is one of the one of the is she's
an editor here, I believe she's an editor and the
host of stuff you missing history class. She was with us,
and she is such an avid fan that I was, man,
I was getting pulled that direction. But for me, the
science of Star Trek, the it's a bit I would

(09:31):
say a little harder on the science and that it
sticks a little bit closer to the known physics, although
it does extrapolate a whole bunch to get things like
the warp drive. Yes, yes, um, but it's you know,
it's it's trying to be as in line with it
as possible. And also the social sciences aspect of Star

(09:52):
Trek I think is stronger. Ah. Yeah, the the post
industrial society is a neat argument, and the there's a
mystice is um of course, the Star Wars right, oh yeah,
and and a lot I think I I have not
I have not made a call on either of those.
Well that's probably a smart idea, because let's just wait
until what I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get so much

(10:13):
hate for saying that. And I'm sorry Star Wars fans.
I do love Star Wars. It's just not the same.
I love you Star Wars, but I'm in love with
Star Trek. And that's exactly right, all right, But nail
on the head here, man, because if we're talking about
Star Trek, we're talking about the warp drive in here,
and and what like, what is a warp drive? Well,

(10:35):
it's a it's an engine for a spacecraft that would
allow the travel, allow the craft and the inhabitants everything
inside it to travel faster than light, so everyone in
the rest of the world. It's two million, seven thousand,
four hundred and fifty eight meters per second. Yeah, that
seems that seems like it might be dangerous for the

(10:58):
whole of a ship. I'm saying, well, sure, I mean,
it's it's tough, and it's a theoretical engine, but it
was it's cantalized humanity since we solidified the underlying laws
of physics, and that's that's part of the problem with
a warp drive, right, Yeah, it's something that we've it's
a dream that we've had since then, right, and the

(11:20):
the thought of being able to achieve that, um man.
I think it's driven a lot of people in the
field right now, in the field of physics, like the
that kind of dream. Yeah. And even before we really
had UH codified what would become the laws of modern
physics as we understand them today, in UH, there were

(11:44):
numerous people who were, you know, building religions based off
stuff seen in the heavens, writing stories about going there,
staring into the sky, inventing uh, different means of trying
to discern what was happening or nearest celestial neighbors. But
the way we get there as always or often has

(12:08):
in almost every single case eluded us except for or
at least and we're talking about manned exploration here. That's
that's one of the big deals. But the laws of
physics have been around for a long time. Philosophers knew
about these, other people explored them due to these slow,
steady grind of history. Uh, we don't we you know,

(12:30):
we can't say with certitude who actually discovered these things first,
because maybe a record of them doesn't remain sure. But
what we can say is that the credit for the
codification of like the laws of motion goes to a
guy named Isaac Newton for the three laws he created.

(12:51):
That's right, the three laws. So the first one that
hopefully you remember these from school, guys, I vaguely do. Um.
The first laws that every object object will remain at
rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless
it is compelled to change it's state by the actions
of some internal force. So it's gonna keep going where
it's going or staying where it's staying unless something else

(13:12):
comes in and knocks it um. The second law concerns
how the velocity of an object changes when it's subjected
to an external force, so it slows down, speeds up,
these kind of things. And the third law, this is
probably the most famous law, is that for every action,
there is an equal and opposite reaction. And that's you know,

(13:34):
the idea of when a ball hits another ball that
have roughly the same mass, you're gonna see the ball
that gets hit move in the opposite direction that the
ball of which hit it. Yes, right, exactly. And these
these laws so far have not been disproven, right, No,

(13:54):
not yet, not yet, And it's okay to say, it's
okay to add not yet on their because we could
also add probably never will be disproving. But I think
I think it's best to hedge our bets and say
they haven't been disproven yet as far as we know,
at least on Earth. We're like, we're pretty sure that's
those are the rules. But we are faced with again

(14:16):
the relative impossibility of a warp drive. At least the
appearance of impossibility pales in comparison to the benefit that
this kind of technology could give us. I mean, imagine, Okay,
if for the Star Trek fans out there, and for
the Star Wars fans, just imagine every time you saw

(14:36):
one of those long pans of the inky black and
and the tiny pinpricks of stars. Right. Uh, this illustration
of the sheer possibly unknowable size of the universe, uh,
not to mention the space in between heavenly objects, means
that human beings cannot travel to another star within a

(14:58):
person's lifetime, not with their current technology. Right. Yeah, And
if you think about it, we're still, let's be a
little crass about it, we're still like taking the liquefied
remains of dinosaurs and making them explode to power space travel. Yeah,
if oil is actually made out of dinosaurs. Ben well,

(15:20):
the majority of oil is not made out of dinosaurs,
as you know. No, but that's a that's a crazy point.
That's that's the way we are still getting out of
our atmosphere. Yeah, into uh near or near Earth orbit,
uh to the moon, or or sending even um rovers

(15:40):
into two Mars. Right. So this gives us a few
options then for any any intrepid human beings or human
groups wishing to travel beyond the stars because they got
swept up in that Carl Sagan speech. Right, well, okay,
so I've got the first off, and I don't know
if it's really an option. I guess it is an option.

(16:03):
Just give up, Just give up, just put it down,
just you know, go back watch an episode of Daredevil
and that's it. Well now, or fixed problems that exist
on Earth. Oh, now, that's interesting. So it's not it's
maybe it's maybe it's a reprior prioritization. That's an interesting idea. Um.

(16:28):
I think it's probably a bad one. But that's okay.
What else can we do? Oh? This is exciting. We
could try to build gargantuan, gigantic arcs uh and put
a little piece of Earth in their human beings. Animals,
plants have a biome that's slowly crawling through the ink

(16:49):
towards some alien destination over like millions of years, while
the entire civilizations and species rise and fall like a
starship Earth kind of thing, like a little miniature version. Yeah,
do you do you when you envision this? Do you
envision a spherical thing or do you envision like a
enterprise type thing that it's got all the like it

(17:11):
looks like a ship, It just got the interior of Earth.
I envisioned an inevitable breakdown. Oh sorry, I don't think. Yeah,
I don't. I don't think we could do it. I'm
pretty skeptical. Maybe it's just a science fiction but there
there's so many problems that we have not thought of,
Like what happens to a what happens to a woman

(17:36):
who has has a child, right, conceives a child and
then bears it to term in space and repeat that
over How many generations are you speaking of an evolution
of what a human would become in that kind of environment. Well,
you know, over over that span of time, it might

(17:57):
be likely that certain traits would select for evolution. And
I guess it also depends on how many people are there,
what kind of gene pool are we talking about? But
I was I was just talking about the ability to
survive and reproduce successfully, Because what happens for the first
generation of children growing up in space will there uh?

(18:20):
Will their limbs their limbs right, will probably not be
as developed most there some sort of continually functioning gravity, right, uh,
And who knows if they'll be able to reproduce. Oh man,
So that's that's one way clearly not perfect, clearly not perfect?
All right, Well, is there any other thing we could do? Well?

(18:41):
Here is here is I think our best and closest option.
What's that? Just let's devise a different way to travel
through space, h right, and also also a different way
to get to space, yes, or you know, to outer
space to escape Earth's gravity. So so, what's all this

(19:04):
that we've been hearing for the past what year three
about people discovering a new kind of warp drive. Well,
you know, we've talked about the some of the possibilities
of a plasma engine. There have been a lot of
stories that you'll find on online about different ideas for
how to propel a ship once you're once you're in space.

(19:27):
And that's where this most recent one comes in, the
m drive. And uh, this thing is fascinating in the
least it's a prototype rocket, is it? You know? Is
it the real life warp drive? Maybe, at least that's
the way it's being described. It's this gentleman named Roger

(19:49):
Shawyer there share And here's the thing. He claims his
engine generates thrust by bouncing microwaves around inside this enclosed
metal funnel. And since there's no mass or energy emerging
from the engine. He claims that this thing can propel

(20:10):
itself just through that, just through bouncing microwaves around inside
this thing. And and if that's true, this would violate uh,
some fundamental laws of physics. Yeah, specifically the third one. Uh,
kind of Isaac Newton's breakout single on his ep of
the Laws of Motion, which was the the third law

(20:31):
about action and reaction. According to a gentleman named Brian
Coberlin cobra Line, who is an astrophysicist at interview by
space dot com, Uh, that that's one of the primary
problems with this. It's what Shaw, you're the scientists. Shaw,
you're saying is that he is creating propulsion without a propellant,

(20:56):
a car without gas. Right, Yes, there's there would still
be energy expended, right because you if you wanted to
shoot microwaves into a thing, you're gonna have the power
whatever is firing the microwaves. Sure, yeah, and that, but
they're saying that the thrust they're getting when none exists
should be there and there's nothing, there's not a reaction

(21:19):
to the action, I guess. So people have attempted several
tests of this device and the listeners, you've probably heard
the headlines or read something about NASA testing it, right, Yeah, well,
well kind of NASA, I guess kind of tested it
because we know NASA is a massive organization, all kinds

(21:41):
of different moving parts, different parts of NASA UM all
these departments. But one of the departments is this tinle
outfit called Eagle Works. And uh, the staff is about
five scientists who test all kinds of unorthodox pieces of
technology for polection methods. It's headed up by Dr Harold

(22:03):
sunny White. Yep, and this group published a paper with
this drop dead sexy title, here goes anomalous thrust production
from an RF test device measured on a low thrust
torsion pendulum. Is he getting hot in here? So? Anyway,
this was back in and it was detailing experiments that

(22:26):
were conducted over a series of eight days in August
of Now here's the question, what's the anomaly that's occurring here? Well,
according to the reports these engines, by the way, there
are more than one. There's more than one m drive. Uh,
they appear to work on some small level. So under

(22:47):
testing they generated anywhere from fifty to seventy micro newtons
of I guess energy. As Professor Ethan Steviel notes, this
is less than the weight of a snowflake, which doesn't
seem very substantial to me. Uh, a guy sitting in
a room in Atlanta, Georgia that doesn't know much at
all about physics, you will also hear. You'll also hear

(23:10):
that in these tests, uh, fifty to seventy micro Newton's
is small enough that it might not clear the rate
of error in measuring it. Uh. So, well, here's the
here's the thing though, Even if it is that minuscule,
perhaps it is just an error in testing. But if
it's not, they seem to be getting this energy from nothing,

(23:37):
no fuel. Right. It's an idea that will send quite
a few physicists into a livid huff every time you
hear it. This is not the first time someone invented
an m drive or something. In China, female scientists name
while one young I believe I am mispronouncing that, and

(23:58):
I am sorry, doctor. Uh. She led a team of
folks and claim they had done it in two thousand
and twelve. Uh. And then they were if you look
at their papers, it's pretty technical. But they also they
were also measuring temperature as well. Um. And then a
guy named Guido Feda claims to have invented one too.

(24:21):
He called it they can Canna drive. And this is
the one that NASA Eagle Works tested. There's a difficulty
here because the groups did not receive the same consistent
results and they don't agree why it's happening, and no
one knows what's happening. And a lot of people, uh,

(24:43):
a lot of a lot of people are coming out
of the woodwork to say, you know, this is utter
bunk um and and and it's strange sometimes because again,
when one has to be rigorous when measuring these sorts
of things and have a decent methodology, but you also
find like a lot of character attacks where people are

(25:05):
people are saying, people are making the assumption that someone
is automatically misleading the public, which I think is um.
I think it's it's um funny, but I don't think
it's professional. Absolutely. It's that same thing that happens when
let's say the bones of physics are being challenged, right

(25:28):
because everyone in that field knows physics and they know
that this is the law and this is how it works.
And when someone comes along and says, well, perhaps that's
not how it works, right, that's very dangerous, uh to
most of the establishment, I would say, Um, but the
great thing about science is that they there's an understanding
that change must occur or at least some if new

(25:52):
information comes in that is valid, then the whole system
can integrate that. Right. Yeah, Yeah, and that that's a
great point. And the more extraordinary claim is is the
more extraordinary the evidence should be supporting it. That's what
a lot of people that That's what a a lot
of people would argue. Right. So then for something like
this been it would need a lot of money to

(26:12):
be basically injected in so that there could be vigorous
testing of some device like this to the point where
you could either outright prove that this is happening or not.
But it seems as though, I mean it's kind of
on the fringe, this little small group of NASA that's
being tested, that's testing it, sure, because you don't want
to spend a whole lot of money on something that

(26:33):
is probably nothing. Right. Well, there, let's keep in mind
that NASA Eagle works. Their task is to investigate these
things that have enormous risk in terms of costs and waste.
Of money, and potentially they're kind of they're playing a
lottery in R and D lottery because potentially there there

(26:54):
could be some huge benefit. But let's go ahead and
move to some pros and con about this. So we said,
the skeptics have some massive problems with this. What are
some of the cons Well, the first one is fairly obvious.
Why are the results of testing these M drives consistent?
If they if you're using a technology that is emerging

(27:15):
like this, and you have you could lock down the variables,
then you should get the same results every time, or
very similar results. Uh yeah. And then we also know
that they were saying, of course, are the biases of
the scientists skewing the test? Uh? You can read a
piece on Forbes about the M drive by a seagull,

(27:37):
I think the guy we mentioned earlier, and in that
you can tell it reads as though Seagull, this professor
Siegel has just had it up to an over here
and down the street and up the road with with
this thing, because it sounds like an angry person on
this um and he makes some he makes some very

(27:58):
valid points too. He says, why the same results, how
do we know that something else didn't come in, but
he also said, Uh, the guy in charge of NASA
Eagle Works is no isn't I think the phrase he
uses is notorious for his support of unorthodox ideas. That's great,
That's exactly what that group needs. Oh and here's another

(28:20):
thing we should at least think about. Is it is
it a possibility that these tests were somehow compromised? Right? Yeah, yeah,
we're because what we mean when we say compromised is
was there some sort of intervening variable that was not
found otherwise, Like the first test that NASA Eagle Works
did with feta's engine, I believe they they tested it,

(28:44):
but they didn't test it in a vacuum. So people
responded by saying, well, of course, it appears like something's happening.
It was somehow receiving some input from the surrounding environment.
So they responded by testing it in a back hume.
But NASA, who I feel bad for man, because you know,
NASA has to dodge these overly hype science journalists. I'm

(29:11):
sure constantly yes, with the BuzzFeed titles, right, NASA reporters
hate this shuttle find out why? Oh yeah they were.
They were quick to say, like this organization is not
researching a warp drive, because that was the headline, right,
But that that's not the only other con. There's a

(29:31):
there's another big con. Right. Well, yeah, this this wouldn't
in no way be a warp drive. Um. It might
get people, you know, to the Moon in a few
hours of it worked, let's say, but you're not going
to reach the kind of speeds that you would need
to go warp speed or faster than the speed of light. Um, yeah,

(29:53):
that that's not gonna happen. You won't be able to
get to Pluto, let's say, just to go out and
argue at it that it's it is or is not
a planet and then get back you know, the same day. Yeah,
and this this has been I it's got to be
disappointing to a lot of people should read this headline
about warp drive. But it's not. It wouldn't be warp

(30:14):
drive the way that Star Trek is warp drive. You're
not You're not going to some infinite velocity. And at
this point, even if humanity did possess some kind of
engine or thing that was capable of this sort of propulsion,

(30:34):
we do not have the material science to build anything
that could withstand it. What do you shooting? How do
you move anything else with that drive? How does the
drive even go that fast? Now, we would just be
shooting an engine by itself into space, and maybe it can't.
Maybe we find it from an alien civilization and maybe
they couldn't build anything that could use this as an engine.

(30:55):
So maybe, uh, the entire story of civilization in this
galax see is people shooting around this engine because everything
we build around it falls apart. Guess what, Well, I
think it's time to write a short story. That's a
pretty good idea, isn't it. Yeah, well, we'll see, we'll
see if it works out watch. But there are pros.
I know it sounds very negative right now, but there
are pros. Uh, there may well be something occurring here

(31:21):
because these three groups testing the same pretty much the
same device have found something, right, or they say they
found something. There appears to be something, and perhaps we
don't use this device exactly how it's built. Now perhaps uh,
you know, like we said, perhaps it's nothing and we

(31:41):
can just throw it in the trash and forget about it.
The other people inventing it can move on something else.
But if there is something there. We could use that
as a starting point, right. And this, this concept of
people accidentally discovering a warp drive sounds sounds pretty cool, right,
But what I think we would end up looking at

(32:03):
is uh, finding a small I don't know, a little discrepancy,
a glitch in the matrix. That's how a lot of
big things start. Right. We see that waters tends to
bend light. We see these tiny things in the world
around us, and if we can just obsess over them
enough and ask the right questions, then eventually we can

(32:25):
arrive um at amazing realizations. And and there's there's something
inspiring in that. But let's be honest, and I know
our family show, but let's be honest. That's a huge
pain in the ass. Yeah, it's a lot of time,
and it's a lot of money, and we'd like to
know what you guys think about it. If you'd like
to hear some more technical information about this, then we

(32:48):
are have good news for you because our friends over
at Forward Thinking UM, all three of whom have made
an appearance on our show at some point or another.
That is true. Yeah, so the same the same crew, Joe, Jonathan,
and Lauren Uh. They have an episode on the m

(33:11):
Drive right now that you can go check out as well. Um,
we hope you enjoy it. We have some other stuff
like we talked about and sloptic energy and radionics, and
we talked a little bit about jade Helm. But before
we go, we would like to do a little bit

(33:31):
of listener mail. Our first message comes from Marty and
he says, Hi, Matt and Ben, have you ever done
a show on televisions and other equipment in our homes
and their ability to spy on us? I think I've
watched most of your shows and I don't remember one
on that. Please forgive me if I missed it. Oh, sir,

(33:52):
you're forgiven either way. Do not. You do not need
forgiveness from us for any reason. But please watch the
rest of our videos. Okay, So, as I'm typing this,
I'm also wondering about the newer vehicles and their surveillance abilities. Oh,
he's putting stuff together, Martina's or is that the stuff
they don't want us to know? We all know that

(34:13):
our phone and emails and texts are being watched by
the powers that run our lives and dictate what we
can or cannot do or have all for the security
of the corporation we live in, or maybe it's just
for the security of the elite that runs the corporation
we live in. Yeah, that sounds more like it. I
like this Marty guy. He's interesting. Uh anyway, just something
to think about. Keep up the good work as long

(34:35):
as the powers that be allow you to do so well. So, uh,
you know, Marty, I I think that's a very good
point because this is something that we've talked about before.
And Matt, you know, this is a huge There is
a huge soap box for me. What what do you have?
I don't want to well, I will just say that

(34:56):
I have not upgraded my television for a long time
since since smart TVs have been around. I've got tape
on my front facing camera on my phone. Um, I'm
terrified about my vehicle being made in two thousand four,
which is I think right around the the pass the

(35:17):
cutoff date for when your car can be hacked easily. UM.
So yeah, I live. I live in this guy's world.
I understand what Marty's saying, Like, it's it's scary how
much surveillance occurs on each human being at all times.
You're the good news is your car. Can your car
specifically that I think could only really be hacked if

(35:38):
someone had direct access to the ECU. They'd have to
plug in. Yes, it's in that weird middle ground. Yeah,
with the e CU you can be hacked. But yeah
you can't. Like the new Mercedes, you couldn't somehow remotely
get into the computer. I hope. Um, wait till check
out the stuff at def Con. Right, that's find that out.

(36:00):
And we've done some episodes on hacking here at how
stuff works in general. We've done some episodes on car hacking.
Here is the Here. Here's why this is such a
great and frightening point, Marty, because the you'll remember, maybe
I don't know how old or young you are, but

(36:21):
you you probably remember how four years people would say
this is paranoia. Who could possibly be that important that
we would do that? And that makes a little bit
more sense before the age, before the computer age, honestly,
because back during for instance, back during UH the Civil

(36:42):
rights era, right when people agitating for equal rights as
human beings in the US were doggedly pursued with wire
tapping and with UH letter tampering and things like that,
that took concerted physical effort. But why happened to be
in the room next to the person having a meeting

(37:04):
and literally tapped through the wall. Right, Yeah, you had
to find agency, you had to have feet on the ground,
and even if you were in the headquarters, you were
still like mailing people stuff and making making phone calls
on landline phones. What what I'm saying here is that
we encountered a gift and accursive sorts as as a

(37:26):
species in the age, in the computer age, the cost
of information and let's measure that by the money it
takes you to send a message somewhere or the time
it takes for that message to travel. Both of those reduced.
Is now it is now cheaper to talk to anyone
than it has ever been before and maybe ever will

(37:48):
be again. But with that means it's cheaper too. It's
easier to maybe that would be a better word. It's
easier to collect more stuff. You don't have to wait
and intercept physical mail. You just have to have a
shunt in a room, in a cell phone or an
I s P provider, right, and that and that shunt
goes directly to a collection warehouse somewhere, and it's just

(38:11):
hoarding that people might not ever look at information hoarders. Yeah,
I would love to see there's like one episode and
then we would get canceled. But but this this thing
is it's not as it's not as crazy as so
many people one wanted it to sound. And and Marty,
you might I think you might enjoy how many of

(38:32):
the people who said this was you know, some bizarro
dystopian fantasy now have all of a sudden switched so
quickly to say, oh, yeah, well everybody knew that. Yeah,
when you were the one saying it was crazy. But
that's just you know, that's a cognitive dissonance, right. People
are very good, Uh, people are very good curators of

(38:55):
their memories, especially at the times when they they wish
they had done something different. But but we see this
happening in video game consoles. And I think it's an
excellent question about cars because the monitoring for cars is
going to increase at a faster pace than many other things,

(39:17):
partly because it's going to catch up to current technology,
and partially because there is a the push toward autonomous
cars means they're gonna leap frog over a lot of
earlier surveillance technology. Um partially for insurance purposes, a lot
of it. Did you see that article, U, Marty, Maybe

(39:37):
you saw too the there's an article about Google's driverless
cars and the number of accidents that they've been involved
in was that three? It was eleven I think out
of one point seven million miles traveled. And I don't
I don't know if I'm completely correct, but I leave
I believe that one million of those miles approximately, we're

(39:57):
done completely driverless, and I think seven of the accidents
happened during that time. But it never ever was it
the autonomous cars fault. There was a person. There's always
like another driver on the road where I know at
least three times it was the laws that will in
states that allow for autonomous testing like this, they just

(40:19):
to be clear, they do still have to have a
driver engineer in the car sitting in the driver's seat.
They're just not driving ideally. And I guess seven times
they tried no, I'm I am kidding. I hope everybody's fine,
but but yeah, you're right, Marty, And I've got a
question for you. We'd like to hear back from you
on this. Uh do you think that will be eventually

(40:40):
illegal to drive a car manually and if so, when wow?
Or will it ever be illegal to have the camera
on whatever device you're working on, like your computer or
your television taped over it turned on whatever, be illegal
to not have it on? Will you get fined if
you close your eyes? Right mirror reference? All right, We'll

(41:04):
do one more letter because I apparently had to go
on a monologue excited. All right, So Jimmy from l
A writes to us and says, hey, Ben and Matt,
thanks for the outstanding work. Let's address Jade Helm fifteen.
As a former soldier, joint operation training was common, usually
conducted every six months. The reason for the training was
to get multiple units to communicate a maneuver effectively during

(41:26):
tactical operations. When I was overseas in the early days
of Operation Iraqi Freedom, I witnessed units accidentally shoot each
other and moved to unfortified positions under the command of
brigade commanders. The results were disastrous by the loss of
American and Rocky lives. The training was supposed to quell
officers egos and get them to work in unison. Many officers,

(41:48):
lieutenant colonels and colonels were jocking for a general's promotion.
The orders from these promotion crazed officers was getting many
soldiers killed by aggressive operations and lack of cooperative playing
between the units and the quest for advancing their resumes.
The paranoia, in my opinion, and he's talking about about
Jade Hellmire, was caused by the Texas governor giving validation

(42:10):
to the right wing conspiracy theoristic accusations and the dispatch
of the National Guard a waste of taxpayer money. Again,
thanks for the show, Keep up the good work. Best regards.
Jimmy from l A and he has a PS question too.
He says, is the new format for the new year,
uh to make less traditional videos, more vlogs and podcasts.

(42:30):
Oh okay, Well, so that's really interesting to get that insight.
And like we were saying at the top of the show,
we were getting all kinds of insights from different, uh,
different perspectives. Um, that is something I've never thought about before.
The internal umzation. Yeah, the competition amongst military remembers. M hmm.

(42:58):
You know, I I completely get this too. We know
that there is a huge necessity for these kinds of things,
but I don't know if a lot of people think
about what would happen if you just had a poorly
trained military just dropped off in some place, given a tank,
given some more armored vehicles and saying this city. We've

(43:20):
seen some examples of that with different groups. UM. I
don't I don't know what you would label them, either
label them insurgents or freedom fighters depending on which side drawn.
But small, small armies that are made up of people
who are just fighting in let's say their hometown or
their home state, UM, like in everywhere, like all over

(43:43):
the we've been seeing it more and more unfortunately, UM
where you just have people with weaponry that perhaps are
not trained with that weaponry, and you'll see accidents or
you know, an RPG goes off in the wrong way,
friendly fire, or have we just been hearing more about it?
Um And also Jimmy, I I am on the same

(44:05):
page with you at least about the cause of the
paranoia regarding jade Helm. Again, I don't know what's going
to happen, Like, I don't know what kind of exercises
are going to be conducted and what the effect is
going to be on the local population. Right when if
you drive somewhere and the roads are closed or something.
But I do see, I do see point here to

(44:27):
respond to with the Texas National Guard, that's what that's
what Jimmy's mentioning in his letter. If you guys recall
in our videos in their audio about Jade Helm, we
talked about the the relative autonomy of the Texas military forces, right,
and the National Guard being called in made some people

(44:49):
feel that the state level governance of Texas did not
trust the federal level governance of the US. But then
I think there was somebody who it was either on
YouTube or email, also written in and said, well, this
is part of a normal reserve operation. They're they're mobilized

(45:10):
to be on reserve the same way they would be
if something was actually going down. So I'm I'm not
sure which, I'm not sure which it is, but I'd
love to hear from some listeners on that and that
I've got to toss the question to you regarding the
uh question about less traditional videos, more vlogs, et cetera. Okay, Yeah,

(45:31):
so our show has been evolving ever since it's come out.
It's very different from our first CFR episode anything. It's
always a work in progress. Oh yeah, sure, And and
we're trying to make improvements. That's really what we're doing.
We're listening to feedback. We're kind of seeing what works
and what doesn't our on our end, and you know,
I think we're coming up with a a better version

(45:54):
of our show right now. Yeah. We're also we've we've
still got the not just the classic episodes, but we've
been looking at case by case basis stuff too, Like
there's some stuff that where the story is better told
to the old format. Uh, there are a few things
that sometimes for ethical considerations, we are not going to

(46:17):
do as an old as an old style format thing
like there's um there, you know there there's some very
messed up things in the world that are better suited
as an audio podcast perhaps, Yes. And and also there
are several things that we've tried to cover that we
just can't find footage for um. And you know, rather
than make an episode that just has stock images all

(46:39):
over it from video blocks or somewhere else. Um, we
we think it works better, um when it's kind of
told like a story. Yeah. And we we know that
there's we see the division sometimes on on YouTube comments especially,
and we we appreciate the support as we moved forward.

(47:00):
I think you know, the first the first couple of
blogs we did. We're well intentioned, but we'll see frs.
You know, that's what we do. Yeah, and we're still
learning and hopefully we're learning stuff that is worthwhile for

(47:21):
this show. This time we talked about another current event,
which we're going to have to come back and check
on when we hear some of the final verdicts about
the e M drive. Um, it might disappear from the
news for a few years the way it did in
when the Chinese team first reported it. But it might

(47:43):
turn out to be of Halthways stars or or just
a very simple variable that we missed. But I'll tell
you one thing that so fascinating to me about all
this stuff. Man, I'm one of those suckers for that
Sagan's beach. I'm totally on board about going to the stars.

(48:05):
I would sign up. And you know, I knew Mars,
the Mars one thing was probably going to be a scam.
But did I apply. Yeah? I did. And I thought
it was a very awkward conversation to have with like
family or dating partners to say, um, oh, hey, what
are you doing. I'm signing up for a one way
trip to space. Oh all right, well then I'll just

(48:27):
you know, right, yeah, I guess I'm going to moms
by myself. But but yeah, I I think that it
is an important thing for humanity to do. I don't
know if it will occur in our lifetimes or even
even if we'll have a colony on the Moon, but um,
I keep a sharp eye on anything that might further

(48:50):
that goal. What about you, man, what do you think
about this whole engine? I am hopeful. I mean this
this engine, I don't I don't think much is gonna
come out of it. But I am hopeful though that
either the some of the plasma propulsion systems or some
other system including perhaps a space elevator, are going to

(49:11):
work in combination to get us to a point where
we can, you know, turn the Moon into a death star. Right,
hopefully a lifestyle. I don't know what. What doesn't George
Lucas owned the rights to the phrase death death star. No, oh,
you're gonna have to beef that and all. Sorry. Yes,
let's hope the U N Resolutions hold in the moon

(49:34):
belongs to the people. But as we see, copyright infringement
is becoming a bigger and bigger deal every day. Cough
cough tpp cough cough. But this, this brings us to
know we gotta we gotta ask you this question. It's
it's pretty important. Yeah, please listen up, all right, wait
in for us here, ghost walker. Would you take a

(49:55):
one way trip to space or to uh to live
on a different planet? Oh? I thought it was gonna be.
I thought I was gonna have an option, okay, or
or stay here? Yeah? What I mean one way? Like
I how long? How long do I have to go
for forever? Yeah? One way? What will the amenities be like?

(50:18):
There will there will be like a town and there
will be people there who have been selected based on
like you, their their attractiveness, the um the only store
is hot topic though, boy, you were you're making Okay,
See here's the thing. I would totally take a one

(50:40):
way trip into space right now, and that I don't
think you would, absolutely not, right, So I think we're
both trying to sway you to I just I would
need more information. You're not. You're not. This sounds what
if you were the first person on the planet who
you got to land and say the thing that would

(51:00):
be later there'd be a statue of you a selfie
stick with an HD camera, a space selfie stick. I'm
gonna say no, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with a no.
I respect you guys. Don't miss both of you very much.
You're just taking off then, I don't I thought you
were just gonna shoot your ashes into space. Ben, you know,
I like I always thinking about that. No, listen, I

(51:21):
know that might sound morbid, you guys, but I think
I would like to save up for the whole body,
because if I discovered an alien floating through space, I
wouldn't want to think, Oh man, somebody wrapped up all
this space dirt. This is the frozen body of frozen
carcass of Yeah, but in a cool pose like maybe

(51:42):
with the guitar. I don't know. It's gonna be expensive.
It's gonna be my version of a pyramid. It's gonna
I'm gonna work all my life on that one. We're
here for you if you need anything. Absolutely, thanks starter
well let us, thanks so much for listening you guys,
and thanks for way in in there. No, let us
know what you think. Would you take a one way

(52:04):
trip to space? Would would you hop on a warp
drive machine? If you had no idea if you'd ever
make it back. Um and do and of course, of
course more importantly, what do you think of this M drive?
Do you think it is? Uh? I think it's real,
you think it's bunk. Let us know. You can find
us on Facebook, you can find us on Twitter. Uh.

(52:26):
Let's see, we're all over the place, right yeah, yeah,
we're conspiracy stuff. With both of those, you can go
to stuff they don't want you to know dot com
the best and longest you are ill And if you
want to email us directly, take a page from Marty
and Jimmy and just drop us a line to be
a suggestion for another topic. It could be just just

(52:46):
some feedback or something that was on your mind, because
we love listening mail and the best way to get
it to us is our address. We are conspiracy at
how stuff works dot com. From one this topic another
unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash conspiracy stuff. You

(53:07):
can also get in touch on Twitter at the handle
at conspiracy stuff.

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