September 30, 2021 • 53 mins
A listener with experience in China breaks down the cultural context of the Guan Yu statue. A caller asks to learn more about the Tytler cycle, which proposes all democracies have an expiration date. As Halloween approaches, the guys get increasingly into ghost stories. All this and more in this week's Listener Mail.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben, and we're joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realists,
longtime listeners and uh newly joined listeners alike. Uh. We
(00:47):
often say that you are the most important part of
the show. That is true, and we like to spend
some time once a week sharing the best part of
the show, your ideas, and your stories with your fellow listeners.
We've got some great stuff coming up here. We're gonna
do something maybe a little bit different towards the end
of this episode, because we talked about this little bit
(01:08):
off air. We are on the cusp of I don't
know about you, guys, but my favorite holiday. As soon
as the weather starts to turn, I can hear it,
you know, I can feel it, like how you can
feel rain on the wind. Halloween is coming, gentlemen, when
the when the Hackensacks start yowling. Yes, Halloween is great,
night baby. That was. It's so it holds up Halloween weird.
(01:31):
It's so psychedelic and weird. What do you guys think
about Hocus Focus. I'm just like watching. I don't have
time to watch movies right now, but I'm just gonna
have horror movies on in the backgrounds as long as
I've actually never seen hocus Pocus. It be right back.
That was pretty good. Can I give I want to
(01:52):
give everybody a spoiler alert to do it. If you're
listening to this season of Thirteen Days of Halloween, just
come back. Ben Bolin starred in the first season and
he wrote too. I think he wrote two stories for
it to first one. This season he's back as a writer.
And there's someone it's not a dude. It's not a downgrade.
(02:13):
We're just making sure everybody gets a chance to say.
But somebody from the hocus Pocus universe will be featured
in it and the Sister Act universe. That's too much information,
it's not it's too much information. It's also not Miss
(02:35):
Lauren Hill, who wasn't sistract too. But I do not
believe was on camera in Hocus Focus. I'm clear. I'm clear,
I have not actually seen despite my z sound effects,
I did not go watch Hocus But wait. We waited
for like an hour and a half on this call.
Many guys, stuff came up. I was watching an other things.
There's a lot of media out there. Were you watching
(02:56):
squid Game? That is the best thing on Netflix? Right? Yeah,
it's pretty great. Is it like squids fighting? Is it
like battle Box but with squids? Yeah? You could say,
you know, um so, so here's what here's what we'd
like to do. Now. We ask you, fellow conspiracy realists.
(03:17):
At the end of every episode we do, we ask
you to reach out to us to share your stories.
We have a number of ways to do that. You
can write us an email where we're conspiracy at I
heart radio dot com. You can go to any number
of social media platforms and find us. You can say
the right words into a mirror in the dark, or
(03:39):
you can give us a call directly. As Matt likes
to say, you can talk to us with your mouth
uh at our phone number one eight three three st
d w y T k and I propose, gentlemen, that
we begin the show with a voicemail today. What do
(03:59):
you think it? Let's do it, all right? And this
message comes from Matt. Yes, you, Matt, not me, Matt.
You Hey guys, Um, Matt ben Um, everybody. I just
found out something about the Tytler's Circle, the Tytler's cycle,
and I was wanting you guys to deep dive into that.
(04:23):
I haven't dove into it too much, but I just
learned about it a long time listener. Well, I guess,
not long time. I guess. I don't know, three or
four years. Has that long time? I don't know, But
I just found out about it and we're in a
we're not in the good part of it, So you
guys would dive into that. Um, my name is Matt,
(04:46):
and you can you can use my name. That's time. Yeah.
Thanks for your show and I listened to it daily,
well weekly, you know that. Thanks for everything you guys do.
And have a good one. All right. Well, Matt's this
voicemail from a fellow Matt, one of your name colleagues. Uh,
it struck you, right, and it sent you off down
(05:08):
one of my favorite things. A rabbit hole or respecting
the universe of this show, a badger burrow. Yes, it
was certainly a badger burrow. And it was delightful to
have a caller also named Matt. We're not quite up
there in the echelons of the Bens, but mass pretty great.
The knolls very unique. Yeah, so unique. He couldn't even
(05:29):
remember my name. I love it when people write to
us and they just haven't seen your name before and
they spell it with a K. There's a whole thread
on the page I believe about people misspelling my name,
and I just I cleared it all up. It's spelled
Q and all Q A N O L L perfect.
(05:51):
Q is silent, very good, Matt, just speaking to you directly. Now.
You asked about something called the Titler's Cycle. Now, the
thing you're going to notice if you do the old
duck duck go slash, Google, slash, whatever you search for
on the internet. Uh, for this thing, you need to
know that it's spelled t y t l e r
(06:13):
apostrophe s cycle. Uh. The first thing you might hit
is something called Tyler's Cycle. It's a Wisconsin based motorcycle dealer.
That's not what we're looking for. But they do have
a beautiful twenty Ducatti super Legra. I don't know how
to say it, V four for only a hundred thousand dollars.
(06:35):
So all right, there you go. Yep, that's it. We're
all going to fool our money, at least Ducati uh somehow.
But we uh, that's not what you're looking for. You're
looking for something that you will find all over the place,
not often in let's say, widespread the publications of news.
(07:02):
A lot of times I'm finding this on blogs and
very specifically leaning usually right leaning websites. Doesn't mean anything necessarily,
but as we begin to explore it, that's what you
may find as you and as you begin your own research.
Oh and we should say that and that that's a
a number of years ago we did explore this briefly
(07:27):
because it really pardon the Chris words, really rocked by Yeah,
what I first learned about it, because you and I
think you you and I talked about this, right we're
like looking at the and and we may have heard
of this before too, like, uh, this is a sobering
thing to learn about right now. If you've never heard
of the Titler cycle, it has not been proven by
(07:50):
the way, that's that we're getting in all this and
we're gonna wrap it back around to what we talked
about I believe last time we mentioned this thing. So
this is what you need to know. This is a
supposed cycle that democracies and empires go through as they
are born until the moment that they die, and then
(08:11):
they're reborn, and that's supposedly what this is. I'm going
to read to you what's found on Risley dot com,
w R I s L e y dot com. They
have a very tight it's just a kind of a
text drop and it's got a very simple, almost bullet
pointed version of the cycle. Here. This isn't exactly what
(08:33):
is said on every website when this is described, but
this is the gist. It says the average age of
the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These
nations have progressed through this sequence from bondage to spiritual faith,
spiritual faith to great courage, courage to liberty, liberty to abundance,
(08:58):
abundance to selfishness, selfishness to apathy, apathy to dependence, dependency,
back again into bondage. So that's how you can imagine it.
As a cycle cue the Lion King music. Yes, I'm done.
That's exactly how much we can play perfect. Yes. And
(09:24):
this site rizzly dot com, just like almost every site
you're going to find out there that has this information
on it, attributes this to Dr Alexander Titler t y
t l e R. And this site describes him as
a Scottish professor who wrote a scholarly tone from which
this concept comes called quote the Athenian Republic, which was
(09:48):
published shortly before the thirteen American colonies gained independence from Britain.
In this site tells you to google him to learn more. Now,
the first thing we have to note is that in
everything I've looked up, and it's only been a few hours, honestly,
like just to let you know, in in in full
truth here, it's only been a few hours of me
digging through sources and looking for information on this. But
(10:11):
I did recall our previous conversations that we've had on
this subject, and I'm seeing the same thing still, this
cycle and the attribution to this person Alexander or alex
Tytler lord Wood would house, Yes, appears to be off.
There appears to be things that are off here. Um.
If you find this actual person, you can find him
(10:34):
on Wikipedia, of all places. The name here is Alexander
Fraser Tytler, Comma Lord Woodhouse Lee or would have Slee.
However you wish to say that now this person did
indeed exist. This person was Scottish. They lived in it
says here on Wikipedia, if you are to trust it,
(10:56):
seventeen forty seven to eighteen thirteen. Person was a professor
of history and Roman antiquities Greek antiquities at the University
of Edinburgh. According to some, I mean actually cited sources
that it has at the bottom here this person was real. Now,
whether or not this person actually wrote this thing, this
(11:17):
publication or tone that uh Risley and another sites called
the Athenian Republic is in question. It seems as though
perhaps this person did not write that. If you go
to one of our standbys and one of these places
where I always feel a little strange, I feel like
(11:37):
they want to be the watchman, watching the news and
other sources online, but I feel like who's watching them?
You hear me calling you out Snopes. I I like
what you do, I like your mission, but sometimes I'm
worried that people will go to you and then stop
thinking critically about certain things. But anyway, that's fine. That's Matt.
(11:58):
That's Matt's opinion. This Matt, not that Matt. But what
they say on Snopes is that there is no record
of this person Titler having authored a work entitled The
Fall of the Athenian Republic or the Decline and Fall
of the Athenian Republic, and the material that's often quoted
to him in these posts, at least according to Snopes,
(12:21):
is attributed to other people, or it should be attributed
to other people, or just it was made up. Parts
of it were made up, with claiming claiming that there
was an older providence to it as as kind of
a cheek code for credibility. Yeah, it's also been assigned
to or attributed to tokfill Um, the French writer. I
(12:44):
think we should hit the big the big headline though,
because you beautifully illustrated the cycle. The big headline is
the argument that democracy is inherently temporary. It is inherently
a federal and it cannot exist, for one reason or
another as a sustainable form of government for more than
(13:04):
a couple of centuries. That's that's like the argument and
of course, you got a lot of historians in the
crowd who who are already saying wait, wait, wait, Well
to that, let us respond, yes, we know. And I
think that's where you're going with this, matt Um. But
I would say it's just one note here. Because something
is misattributed does not necessarily mean it is untrue, right
(13:28):
the idea at least. Yeah, you're right on there, because
you may have noticed that cycle as described, feels like
something familiar. It feels like something you may be experiencing
or watching happening, depending on your worldview. Um, it feels right.
It's one of these things. I was having a conversation
(13:49):
randomly on clubhouse with some people about UFOs, and a
topic of conversation came up about about which sources to
trust and what what do you choose to believe when
you read something, And one of the main themes in
that conversation was that a person said they go with
what their heart tells them is true, right, like I
(14:09):
feel that it's real. Well, well, this is a common thing,
and I think a lot of us do it. I
know I do it sometimes where if something feels right
to me, I will go down that path and explore
it further because I am now skeptical of my own
feelings about things. Trust but verified, bro trust but verify. Yeah,
(14:34):
that's a tough way to live, man, if we we
live it now every day, I think many of us,
I know, I know people on this on this zoom
right now do it just stinks because this thing, this
Tytler cycle, feels very much real. Like if you look around,
you can see society in many ways looking and feeling
(14:58):
like it's on the verge of collapse or it's on
a downward trend right um. And a lot of that
has to do with with economy cycles that are real
and you can you can look up tons of scholarly
information on economic cycles and how these things really do function,
how you can you can show them when there's moments
(15:20):
of growth, there's only one way to go down a
little bit to have more growth. A lot of this
has to do with capitalism, with resources that are available,
with you know, jobs, There's there's so many things that
kind of go in together to make up whether or
not a society and our country is on is on
the rise or on decline. It's a really big topic
(15:42):
against so many variables, so much to consider. But right now,
in this moment, as we watch the world burned to
some extent and flood and you know, as resource wars continue,
as all these things happen, it feels like, yeah, we
might be towards the end. And this is illustrated in
I'm gonna just give you this article. You can read
(16:04):
it on your own. It's from medium dot com. It
was posted March five, I believe, of this year by
a person named Charles Stephen. The title is Rapid American
Decline imminent as it reaches the end of the society cycle.
This person cites the same cycle that's written out here.
This article cites the same cycles, referring to the same
(16:26):
cycle we're talking about here, the Tyler cycle. They do
a great job of linking to actual news of what's
happening and kind of connecting that back to moments in
the cycle. It's not perfect. It's definitely like someone observing
and making things fit to a paradigm, like having having
(16:47):
all your cutouts on the table and then just seeing
what over here fits into those pieces. Um. It's a
fascinating read. The thing I want to connect it back
to Ben is this m I he study that we've
mentioned before in the past. You can read about this
on Vice. There's a Vice article titled M I. T
(17:08):
predicted in nineteen seventy two that society will collapse this century,
meaning the one we're in right now. New research shows
we're on schedule. This was posted by the fees ap
med This was July and is mentioning an old book.
It's an old standby that we like to we like
(17:30):
to name check every once in a while here on
the show Limits to Growth. This is a book that
came out in nineteen seventy two. There was a nineteen
seventy It was about nineteen seventy, I want to say,
and then they made a thirty year update that was
published in two thousand four. And both of these things
are looking at economic growth, resource usage, population growth, all
(17:52):
of these statistics that we mentioned here that go into
measuring a society, a a civilization, a species even in
fact our species, and how well we're doing and how
much longer we have in this kind of happy zone
of people still have jobs, sometimes, people still make some money,
people still have some food, although that doesn't apply across
(18:16):
the board. Right this is really looking it's almost an
American or Western centric view very much. So. Yeah, so
this is as you said, Matt, this is a a
huge topic and with so many variables at play, it's
important to note that people can either consciously or unconsciously
tend to prioritize the variables that, when included, will most
(18:40):
closely reflect their own inherent assumptions or worldview. That's that's
something everybody does, as as you pointed out earlier. The
interesting thing though, is that we're talking about the decline
of any human civilization. It's very rare for that declined
to be something that we would consider rapid on an
(19:03):
individual level. You know, um worlds tend to go out
with not a bang, but with a whimper. You know,
from the from the ancient days of early humanity to
maybe the modern day. You know, there's not a there's
not a switch that someone flips that makes civilization non viable.
(19:23):
But also, I think it's a good time to reassess
the Titler cycle whoever actually came up with the idea,
and maybe we can do maybe we can do another
episode on it, because what's changed, what the original authors
purported or real didn't predict, was global communication systems and
(19:44):
how those would affect the cycle, whether they mitigate it
or exacerbated, and the money still out on what that
effect will be. So I'm I'm massively interested in this.
You know, as we talked before off and on air,
I had had some dealings with folks that were attempting
to build programs to predict the future. And I don't
(20:06):
know how close they got. I really don't. Sometimes it
bugs me, but they they this kind of simulation theory
and this kind of application can give progress towards proving,
revising or disproving this cycle, this claimed cycle. And and
I love that you pointed out that there are some
(20:28):
generalities in here that need to be that need to
be addressed. Most modern interpretations correct me if I'm wrong.
Most modern interpretations point to the skyrocketing rise in inequality. Correct,
Like that's what they say, Like that's the modern version
of what's happening. And look at what happened with France
and blah blah blah. Yeah, in inequality is a major
(20:51):
factor in most of the places I've found. I think
it is the Times Standard as well as common Sense
Government dot com. A lot of them point to to that.
But then you know, it's it's everything, though, it's also
just overproduction resources that are falling short, like a lot
of the rare earth elements that are falling short of
(21:14):
what we you know, need them to be in order
to continue growth. Helium. Helium, that's a big, big one.
It's so important. Can you imagine if that's how we
go down? Helium, that's how civilization goes down. Can you
imagine thousands and thousands of years civilization making slow and
sometimes painful progress, and it's the helium, that's the goddamn
(21:38):
helium that is such a bummer. Yeah, So there's a
lot more to learn about this. I'd love to explore
it further with you guys. Thank you Matt for sharing
that with us. I hope this was helpful in some way.
For now, we'll take a quick break here, a word
from our sponsor, and we'll be back with more messages
from you. Not Matt, not, you already had yours. Matt
at the Tyler. It's constant cycling by our motor cycles
(22:04):
in Wisconsin and we're cycles Genius, and we're back with
another message from you. That's right, you, the public, the
conspiracy realists of the world. Today's message comes from Evan
(22:26):
a k a. Dean jan Um, and he's writing in
regards to a strange news article that I brought to
the table in our last episode. I believe about an
absurdly gigantic statue of the Chinese War god Um, an
actual historical figure that was deified posthumously named Guan. You
(22:50):
and guys, you'll recall Uh. This was specifically referring to
the fact that the statue itself was very, very very expensive,
something in the neighborhood of twenty four million American dollars
UM and because of some regional politics that we were
not fully able to unpack. Um, there's a call to
move the statue UH near miles away UM at the
(23:13):
incredibly hefty price tag of around twenty million American dollars UH,
so somewhere in the neighborhood of four million dollars, less
than what the statue cost to build in the first place.
UM and Uh. Evan had some really interesting insight around why, UM,
this would be such a priority, that this money would
(23:33):
be spent in this way when the Chinese government criticized
the statue in the first place for being a waste
of money. UM, here we go, Hello, guys, I listen
to your recent listener mail, and I wanted to chime
in about the figure of Guan You that you mentioned
as some of the significant aspects of that figure which
come to my mind, we're not mentioned in your as
always excellent, riveting and relevant coverage of the topic, that
is very very kind. Um. I'd also like to share
(23:55):
some of the knowledge and stories that I accumulated over
nearly a decade living and working in China and steady
Chinese language and culture. That's exactly the kind of stuff
we needed, because honestly, ben Um, you'll recall you were
looking into this, you know, kind of in real time, UM,
and a lot of the sources were Chinese language newspapers, which,
as we know, you know, the Chinese media is somewhat biased,
(24:16):
to say the least, and so it was a little
bit tough to wrap our heads around why such a
fuss was being made. There was some Chinese building organizations
or I guess some agencies that said that it was
done illegally because of height limitations in the area UM
for buildings, and then the folks that actually built it
claimed that it wasn't a building so it didn't count. Um,
(24:39):
but you put forth Ben that there might have been
some kind of regional politics that maybe we weren't quite
getting clued into UM, and that does appear to be
the case. So here we go. Guan You may be
controversial now because he's a figure bound up in regionalism
UM as he came to prominence during the Warring States
(25:01):
period of the collapse of the Han dynasty. He served
a state that was mostly based in central and southern
China against Northern Powers of Way and Yuan States. UH.
You can see this today and travels throughout China. In
certain regions and mostly the south, including Hong Kong, you
will see small shrines or altars with red candle shaped
lights and statuary of guan Yu, whereas these altars are
(25:23):
extremely uncommon in northern China where I used to live.
If a home or business does have this kind of altar,
it usually wouldn't contain guan U statuary. If you see
Chinese owned or Chinese diaspora Cambodian, Chinese, Loud Chinese, etcetera.
Also have these businesses operating in your area which have
these shrines. I used to see many in Hong Kong
(25:44):
immigrant dominated areas of San Francisco. You can have a
pretty good guest that they are not Northerners. Moreover, he
is most associated with the bonds that he formed with
two other famous warrior statesman figures, uh Liu Bai and
Shang Fei Uh in that they pledged a bond of brotherhood,
agreed to support each other in battle and politics, and
(26:05):
also pledged to die on the same day. This kind
of bond plus one use martial associations make him a
popular figure not only with law enforcement um as we
did mention in the episode, but also ironically with organized
crime or any group which is meant to operate on
interpersonal loyalty and even vaguely marshal brotherhood. Been you brought
(26:27):
that up to very very sharp, uh that this is
a possibility. There is a kind of iconography that if
his famous weapon is depicted held in one hand, it
signifies his righteous aspect police, or if in the other hand,
it signifies the other aspect mafia, although I think this
is likely more of a movie trope. So given that
he associated with Central and Southern Chinese regionalism and to
(26:50):
a certain extent, with organized crime, it would make sense
that he would be unpopular at a time of strong
central control emanating from Beijing, which is not only the
apital but also the major metropolis of the north. Although
I want to note it could just be someone in
a bureaucratic position of power being totally capricious. A friend
worked for a large German architecture firm, and he had
(27:12):
some stories about really bizarre occurrences in the planning and
building phases of projects. E g. Someone whose corporation wants
to curry favor with a well connected feng Shui enthusiast
UH invites that person to consult with the architecture firm.
Said person recommends that all plans for the building be
rotated by two degrees in such and such an orientation,
(27:33):
and low it must be done, regardless of the architect
or funders thoughts on the matter. My question is who
precisely has to pay for the relocation, as there is
not commonly centrally available funds for things like this. The
two thousand Olympics, for example, was the fiasco because Beijing
municipality was counting on allocation of central government funds, which
(27:53):
were at a relatively late stage denied. This would probably
elucidate the motivation for this more than anything. Um. What
you said about local residents claiming the statue is an
eyesore is totally American and not relevant at all to China.
What locals think about anything mostly doesn't matter unless they
happen to have a whole lot of pull i e.
(28:14):
High position and an important bureau. And there isn't the
same sense of eye sores in a country dominated almost
entirely by huge brutalist concrete Soviet style buildings which loom
disheartening lee over everything. Um. Yeah, there's a There's a
little bit more, but I think that's a great place
to stop and pick up the conversation. Ben. I thought
(28:35):
this was really uh supported a lot of your theories
quite significantly. You brought up the regionalism aspect and also
potential ties to organized crime, whether in funding or in perception. Um,
what do you think about evans um read on this? Uh?
You know, Evan, I greatly appreciated this letter as well,
(28:58):
and I think you're a good writer too. I hope
you you hear this. There are some things towards the
end of the letter that I regretfully do have to
agree with, and I hope your friends are safe and
I hope this letter finds you or this show finds
you safe as well. Nice Luxotica shout out. We've got
(29:19):
to get to those folks at some point. Um. Yeah,
I I kept looking at this too, and I contacted
some friends of mine who are Chinese nationals to help
me with some of the with some of the reporting,
because I can like muddle through some of the stuff,
but if you want to fully understand, to get a
(29:40):
read on a higher level of this language than I do.
And the fascinating thing here to me is the universality
of of weird, absurd, surreal situations that humans can find
themselves in. You know, you're you're at a large architecture firm.
This happens, by the way, um, not just with large statues,
(30:03):
but this happens with almost any large mission, large, multiple
human endeavor. Like if you've ever worked production on a film,
you've seen producers just arbitrarily changed some stuff because it
was a great day for him, it was a bad
day for him, or they're nine year old was like, Dad,
I love sharks, right, and Sharknado literally was creative. Matt,
(30:24):
what's going on? I'm so sorry. I just had an epiphany.
I am so sorry. I'm in this message Evan. Evan
is mentioning Guan Yu Lou Bay and and I was like, man,
I know these characters. Why do I know these characters?
Lighting game? Lou Bay hit it for me. It's Dynasty Warriors.
(30:47):
I don't know if you guys ever played that? Whoa
it all I was? I learned? Was I learning about
like some actual thing that happened when those games, It's
like solicit realization was very similar, right, it was all
about different real like Roman historical figures and stuff. A
lot of those games had like, you know, a hidden
(31:07):
learning opportunities in them, I think, But that was just
like a beat them up. I'm just gonna mash all
these buttons. I'm gonna oh. It was a fighting game.
It was like a history though. You're sorry, I I
just can't believe it. I was playing those games as
a younger person kid, and just like I thought they
were all made up. I don't know. I guess it's fascinating.
(31:31):
It is it is. And you know, I think it's
always fun to dive into those like the stories of
the purportage stories there because most most good stories, most
solid works of fiction have a structure based in truth,
you know, even really out there stuff like Donald barthel
may or m or Hayes. They they they start somewhere
(31:54):
before they get really weird. But with with this case,
with Evans excellent letter. Here one thing that I was
also interested in. First, yes, thank you for sending this letter,
because it is important for people, especially in the West,
to get stories, to get reporting from people who have
firsthand experience. The mainstream news, which I know it sounds
(32:18):
like a controversial phrase, but for better or worse, tends
to follow a kind of lockstep narrative based on a
country or based on whatever current movement is popular in
the national zeitgeist, especially here in the U. S. So. So,
one thing that might surprise people is that organized crime
(32:39):
in China, which which you mentioned Evan, organized crime in
China works a little bit differently than the organized crime
you might think of here in the States, with stuff
like Capone and The Godfather and oh the Sopranos. There
it is there, it is okay, Well, there is a
less family oriented and more like syndicate kind of oriented. Yeah,
(32:59):
it's a good question. I mean, in both cases, they're
definitely organizations and they're doing crime. But in China we're
talking about what are called the Triads t R, I, A, D.
And these organizations have expanded throughout the Chinese diaspora, including
expanding into the United States. It's interesting because there's there
(33:24):
are distinct distinct aspects by reaching and from what I understand,
they function a lot like secret societies, like real life
secret societies. Well, the Triad they're talking about, I mean
it has ancient roots, like a minute dates back to
um the I believe seventeenth century where it was, you know,
(33:45):
one of three of the most prominent secret societies, and
it was established in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China,
so it already had kind of like international branches. But
it continues to the Spain and so kind of the
same way that maybe in the West, UM stories about
the Yuckuza might confuse people. Uh you know when you
(34:08):
hear like, oh, these guys that are Japanese mobsters are
out giving away Halloween candy or they're helping earthquake victims.
They're doing things that we wouldn't associate maybe with criminal acts.
So I I would say that I can completely see
I can completely see corruption as part of this, I
can also, I don't know the things that would lead
(34:30):
to the statue actually being moved. Like Evan pointed out,
they're they're kind of they're kind of hard to discern
unless you're on the inside. To be very clear, no
one and this show, at least at this point, is
saying that a triad was involved. Just saying they're around,
that's all I'm I'm saying they're around. I think, I
(34:52):
think to your point, Ban and to Evan's point, it
would certainly take off someone with a whole lot of
pull to make a move like this happen, you know
what I mean, since it's not truly it seems like
the line you know about historic preservation or about it
ruining the vibe of the area in some way. Um,
according to Evan, you know who lived there long enough
(35:14):
I think to know it feels like that's not as
much of a a mover, you know, especially since I
mean people saw it when it was getting built. They
don't build a statue like that in the day. It
seems like some kind of power player, whether in an
agency or perhaps with organized crime. Um, you know, but
the organized crime people would like it, right isn't that
the deal? So yeah, what this is the last big
(35:37):
point I have from this, and I think Evan already
Evan articulated this very well. So you have to remember whenever,
like whenever you hear people talking about a country like
Afghanistan or even talking about a country like um Greece
or something like that from the American perspective, from the
(35:57):
international perspective, the US is very much a child with
dangerous toys. It's been around a little more than two years.
And if you're talking about something like the Middle Kingdom,
you know, the predecessor of the predecessors of modern China
literally date back in the mythology, and we talked about
(36:19):
that on the show. So for for a very very
long time prior to the Communist Revolution, like very long time,
different forces, governing forces. We're trying to create a unified
Middle Kingdom with a central seat of power. And that's
(36:40):
something that that's happening today. Like, uh, put the economic
ideology and all all that stuff which is important to
the side for a second and realized, like there is
a reason that the government of China has like spends
so much time and blood and treasure try into create
(37:02):
a more what they would say, unified or harmimonious society.
So maybe, to Evin's point, maybe this regionalism is something
that is seen as a possible long term threat to
the status quo. But if that's the case, I'm thinking
out loud here, if that's the case, then why does
moving it a few miles matter? You know what I mean?
(37:22):
Like you still would have the problem, would you not. Yeah,
that's the part that's so strange to me. And I
think what you know really made the story catch my
eye is it's being moved so close, like to spend
that much money, and again we don't know where that
money is coming from. Specifically, I would say some pretty
(37:42):
powerful forces would have to be at play, and it
almost feels like a flex, you know, like to say,
you know, we're just gonna move it on down the
road at the at the bill of you know, twenty
million dollars, I don't know that. What do you think?
I think? So, I don't have anything to add. Guys,
you just to get an emulator version of Dynasty Warrior.
(38:02):
That's where your heads are. I think there's probably an update.
There's always a new version. There's a Dynasty Warriors nine.
It's a boy. See. Then there's Samurai Warriors. Now I
know there are a couple other different ones like that Warriors. Three. Yeah,
I'm gonna realized that this the genre of these games
is called hacken slash's. I have never heard that term
(38:25):
until I was just looking into these, Like Ninja Gaiden
is considered a hacken slash game. They're literally hundreds of
thousands of enemies and you do the same thing to
all of them. I love. Yeah, just like a brawler.
Is it a side scroll kind of brawler type of
like like Dragon person elevated view? Maybe I think you
(38:45):
can do it on Fallow. I don't know. I think
follows first person. But but yeah. One of the coolest
things about this letter is, in my opinion, that we're
hearing in depth again from somebody who has actually visited
the place. If you spend time in China, love to
hear about. If you spend time in any country that
you feel is unfamiliar to the West, and you have
(39:06):
a story you would like to share, then please yes
send it to us. UM. We do read every email
we get. We follow up on this and we hope
you agree that it's important UM for everyone. Conspiracy realist, skeptic,
what have you to be more aware of real life.
In other parts of the world, there's a group of
(39:27):
like a triad group in New York City according to
l oc dot gov, called the Ghost Shadows. The names Okay,
I'm gonna say this part and this is just my opinion, man,
but the names are super cool. I'm not that's not
condoning organized crime. Nobody send us that email. But the
names are really cool. Right, we can see we can
agree on that. Agreed, the Flying Dragons, I'll join, let's go,
(39:51):
i know. And then other people in the West, you've
got stuff where it's like, oh, we're the burn Bum
Boys or whatever. It's like try harder, you know. I
made up Burnum Boys. Uh. It sounds like a good
bluegrass band. They should be on Prairie Home Companion. Oh wait,
that's canceled. Now it's called Live from Here, and we're
(40:12):
not live from here or anywhere. Um. We are a podcast,
of course. So that means we have to have an
ad break, and we're gonna do that now. We'll be
back with more listener mail. And we have returned. Like
those villains and fairy tales, someone shows up at the
(40:33):
court and says I have a gift for the child.
It's true. It's it's Halloween, it's on the way, Oh,
the most wonderful time of the year. We're gonna do
something a little bit differently to end, uh, to close
the segment this week, and that is a bit of
story time. We spend so much time asking you for
(40:55):
your stories. We've received fascinating tales, some of which we
ourselves are at a loss to explain. Right. Stories have
seen strange things in the woods or strange things in
the sky. And over the years we've received a lot
of amazing, amazing ghost stories. And we're not you know,
(41:16):
we're not here to say whether or not these are
true because we were not there. We haven't investigated these things.
And um, you may have heard in past episodes our
collective opinion on the people who pretend to investigate ghosts. Uh. So,
with that being said, I thought, not an old doc,
(41:36):
if you all are okay with it, that we could
just share a couple of spooky stories from our listeners. Hell, yes,
all right, here we go. Alien Gibson girl, you wrote
to us to say the following, and uh, Doc, big favor,
we get some spooky atmospheric music. Jeez, not that spooky.
(42:01):
We're too spook, Doc, She's gonna be so mad. You're
gonna be so mad at us for asking like this,
just throwing sild cues. But yes, this music you're hearing
is perfect. Here we go. Alien Gibson girl says, since
October is coming up, I have a possible ghost story
for you guys that happened when I was around eleven
(42:22):
years old. I'm going to preface that during this time,
I was a very skeptical kid, where I tried to
debunk a lot of scary things that would bump in
the night, and I was a fan of Scooby Doo.
But this experience was something else and has made me
question if this was me and my brother's collective imaginations
or it was at my grandmother's house in Missouri. My
(42:43):
brother nine at the time and I would spend our
summer vacation there and stay in the guest bedroom. We
were in a large queen size bed, with me facing
out to a door to the parlor room and my
brother on the other side. One night, after our grandmother
put us into bed, I was looking out into the
inky blackness of the parlor room, a cream colored, glowing
figure of a woman materialized at the door frame. I
(43:06):
remember staring intensely at this object, studying what I just saw.
It was a woman with a big floppy hat and
a long lace dress, around six ft tall, with her
neck bent to one side. The figure of the woman
was softly glowing, but not causing any shadows, nor was
lighting up the doorway frame. I nudged my brother and said, hey,
(43:27):
did you see that? And he whimpered and said yeah.
We immediately started screaming, Grandma, and I'm sure you were
screaming here. As soon as we started screaming, the figure
collapsed upon itself and it looked like it zipped away.
She grandmother, we assume, comes running in and we were
both saying we saw a ghost, and we were told
(43:49):
we just had a bad nightmare. I'm thirty one. I
would say I'm just as skeptical of ghosts and spirits,
but I am still baffled by what we experience. It
is one to say if I was the only one
to witness it, that it would just be my imagination.
But my brother saw it at the same time as well.
He remembers it too. I did some research on the
(44:10):
house was built in nineteen ten. I looked up past
owners of the house and found no evidence of death
in the house being built in checks out because if
you google Gibson Girl, the style looks a lot like
the figure that me and my brother saw. The only
explanation is that there was a window in the parlor
and maybe light was shown through the lace curtains and
(44:31):
somehow stopped in the doorway, maybe humidity, or maybe me
and my brother were visited by an extra terrestrial Gibson Girl.
I look forward to hearing you guys take a crack
at it. Maybe you all can think of something I
did not consider. You may use your my story. If
you guys like a funny name, you can call me
haunted by alien Gibson Girl, so that that is an account,
(44:53):
and alien Gibson Girl are haunted by Excuse me asked
us specifically to think about this, think about this report,
So maybe we can unpack a little bit here when
you think so, like like we've done with the reports
of UMM previous reports of unidentified flying objects and sightings. UM. So,
(45:16):
first things first, two people, right, two people seeing the
same thing at the same time. Let's put their age
aside for a moment. And let's also put aside the
the treacherous nature of memory over time. Um, but I
think she's right. It does make it more difficult to
dismiss something entirely his imagination if someone else has seen it, right, Yeah, well,
(45:41):
when you've got an immediate second witness, like simultaneous, come on,
something happened. And the question is, and I love I
love that our gives and girl, which is kind of
weird to say. I've just looked up when it gives
you girl. We were told to google it and I did,
(46:03):
and it is. It's this weird maybe just fashion ideal.
I don't know how I would even like. Is it
like the girls, like one of those kind of deals.
It's like nineteen twentieth centuries, like mental Flaws called them
the Kardashians, the early nineteen aha fashion. Yes, I see,
(46:29):
like flowing gowns, big old buns, and um, you know,
probably very sharp, pointy hairpins. I would imagine. Man, these
would have been probably likely the type of women that
would have rebelled against mashers on the on the you know,
street cars. I don't even know what that is used.
His weapons masters were like the proto kind of you know,
(46:52):
stalker creepers. You know, that's just exactly called the mashers.
Got it. Well, I'm glad that our Gibson girl, uh
he is already thinking about things like lace light through lace.
That to me seems like something that maybe I've never
experienced before. I've never seen maybe a white lace or
(47:13):
a cream colored lace have light shine shown through it
and then seeing it somewhere else on a wall or
in a doorway. Um, I can imagine that being strange. Yeah,
I like that. We're thinking critically here. This is a
little tricky because so much time has passed, right, twenty
years or so passed, and at this point, you know,
(47:36):
we see due diligence done researching the house, researching events
that could have occurred there. Um, we also we have
some missing pieces, like the very skeptical. Another very skeptical
question would be, uh, did you and your brother um
do something earlier in the day that may have made
(47:57):
an impression on you, like saw some historic exhibits, such
that your minds were subconsciously primed to define and recognize
a pattern from earlier through the light. That's possible. It's
it's possible that happens with people. UM, check out Darren
Brown's work on priming people and which is you know, controversial,
(48:20):
but he's he's using it for good. And then the
other question is priming aside? Human beings have evolved to
recognize things, and in many many things, living or non
the human mind seeks to see itself, which I know
sounds overly philosophic and hallmarking, but it's just like a
(48:43):
fancy way of talking about confirmation bias, right, You like,
you tend to seek out stuff that you already agree with,
or patterns that you already recognize, and you want to
impart meaning upon them, Like hearing a song on the
radio after you've just been thinking about that song and
then thinking there's some kind of you know, crazy connection
with the averse or something, when likely it's just you
know what, coincidence, right, or you just don't recognize all
(49:05):
the times when it didn't work out, that's exactly better.
Mind hoff the frequency illusion as possible. Of course, our
our nuts and bolts answer, if it all possible, would
be to go back to that house and try to
recreate as as closely as you can the variables involved. UM,
(49:25):
and I I don't know what the circumstances would be
or what the best way to do that would be,
but that that would be our first step. And in
this case, we're we're unpacking it a little bit simply
because Haunted by a g G asked us to um.
But I will say that people just want to tell
(49:48):
us a scary story. I read them with great relish.
And Matt, we've had a few bangers come through on
the telephone line as well. Oh we've got spooky stuff
all around the bangers left and right, smashers, crashers, I
don't know what, haberdashers, and of course flashers, and of
(50:09):
course they're always coming at the end. And it's a
weird thing to happen to your like three your ears.
But it's all good. So this, uh, this is a
going to be a shorter third act for us. It's
just kind of kicking off the Halloween season. But if
you are interested, fellow conspiracy realist and Matt Noel doc
(50:31):
if if you all are interested as well, I think
it could be fun to share some of these stories
in the lead up to Halloween. And maybe it's just
something we read towards the end. Um maybe we do
an episode once we get enough spooky stories from a
fellow conspiracy realist, maybe we do an episode where we
three are just sharing those stories. You know, that would
(50:53):
be a lot of fun, would gather around the campfire. Yes,
so please please send us your ghost story ones that
you're happy to have us read aloud because that's what
we'll do. Or call us and leave your ghost story
over voicemail. I hereby make it my mission to get
(51:15):
through the voicemails that still sit in front of me
since September one. We will get there. You've got problems
and a voicemail is yeah, I can Uh. You know
it's gonna be tough for me to get in there,
but I can maybe do it. You are not allowed
to MR on a secret project. I literally have a
(51:36):
calendar block on one day that says s td W
I t K voicemails, and something inevitably always comes up
and I have to use that time. But I'm gonna
commit to uh to pitching in with the voicemail tagging
as well. Ben, you think nothing of it, Matt, I
got your back bang ring. I suppose oh rufio a right.
(51:59):
That guy was at Atlanta Comic consigning autographs. The line
was very short. I felt kind of bad for him,
but I really like that character. And people just don't
appreciate art is what it is. They don't. But with that,
when you when you do, give us a call at
our number one eight three three st d w y
t K. You'll have three minutes. They're yours, uh and
(52:19):
we would love to hear your story if you uh.
If you have a story that needs more than three minutes,
don't feel like you have to keep calling the same number.
You can write it out in full, just the way Haunted.
Buy a g G did. You can attach links and
your photographs if you've got them, or you know, if
you have a longer audio file and you just want
(52:41):
to record the full tail and then send it to
us via email, that's great too. As always, we cannot
wait to hear from you. We're gearing up through the
most wonderful time of the year, Halloween, and if you
want to be part of our month fish long celebration,
we we love you to join the crew. I have
to send us a good old fashioned email where we
(53:03):
are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Who's got a
spooky laugh? Ah ah ah and then and then the
clown titters. That's terrify, all right, So we're stopping stuff
(53:47):
they don't want you to know. Is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
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.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Nol. They called
me Ben, and we're joined as always with our super
producer Alexis code name Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realists,
longtime listeners and uh newly joined listeners alike. Uh. We
(00:47):
often say that you are the most important part of
the show. That is true, and we like to spend
some time once a week sharing the best part of
the show, your ideas, and your stories with your fellow listeners.
We've got some great stuff coming up here. We're gonna
do something maybe a little bit different towards the end
of this episode, because we talked about this little bit
(01:08):
off air. We are on the cusp of I don't
know about you, guys, but my favorite holiday. As soon
as the weather starts to turn, I can hear it,
you know, I can feel it, like how you can
feel rain on the wind. Halloween is coming, gentlemen, when
the when the Hackensacks start yowling. Yes, Halloween is great,
night baby. That was. It's so it holds up Halloween weird.
(01:31):
It's so psychedelic and weird. What do you guys think
about Hocus Focus. I'm just like watching. I don't have
time to watch movies right now, but I'm just gonna
have horror movies on in the backgrounds as long as
I've actually never seen hocus Pocus. It be right back.
That was pretty good. Can I give I want to
(01:52):
give everybody a spoiler alert to do it. If you're
listening to this season of Thirteen Days of Halloween, just
come back. Ben Bolin starred in the first season and
he wrote too. I think he wrote two stories for
it to first one. This season he's back as a writer.
And there's someone it's not a dude. It's not a downgrade.
(02:13):
We're just making sure everybody gets a chance to say.
But somebody from the hocus Pocus universe will be featured
in it and the Sister Act universe. That's too much information,
it's not it's too much information. It's also not Miss
(02:35):
Lauren Hill, who wasn't sistract too. But I do not
believe was on camera in Hocus Focus. I'm clear. I'm clear,
I have not actually seen despite my z sound effects,
I did not go watch Hocus But wait. We waited
for like an hour and a half on this call.
Many guys, stuff came up. I was watching an other things.
There's a lot of media out there. Were you watching
(02:56):
squid Game? That is the best thing on Netflix? Right? Yeah,
it's pretty great. Is it like squids fighting? Is it
like battle Box but with squids? Yeah? You could say,
you know, um so, so here's what here's what we'd
like to do. Now. We ask you, fellow conspiracy realists.
(03:17):
At the end of every episode we do, we ask
you to reach out to us to share your stories.
We have a number of ways to do that. You
can write us an email where we're conspiracy at I
heart radio dot com. You can go to any number
of social media platforms and find us. You can say
the right words into a mirror in the dark, or
(03:39):
you can give us a call directly. As Matt likes
to say, you can talk to us with your mouth
uh at our phone number one eight three three st
d w y T k and I propose, gentlemen, that
we begin the show with a voicemail today. What do
(03:59):
you think it? Let's do it, all right? And this
message comes from Matt. Yes, you, Matt, not me, Matt.
You Hey guys, Um, Matt ben Um, everybody. I just
found out something about the Tytler's Circle, the Tytler's cycle,
and I was wanting you guys to deep dive into that.
(04:23):
I haven't dove into it too much, but I just
learned about it a long time listener. Well, I guess,
not long time. I guess. I don't know, three or
four years. Has that long time? I don't know, But
I just found out about it and we're in a
we're not in the good part of it, So you
guys would dive into that. Um, my name is Matt,
(04:46):
and you can you can use my name. That's time. Yeah.
Thanks for your show and I listened to it daily,
well weekly, you know that. Thanks for everything you guys do.
And have a good one. All right. Well, Matt's this
voicemail from a fellow Matt, one of your name colleagues. Uh,
it struck you, right, and it sent you off down
(05:08):
one of my favorite things. A rabbit hole or respecting
the universe of this show, a badger burrow. Yes, it
was certainly a badger burrow. And it was delightful to
have a caller also named Matt. We're not quite up
there in the echelons of the Bens, but mass pretty great.
The knolls very unique. Yeah, so unique. He couldn't even
(05:29):
remember my name. I love it when people write to
us and they just haven't seen your name before and
they spell it with a K. There's a whole thread
on the page I believe about people misspelling my name,
and I just I cleared it all up. It's spelled
Q and all Q A N O L L perfect.
(05:51):
Q is silent, very good, Matt, just speaking to you directly. Now.
You asked about something called the Titler's Cycle. Now, the
thing you're going to notice if you do the old
duck duck go slash, Google, slash, whatever you search for
on the internet. Uh, for this thing, you need to
know that it's spelled t y t l e r
(06:13):
apostrophe s cycle. Uh. The first thing you might hit
is something called Tyler's Cycle. It's a Wisconsin based motorcycle dealer.
That's not what we're looking for. But they do have
a beautiful twenty Ducatti super Legra. I don't know how
to say it, V four for only a hundred thousand dollars.
(06:35):
So all right, there you go. Yep, that's it. We're
all going to fool our money, at least Ducati uh somehow.
But we uh, that's not what you're looking for. You're
looking for something that you will find all over the place,
not often in let's say, widespread the publications of news.
(07:02):
A lot of times I'm finding this on blogs and
very specifically leaning usually right leaning websites. Doesn't mean anything necessarily,
but as we begin to explore it, that's what you
may find as you and as you begin your own research.
Oh and we should say that and that that's a
a number of years ago we did explore this briefly
(07:27):
because it really pardon the Chris words, really rocked by Yeah,
what I first learned about it, because you and I
think you you and I talked about this, right we're
like looking at the and and we may have heard
of this before too, like, uh, this is a sobering
thing to learn about right now. If you've never heard
of the Titler cycle, it has not been proven by
(07:50):
the way, that's that we're getting in all this and
we're gonna wrap it back around to what we talked
about I believe last time we mentioned this thing. So
this is what you need to know. This is a
supposed cycle that democracies and empires go through as they
are born until the moment that they die, and then
(08:11):
they're reborn, and that's supposedly what this is. I'm going
to read to you what's found on Risley dot com,
w R I s L e y dot com. They
have a very tight it's just a kind of a
text drop and it's got a very simple, almost bullet
pointed version of the cycle. Here. This isn't exactly what
(08:33):
is said on every website when this is described, but
this is the gist. It says the average age of
the world's greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These
nations have progressed through this sequence from bondage to spiritual faith,
spiritual faith to great courage, courage to liberty, liberty to abundance,
(08:58):
abundance to selfishness, selfishness to apathy, apathy to dependence, dependency,
back again into bondage. So that's how you can imagine it.
As a cycle cue the Lion King music. Yes, I'm done.
That's exactly how much we can play perfect. Yes. And
(09:24):
this site rizzly dot com, just like almost every site
you're going to find out there that has this information
on it, attributes this to Dr Alexander Titler t y
t l e R. And this site describes him as
a Scottish professor who wrote a scholarly tone from which
this concept comes called quote the Athenian Republic, which was
(09:48):
published shortly before the thirteen American colonies gained independence from Britain.
In this site tells you to google him to learn more. Now,
the first thing we have to note is that in
everything I've looked up, and it's only been a few hours, honestly,
like just to let you know, in in in full
truth here, it's only been a few hours of me
digging through sources and looking for information on this. But
(10:11):
I did recall our previous conversations that we've had on
this subject, and I'm seeing the same thing still, this
cycle and the attribution to this person Alexander or alex
Tytler lord Wood would house, Yes, appears to be off.
There appears to be things that are off here. Um.
If you find this actual person, you can find him
(10:34):
on Wikipedia, of all places. The name here is Alexander
Fraser Tytler, Comma Lord Woodhouse Lee or would have Slee.
However you wish to say that now this person did
indeed exist. This person was Scottish. They lived in it
says here on Wikipedia, if you are to trust it,
(10:56):
seventeen forty seven to eighteen thirteen. Person was a professor
of history and Roman antiquities Greek antiquities at the University
of Edinburgh. According to some, I mean actually cited sources
that it has at the bottom here this person was real. Now,
whether or not this person actually wrote this thing, this
(11:17):
publication or tone that uh Risley and another sites called
the Athenian Republic is in question. It seems as though
perhaps this person did not write that. If you go
to one of our standbys and one of these places
where I always feel a little strange, I feel like
(11:37):
they want to be the watchman, watching the news and
other sources online, but I feel like who's watching them?
You hear me calling you out Snopes. I I like
what you do, I like your mission, but sometimes I'm
worried that people will go to you and then stop
thinking critically about certain things. But anyway, that's fine. That's Matt.
(11:58):
That's Matt's opinion. This Matt, not that Matt. But what
they say on Snopes is that there is no record
of this person Titler having authored a work entitled The
Fall of the Athenian Republic or the Decline and Fall
of the Athenian Republic, and the material that's often quoted
to him in these posts, at least according to Snopes,
(12:21):
is attributed to other people, or it should be attributed
to other people, or just it was made up. Parts
of it were made up, with claiming claiming that there
was an older providence to it as as kind of
a cheek code for credibility. Yeah, it's also been assigned
to or attributed to tokfill Um, the French writer. I
(12:44):
think we should hit the big the big headline though,
because you beautifully illustrated the cycle. The big headline is
the argument that democracy is inherently temporary. It is inherently
a federal and it cannot exist, for one reason or
another as a sustainable form of government for more than
(13:04):
a couple of centuries. That's that's like the argument and
of course, you got a lot of historians in the
crowd who who are already saying wait, wait, wait, Well
to that, let us respond, yes, we know. And I
think that's where you're going with this, matt Um. But
I would say it's just one note here. Because something
is misattributed does not necessarily mean it is untrue, right
(13:28):
the idea at least. Yeah, you're right on there, because
you may have noticed that cycle as described, feels like
something familiar. It feels like something you may be experiencing
or watching happening, depending on your worldview. Um, it feels right.
It's one of these things. I was having a conversation
(13:49):
randomly on clubhouse with some people about UFOs, and a
topic of conversation came up about about which sources to
trust and what what do you choose to believe when
you read something, And one of the main themes in
that conversation was that a person said they go with
what their heart tells them is true, right, like I
(14:09):
feel that it's real. Well, well, this is a common thing,
and I think a lot of us do it. I
know I do it sometimes where if something feels right
to me, I will go down that path and explore
it further because I am now skeptical of my own
feelings about things. Trust but verified, bro trust but verify. Yeah,
(14:34):
that's a tough way to live, man, if we we
live it now every day, I think many of us,
I know, I know people on this on this zoom
right now do it just stinks because this thing, this
Tytler cycle, feels very much real. Like if you look around,
you can see society in many ways looking and feeling
(14:58):
like it's on the verge of collapse or it's on
a downward trend right um. And a lot of that
has to do with with economy cycles that are real
and you can you can look up tons of scholarly
information on economic cycles and how these things really do function,
how you can you can show them when there's moments
(15:20):
of growth, there's only one way to go down a
little bit to have more growth. A lot of this
has to do with capitalism, with resources that are available,
with you know, jobs, There's there's so many things that
kind of go in together to make up whether or
not a society and our country is on is on
the rise or on decline. It's a really big topic
(15:42):
against so many variables, so much to consider. But right now,
in this moment, as we watch the world burned to
some extent and flood and you know, as resource wars continue,
as all these things happen, it feels like, yeah, we
might be towards the end. And this is illustrated in
I'm gonna just give you this article. You can read
(16:04):
it on your own. It's from medium dot com. It
was posted March five, I believe, of this year by
a person named Charles Stephen. The title is Rapid American
Decline imminent as it reaches the end of the society cycle.
This person cites the same cycle that's written out here.
This article cites the same cycles, referring to the same
(16:26):
cycle we're talking about here, the Tyler cycle. They do
a great job of linking to actual news of what's
happening and kind of connecting that back to moments in
the cycle. It's not perfect. It's definitely like someone observing
and making things fit to a paradigm, like having having
(16:47):
all your cutouts on the table and then just seeing
what over here fits into those pieces. Um. It's a
fascinating read. The thing I want to connect it back
to Ben is this m I he study that we've
mentioned before in the past. You can read about this
on Vice. There's a Vice article titled M I. T
(17:08):
predicted in nineteen seventy two that society will collapse this century,
meaning the one we're in right now. New research shows
we're on schedule. This was posted by the fees ap
med This was July and is mentioning an old book.
It's an old standby that we like to we like
(17:30):
to name check every once in a while here on
the show Limits to Growth. This is a book that
came out in nineteen seventy two. There was a nineteen
seventy It was about nineteen seventy, I want to say,
and then they made a thirty year update that was
published in two thousand four. And both of these things
are looking at economic growth, resource usage, population growth, all
(17:52):
of these statistics that we mentioned here that go into
measuring a society, a a civilization, a species even in
fact our species, and how well we're doing and how
much longer we have in this kind of happy zone
of people still have jobs, sometimes, people still make some money,
people still have some food, although that doesn't apply across
(18:16):
the board. Right this is really looking it's almost an
American or Western centric view very much. So. Yeah, so
this is as you said, Matt, this is a a
huge topic and with so many variables at play, it's
important to note that people can either consciously or unconsciously
tend to prioritize the variables that, when included, will most
(18:40):
closely reflect their own inherent assumptions or worldview. That's that's
something everybody does, as as you pointed out earlier. The
interesting thing though, is that we're talking about the decline
of any human civilization. It's very rare for that declined
to be something that we would consider rapid on an
(19:03):
individual level. You know, um worlds tend to go out
with not a bang, but with a whimper. You know,
from the from the ancient days of early humanity to
maybe the modern day. You know, there's not a there's
not a switch that someone flips that makes civilization non viable.
(19:23):
But also, I think it's a good time to reassess
the Titler cycle whoever actually came up with the idea,
and maybe we can do maybe we can do another
episode on it, because what's changed, what the original authors
purported or real didn't predict, was global communication systems and
(19:44):
how those would affect the cycle, whether they mitigate it
or exacerbated, and the money still out on what that
effect will be. So I'm I'm massively interested in this.
You know, as we talked before off and on air,
I had had some dealings with folks that were attempting
to build programs to predict the future. And I don't
(20:06):
know how close they got. I really don't. Sometimes it
bugs me, but they they this kind of simulation theory
and this kind of application can give progress towards proving,
revising or disproving this cycle, this claimed cycle. And and
I love that you pointed out that there are some
(20:28):
generalities in here that need to be that need to
be addressed. Most modern interpretations correct me if I'm wrong.
Most modern interpretations point to the skyrocketing rise in inequality. Correct,
Like that's what they say, Like that's the modern version
of what's happening. And look at what happened with France
and blah blah blah. Yeah, in inequality is a major
(20:51):
factor in most of the places I've found. I think
it is the Times Standard as well as common Sense
Government dot com. A lot of them point to to that.
But then you know, it's it's everything, though, it's also
just overproduction resources that are falling short, like a lot
of the rare earth elements that are falling short of
(21:14):
what we you know, need them to be in order
to continue growth. Helium. Helium, that's a big, big one.
It's so important. Can you imagine if that's how we
go down? Helium, that's how civilization goes down. Can you
imagine thousands and thousands of years civilization making slow and
sometimes painful progress, and it's the helium, that's the goddamn
(21:38):
helium that is such a bummer. Yeah, So there's a
lot more to learn about this. I'd love to explore
it further with you guys. Thank you Matt for sharing
that with us. I hope this was helpful in some way.
For now, we'll take a quick break here, a word
from our sponsor, and we'll be back with more messages
from you. Not Matt, not, you already had yours. Matt
at the Tyler. It's constant cycling by our motor cycles
(22:04):
in Wisconsin and we're cycles Genius, and we're back with
another message from you. That's right, you, the public, the
conspiracy realists of the world. Today's message comes from Evan
(22:26):
a k a. Dean jan Um, and he's writing in
regards to a strange news article that I brought to
the table in our last episode. I believe about an
absurdly gigantic statue of the Chinese War god Um, an
actual historical figure that was deified posthumously named Guan. You
(22:50):
and guys, you'll recall Uh. This was specifically referring to
the fact that the statue itself was very, very very expensive,
something in the neighborhood of twenty four million American dollars
UM and because of some regional politics that we were
not fully able to unpack. Um, there's a call to
move the statue UH near miles away UM at the
(23:13):
incredibly hefty price tag of around twenty million American dollars UH,
so somewhere in the neighborhood of four million dollars, less
than what the statue cost to build in the first place.
UM and Uh. Evan had some really interesting insight around why, UM,
this would be such a priority, that this money would
(23:33):
be spent in this way when the Chinese government criticized
the statue in the first place for being a waste
of money. UM, here we go, Hello, guys, I listen
to your recent listener mail, and I wanted to chime
in about the figure of Guan You that you mentioned
as some of the significant aspects of that figure which
come to my mind, we're not mentioned in your as
always excellent, riveting and relevant coverage of the topic, that
is very very kind. Um. I'd also like to share
(23:55):
some of the knowledge and stories that I accumulated over
nearly a decade living and working in China and steady
Chinese language and culture. That's exactly the kind of stuff
we needed, because honestly, ben Um, you'll recall you were
looking into this, you know, kind of in real time, UM,
and a lot of the sources were Chinese language newspapers, which,
as we know, you know, the Chinese media is somewhat biased,
(24:16):
to say the least, and so it was a little
bit tough to wrap our heads around why such a
fuss was being made. There was some Chinese building organizations
or I guess some agencies that said that it was
done illegally because of height limitations in the area UM
for buildings, and then the folks that actually built it
claimed that it wasn't a building so it didn't count. Um,
(24:39):
but you put forth Ben that there might have been
some kind of regional politics that maybe we weren't quite
getting clued into UM, and that does appear to be
the case. So here we go. Guan You may be
controversial now because he's a figure bound up in regionalism
UM as he came to prominence during the Warring States
(25:01):
period of the collapse of the Han dynasty. He served
a state that was mostly based in central and southern
China against Northern Powers of Way and Yuan States. UH.
You can see this today and travels throughout China. In
certain regions and mostly the south, including Hong Kong, you
will see small shrines or altars with red candle shaped
lights and statuary of guan Yu, whereas these altars are
(25:23):
extremely uncommon in northern China where I used to live.
If a home or business does have this kind of altar,
it usually wouldn't contain guan U statuary. If you see
Chinese owned or Chinese diaspora Cambodian, Chinese, Loud Chinese, etcetera.
Also have these businesses operating in your area which have
these shrines. I used to see many in Hong Kong
(25:44):
immigrant dominated areas of San Francisco. You can have a
pretty good guest that they are not Northerners. Moreover, he
is most associated with the bonds that he formed with
two other famous warrior statesman figures, uh Liu Bai and
Shang Fei Uh in that they pledged a bond of brotherhood,
agreed to support each other in battle and politics, and
(26:05):
also pledged to die on the same day. This kind
of bond plus one use martial associations make him a
popular figure not only with law enforcement um as we
did mention in the episode, but also ironically with organized
crime or any group which is meant to operate on
interpersonal loyalty and even vaguely marshal brotherhood. Been you brought
(26:27):
that up to very very sharp, uh that this is
a possibility. There is a kind of iconography that if
his famous weapon is depicted held in one hand, it
signifies his righteous aspect police, or if in the other hand,
it signifies the other aspect mafia, although I think this
is likely more of a movie trope. So given that
he associated with Central and Southern Chinese regionalism and to
(26:50):
a certain extent, with organized crime, it would make sense
that he would be unpopular at a time of strong
central control emanating from Beijing, which is not only the
apital but also the major metropolis of the north. Although
I want to note it could just be someone in
a bureaucratic position of power being totally capricious. A friend
worked for a large German architecture firm, and he had
(27:12):
some stories about really bizarre occurrences in the planning and
building phases of projects. E g. Someone whose corporation wants
to curry favor with a well connected feng Shui enthusiast
UH invites that person to consult with the architecture firm.
Said person recommends that all plans for the building be
rotated by two degrees in such and such an orientation,
(27:33):
and low it must be done, regardless of the architect
or funders thoughts on the matter. My question is who
precisely has to pay for the relocation, as there is
not commonly centrally available funds for things like this. The
two thousand Olympics, for example, was the fiasco because Beijing
municipality was counting on allocation of central government funds, which
(27:53):
were at a relatively late stage denied. This would probably
elucidate the motivation for this more than anything. Um. What
you said about local residents claiming the statue is an
eyesore is totally American and not relevant at all to China.
What locals think about anything mostly doesn't matter unless they
happen to have a whole lot of pull i e.
(28:14):
High position and an important bureau. And there isn't the
same sense of eye sores in a country dominated almost
entirely by huge brutalist concrete Soviet style buildings which loom
disheartening lee over everything. Um. Yeah, there's a There's a
little bit more, but I think that's a great place
to stop and pick up the conversation. Ben. I thought
(28:35):
this was really uh supported a lot of your theories
quite significantly. You brought up the regionalism aspect and also
potential ties to organized crime, whether in funding or in perception. Um,
what do you think about evans um read on this? Uh?
You know, Evan, I greatly appreciated this letter as well,
(28:58):
and I think you're a good writer too. I hope
you you hear this. There are some things towards the
end of the letter that I regretfully do have to
agree with, and I hope your friends are safe and
I hope this letter finds you or this show finds
you safe as well. Nice Luxotica shout out. We've got
(29:19):
to get to those folks at some point. Um. Yeah,
I I kept looking at this too, and I contacted
some friends of mine who are Chinese nationals to help
me with some of the with some of the reporting,
because I can like muddle through some of the stuff,
but if you want to fully understand, to get a
(29:40):
read on a higher level of this language than I do.
And the fascinating thing here to me is the universality
of of weird, absurd, surreal situations that humans can find
themselves in. You know, you're you're at a large architecture firm.
This happens, by the way, um, not just with large statues,
(30:03):
but this happens with almost any large mission, large, multiple
human endeavor. Like if you've ever worked production on a film,
you've seen producers just arbitrarily changed some stuff because it
was a great day for him, it was a bad
day for him, or they're nine year old was like, Dad,
I love sharks, right, and Sharknado literally was creative. Matt,
(30:24):
what's going on? I'm so sorry. I just had an epiphany.
I am so sorry. I'm in this message Evan. Evan
is mentioning Guan Yu Lou Bay and and I was like, man,
I know these characters. Why do I know these characters?
Lighting game? Lou Bay hit it for me. It's Dynasty Warriors.
(30:47):
I don't know if you guys ever played that? Whoa
it all I was? I learned? Was I learning about
like some actual thing that happened when those games, It's
like solicit realization was very similar, right, it was all
about different real like Roman historical figures and stuff. A
lot of those games had like, you know, a hidden
(31:07):
learning opportunities in them, I think, But that was just
like a beat them up. I'm just gonna mash all
these buttons. I'm gonna oh. It was a fighting game.
It was like a history though. You're sorry, I I
just can't believe it. I was playing those games as
a younger person kid, and just like I thought they
were all made up. I don't know. I guess it's fascinating.
(31:31):
It is it is. And you know, I think it's
always fun to dive into those like the stories of
the purportage stories there because most most good stories, most
solid works of fiction have a structure based in truth,
you know, even really out there stuff like Donald barthel
may or m or Hayes. They they they start somewhere
(31:54):
before they get really weird. But with with this case,
with Evans excellent letter. Here one thing that I was
also interested in. First, yes, thank you for sending this letter,
because it is important for people, especially in the West,
to get stories, to get reporting from people who have
firsthand experience. The mainstream news, which I know it sounds
(32:18):
like a controversial phrase, but for better or worse, tends
to follow a kind of lockstep narrative based on a
country or based on whatever current movement is popular in
the national zeitgeist, especially here in the U. S. So. So,
one thing that might surprise people is that organized crime
(32:39):
in China, which which you mentioned Evan, organized crime in
China works a little bit differently than the organized crime
you might think of here in the States, with stuff
like Capone and The Godfather and oh the Sopranos. There
it is there, it is okay, Well, there is a
less family oriented and more like syndicate kind of oriented. Yeah,
(32:59):
it's a good question. I mean, in both cases, they're
definitely organizations and they're doing crime. But in China we're
talking about what are called the Triads t R, I, A, D.
And these organizations have expanded throughout the Chinese diaspora, including
expanding into the United States. It's interesting because there's there
(33:24):
are distinct distinct aspects by reaching and from what I understand,
they function a lot like secret societies, like real life
secret societies. Well, the Triad they're talking about, I mean
it has ancient roots, like a minute dates back to
um the I believe seventeenth century where it was, you know,
(33:45):
one of three of the most prominent secret societies, and
it was established in Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China,
so it already had kind of like international branches. But
it continues to the Spain and so kind of the
same way that maybe in the West, UM stories about
the Yuckuza might confuse people. Uh you know when you
(34:08):
hear like, oh, these guys that are Japanese mobsters are
out giving away Halloween candy or they're helping earthquake victims.
They're doing things that we wouldn't associate maybe with criminal acts.
So I I would say that I can completely see
I can completely see corruption as part of this, I
can also, I don't know the things that would lead
(34:30):
to the statue actually being moved. Like Evan pointed out,
they're they're kind of they're kind of hard to discern
unless you're on the inside. To be very clear, no
one and this show, at least at this point, is
saying that a triad was involved. Just saying they're around,
that's all I'm I'm saying they're around. I think, I
(34:52):
think to your point, Ban and to Evan's point, it
would certainly take off someone with a whole lot of
pull to make a move like this happen, you know
what I mean, since it's not truly it seems like
the line you know about historic preservation or about it
ruining the vibe of the area in some way. Um,
according to Evan, you know who lived there long enough
(35:14):
I think to know it feels like that's not as
much of a a mover, you know, especially since I
mean people saw it when it was getting built. They
don't build a statue like that in the day. It
seems like some kind of power player, whether in an
agency or perhaps with organized crime. Um, you know, but
the organized crime people would like it, right isn't that
the deal? So yeah, what this is the last big
(35:37):
point I have from this, and I think Evan already
Evan articulated this very well. So you have to remember whenever,
like whenever you hear people talking about a country like
Afghanistan or even talking about a country like um Greece
or something like that from the American perspective, from the
(35:57):
international perspective, the US is very much a child with
dangerous toys. It's been around a little more than two years.
And if you're talking about something like the Middle Kingdom,
you know, the predecessor of the predecessors of modern China
literally date back in the mythology, and we talked about
(36:19):
that on the show. So for for a very very
long time prior to the Communist Revolution, like very long time,
different forces, governing forces. We're trying to create a unified
Middle Kingdom with a central seat of power. And that's
(36:40):
something that that's happening today. Like, uh, put the economic
ideology and all all that stuff which is important to
the side for a second and realized, like there is
a reason that the government of China has like spends
so much time and blood and treasure try into create
(37:02):
a more what they would say, unified or harmimonious society.
So maybe, to Evin's point, maybe this regionalism is something
that is seen as a possible long term threat to
the status quo. But if that's the case, I'm thinking
out loud here, if that's the case, then why does
moving it a few miles matter? You know what I mean?
(37:22):
Like you still would have the problem, would you not. Yeah,
that's the part that's so strange to me. And I
think what you know really made the story catch my
eye is it's being moved so close, like to spend
that much money, and again we don't know where that
money is coming from. Specifically, I would say some pretty
(37:42):
powerful forces would have to be at play, and it
almost feels like a flex, you know, like to say,
you know, we're just gonna move it on down the
road at the at the bill of you know, twenty
million dollars, I don't know that. What do you think?
I think? So, I don't have anything to add. Guys,
you just to get an emulator version of Dynasty Warrior.
(38:02):
That's where your heads are. I think there's probably an update.
There's always a new version. There's a Dynasty Warriors nine.
It's a boy. See. Then there's Samurai Warriors. Now I
know there are a couple other different ones like that Warriors. Three. Yeah,
I'm gonna realized that this the genre of these games
is called hacken slash's. I have never heard that term
(38:25):
until I was just looking into these, Like Ninja Gaiden
is considered a hacken slash game. They're literally hundreds of
thousands of enemies and you do the same thing to
all of them. I love. Yeah, just like a brawler.
Is it a side scroll kind of brawler type of
like like Dragon person elevated view? Maybe I think you
(38:45):
can do it on Fallow. I don't know. I think
follows first person. But but yeah. One of the coolest
things about this letter is, in my opinion, that we're
hearing in depth again from somebody who has actually visited
the place. If you spend time in China, love to
hear about. If you spend time in any country that
you feel is unfamiliar to the West, and you have
(39:06):
a story you would like to share, then please yes
send it to us. UM. We do read every email
we get. We follow up on this and we hope
you agree that it's important UM for everyone. Conspiracy realist, skeptic,
what have you to be more aware of real life.
In other parts of the world, there's a group of
(39:27):
like a triad group in New York City according to
l oc dot gov, called the Ghost Shadows. The names Okay,
I'm gonna say this part and this is just my opinion, man,
but the names are super cool. I'm not that's not
condoning organized crime. Nobody send us that email. But the
names are really cool. Right, we can see we can
agree on that. Agreed, the Flying Dragons, I'll join, let's go,
(39:51):
i know. And then other people in the West, you've
got stuff where it's like, oh, we're the burn Bum
Boys or whatever. It's like try harder, you know. I
made up Burnum Boys. Uh. It sounds like a good
bluegrass band. They should be on Prairie Home Companion. Oh wait,
that's canceled. Now it's called Live from Here, and we're
(40:12):
not live from here or anywhere. Um. We are a podcast,
of course. So that means we have to have an
ad break, and we're gonna do that now. We'll be
back with more listener mail. And we have returned. Like
those villains and fairy tales, someone shows up at the
(40:33):
court and says I have a gift for the child.
It's true. It's it's Halloween, it's on the way, Oh,
the most wonderful time of the year. We're gonna do
something a little bit differently to end, uh, to close
the segment this week, and that is a bit of
story time. We spend so much time asking you for
(40:55):
your stories. We've received fascinating tales, some of which we
ourselves are at a loss to explain. Right. Stories have
seen strange things in the woods or strange things in
the sky. And over the years we've received a lot
of amazing, amazing ghost stories. And we're not you know,
(41:16):
we're not here to say whether or not these are
true because we were not there. We haven't investigated these things.
And um, you may have heard in past episodes our
collective opinion on the people who pretend to investigate ghosts. Uh. So,
with that being said, I thought, not an old doc,
(41:36):
if you all are okay with it, that we could
just share a couple of spooky stories from our listeners. Hell, yes,
all right, here we go. Alien Gibson girl, you wrote
to us to say the following, and uh, Doc, big favor,
we get some spooky atmospheric music. Jeez, not that spooky.
(42:01):
We're too spook, Doc, She's gonna be so mad. You're
gonna be so mad at us for asking like this,
just throwing sild cues. But yes, this music you're hearing
is perfect. Here we go. Alien Gibson girl says, since
October is coming up, I have a possible ghost story
for you guys that happened when I was around eleven
(42:22):
years old. I'm going to preface that during this time,
I was a very skeptical kid, where I tried to
debunk a lot of scary things that would bump in
the night, and I was a fan of Scooby Doo.
But this experience was something else and has made me
question if this was me and my brother's collective imaginations
or it was at my grandmother's house in Missouri. My
(42:43):
brother nine at the time and I would spend our
summer vacation there and stay in the guest bedroom. We
were in a large queen size bed, with me facing
out to a door to the parlor room and my
brother on the other side. One night, after our grandmother
put us into bed, I was looking out into the
inky blackness of the parlor room, a cream colored, glowing
figure of a woman materialized at the door frame. I
(43:06):
remember staring intensely at this object, studying what I just saw.
It was a woman with a big floppy hat and
a long lace dress, around six ft tall, with her
neck bent to one side. The figure of the woman
was softly glowing, but not causing any shadows, nor was
lighting up the doorway frame. I nudged my brother and said, hey,
(43:27):
did you see that? And he whimpered and said yeah.
We immediately started screaming, Grandma, and I'm sure you were
screaming here. As soon as we started screaming, the figure
collapsed upon itself and it looked like it zipped away.
She grandmother, we assume, comes running in and we were
both saying we saw a ghost, and we were told
(43:49):
we just had a bad nightmare. I'm thirty one. I
would say I'm just as skeptical of ghosts and spirits,
but I am still baffled by what we experience. It
is one to say if I was the only one
to witness it, that it would just be my imagination.
But my brother saw it at the same time as well.
He remembers it too. I did some research on the
(44:10):
house was built in nineteen ten. I looked up past
owners of the house and found no evidence of death
in the house being built in checks out because if
you google Gibson Girl, the style looks a lot like
the figure that me and my brother saw. The only
explanation is that there was a window in the parlor
and maybe light was shown through the lace curtains and
(44:31):
somehow stopped in the doorway, maybe humidity, or maybe me
and my brother were visited by an extra terrestrial Gibson Girl.
I look forward to hearing you guys take a crack
at it. Maybe you all can think of something I
did not consider. You may use your my story. If
you guys like a funny name, you can call me
haunted by alien Gibson Girl, so that that is an account,
(44:53):
and alien Gibson Girl are haunted by Excuse me asked
us specifically to think about this, think about this report,
So maybe we can unpack a little bit here when
you think so, like like we've done with the reports
of UMM previous reports of unidentified flying objects and sightings. UM. So,
(45:16):
first things first, two people, right, two people seeing the
same thing at the same time. Let's put their age
aside for a moment. And let's also put aside the
the treacherous nature of memory over time. Um, but I
think she's right. It does make it more difficult to
dismiss something entirely his imagination if someone else has seen it, right, Yeah, well,
(45:41):
when you've got an immediate second witness, like simultaneous, come on,
something happened. And the question is, and I love I
love that our gives and girl, which is kind of
weird to say. I've just looked up when it gives
you girl. We were told to google it and I did,
(46:03):
and it is. It's this weird maybe just fashion ideal.
I don't know how I would even like. Is it
like the girls, like one of those kind of deals.
It's like nineteen twentieth centuries, like mental Flaws called them
the Kardashians, the early nineteen aha fashion. Yes, I see,
(46:29):
like flowing gowns, big old buns, and um, you know,
probably very sharp, pointy hairpins. I would imagine. Man, these
would have been probably likely the type of women that
would have rebelled against mashers on the on the you know,
street cars. I don't even know what that is used.
His weapons masters were like the proto kind of you know,
(46:52):
stalker creepers. You know, that's just exactly called the mashers.
Got it. Well, I'm glad that our Gibson girl, uh
he is already thinking about things like lace light through lace.
That to me seems like something that maybe I've never
experienced before. I've never seen maybe a white lace or
(47:13):
a cream colored lace have light shine shown through it
and then seeing it somewhere else on a wall or
in a doorway. Um, I can imagine that being strange. Yeah,
I like that. We're thinking critically here. This is a
little tricky because so much time has passed, right, twenty
years or so passed, and at this point, you know,
(47:36):
we see due diligence done researching the house, researching events
that could have occurred there. Um, we also we have
some missing pieces, like the very skeptical. Another very skeptical
question would be, uh, did you and your brother um
do something earlier in the day that may have made
(47:57):
an impression on you, like saw some historic exhibits, such
that your minds were subconsciously primed to define and recognize
a pattern from earlier through the light. That's possible. It's
it's possible that happens with people. UM, check out Darren
Brown's work on priming people and which is you know, controversial,
(48:20):
but he's he's using it for good. And then the
other question is priming aside? Human beings have evolved to
recognize things, and in many many things, living or non
the human mind seeks to see itself, which I know
sounds overly philosophic and hallmarking, but it's just like a
(48:43):
fancy way of talking about confirmation bias, right, You like,
you tend to seek out stuff that you already agree with,
or patterns that you already recognize, and you want to
impart meaning upon them, Like hearing a song on the
radio after you've just been thinking about that song and
then thinking there's some kind of you know, crazy connection
with the averse or something, when likely it's just you
know what, coincidence, right, or you just don't recognize all
(49:05):
the times when it didn't work out, that's exactly better.
Mind hoff the frequency illusion as possible. Of course, our
our nuts and bolts answer, if it all possible, would
be to go back to that house and try to
recreate as as closely as you can the variables involved. UM,
(49:25):
and I I don't know what the circumstances would be
or what the best way to do that would be,
but that that would be our first step. And in
this case, we're we're unpacking it a little bit simply
because Haunted by a g G asked us to um.
But I will say that people just want to tell
(49:48):
us a scary story. I read them with great relish.
And Matt, we've had a few bangers come through on
the telephone line as well. Oh we've got spooky stuff
all around the bangers left and right, smashers, crashers, I
don't know what, haberdashers, and of course flashers, and of
(50:09):
course they're always coming at the end. And it's a
weird thing to happen to your like three your ears.
But it's all good. So this, uh, this is a
going to be a shorter third act for us. It's
just kind of kicking off the Halloween season. But if
you are interested, fellow conspiracy realist and Matt Noel doc
(50:31):
if if you all are interested as well, I think
it could be fun to share some of these stories
in the lead up to Halloween. And maybe it's just
something we read towards the end. Um maybe we do
an episode once we get enough spooky stories from a
fellow conspiracy realist, maybe we do an episode where we
three are just sharing those stories. You know, that would
(50:53):
be a lot of fun, would gather around the campfire. Yes,
so please please send us your ghost story ones that
you're happy to have us read aloud because that's what
we'll do. Or call us and leave your ghost story
over voicemail. I hereby make it my mission to get
(51:15):
through the voicemails that still sit in front of me
since September one. We will get there. You've got problems
and a voicemail is yeah, I can Uh. You know
it's gonna be tough for me to get in there,
but I can maybe do it. You are not allowed
to MR on a secret project. I literally have a
(51:36):
calendar block on one day that says s td W
I t K voicemails, and something inevitably always comes up
and I have to use that time. But I'm gonna
commit to uh to pitching in with the voicemail tagging
as well. Ben, you think nothing of it, Matt, I
got your back bang ring. I suppose oh rufio a right.
(51:59):
That guy was at Atlanta Comic consigning autographs. The line
was very short. I felt kind of bad for him,
but I really like that character. And people just don't
appreciate art is what it is. They don't. But with that,
when you when you do, give us a call at
our number one eight three three st d w y
t K. You'll have three minutes. They're yours, uh and
(52:19):
we would love to hear your story if you uh.
If you have a story that needs more than three minutes,
don't feel like you have to keep calling the same number.
You can write it out in full, just the way Haunted.
Buy a g G did. You can attach links and
your photographs if you've got them, or you know, if
you have a longer audio file and you just want
(52:41):
to record the full tail and then send it to
us via email, that's great too. As always, we cannot
wait to hear from you. We're gearing up through the
most wonderful time of the year, Halloween, and if you
want to be part of our month fish long celebration,
we we love you to join the crew. I have
to send us a good old fashioned email where we
(53:03):
are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Who's got a
spooky laugh? Ah ah ah and then and then the
clown titters. That's terrify, all right, So we're stopping stuff
(53:47):
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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