January 19, 2023 • 48 mins
Ben follows up on augmented reality and the ongoing communications from protestors in Iran. A caller asks for information about the alleged disappearance of the young inventor Max Loughan. A listener writes in to provide a Peruvian perspective on birthrates in agrarian economies. All this and more in this week's listener mail.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noll. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It is time once again, fellow
conspiracy realists for one of our favorite weekly segments, listener Mail.
(00:47):
We have scoured through the hinter lands of the Internet.
We've talked with you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Crossroads at Midnight,
all the hits, and we have We've chosen some stories
that we feel will be of great interest to the
best part of the show you, specifically you. We're going
(01:09):
to talk a lot about our overpopulation episode. We're going
to be introduced to a mystery. We're also going to
open with just some some general updates. So the first
part of this segment is going to be uh we'd
(01:30):
called the cavalcade a corn copia at the very least
of some some things that have been on our minds collectively. Uh,
I think maybe we start out by shouting out a
guy that we we have spoken with, not all in person,
regarding augmented reality and virtual reality. Now, Matt, know you
(01:54):
will recall when last we we spoke about this stuff.
We were kind of on the fed. It's about a
couple of things. But I think we all agreed this metaverse,
whatever it ends up being called, is somewhat inevitable. Do
we still hold that opinion? I don't know. I mean,
the metaverse has kind of become a bit of a
(02:14):
of a goof in terms of how much Facebook has
put their eggs in that particular meta basket. Are metas
rather just put their eggs in that particular meta basket
and doesn't seem like it's going super well. Um. Augmented reality,
on the other hand, seems to me like a much
more viable version of this kind of experience where you
can overlay things data, you know, scavenger hunts, all kinds
(02:38):
of things that it incorporate the real world, because we
do still have a real world at this point, which
I think is is important to consider. Maybe when the
world becomes uninhabitable, virtual reality meta verse situations might be
a little more attractive. Yeah, to that point, I think
meta is a really, really good bet that's not going
to pay off until ten years from now. But when
(03:00):
it does pay off, the metaverse is gonna be so awesome.
In that bunker, I changed that bunker, yes, well, put again,
this is the reason I'm saying metaverse or whatever it
ends up being called, is because first to the post
does not always mean the person who wins the game, right.
Medicinal beverages were all over the US before Coca Cola
(03:23):
became a thing, right, and now it dominates that market.
This is primarily a teaser here for a guy we're
going to be talking to later this year named Chris Pilcher,
mixed reality artist that we randomly ran into. We're in conversations.
This guy has gone through m I T UH. Actually
(03:45):
he's hanging with m I T right now, UH, and
he is combining the world of art, high art, fine art,
and performance media with UH with augmented reality. This dude
is someone who's going to be very exciting to speak
with and heard back from him recently. So really, this
(04:08):
is a call out to our fellow conspiracy realist folks.
If you have questions about the future of a r
v R, you have thoughts, uh, please send them any
any way you want to contact us, anyway you want
to contact anybody on the show, let us know, because
we're looking forward to this, assuming the world still spinds.
(04:30):
I wanted to take some time to give a special
shout out here to a long time listener of the
show who goes by Unwilling Stardust. Now you'll recognize perhaps
that handle because Unwilling start Us reach out to us
not too long ago when we were talking about the
(04:52):
ongoing protest and instability in Iran. As I last spoke
with Stardust, they were going to a protest with no
clue about their safety. I want to just read a
brief excerpt here and maybe we can react to this.
(05:14):
All right, So unwilling to start us as First of all,
according to the Islamic Republic, revolutionary guards, having an improper
JAB will now have serious consequences. The range goes from
having to pay a huge fee to having to do
many hours of social work, uh, and up to including oh,
(05:35):
let's just read this. Uh. It happened to a prisoner who,
as a journalist is social work, was writing a one
page article about why the Islamic Republic is so amazingly good. Uh.
They can also be imprisoned, Their belongings can be taken away, cars, electronics,
especially social media devices, and they are forced out of
(05:58):
their city to live an exile cannot leave the country.
The crimes cannot be argued in court. There is no
second trial if you attempt to appeal. Many places that
have been closed down by the government for allowing women
to not wear her jabs are remaining closed Dave. Also,
(06:19):
they being the Revolutionary Guard, have arranged new rules to
make life difficult for women without hjab. Today at university,
says unwilling to stardust. My hejab was hanging from my
neck without putting it on my hair, as if it
had just fallen. And not only the person coming to
the exam room to examine the students attacks me verbally
(06:41):
abusing me, but also they attempted to ban me from
taking the exam or going to school. The professor who
who defended me was detained. And people are being tracked
via their social media as as their license plates. Gentlemen.
(07:03):
This comes on the heels of recent executions for protesters
in Iran. You guys heard about this, now, this is
news to me. Yeah, but I'm not following it nearly
as closely as you are been. I mean, everything you're
saying there, it sounds like a religious revolution, rebellion against
a state that holds a religion very close to how
(07:25):
it governs, right again, a theocracy. In a recent episode
on How to Be a Skeptic, we discussed briefly the
dangers of theocracy. The United Nations, Gosh, just just a
few days ago, came out with an official statement regarding
what's going on in Iran, and the United Nations has
(07:46):
accused the government of Iran of weaponizing the death penalty.
They're saying that they're killing people by example, crushing descent
by frightening the public with public executions. This follows uh
as well with our earlier report of multiple protesters dying
(08:06):
in custody. Right now, we can confirm that Tarran saying
Tahran the capital of Iran is a lot like saying
the White House when you talk about the US government.
Tehran has executed four people in connection with these demonstrations,
following frankly kangaroo court trials, and this is not us
(08:27):
saying it We're not being political partisans here, folks. The
United Nations as confirmed that the trials leading to those
four executions did not meet the internationally recognized legal minimum
for what defines a fair trial. This is not a
(08:49):
sustainable situation. At least seventeen other protesters have been sentenced
to death, according to Curturk, the U n High Commissioner
for Human Rights, and this reminds me a lot of
what of the excellent work are Pal Robert Evans did
(09:10):
in his series It could happen here. I keep thinking
about these things occurring across the planet now right. The
coup and Peru or who attempt it was very underreported,
the hilarious attempt in Germany. We're just saying it's hilarious
because come on, it's a decayed aristocrat, uh. And then
(09:32):
numerous other coups, including something we talked about quite recently
regarding Brazil and folks, I know we talked about doing
an episode on the situation in Iran full episode on this,
and we have been gathering sources. We've been speaking with
protesters who are in a very real way risk in
(09:56):
their lives to contact us UM I primary early in
bringing this up because I want to check in with you,
met and with you know, do you feel that the
West is doing its due diligence in reporting the situation here?
It certainly doesn't seem to be breaking through, um in
the news cycle and in the way that you think
(10:17):
a story of this weight and importance should. Yeah. Absolutely.
I I don't know, man, I'm I'm torn a little bit, honestly, Ben,
because I'm far too aware now of the West's let's say,
interference with other countries when it comes to these kinds
of uprisings, right, I mean, often it's the CIA that's
(10:41):
getting involved with like a student group or something to
make something like this happen in a country that is
seen as adversarial to the West or their purposes. Um.
It's the skeptical thing, right, I'm still feeling skeptical about
it to some extent, and that's probably because I'm so
far removed and it doesn't affect me in the way
(11:02):
it affects unwilling stardust Um. And that's a that's like
a kind of a crappy position to hold for somebody
who's going through it like that. The way that I'm
sitting here right now and thinking about it, um, But
I don't know. It freaks me out. It makes me
feel like um other forces that are at play, even
though I don't have any way to confirm that. Yeah,
(11:24):
and I'm I'm tempted to agree with you in some
regards there, Matt, because one of the things that we
have to always remember is that the shadow of US
imperialism is a very real specter, right, and it colors
the way that you encounter reports of this stuff in
(11:45):
the West. Quite recently there were some Maraudian activists who
were saying the protest have flipped the switch. It brought
to my mind a very important question, at what point
does a protest become a revolution? What is the is
it a spectrum? Right? Was was Occupy Wall Street on
(12:05):
the verge of becoming a revolution? I very much doubt it.
A revolution is difficult in the United States? But do
we have an answer for that? Is there any way
for us to say this is no longer a series
of protests, this is now actively a revolution or an
attempted overthrow. Well, I mean go back to January six, right,
(12:29):
I mean think about it, like, what's what is the
line there between protesting and uh an attempted rebellion that
kind of thing, or an attempted revolution. Well, and and
and and the folks responsible for that event you're talking
about January six, would rather it be viewed as a
protest because it does doesn't really align with reasonable American
(12:52):
political even like on the most extreme side, and one
wants to be seen as attempting a coup, you know,
And then the folks who may be responsible for that event,
it's much better politically for them to say, no, this
is a protest. In America was built on protests. But again,
if there's protests happy, they don't like they'll call those
people terrorists or domestic terrorists. But we have to keep
(13:13):
in mind, as much as it is discomforting to think about,
it is very beneficial for people on the other side
who are opposing that president and the actions to consider
it a you know, an attempted revolution, right versus maybe
like somewhat organized chaos. So it's like, it's it's just
(13:35):
a tough thing to think about when we're in these realms, um,
But when it comes to Iran, I mean, there's definitely
horrendous stuff going down. Hundreds of people are being killed
in the protest yeah, murdered. So I mean, in the end,
doesn't matter who's pushing the buttons to make the actions happen.
(13:55):
I think it does, but again there's no way to
fully tell in the moment. It's a very very good question,
and also it's a question that a lot of Western
journalists cannot answer on the ground because it's very difficult
to get into Tehran with good reason because Uncle Sam
(14:17):
has multiple times sent people into that area as tourists.
So that means no official diplomatic visa, none, none of
that kind of protective measure. Just hey, we're here to
take pictures. Boh, I didn't know there was a there
was a nuclear deploying. I don't know why they're sending
(14:37):
muppets as tourists, but that's the voice, right and so
this so it may sound as though there's a bit
of a broken record, but we want to do justice
to this conversation, to what's happening now in the world
(14:58):
that is not being why widely reported or is being
sanitized in the way it's being reported. The US is
an imperialist power, There's no two ways about it. And
you can you can say that and still be a
US patriot. Right. The not the missile, but the the
issue is that what's happening here can trigger things in
(15:22):
other places. Instability, global instability can be on the rise.
It very much is, and it will be perhaps sooner
than we think. At this point, we're going to end
this part of this listener mail segment with not just
a general update, but a call to action. If you
(15:45):
have information on the ground in Iran, if you have
experience in the country or with the Islamic Republic, we
want to hear from you. Please find us a conspiracy
at I heart radio dot com, fi just on Instagram, Twitter,
if there is a more secure platform you prefer, then
(16:07):
you can also uh find find me or the show
directly on those platforms outlined, and then we can connect
on a more secure means of communication. For now, we're
gonna pause for a word from our sponsors. Please be safe,
folks will be right back. And we're back, and we
(16:34):
are jumping to the phone lines. We haven't done this
in a while. Guys, here it comes. We've got a
message from Krista. Hey, guys, um, my name is Krista.
I've actually left a message for you all before and
have been along to a listener. Um, you can use
my name in this entire message. UM. I just came
across and its treading on TikTok. But Max Lohan, Um,
(16:59):
he was start tew years old in two thousand seventeen,
created free energy. Um, and he's disappeared. No one knows
where he's at, and he can't be found any video
that I try to watch about like the things that
he created were invented at all. Everything pops up with
a virus on it, saying that microphone has been infected
(17:20):
with the virus. If I try to watch a video
that he created, Um, everything's been screwed from the internet
and he's gone. He would have been the nineteen years
old right now. Um, but out of nowhere, like he's
just not around anymore. UM. I would love for you
all to like to speak on this seat for even
a small amount of time. UM. It's scary and UM
(17:44):
mostly like where's Max? Thanks? Free energy? Yes, Christa, thank
you so much for letting us know about that. This
was new to all of us. And you heard Ben
say free energy. And that is because over the years
that phrase, right, that term. Um, We've we've analyzed versions
(18:08):
of it a lot. I think I would say, right,
We've looked into instances of supposed free energy gathering and
use and device creation and all that kind of stuff
many times. And I don't know about you guys, but
to my knowledge now, I still haven't seen one that
would meet the criteria of that phrase. Yeah, agreed. Not
(18:31):
In in previous episodes and in some previous Strange News
and listener mail segments, we have we have explored a
lot of related a lot of related claims, and at
this point, unfortunately, none of those has seemed to reach
(18:52):
the threshold of either scale or experimental reproducibility at Lee. Again,
up to this point, right up to this point, we
were unaware of this person, Max low N l O
U G h A N. But we are now going
to watch a roughly two and a half minute video
(19:13):
and this comes from ktv N. It's Channel two news.
It appears to be a major news station. Ben, I
think you've confirmed that it's CBS out of Reno, Nevada. Yeah,
So we're gonna watch this and we'll play some excerpts
within this podcast, and hopefully we'll all be on the
same page. So here we go. This is story about
(19:34):
Max Lowen dreussed in his lab coat. Yeah, I wear
this fairly often. Max Lahin sits in his parents old
boiler room converted into a lab. I am in a
boiler room right now, and he ponders the future. Often
the future that I imagine is the future, frankly that
we all imagine. He wants to make the world a
better place. And to do that you need one single thing.
(19:58):
If you've got energy, you've got power, you have everything.
So to solve this problem, a few months ago, Max
took the matter into his own hands and created this
electro magnetic harvester out of a coffee can, some wire,
two coils, and a spoon. The harvester conducts radio waves,
thermal and static energy and turns it into electricity. This
(20:23):
wire takes the energy from the air down below. Here
we turned it from a C into d C. So
we take the device outside and wrap up Max's brother
into a string of l e ed lights. Thing. A
fourteen dollar invention was able to do that. So imagine
the same harvester on a scale twenty times larger. Okay, guys,
(20:47):
so there we go. According to KTV in a whiz
kid with a powerful idea, and he is someone to know. Um,
it sounds great from the reporting, right, free energy? He
really did make this ing that just pulls energy out
of thin air and can power l ed s. That
would be incredible. Well, there's no info about the maximum
(21:10):
amount of energy? Uh is it? So it's electromagnetic energy?
I would assume based from the description. From the description,
there's nothing to tell, right, there's nothing to do, there's
no there's no what is the amplitude or what do
they what do they call that? Um? Sorry, I'm not
a scientist, guys, I'm not a physicist. I don't know.
I don't know things. But how how much wattage do
(21:32):
you actually get out of that thing? What can you power? Right?
It reminds me of those old crystal radio kits that
you can build at home. You know what I'm talking about?
Oh yeah, yeah, the ones with like little crystals that
act as an antenna where you can essentially create your own.
But no, it's not a ham radio. It's a receiver exactly. Um.
Interesting you would say that, because that is on the
(21:55):
skeptical side, that is precisely what this device is being,
uh compared to I'm not pooh pooing you, I'm just
saying what I remember from building what it seems kind
of yep, you you need an antenna of sorts, like
where he says, this is where what do you say?
This is where the energy comes in. He's pointing to
a wire and then he, you know, shows you where
(22:18):
it goes in and converts from A C to D
C I guess. And then there's the output, and that's
where he plugged in the or at least attached the
wires to the strip of LED lights um which, by
the way, led lights, I think we all know this
guy's It takes very little energy to run an L
E D. A single LED light or just a small
(22:39):
strip of LED lights doesn't take a ton of power.
But even if even yes true, But even being that
being the case, that's at the very least a cool
way to power L E ED lights. Yeah, that's all
just a can and a spoon and some wire. Let's
do it. Let's go. That's kind of cool. The problem
(23:01):
is the claim is by Max and again he's thirteen
years old, guys, come on. But the claim by Max
is that this device pulls in energy that is abundant,
that is just flying around at any time it was nighttime,
by the way, so it wasn't solar powered, which is,
by the way, the uh, the abundant source of energy
(23:22):
that is always flying around. It's it's the sun. It's
that radiation. UM. And there's another video you can watch
that we're not going to watch on the podcast, but
I recommend you search it out from four years ago
from a great creator YouTube channel called a electro boom.
I guarantee if you see, uh, the face of the
(23:42):
person who hosts that show, you will recognize him. Uh.
He goes into it and really describes how this device
is in fact exactly a crystal radio UM and just
demonstrates how you can build one and what it does
and why it functions, um. But also why it wouldn't
work even if you build the huge one, why it
wouldn't do much much more, it wouldn't scale question before
(24:09):
we go on, Christa's asking what happened. And also I
hope electro Boom is nice to this person, because let's
keep in mind, there's a thirteen year old child. You know,
they're obviously not out to build people. They're not trying
to scam North or Grumman or something. Right, You're absolutely right, Uh,
(24:30):
you know, I don't want to speak for that channel
or that video, but I would say, in my opinion,
the biggest gripe that comes forward there is that Max
Lahan ended up going and doing basically a tour of
the world. He got on lists of things like Global
Teen Leaders of two thousand seventeen at the we Are
(24:51):
Family Foundation, sort of a Greta Thunberg type figure. I
mean in that yeah, in that moment, right. Yes, he
went and gave major speeches at places like Nexus, which
is a highly reputable science. I believe it's a foundation
where they go and they give talks similar to ted Um.
He was interviewed several other times on fairly big outlets,
(25:16):
basically people saying, wow, this kid figured out free energy.
This dude is This kid is Nicola Tesla and he's
wearing the Tesla T shirt in that channel too. He
is um and Max is so well spoken, so he
seen comes off as so intelligent. He can clearly solve
a Rubik's cube, which come on, that's no simple feat
(25:37):
u in in like five seconds, you know, one of
those like speed solves. But there were some medics can
but but he is so confident when he speaks. It
reminds me of the Skepticism episode we just did, where
when you hear him talk, you tend to just believe
(25:58):
him because he's just saying it. Yeah, this is how
it is. This is what it is. Absolutely And you know,
if you have energy, then you've got power, and if
you've got power, you've got everything. And with this simple device,
I can make power. Look, here's how it works. Here's
the coil, here's this. So your mind just kind of
goes along with him on the ride. Uh. It's just
strange that so many people immediately took that positive news,
(26:22):
that potential like oh, win for humanity and just said, yeah, well,
let's go with it. Also, I mean, speaking of news,
he's on the news. They don't put quacks on the news,
you know, solving Rubik's cubes wearing uh, wearing lab coats
and their parents boiler room. I'm being a little jokey,
but I mean that's part of it. You know, a
kid like that speaking in the way, speaking demonstrating these
(26:45):
levels of whether it be genius or savantas um or
whatever you do kind of Oh, well, how don't I
know know about this kid? Let's let's let's go. He's
obviously got it cracked. And I would say that's why
his name and this concept is currently trending on or
maybe not currently anymore, but was trending on TikTok for
(27:06):
quite a while. The most well researched of yes, because
it does seem so positive for humanity overall. The kid
is so confident and just. And then he was you know,
he was all over the place in twenty seventeen, seriously
seen um and then we haven't heard much from him.
There were a couple of videos a while back. I
(27:27):
don't know if you guys remember seeing this. He was
sent to us via listener email. At one point it
was a video of Max when before I knew who
he was. Uh, And he is making he was making
predictions of some sort about certain Yeah, that's right, that's right,
in like a kitchen of some sort, or like just
(27:49):
in his house, I think. And he's talking about cern
and black holes and all this other stuff, and he's
using the correct nomenclature of the correct vocabulary and saying
it's so confidently that it feels kind of scary and
like something he knows something more than everybody else, and
it's going to happen, I would pause it and I don't.
(28:10):
I cannot confirm this. I think he got a lot
of attention really fast as a thirteen year old, and
then there was probably quite a bit of blowback to that, UM,
and he just became a kid again. I think it
is probably what happened. So maybe avoided social media for
quite a while. UM kind of went just dark a
(28:32):
little bit when it comes to that stuff. And again,
it's not because, in my opinion, that he's attempting to
be a liar or to deceive a bunch of people.
It's because he believed the thing, and maybe his family
didn't know. They didn't understand what it actually was. Even
the news presenter, the guy that went and interviewed and
didn't really understand. I wouldn't have understood unless I researched it, right,
(28:55):
So it's I think maybe that's what happened. You can't
find him on Facebook though, what you did, Yeah you
can find I mean, it was pretty easy actually, and
I'm where I'm wondering if this is actually his page
or anyone that he knows even represents this page. But
you can go to Facebook dot com, slash Max l
O U G. H a n And that's where I
(29:17):
found that video that we just listened to. Another great
point and also, Matt, I think we should take pains
to know this is not the same thing as doxing someone.
Finding someone's Facebook page is not doxing someone. We're very
well aware. Uh, this is a child. I love that
you pointed this out. There are a couple of possibilities
(29:38):
to it. Could be that, Uh, this kid is getting
ready to apply for college. You know it's t seventeen,
was a couple of years ago. Uh, maybe a situation
where his parents or he himself doesn't want to be
associated with too much hubbub right, or to look like
they're propagating bad science, which is know, what he did,
(30:00):
even if it's just a crystal radio is still an
amazingly impressive thing for a kid to figure out on
their own. That's awesome. Also, the last thing I just
want to point out, the National Invention Secrecy Act of
nine one is a true thing, and it is used
to suppress technology. Oh shoot, what if he really did
figure it out and he just got a little visit.
(30:23):
It's a real thing. It's like, hey, kid, we're gonna
need you to take it down a couple of pegs
here not necessarily gonna disappear you, but strike a little
fear of God and you well, you know the innovation
potentially here, guys, was the spoon attached at the top
of his device. I don't know if you saw that
is no spoon, Matt, this spoon bend. Maybe they want
you to believe that there's no spoon, but there's got
(30:46):
to be a spoon. And if there is a spoon,
Uh spoon BANDA is brought to you by Big spoon.
Is the man man with the spoon you touch? Now,
have you, guys seen the new uh Knives out movie yet? Glass? Yeah,
no spoilers. This is what it's about, uh free energy
(31:08):
or something along the lines of free energy using reclaimed
seawater as a source, you know, to to replace you know,
nuclear and electric and coal power and all that. But
then there's you know, there's a twist. There's like many things,
and there's always positives and negatives, so nothing's perfect or
free and that. And thank you so much for calling
(31:28):
in Krista with that question. We hope this helps a
little bit. You can find more information. It's out there.
I hope you don't get any more viruses on your phone.
That's not good and I'm not sure why that was happening.
You can find this stuff on Facebook and on YouTube,
and no viruses on my computer that I'm aware of.
I guess we'll see. We'll take a break and we'll
be right back National INVECTORUS Secrecy Act. And we've returned
(31:59):
with one more piece of a listener correspondence, this one
coming from one of my favorite nicknames of recent memory,
Cyborg Penguin uh. And it was in response to our
overpopulation episode, and specifically to a comment that I made
about why someone would or would not have a child
(32:20):
uh in the event of losing a child. Um. And
it was just kind of an off the cuff remark
where I was just we were both I think Ben,
you and I were sort of you and I were
both kind of considering what the drive to have a
child might be in the event of losing a child,
versus it being such a traumatic experience that maybe you
would not want to ever put yourself in the position
(32:42):
to go through that again and maybe wouldn't have a child. UM.
Cyborg has this to say, Hey, Noel, regarding your comment
on replacing a kid with another. You're getting it wrong.
The logic isn't that you wait for a kid to
die to have another. You have a lot in a
short span of time to have more chances of having
at least a handful who served five. The appearance of
(33:03):
healthcare technology, or the improvement of healthcare technology in the
Andes region upset this uh and now people have fewer children.
My mother has twelve siblings, between full and half siblings,
and that was basically because in an agrarian economy, more
kids are more potential farm hands, and half of them
(33:24):
might not make it, so you better be sure to
spawn a lot of them. The Peruvian demographic explosion of
the fifties to seventies was in part because of this.
You need at least a couple of generations before you
change the practices of the people. So from the forties
to the sixties are grarian families with a lot of
kids who made it to adulthood was a thing. I
(33:45):
love the program today Best of luck to you and
the guys. So I think this is a very valid
and interesting perspective from a part of the world. Maybe
we don't consider or a type of lifestyle, you know,
in terms of farming um and maybe an older mode
of thinking around this topic than maybe still exists today.
And I think Cybor Penguin addressed that beautifully in terms of, like,
(34:08):
it takes some time to see a change in behavior,
you know, over the course of generations. We certainly know
that in in days when healthcare which is not not
a thing, like even as far back as you know,
the Dark Ages and the medieval times, life expectancy was
very short and often children would die in childbirth or
die very very young, um. And so the idea was
(34:31):
to have as many as possible to make sure that
that bloodline was carried on. But I wasn't really thinking
about that in terms of more modern examples, and I
think this is a really good one, you know, the
idea of in the forties and fifties, at this notion
that we've got to have as many as we can
because health care wasn't good and some kids might not
survive in perhaps more harsh uh and and dangerous frankly
(34:54):
um farming conditions. And it was sort of a calculation
of like, you know, we gotta have more kids to
the farm can be staffed, you know, with family, and
then also that the farm the family farm can be
passed down to a two generations, you know, to carry on. Yeah, yeah,
well said, and thank you so much, Cyborg penguin. This
is something that I believe we've we've also explored in
(35:18):
some previous episodes. Uh, the overpopulation fact and fiction is
it's red meat for a lot of people, for a
lot of the wrong reasons. Right when you hear the
different arguments, Uh, it gets, as we say, very weird
(35:40):
and hypocritical. In the halls of power, people will say
a lot of folks should stop having children, and then
they'll say, but my kids are fine, right, But that
doesn't apply to me. The same problem with the corruption
in the Chinese government regarding the one child policy. If
you come um and a grarian background, then you realize
(36:04):
there is there is a calculus to this. Right again,
most people are incredibly intelligent. One thing we did miss,
and I'm so glad to bring this up now, is
that there are some pretty compelling arguments that have come
out that overall the global population of human beings may
(36:25):
be stabilizing. I think we made a pretty good case
that the growth itself, the Malthusiant arguments have proven incorrect.
But what we are seeing is really a problem of
inequality of access to education, to resources, to healthcare, and
that access, that problem has been so heavily propagandized and
(36:51):
politicized that people are finding themselves in a weird situation
where they're supporting they're supporting parasites at the very top
of the financial ecosystem. I think I'm a word Saladin
in a little but all to say, yeah, everything everything.
Cyborg Penguin is saying, well, like, I'm I wasn't a
(37:12):
part of that conversation, guys, I'm sorry I missed it. Um,
I don't know. I So way are we saying overpopulation
isn't a problem or released as big of a problem
as I I feel like it is because I feel
like the more human beings, the more resources you got
to use, which means more trees cut down, more fresh
water used, more plastic, more lithium everything. I think this
(37:36):
perspective also speaks to a thing we talked about in
the episode where it kind of course corrects to some
degree over time. But you know, but again, it takes
time for that correction to to set to be to
be visible. Um, whether it be because of changes in
generational thinking, around having children or there have been. You
(37:57):
can speak to this. I'm sure other actors as well. UM,
that will potentially cause overpopulation as a massive spike to
really have us, you know, worried, sort of even out
the freeze course correction, let's let's explore that for a second.
So the real problem with humanity's population growth, which has
(38:20):
been on a continued clip ever since the Black Death,
you know, human beings took that one on the chin
and then they just said, let's reproduce as much as
we can. Um. The real problem is one of logistics,
you know, it's one of what of expectation of quality
of life. Consider for a moment that the average person
(38:42):
needs somewhere between like three to four leaders of water
a day, and a lot of people use way more
than that, right, and a lot of people are not
getting that. I would note that if you look at
the world as it stands now, eight plus billion people,
all sorts of terrible things are happening due to previous generations, right,
(39:05):
and the way they treated resource allocation. Now, this population
of eight billion people has to contend with the sins
of the past while also asking how do we distribute
these resources or in my case, how do they distribute
these resources? And that's where the issue comes in. It's
(39:27):
very easy to be a billionaire or a tycoon at
Davos Economic Forum and say here's what we do to
make everything right. But it's very difficult to be someone
who says I need to feed my kids. My kids
are part of my not just my family, but my livelihood.
We all work this land together. That's the great danger,
(39:51):
I think is the disconnect. Now, would planet Earth be
better with far fewer people on it? I'm just going
to be a jerk here and say yes, that's objectively true.
But also the idea of painting it as a crisis
situation as a means of advancing one zone wealth extraction
(40:13):
or resource extraction ideologies, it's dangerous. It's misleading. And the
people who are saying that are smart enough to know
what they're doing. Okay, yeah, I hear you. It's uh,
it's my own biases because I just heck skepticism. It's
not too confident. Yes, no, no, not at all whatever,
(40:35):
No no, no, no no. But just when I'm thinking
about that standard of living at least in uh, in
many parts of the West, I had this image of
these open lithium minds where there are you know, tens
of thousands of human beings attempting to extract tiny amounts
of lithium individually so that they can support those families
(40:58):
that you're talking about, so that the family Lea's in
largely Western cultures can thrive with their phones and stuff. Right, So,
like maybe it really is just it's kind of I
think I heard you guys say the phrase on the
on the episode eat the rich situation, Like maybe we
really do do just need to coll the coll the
(41:19):
wealthy people, which I would you know, all of us,
I think I would know. I would include myself in
there when it comes to just people who use too
much but the wheel. Yeah. Yeah, it's difficult though, because
again the course correction. This is a thing uh folks
often don't like to talk about. But humanity is simply
(41:41):
another example of another animal on earth. And as you
can see historically, when a population exceeds a certain a
certain threshold, nature itself will correct for that to retain
its favorite thing, which is equilibrium. You evil ambulance or
(42:03):
whatever you were, fire truck. I get a lot of
non consensual lubers. I'm just gonna be honest. Uh so.
But the but the point holds. You know, the problem
here is one of the tragedy of the commons. For
any fellow nerds out there, how does how do we
handle a public good? Right? Uh? And the the other
(42:25):
issue is one of cooperation. How can you get eight
plus billion people to look out for the greater good
and somehow prevent the most powerful of those eight billion
people from doing some weird scheme to make them set
(42:47):
their own lives quote unquote better at the expense of others.
And Cybord paint I think we're talking about here is
a brilliant observation that my village varies for people having
these experiences. When we talk a little bit about replacement rate, right,
for a population to remain stable, reproductive pairs produced two
(43:13):
point one children, that accounts for mortality, accounts for everything
such that the population will be stable. When you hear
global statistics, right November, the eight billion person is born,
I think we wish them happy birthday and when in
an episode, happy birthday. Sorry, if we knew you were coming,
(43:36):
we would have cleaned the place up a little. But
what what we see there is that this population growth globally,
that statistic can be misleading because it is not an
even growth right places like India or Nigeria, right that
that those places people are gonna have more than two
point one kids. Places like Japan. Uh, the replace spent
(44:00):
rate is no longer being reached. There's some pretty compelling
arguments that globally a certain point population will decline. Um,
And I think you know, no. One thing that was
really personal for us for a lot of listeners was
the conversation about why people may or may not decide
(44:21):
to have a child after losing a child. And that
is something that, Um, that's something I really appreciate about
what you're saying, cyber Cyborg Penguin, is that that is
as a personal decision, but also sometimes people in a
very real way, I feel it is a necessary thing
to do that that one must do this, you know,
(44:45):
that one must put their feelings aside. And that's simply
the reality of the world that can be driven by
um reasons of economics, whether it means like like like
he's talking about in terms of needing those hands to
to to get the work done, you know, and so uh,
stacking the deck in a way that you you know,
in a time where maybe you might lose more than
one child, you know, for various reasons, or maybe there
(45:08):
are religious reasons where it's about you know, spreading the
gospel or whatever it might be. You know, and that's
your that's your responsibility to do that, so you do
put your feelings aside. I think I was coming from
it in my comments um as a parent, if I
lost a child, I don't know. I don't think I
would ever want to put myself in that position again
(45:31):
because it would be such a heartbreaking thing. So I
was coming at it from a completely emotional standpoint when
I made that comment, or when I positive that that
might be a perspective shared by others, because to your point,
then it is very personal and there are a lot
of different reasons. And this is something uh that I
know we both actually all of us listening along as
(45:52):
well the overpopulation episode really wanted your perspective on as well.
It's an incredibly if goal conversation. You know, we have
a lot of people with us today who have perhaps
had to terminate a pregnancy right or had a pregnancy
that didn't go to term for any number of reasons.
(46:13):
How would you react to that the statement, um, you know,
from from knowl from your side, the idea that it
is a personal decision and it can be I mean
there there aren't really words for it, you know, like
how how how should what of our fellow conspiracy realist
attempt to approach that situation? I mean it's the same
(46:35):
thing as like asking yourself, how would you act in
an emergency situation? You know, you hope that you would
act a certain way, but given the actual realities of it,
you might not act that way. You know that you
think or that you wish you would. I see that.
One lucky difference between those situations is that if you
want to trust yourself in an emergency situation, the best
(46:58):
thing to do is topeatedly drill and train such that
it can hopefully become reflective muscle memory automatic. And you
just don't have that ability in this situation where you
lose your life like that. I don't I say sorry,
I I wanted to interject that. But Matt, what are
your thoughts? Um? I want to know your thoughts? So
(47:20):
why don't you write to us? You can find us
on social media. We are conspiracy stuff on many outlets
like Twitter and Facebook. And YouTube. We are conspiracy Stuff
show on Instagram and TikTok. Please please please check those out,
follow us if you will. You can interact with us
there for sure. You can also interact with us in
(47:42):
other ways, that's right. You can give us a telephone
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where you will hear Ben's voice inviting you to leave
a message. You will have three minutes to leave said message.
Tell us anything you want. Um also give yourself a
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appear on this program, this segment, this listener Mail Weekly
(48:06):
Listener Mail episode. To make sure to let us know
if that's okay, and h if you want us to
hold anything back. And if you don't want to do
phone or social or any of that kind of stuff,
maybe you throw your phone in the ocean. Could on you?
What about sending a good old fashioned email? We like those.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(48:46):
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 Noll. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission controlled decads. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. It is time once again, fellow
conspiracy realists for one of our favorite weekly segments, listener Mail.
(00:47):
We have scoured through the hinter lands of the Internet.
We've talked with you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Crossroads at Midnight,
all the hits, and we have We've chosen some stories
that we feel will be of great interest to the
best part of the show you, specifically you. We're going
(01:09):
to talk a lot about our overpopulation episode. We're going
to be introduced to a mystery. We're also going to
open with just some some general updates. So the first
part of this segment is going to be uh we'd
(01:30):
called the cavalcade a corn copia at the very least
of some some things that have been on our minds collectively. Uh,
I think maybe we start out by shouting out a
guy that we we have spoken with, not all in person,
regarding augmented reality and virtual reality. Now, Matt, know you
(01:54):
will recall when last we we spoke about this stuff.
We were kind of on the fed. It's about a
couple of things. But I think we all agreed this metaverse,
whatever it ends up being called, is somewhat inevitable. Do
we still hold that opinion? I don't know. I mean,
the metaverse has kind of become a bit of a
(02:14):
of a goof in terms of how much Facebook has
put their eggs in that particular meta basket. Are metas
rather just put their eggs in that particular meta basket
and doesn't seem like it's going super well. Um. Augmented reality,
on the other hand, seems to me like a much
more viable version of this kind of experience where you
can overlay things data, you know, scavenger hunts, all kinds
(02:38):
of things that it incorporate the real world, because we
do still have a real world at this point, which
I think is is important to consider. Maybe when the
world becomes uninhabitable, virtual reality meta verse situations might be
a little more attractive. Yeah, to that point, I think
meta is a really, really good bet that's not going
to pay off until ten years from now. But when
(03:00):
it does pay off, the metaverse is gonna be so awesome.
In that bunker, I changed that bunker, yes, well, put again,
this is the reason I'm saying metaverse or whatever it
ends up being called, is because first to the post
does not always mean the person who wins the game, right.
Medicinal beverages were all over the US before Coca Cola
(03:23):
became a thing, right, and now it dominates that market.
This is primarily a teaser here for a guy we're
going to be talking to later this year named Chris Pilcher,
mixed reality artist that we randomly ran into. We're in conversations.
This guy has gone through m I T UH. Actually
(03:45):
he's hanging with m I T right now, UH, and
he is combining the world of art, high art, fine art,
and performance media with UH with augmented reality. This dude
is someone who's going to be very exciting to speak
with and heard back from him recently. So really, this
(04:08):
is a call out to our fellow conspiracy realist folks.
If you have questions about the future of a r
v R, you have thoughts, uh, please send them any
any way you want to contact us, anyway you want
to contact anybody on the show, let us know, because
we're looking forward to this, assuming the world still spinds.
(04:30):
I wanted to take some time to give a special
shout out here to a long time listener of the
show who goes by Unwilling Stardust. Now you'll recognize perhaps
that handle because Unwilling start Us reach out to us
not too long ago when we were talking about the
(04:52):
ongoing protest and instability in Iran. As I last spoke
with Stardust, they were going to a protest with no
clue about their safety. I want to just read a
brief excerpt here and maybe we can react to this.
(05:14):
All right, So unwilling to start us as First of all,
according to the Islamic Republic, revolutionary guards, having an improper
JAB will now have serious consequences. The range goes from
having to pay a huge fee to having to do
many hours of social work, uh, and up to including oh,
(05:35):
let's just read this. Uh. It happened to a prisoner who,
as a journalist is social work, was writing a one
page article about why the Islamic Republic is so amazingly good. Uh.
They can also be imprisoned, Their belongings can be taken away, cars, electronics,
especially social media devices, and they are forced out of
(05:58):
their city to live an exile cannot leave the country.
The crimes cannot be argued in court. There is no
second trial if you attempt to appeal. Many places that
have been closed down by the government for allowing women
to not wear her jabs are remaining closed Dave. Also,
(06:19):
they being the Revolutionary Guard, have arranged new rules to
make life difficult for women without hjab. Today at university,
says unwilling to stardust. My hejab was hanging from my
neck without putting it on my hair, as if it
had just fallen. And not only the person coming to
the exam room to examine the students attacks me verbally
(06:41):
abusing me, but also they attempted to ban me from
taking the exam or going to school. The professor who
who defended me was detained. And people are being tracked
via their social media as as their license plates. Gentlemen.
(07:03):
This comes on the heels of recent executions for protesters
in Iran. You guys heard about this, now, this is
news to me. Yeah, but I'm not following it nearly
as closely as you are been. I mean, everything you're
saying there, it sounds like a religious revolution, rebellion against
a state that holds a religion very close to how
(07:25):
it governs, right again, a theocracy. In a recent episode
on How to Be a Skeptic, we discussed briefly the
dangers of theocracy. The United Nations, Gosh, just just a
few days ago, came out with an official statement regarding
what's going on in Iran, and the United Nations has
(07:46):
accused the government of Iran of weaponizing the death penalty.
They're saying that they're killing people by example, crushing descent
by frightening the public with public executions. This follows uh
as well with our earlier report of multiple protesters dying
(08:06):
in custody. Right now, we can confirm that Tarran saying
Tahran the capital of Iran is a lot like saying
the White House when you talk about the US government.
Tehran has executed four people in connection with these demonstrations,
following frankly kangaroo court trials, and this is not us
(08:27):
saying it We're not being political partisans here, folks. The
United Nations as confirmed that the trials leading to those
four executions did not meet the internationally recognized legal minimum
for what defines a fair trial. This is not a
(08:49):
sustainable situation. At least seventeen other protesters have been sentenced
to death, according to Curturk, the U n High Commissioner
for Human Rights, and this reminds me a lot of
what of the excellent work are Pal Robert Evans did
(09:10):
in his series It could happen here. I keep thinking
about these things occurring across the planet now right. The
coup and Peru or who attempt it was very underreported,
the hilarious attempt in Germany. We're just saying it's hilarious
because come on, it's a decayed aristocrat, uh. And then
(09:32):
numerous other coups, including something we talked about quite recently
regarding Brazil and folks, I know we talked about doing
an episode on the situation in Iran full episode on this,
and we have been gathering sources. We've been speaking with
protesters who are in a very real way risk in
(09:56):
their lives to contact us UM I primary early in
bringing this up because I want to check in with you,
met and with you know, do you feel that the
West is doing its due diligence in reporting the situation here?
It certainly doesn't seem to be breaking through, um in
the news cycle and in the way that you think
(10:17):
a story of this weight and importance should. Yeah. Absolutely.
I I don't know, man, I'm I'm torn a little bit, honestly, Ben,
because I'm far too aware now of the West's let's say,
interference with other countries when it comes to these kinds
of uprisings, right, I mean, often it's the CIA that's
(10:41):
getting involved with like a student group or something to
make something like this happen in a country that is
seen as adversarial to the West or their purposes. Um.
It's the skeptical thing, right, I'm still feeling skeptical about
it to some extent, and that's probably because I'm so
far removed and it doesn't affect me in the way
(11:02):
it affects unwilling stardust Um. And that's a that's like
a kind of a crappy position to hold for somebody
who's going through it like that. The way that I'm
sitting here right now and thinking about it, um, But
I don't know. It freaks me out. It makes me
feel like um other forces that are at play, even
though I don't have any way to confirm that. Yeah,
(11:24):
and I'm I'm tempted to agree with you in some
regards there, Matt, because one of the things that we
have to always remember is that the shadow of US
imperialism is a very real specter, right, and it colors
the way that you encounter reports of this stuff in
(11:45):
the West. Quite recently there were some Maraudian activists who
were saying the protest have flipped the switch. It brought
to my mind a very important question, at what point
does a protest become a revolution? What is the is
it a spectrum? Right? Was was Occupy Wall Street on
(12:05):
the verge of becoming a revolution? I very much doubt it.
A revolution is difficult in the United States? But do
we have an answer for that? Is there any way
for us to say this is no longer a series
of protests, this is now actively a revolution or an
attempted overthrow. Well, I mean go back to January six, right,
(12:29):
I mean think about it, like, what's what is the
line there between protesting and uh an attempted rebellion that
kind of thing, or an attempted revolution. Well, and and
and and the folks responsible for that event you're talking
about January six, would rather it be viewed as a
protest because it does doesn't really align with reasonable American
(12:52):
political even like on the most extreme side, and one
wants to be seen as attempting a coup, you know,
And then the folks who may be responsible for that event,
it's much better politically for them to say, no, this
is a protest. In America was built on protests. But again,
if there's protests happy, they don't like they'll call those
people terrorists or domestic terrorists. But we have to keep
(13:13):
in mind, as much as it is discomforting to think about,
it is very beneficial for people on the other side
who are opposing that president and the actions to consider
it a you know, an attempted revolution, right versus maybe
like somewhat organized chaos. So it's like, it's it's just
(13:35):
a tough thing to think about when we're in these realms, um,
But when it comes to Iran, I mean, there's definitely
horrendous stuff going down. Hundreds of people are being killed
in the protest yeah, murdered. So I mean, in the end,
doesn't matter who's pushing the buttons to make the actions happen.
(13:55):
I think it does, but again there's no way to
fully tell in the moment. It's a very very good question,
and also it's a question that a lot of Western
journalists cannot answer on the ground because it's very difficult
to get into Tehran with good reason because Uncle Sam
(14:17):
has multiple times sent people into that area as tourists.
So that means no official diplomatic visa, none, none of
that kind of protective measure. Just hey, we're here to
take pictures. Boh, I didn't know there was a there
was a nuclear deploying. I don't know why they're sending
(14:37):
muppets as tourists, but that's the voice, right and so
this so it may sound as though there's a bit
of a broken record, but we want to do justice
to this conversation, to what's happening now in the world
(14:58):
that is not being why widely reported or is being
sanitized in the way it's being reported. The US is
an imperialist power, There's no two ways about it. And
you can you can say that and still be a
US patriot. Right. The not the missile, but the the
issue is that what's happening here can trigger things in
(15:22):
other places. Instability, global instability can be on the rise.
It very much is, and it will be perhaps sooner
than we think. At this point, we're going to end
this part of this listener mail segment with not just
a general update, but a call to action. If you
(15:45):
have information on the ground in Iran, if you have
experience in the country or with the Islamic Republic, we
want to hear from you. Please find us a conspiracy
at I heart radio dot com, fi just on Instagram, Twitter,
if there is a more secure platform you prefer, then
(16:07):
you can also uh find find me or the show
directly on those platforms outlined, and then we can connect
on a more secure means of communication. For now, we're
gonna pause for a word from our sponsors. Please be safe,
folks will be right back. And we're back, and we
(16:34):
are jumping to the phone lines. We haven't done this
in a while. Guys, here it comes. We've got a
message from Krista. Hey, guys, um, my name is Krista.
I've actually left a message for you all before and
have been along to a listener. Um, you can use
my name in this entire message. UM. I just came
across and its treading on TikTok. But Max Lohan, Um,
(16:59):
he was start tew years old in two thousand seventeen,
created free energy. Um, and he's disappeared. No one knows
where he's at, and he can't be found any video
that I try to watch about like the things that
he created were invented at all. Everything pops up with
a virus on it, saying that microphone has been infected
(17:20):
with the virus. If I try to watch a video
that he created, Um, everything's been screwed from the internet
and he's gone. He would have been the nineteen years
old right now. Um, but out of nowhere, like he's
just not around anymore. UM. I would love for you
all to like to speak on this seat for even
a small amount of time. UM. It's scary and UM
(17:44):
mostly like where's Max? Thanks? Free energy? Yes, Christa, thank
you so much for letting us know about that. This
was new to all of us. And you heard Ben
say free energy. And that is because over the years
that phrase, right, that term. Um, We've we've analyzed versions
(18:08):
of it a lot. I think I would say, right,
We've looked into instances of supposed free energy gathering and
use and device creation and all that kind of stuff
many times. And I don't know about you guys, but
to my knowledge now, I still haven't seen one that
would meet the criteria of that phrase. Yeah, agreed. Not
(18:31):
In in previous episodes and in some previous Strange News
and listener mail segments, we have we have explored a
lot of related a lot of related claims, and at
this point, unfortunately, none of those has seemed to reach
(18:52):
the threshold of either scale or experimental reproducibility at Lee. Again,
up to this point, right up to this point, we
were unaware of this person, Max low N l O
U G h A N. But we are now going
to watch a roughly two and a half minute video
(19:13):
and this comes from ktv N. It's Channel two news.
It appears to be a major news station. Ben, I
think you've confirmed that it's CBS out of Reno, Nevada. Yeah,
So we're gonna watch this and we'll play some excerpts
within this podcast, and hopefully we'll all be on the
same page. So here we go. This is story about
(19:34):
Max Lowen dreussed in his lab coat. Yeah, I wear
this fairly often. Max Lahin sits in his parents old
boiler room converted into a lab. I am in a
boiler room right now, and he ponders the future. Often
the future that I imagine is the future, frankly that
we all imagine. He wants to make the world a
better place. And to do that you need one single thing.
(19:58):
If you've got energy, you've got power, you have everything.
So to solve this problem, a few months ago, Max
took the matter into his own hands and created this
electro magnetic harvester out of a coffee can, some wire,
two coils, and a spoon. The harvester conducts radio waves,
thermal and static energy and turns it into electricity. This
(20:23):
wire takes the energy from the air down below. Here
we turned it from a C into d C. So
we take the device outside and wrap up Max's brother
into a string of l e ed lights. Thing. A
fourteen dollar invention was able to do that. So imagine
the same harvester on a scale twenty times larger. Okay, guys,
(20:47):
so there we go. According to KTV in a whiz
kid with a powerful idea, and he is someone to know. Um,
it sounds great from the reporting, right, free energy? He
really did make this ing that just pulls energy out
of thin air and can power l ed s. That
would be incredible. Well, there's no info about the maximum
(21:10):
amount of energy? Uh is it? So it's electromagnetic energy?
I would assume based from the description. From the description,
there's nothing to tell, right, there's nothing to do, there's
no there's no what is the amplitude or what do
they what do they call that? Um? Sorry, I'm not
a scientist, guys, I'm not a physicist. I don't know.
I don't know things. But how how much wattage do
(21:32):
you actually get out of that thing? What can you power? Right?
It reminds me of those old crystal radio kits that
you can build at home. You know what I'm talking about?
Oh yeah, yeah, the ones with like little crystals that
act as an antenna where you can essentially create your own.
But no, it's not a ham radio. It's a receiver exactly. Um.
Interesting you would say that, because that is on the
(21:55):
skeptical side, that is precisely what this device is being,
uh compared to I'm not pooh pooing you, I'm just
saying what I remember from building what it seems kind
of yep, you you need an antenna of sorts, like
where he says, this is where what do you say?
This is where the energy comes in. He's pointing to
a wire and then he, you know, shows you where
(22:18):
it goes in and converts from A C to D
C I guess. And then there's the output, and that's
where he plugged in the or at least attached the
wires to the strip of LED lights um which, by
the way, led lights, I think we all know this
guy's It takes very little energy to run an L
E D. A single LED light or just a small
(22:39):
strip of LED lights doesn't take a ton of power.
But even if even yes true, But even being that
being the case, that's at the very least a cool
way to power L E ED lights. Yeah, that's all
just a can and a spoon and some wire. Let's
do it. Let's go. That's kind of cool. The problem
(23:01):
is the claim is by Max and again he's thirteen
years old, guys, come on. But the claim by Max
is that this device pulls in energy that is abundant,
that is just flying around at any time it was nighttime,
by the way, so it wasn't solar powered, which is,
by the way, the uh, the abundant source of energy
(23:22):
that is always flying around. It's it's the sun. It's
that radiation. UM. And there's another video you can watch
that we're not going to watch on the podcast, but
I recommend you search it out from four years ago
from a great creator YouTube channel called a electro boom.
I guarantee if you see, uh, the face of the
(23:42):
person who hosts that show, you will recognize him. Uh.
He goes into it and really describes how this device
is in fact exactly a crystal radio UM and just
demonstrates how you can build one and what it does
and why it functions, um. But also why it wouldn't
work even if you build the huge one, why it
wouldn't do much much more, it wouldn't scale question before
(24:09):
we go on, Christa's asking what happened. And also I
hope electro Boom is nice to this person, because let's
keep in mind, there's a thirteen year old child. You know,
they're obviously not out to build people. They're not trying
to scam North or Grumman or something. Right, You're absolutely right, Uh,
(24:30):
you know, I don't want to speak for that channel
or that video, but I would say, in my opinion,
the biggest gripe that comes forward there is that Max
Lahan ended up going and doing basically a tour of
the world. He got on lists of things like Global
Teen Leaders of two thousand seventeen at the we Are
(24:51):
Family Foundation, sort of a Greta Thunberg type figure. I
mean in that yeah, in that moment, right. Yes, he
went and gave major speeches at places like Nexus, which
is a highly reputable science. I believe it's a foundation
where they go and they give talks similar to ted Um.
He was interviewed several other times on fairly big outlets,
(25:16):
basically people saying, wow, this kid figured out free energy.
This dude is This kid is Nicola Tesla and he's
wearing the Tesla T shirt in that channel too. He
is um and Max is so well spoken, so he
seen comes off as so intelligent. He can clearly solve
a Rubik's cube, which come on, that's no simple feat
(25:37):
u in in like five seconds, you know, one of
those like speed solves. But there were some medics can
but but he is so confident when he speaks. It
reminds me of the Skepticism episode we just did, where
when you hear him talk, you tend to just believe
(25:58):
him because he's just saying it. Yeah, this is how
it is. This is what it is. Absolutely And you know,
if you have energy, then you've got power, and if
you've got power, you've got everything. And with this simple device,
I can make power. Look, here's how it works. Here's
the coil, here's this. So your mind just kind of
goes along with him on the ride. Uh. It's just
strange that so many people immediately took that positive news,
(26:22):
that potential like oh, win for humanity and just said, yeah, well,
let's go with it. Also, I mean, speaking of news,
he's on the news. They don't put quacks on the news,
you know, solving Rubik's cubes wearing uh, wearing lab coats
and their parents boiler room. I'm being a little jokey,
but I mean that's part of it. You know, a
kid like that speaking in the way, speaking demonstrating these
(26:45):
levels of whether it be genius or savantas um or
whatever you do kind of Oh, well, how don't I
know know about this kid? Let's let's let's go. He's
obviously got it cracked. And I would say that's why
his name and this concept is currently trending on or
maybe not currently anymore, but was trending on TikTok for
(27:06):
quite a while. The most well researched of yes, because
it does seem so positive for humanity overall. The kid
is so confident and just. And then he was you know,
he was all over the place in twenty seventeen, seriously
seen um and then we haven't heard much from him.
There were a couple of videos a while back. I
(27:27):
don't know if you guys remember seeing this. He was
sent to us via listener email. At one point it
was a video of Max when before I knew who
he was. Uh, And he is making he was making
predictions of some sort about certain Yeah, that's right, that's right,
in like a kitchen of some sort, or like just
(27:49):
in his house, I think. And he's talking about cern
and black holes and all this other stuff, and he's
using the correct nomenclature of the correct vocabulary and saying
it's so confidently that it feels kind of scary and
like something he knows something more than everybody else, and
it's going to happen, I would pause it and I don't.
(28:10):
I cannot confirm this. I think he got a lot
of attention really fast as a thirteen year old, and
then there was probably quite a bit of blowback to that, UM,
and he just became a kid again. I think it
is probably what happened. So maybe avoided social media for
quite a while. UM kind of went just dark a
(28:32):
little bit when it comes to that stuff. And again,
it's not because, in my opinion, that he's attempting to
be a liar or to deceive a bunch of people.
It's because he believed the thing, and maybe his family
didn't know. They didn't understand what it actually was. Even
the news presenter, the guy that went and interviewed and
didn't really understand. I wouldn't have understood unless I researched it, right,
(28:55):
So it's I think maybe that's what happened. You can't
find him on Facebook though, what you did, Yeah you
can find I mean, it was pretty easy actually, and
I'm where I'm wondering if this is actually his page
or anyone that he knows even represents this page. But
you can go to Facebook dot com, slash Max l
O U G. H a n And that's where I
(29:17):
found that video that we just listened to. Another great
point and also, Matt, I think we should take pains
to know this is not the same thing as doxing someone.
Finding someone's Facebook page is not doxing someone. We're very
well aware. Uh, this is a child. I love that
you pointed this out. There are a couple of possibilities
(29:38):
to it. Could be that, Uh, this kid is getting
ready to apply for college. You know it's t seventeen,
was a couple of years ago. Uh, maybe a situation
where his parents or he himself doesn't want to be
associated with too much hubbub right, or to look like
they're propagating bad science, which is know, what he did,
(30:00):
even if it's just a crystal radio is still an
amazingly impressive thing for a kid to figure out on
their own. That's awesome. Also, the last thing I just
want to point out, the National Invention Secrecy Act of
nine one is a true thing, and it is used
to suppress technology. Oh shoot, what if he really did
figure it out and he just got a little visit.
(30:23):
It's a real thing. It's like, hey, kid, we're gonna
need you to take it down a couple of pegs
here not necessarily gonna disappear you, but strike a little
fear of God and you well, you know the innovation
potentially here, guys, was the spoon attached at the top
of his device. I don't know if you saw that
is no spoon, Matt, this spoon bend. Maybe they want
you to believe that there's no spoon, but there's got
(30:46):
to be a spoon. And if there is a spoon,
Uh spoon BANDA is brought to you by Big spoon.
Is the man man with the spoon you touch? Now,
have you, guys seen the new uh Knives out movie yet? Glass? Yeah,
no spoilers. This is what it's about, uh free energy
(31:08):
or something along the lines of free energy using reclaimed
seawater as a source, you know, to to replace you know,
nuclear and electric and coal power and all that. But
then there's you know, there's a twist. There's like many things,
and there's always positives and negatives, so nothing's perfect or
free and that. And thank you so much for calling
(31:28):
in Krista with that question. We hope this helps a
little bit. You can find more information. It's out there.
I hope you don't get any more viruses on your phone.
That's not good and I'm not sure why that was happening.
You can find this stuff on Facebook and on YouTube,
and no viruses on my computer that I'm aware of.
I guess we'll see. We'll take a break and we'll
be right back National INVECTORUS Secrecy Act. And we've returned
(31:59):
with one more piece of a listener correspondence, this one
coming from one of my favorite nicknames of recent memory,
Cyborg Penguin uh. And it was in response to our
overpopulation episode, and specifically to a comment that I made
about why someone would or would not have a child
(32:20):
uh in the event of losing a child. Um. And
it was just kind of an off the cuff remark
where I was just we were both I think Ben,
you and I were sort of you and I were
both kind of considering what the drive to have a
child might be in the event of losing a child,
versus it being such a traumatic experience that maybe you
would not want to ever put yourself in the position
(32:42):
to go through that again and maybe wouldn't have a child. UM.
Cyborg has this to say, Hey, Noel, regarding your comment
on replacing a kid with another. You're getting it wrong.
The logic isn't that you wait for a kid to
die to have another. You have a lot in a
short span of time to have more chances of having
at least a handful who served five. The appearance of
(33:03):
healthcare technology, or the improvement of healthcare technology in the
Andes region upset this uh and now people have fewer children.
My mother has twelve siblings, between full and half siblings,
and that was basically because in an agrarian economy, more
kids are more potential farm hands, and half of them
(33:24):
might not make it, so you better be sure to
spawn a lot of them. The Peruvian demographic explosion of
the fifties to seventies was in part because of this.
You need at least a couple of generations before you
change the practices of the people. So from the forties
to the sixties are grarian families with a lot of
kids who made it to adulthood was a thing. I
(33:45):
love the program today Best of luck to you and
the guys. So I think this is a very valid
and interesting perspective from a part of the world. Maybe
we don't consider or a type of lifestyle, you know,
in terms of farming um and maybe an older mode
of thinking around this topic than maybe still exists today.
And I think Cybor Penguin addressed that beautifully in terms of, like,
(34:08):
it takes some time to see a change in behavior,
you know, over the course of generations. We certainly know
that in in days when healthcare which is not not
a thing, like even as far back as you know,
the Dark Ages and the medieval times, life expectancy was
very short and often children would die in childbirth or
die very very young, um. And so the idea was
(34:31):
to have as many as possible to make sure that
that bloodline was carried on. But I wasn't really thinking
about that in terms of more modern examples, and I
think this is a really good one, you know, the
idea of in the forties and fifties, at this notion
that we've got to have as many as we can
because health care wasn't good and some kids might not
survive in perhaps more harsh uh and and dangerous frankly
(34:54):
um farming conditions. And it was sort of a calculation
of like, you know, we gotta have more kids to
the farm can be staffed, you know, with family, and
then also that the farm the family farm can be
passed down to a two generations, you know, to carry on. Yeah, yeah,
well said, and thank you so much, Cyborg penguin. This
is something that I believe we've we've also explored in
(35:18):
some previous episodes. Uh, the overpopulation fact and fiction is
it's red meat for a lot of people, for a
lot of the wrong reasons. Right when you hear the
different arguments, Uh, it gets, as we say, very weird
(35:40):
and hypocritical. In the halls of power, people will say
a lot of folks should stop having children, and then
they'll say, but my kids are fine, right, But that
doesn't apply to me. The same problem with the corruption
in the Chinese government regarding the one child policy. If
you come um and a grarian background, then you realize
(36:04):
there is there is a calculus to this. Right again,
most people are incredibly intelligent. One thing we did miss,
and I'm so glad to bring this up now, is
that there are some pretty compelling arguments that have come
out that overall the global population of human beings may
(36:25):
be stabilizing. I think we made a pretty good case
that the growth itself, the Malthusiant arguments have proven incorrect.
But what we are seeing is really a problem of
inequality of access to education, to resources, to healthcare, and
that access, that problem has been so heavily propagandized and
(36:51):
politicized that people are finding themselves in a weird situation
where they're supporting they're supporting parasites at the very top
of the financial ecosystem. I think I'm a word Saladin
in a little but all to say, yeah, everything everything.
Cyborg Penguin is saying, well, like, I'm I wasn't a
(37:12):
part of that conversation, guys, I'm sorry I missed it. Um,
I don't know. I So way are we saying overpopulation
isn't a problem or released as big of a problem
as I I feel like it is because I feel
like the more human beings, the more resources you got
to use, which means more trees cut down, more fresh
water used, more plastic, more lithium everything. I think this
(37:36):
perspective also speaks to a thing we talked about in
the episode where it kind of course corrects to some
degree over time. But you know, but again, it takes
time for that correction to to set to be to
be visible. Um, whether it be because of changes in
generational thinking, around having children or there have been. You
(37:57):
can speak to this. I'm sure other actors as well. UM,
that will potentially cause overpopulation as a massive spike to
really have us, you know, worried, sort of even out
the freeze course correction, let's let's explore that for a second.
So the real problem with humanity's population growth, which has
(38:20):
been on a continued clip ever since the Black Death,
you know, human beings took that one on the chin
and then they just said, let's reproduce as much as
we can. Um. The real problem is one of logistics,
you know, it's one of what of expectation of quality
of life. Consider for a moment that the average person
(38:42):
needs somewhere between like three to four leaders of water
a day, and a lot of people use way more
than that, right, and a lot of people are not
getting that. I would note that if you look at
the world as it stands now, eight plus billion people,
all sorts of terrible things are happening due to previous generations, right,
(39:05):
and the way they treated resource allocation. Now, this population
of eight billion people has to contend with the sins
of the past while also asking how do we distribute
these resources or in my case, how do they distribute
these resources? And that's where the issue comes in. It's
(39:27):
very easy to be a billionaire or a tycoon at
Davos Economic Forum and say here's what we do to
make everything right. But it's very difficult to be someone
who says I need to feed my kids. My kids
are part of my not just my family, but my livelihood.
We all work this land together. That's the great danger,
(39:51):
I think is the disconnect. Now, would planet Earth be
better with far fewer people on it? I'm just going
to be a jerk here and say yes, that's objectively true.
But also the idea of painting it as a crisis
situation as a means of advancing one zone wealth extraction
(40:13):
or resource extraction ideologies, it's dangerous. It's misleading. And the
people who are saying that are smart enough to know
what they're doing. Okay, yeah, I hear you. It's uh,
it's my own biases because I just heck skepticism. It's
not too confident. Yes, no, no, not at all whatever,
(40:35):
No no, no, no no. But just when I'm thinking
about that standard of living at least in uh, in
many parts of the West, I had this image of
these open lithium minds where there are you know, tens
of thousands of human beings attempting to extract tiny amounts
of lithium individually so that they can support those families
(40:58):
that you're talking about, so that the family Lea's in
largely Western cultures can thrive with their phones and stuff. Right, So,
like maybe it really is just it's kind of I
think I heard you guys say the phrase on the
on the episode eat the rich situation, Like maybe we
really do do just need to coll the coll the
(41:19):
wealthy people, which I would you know, all of us,
I think I would know. I would include myself in
there when it comes to just people who use too
much but the wheel. Yeah. Yeah, it's difficult though, because
again the course correction. This is a thing uh folks
often don't like to talk about. But humanity is simply
(41:41):
another example of another animal on earth. And as you
can see historically, when a population exceeds a certain a
certain threshold, nature itself will correct for that to retain
its favorite thing, which is equilibrium. You evil ambulance or
(42:03):
whatever you were, fire truck. I get a lot of
non consensual lubers. I'm just gonna be honest. Uh so.
But the but the point holds. You know, the problem
here is one of the tragedy of the commons. For
any fellow nerds out there, how does how do we
handle a public good? Right? Uh? And the the other
(42:25):
issue is one of cooperation. How can you get eight
plus billion people to look out for the greater good
and somehow prevent the most powerful of those eight billion
people from doing some weird scheme to make them set
(42:47):
their own lives quote unquote better at the expense of others.
And Cybord paint I think we're talking about here is
a brilliant observation that my village varies for people having
these experiences. When we talk a little bit about replacement rate, right,
for a population to remain stable, reproductive pairs produced two
(43:13):
point one children, that accounts for mortality, accounts for everything
such that the population will be stable. When you hear
global statistics, right November, the eight billion person is born,
I think we wish them happy birthday and when in
an episode, happy birthday. Sorry, if we knew you were coming,
(43:36):
we would have cleaned the place up a little. But
what what we see there is that this population growth globally,
that statistic can be misleading because it is not an
even growth right places like India or Nigeria, right that
that those places people are gonna have more than two
point one kids. Places like Japan. Uh, the replace spent
(44:00):
rate is no longer being reached. There's some pretty compelling
arguments that globally a certain point population will decline. Um,
And I think you know, no. One thing that was
really personal for us for a lot of listeners was
the conversation about why people may or may not decide
(44:21):
to have a child after losing a child. And that
is something that, Um, that's something I really appreciate about
what you're saying, cyber Cyborg Penguin, is that that is
as a personal decision, but also sometimes people in a
very real way, I feel it is a necessary thing
to do that that one must do this, you know,
(44:45):
that one must put their feelings aside. And that's simply
the reality of the world that can be driven by
um reasons of economics, whether it means like like like
he's talking about in terms of needing those hands to
to to get the work done, you know, and so uh,
stacking the deck in a way that you you know,
in a time where maybe you might lose more than
one child, you know, for various reasons, or maybe there
(45:08):
are religious reasons where it's about you know, spreading the
gospel or whatever it might be. You know, and that's
your that's your responsibility to do that, so you do
put your feelings aside. I think I was coming from
it in my comments um as a parent, if I
lost a child, I don't know. I don't think I
would ever want to put myself in that position again
(45:31):
because it would be such a heartbreaking thing. So I
was coming at it from a completely emotional standpoint when
I made that comment, or when I positive that that
might be a perspective shared by others, because to your point,
then it is very personal and there are a lot
of different reasons. And this is something uh that I
know we both actually all of us listening along as
(45:52):
well the overpopulation episode really wanted your perspective on as well.
It's an incredibly if goal conversation. You know, we have
a lot of people with us today who have perhaps
had to terminate a pregnancy right or had a pregnancy
that didn't go to term for any number of reasons.
(46:13):
How would you react to that the statement, um, you know,
from from knowl from your side, the idea that it
is a personal decision and it can be I mean
there there aren't really words for it, you know, like
how how how should what of our fellow conspiracy realist
attempt to approach that situation? I mean it's the same
(46:35):
thing as like asking yourself, how would you act in
an emergency situation? You know, you hope that you would
act a certain way, but given the actual realities of it,
you might not act that way. You know that you
think or that you wish you would. I see that.
One lucky difference between those situations is that if you
want to trust yourself in an emergency situation, the best
(46:58):
thing to do is topeatedly drill and train such that
it can hopefully become reflective muscle memory automatic. And you
just don't have that ability in this situation where you
lose your life like that. I don't I say sorry,
I I wanted to interject that. But Matt, what are
your thoughts? Um? I want to know your thoughts? So
(47:20):
why don't you write to us? You can find us
on social media. We are conspiracy stuff on many outlets
like Twitter and Facebook. And YouTube. We are conspiracy Stuff
show on Instagram and TikTok. Please please please check those out,
follow us if you will. You can interact with us
there for sure. You can also interact with us in
(47:42):
other ways, that's right. You can give us a telephone
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Tell us anything you want. Um also give yourself a
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(48:06):
Listener Mail episode. To make sure to let us know
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hold anything back. And if you don't want to do
phone or social or any of that kind of stuff,
maybe you throw your phone in the ocean. Could on you?
What about sending a good old fashioned email? We like those.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff they
(48:46):
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