STDWYTK: How to Handle the Holidays

It's the last podcast of 2015, and the guys look back on some of their favorite stories of the year. Listen in to hear updates, extras, and more.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

They don't want you to read our book.: https://static.macmillan.com/static/fib/stuff-you-should-read/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups. History is
really with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
welcome back to the show of My name is Mac,
my name is Noel, and I am Ben. I am

(00:22):
Most importantly, you're here and listeners that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Thanks so much. This
is our last show of the year. You guys. The
next time we come back it will be seen provided
you know the various apocalyptic cults around the world are
not correct this year, and that you know the world

(00:44):
doesn't end. Yeah, December twenty one has already passed us,
and a lot of times that's one of the dates
that's used as this is when it's gonna end. So hey,
we've made it so far, co team, so we also
have we have something a little bit a friend for
you today. Today, instead of looking at a specific topic

(01:06):
or a listener request, the three of us are going
to help you out for um. You know, many of
you probably celebrate Christmas. Many of you might just get
together at your family's house at the end of the
year and you have that awkward moment where you're relatives
that you see once a year, once every two years

(01:27):
and really have nothing in common with other than the
lottery of your jeans, and get together with them and
you have to talk with like uncle Mike or Aunt
Cynthia about something. Maybe you are uncle Mike. Yeah it was, Matt. Yeah,
perhaps you if you look around and there's not an
uncle Mike, it's you. And are you and uncle Matt?

(01:50):
Do you have any siblings kids? I am an uncle Matt,
uncle Matt. Yeah, yeah, I like it. I look forward
to being the weird, creepy uncle at our gatherings from
here to the future. And so Matt, this, this uh
approach to a show was your? Was your idea? Do
you want to tell them a little bit about it? Oh? Sure, yeah,

(02:11):
I guess it was my idea. It was I was
showering and thoughts happened, which you know sometimes they do
sometimes and they don't we you do in the cream
rents or were you? I was literally standing imagine me, uh,
not awake, maybe ten percent awake, shower just going directly
over my head and just go, oh, man, I wonder

(02:32):
what I'm gonna talk with my family about. Because I've
gotten over Christmas, because I've gotten into a couple of
discussions recently with my dad where, uh, you know, it's
not heated in any way, it's just I really want
to understand where he's coming from, and you know, my
own beliefs sometimes start to fight up against that. So
I want to find a way that we can find

(02:53):
common ground, some subjects that we can talk about that
maybe won't get into any fights, but it'll make everybody
think and hopefully generate some cool conversation. I think that
is a very forward thinking, solid tactic going in to
the battle ground that can be family holiday experience. Yeah, yeah,
I don't. I think it's uh, I love you man,

(03:15):
I do think the world of view. I also think
that's incredibly idealistic that people will reach a common ground.
Maybe it will happen, maybe there will be an end
of the year miracle, but it's still it's still a
fantastic idea and well intentioned to give you the audience.
If you're looking for stuff to talk to your family
about at the end of the year, then this will
hopefully give you give you some I guess olive branches

(03:39):
or some ammunition, depending on how it goes down. Some
food for thought. Perhaps do you guys want me to
go and get started with you know what I think
you should. I think you should kick it off. Okay,
well this is kind of starting at dark, which isn't
my intention. But this is something that you can bring
up that I don't think there is a side you

(04:03):
can take that would make you like a combatant when
you're discussing this topic. So the it's the Highway of Tears.
It's something we covered this year, and it's a subject
where the the bad person or the one side are
literally murderers and rapists. Definitely, it's a kind of an
equalizer really, you know, at least we can all admit

(04:23):
hopefully that everyone at this table here not murderers. Yes,
but but it's it's one of those things that a
lot at least I it was brand new subject for
me when it came up. I think Ben you had
talked about it briefly maybe on car stuff, or you'd
have been mentioned to you or something to that effect.
So we got on Scott Benjamin who was your co

(04:44):
host and on car stuff, and we discussed this topic
about a highway in British Columbia where since nineteen sixty nine,
women and girls have gone missing or were murdered. I
think there's eighteen officially we said, but then there many
more that are probably on there. You've probably heard the episode.
If you have not, I would recommend checking it out,

(05:05):
watching our video, then getting some of the information because
it's it's a fascinating subject and there are things actually
happening to perhaps help the situation up there. Um In
the news, I saw a piece, just a quick thing
about the First Nation groups getting together and coming up
with just a refresher there. There is something sort of

(05:27):
specific about this area that made it conducive to these
victims being sort of easy targets. Yes, exactly. I don't
want to rehash the whole episode, but but it's you
should know that hitchhiking is a big thing there because
a lot of the area people are just they don't
have money to have a car and to get around places.
But they also have to travel very long distances to

(05:48):
get to where they work or to where they go
to school. So what what's happening now? The British government
is working to commit three million dollars to improve the
public transit along this highway where a lot of this
stuff happened. Are these highways. Uh, there's a it's a
story from the CBC and let's see, they're gonna get

(06:10):
one point six million over two years to enhance the
transit services. But this is interesting in the in the article,
it says with a in a cost shared basis with
local communities. So I don't know exactly what that entails,
and I couldn't get more details. It couldn't mean a
couple of things. Maybe some sort of public option or yeah,
some sort of public option to pay in tax. Uh. Specifically,

(06:32):
this is a Yellowhead Highway six team between Prince Rupert
and Prince George. It's a pretty rural area. Um, Matt,
as you said, Uh, this is an episode that is
a great equalizer. We we know this because earlier I
had asked or we had asked uh folks on the internet. Uh,

(06:52):
ladies and gentlemen, we asked you some of your favorite
episodes of and that was one of the ones they
kept coming up. It involves everything. There's corruption in the government,
which now has some damage control applied. The problem I
would say with this shared investment area, of the shared

(07:13):
investment aspect is that in very impoverished rural communities, there's
not as much of a tax base to draw on.
So this what was the number again, Matt, thirty million,
three literally just three millions, just three million. This is
to improve everything from infrastructure of the roads themselves, to
you know, the creating places where I think they call

(07:36):
them transient what do they call them, transit transit shelters,
so places where people would feel safe, and then putting
webcams in their cameras lit bus stops. Yeah, exactly, yeah,
I mean it's better than nothing. One thing we received
a lot of mail about. We had a lot of
Canadians reading, and Canadians sometimes you weren't even aware of

(07:58):
the situation who live on the other side perhaps of Canada,
which was really weird to me. It seems like it
would be something that was more well known. But I'm
glad that we were able to discuss it and put
it out there. And I think, again, it's a dark topic,
but it's one of those things that can really give
some food for thought about how we treat specifically Native

(08:20):
people's because this could go into all kinds of other
conversations which maybe a little more harsh, harsh in the vibe,
but you know, again, it's cool. I like the idea
that you could talk about these things with your family.
I hope that you can do you guys, mind if
I do one please? Um. So this is of my three,
this is probably the most neutral. I would say, Um,

(08:44):
it's definitely dark, but I think it's definitely something that
could be brought up and shared, and it's something that
people could bring their own personal experiences with, as we
experienced when we received an insane amount of mail about
sleep paralysis and shadow people. And I mean, you know,
I haven't been you know, on the show properly for
very long, but in the amount of time I've been on,

(09:05):
that's definitely been the hot button, you know, uh listener
mail response that we've gotten for sure. And um, So
that particular topic really resonated with me, just because it's
you're in such a vulnerable place when you're asleep and
you're um your mind is able to kind of run wild.
You can take the anxieties of your day, of your week,

(09:26):
of your life, and they are sort of translated into
different scenarios. Dreams that can be you know, very clear,
could be very abstract. There's all kinds of different ways
that you can perceive these things. But when you start
bringing into the equation this idea of like an alien
other like coming into your you know, sanctity of your sleep,
of your like you know, resting place, then it really

(09:48):
starts to make you think, where is that coming from?
Is it coming from outside of you? Is it coming
from within you? And I just thought it was a
really interesting topic and I really enjoyed talking about it,
and UM I did a little looking into it seeing
if there was any new studies, and it turns out
there is. There's a psychiatry researcher at the University of
Cambridge named balond Jelal and in his new study UM

(10:09):
he looked at a hundred college students in Cairo looking
for a correlation between stress, anxiety and depression and experiencing
sleep proasis. And when we were talking about it, there
wasn't necessarily a common factor that we were able to determine,
and we from the mail that we got, it was

(10:29):
all kinds of different people that were experiencing these symptoms, which,
again not to rehash the episode too much, a lot
of times included seeing um shadowy figures out of the
periphery of your eyes, of your sight in your bedroom,
or experiencing a presence that comes upon you and presses
down on your on your chest and you know, sort
of sucks the breath from you. And uh. In this
study which he conducted in Cairo, Egypt with college students, UM,

(10:54):
seventy one of the population that experiences sleep prolysis actually
blame it on supernatural force. This and half of that
seventy believe them to be caused by gin, which are
to my understanding, ben evil demonic forces that have roots
in Islamic mythology. Is that is that accurate? Right? So?
This is this an interesting topic too. I thought about

(11:16):
this as well. So I've had long had a fascination
with the theory of jin, which while it's often treated
as folklore in the West, in many areas in the
Middle East, where in Islamic culture it is treated as
a genuine phenomenon. The idea that Allah which we've talked
about on the show, the idea that Allah made angels humans,

(11:40):
and then the third and sapient species, the jin out
of smokeless fire, not necessarily not necessarily evil creatures depending
upon the culture or the context, UM, but in many
ways filling in the role of what cre gins sort

(12:00):
of the West would recognize as demons. Um. The most
popular gin in Western culture is, of course Robin Williams
as the genie in Aladdin, based incredibly loosely on several
poor translations of A thousand and one Arabian Nights. So
I'd imagine maybe there are benevolent gen and then there

(12:22):
are evil gin, right, yeah, and there are different classes
of gin, just like because they would have a they
would have or do have according to the believers society, UM,
that has the same hierarchical nature, you know. So that
was the perception of this, uh, you know, the population
that was um part of the study. But as it

(12:43):
turns out that out of those who experienced sleep paralysis UM,
and especially the ones who actually hallucinated like some of
these more intense visuals and concerning shadow people and creatures UM,
you know, invading their their space, he actually found that
these people were more likely to have suffered from PTSD,
anxiety or chronic worry. I see. Okay, so the mental

(13:08):
state effects that as well. You know, we um, we
had an interesting talk off air about something just tangentially
related to this. Actually, uh, can I use this one
instead of one of my three because this tangent is
interesting enough, I think we should chase it. All right,
So we've talked before in the past about the most

(13:31):
fascinating and beautiful in some ways a phenomenon of mind
and matter. Mind over matter proven to exist, and it
began when it began, I think when Scott and Matt
and I for various reasons, we're looking into a driving

(13:51):
test that all the cavies in London you used to
have to take because the knowledge you remember it. And
the thing about the non college is that it's incredibly difficult,
even in the age of GPS, and all these drivers
must memorize not only landmarks and roots and back roods,
but alternate routs. Uh. And the amount of spatial memory

(14:15):
that they have to dedicate to this is, you know,
is enormous. But what some studies have found is that
long time black cab drivers or the really expensive classy
caps for everyone outside of London, UH, those those drivers
have the area of their brain that is dedicated to

(14:35):
spatial memory is physically larger than average. Because they have
spent so much time dwelling on this, it has increased
the growth and the density of their brain in that
area and Furthermore, we find the same thing with I
am going somewhere with this guy's I promise we find

(14:56):
the same thing with areas of the brain dedicated to
pathy or what we recognize as compassion in long time meditators,
longtime Buddhist monks. I don't mean just your casual I'm
not napping a meditating person. I mean, you know, people
who dedicate their lives to it every day, the same
way that cab drivers are out driving these weird roots

(15:17):
every day. So this sounds hunky Dorian friendly when we
contemplate that good thoughts can physiologically change the nature of
your brain, or even the size of certain areas of
your brain. So it makes me think, no to this study,
what happens to your brain if you spend every day worrying?

(15:41):
You know, you spend every day angry or plotting revenge?
Is there a dark side equivalent to this? Not to
be too star Wars, but can you think yourself sith
that's crazy. It's almost like the shadow people are manifestations
of these worries that are creeping out of your subconscious
and into your sort of half waking life, you know.

(16:04):
I mean, I think that's why I'm into this this idea.
Is there a snowball effect? Is there a positive feedback loop?
Does uh, increase in PTSD equal and increase in sleep
paralysis equal, and increase in anxiety equal and increase in
PTSD and so on until your brain grows three sizes
too long. You guys should see the magic the gathering

(16:26):
section of my brain. It's crazy, man. Huge. The last thing, though,
there was referenced in this this previous study that I
mentioned an additional study, um and it involved looking at
Cambodian refugees attending a psychiatric clinic, and forty nine of
a hundred had at least one episode of sleep paralysis
in the previous twelve months. Um and among the PTSD

(16:48):
patients had monthly episodes of sleep paralysis versus fourteen point
eight among non PTSD patients. So, I mean, it's just
interesting to see this correlation. And uh, it's something that
I can kind of wrap my head around, you know,
because I've never experienced that. I believe you said you've
never experienced a kind of sleep prowsies. Match, Ben, you
haven't either. I don't believe you've been. We're not sure

(17:11):
that's fair, right, UM, But you know. I mean, the
mind sort of strives to explain away these kinds of things,
and um, I think this is a pretty good place
to look. Yeah. Well, it's another great topic to discuss
with your family because I would just say, the number
of responses, like you said, we've gotten are large, very

(17:32):
large comparatively, so perhaps someone at the dinner table will
have a story. I would not be surprised one bit.
So what next, Matt. The next thing I think you
can discuss is a cool topic that is a bit cavernous,
but I think you can get through it and it
comes up. They're really cool, little smaller discussions that you

(17:54):
can have on the side. And that is the idea
of the deep web or the dark net. It's and
it's really cool, especially if you can kind of maybe
talk to older people in your family about this kind
of technology and explain to them, give them some visualizations
about what it looks like. I think Ben, you used
really good Iceberg analogy when we were talking about the

(18:17):
deep web and all the unindexed stuff on the Internet
that exists, and then comparing that to the darker sides
of some of the places you can access with the
onion router. And tour or or both, which is the
same thing. And in my experience, it's that's something that
a lot of people just don't know anything about. Even
just to have like a basic discussion of what this is,
I think is fascinating that it exists and all the

(18:39):
litigations surrounding it, with the whole dread pirate Roberts thing
and all that. Yeah, and it's a bonus that you
can seem really smart and impress your people. Um, if
you missed our conversation with Alex Winter, who made a
documentary called The Deep Web, definitely would I would recommend
going and checking that out. And made a cool little
movie called Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. I heard something

(19:01):
about that I don't know. Well this so this one is.
He's made a couple of very cool documentaries and we
had a chance to talk to him. It was I
would say, the coolest thing that I did this year, Well,
there there are a couple of really cool things. It's
one of the coolest things sharp I got to do
a really really really good interview. Definitely check that one
out and put that on the playlist for sure. The
Deep Web story that I always think of because it's

(19:23):
kind of funny. Um. Is it also pertains to something
else that's really interesting, which is just um, you know
who's responsible for um? Artificial intelligence? Is it the person
that created? Is the person that programmed it? Or once
that thing makes a choice, are all that stuff? Um?
There was a Swiss art collective called Median Group of Bithnik,

(19:46):
which was a group of artists from I guess you
could call them kind of conceptual artists that designed a
robot art installation that they programmed too. They didn't tell
it what to buy, but they gave it a budget
of a hundred dollar as in bitcoins each week, and
the robot randomly chows items off of a a service

(20:06):
on the dark net called alphabet and it actually ended
up buying some drugs. I believe it was ecstasy. Didn't
it ship it to the installation? Wasn't that the thing? Maybe?
Maybe that was something else? I think it was part
of the installation? Was the were the items themselves if
they were confiscated at the end of the day when
this thing was shut down? But it sort of opened

(20:26):
up this discussion of you know, who's responsible? Is it
the you know, the creator or the consciousness called consciousness
of the of the bot um. So I don't know
remember that story, Ben do? Yeah, And it's it's a
fascinating one because it also intersects with the future of consciousness.
And I think you raised I think you got to

(20:46):
the heart of the question there, nual philosophically, to whom
is the punishment meted? You know? One last thing I'll
add here without going too far into it, is the
big question about the darknet for most people is does

(21:07):
it actually work? Can you honestly be anonymous? And unless
you are very, very talented and at least moderately lucky,
the answer is absolutely not. The answer is very close
to the Abraham Lincoln quotation about fooling some of the
people some of the time. If you are routinely, aggressively

(21:30):
proactively using something, and depending on the type of stuff
you're doing, especially if you're uploading something, then your chances
of getting caught UM rise stratospherically over time. And the
reason this happens is because there is a pernicious, uh
and dogged and unending um campaign on the behalf of

(21:54):
not just our government but other governments to remove anonymity
from the Internet under the guise of the great Boogeyman
national security. This is this reflects my opinion, maybe not
necessarily the opinion of my co host or the opinion
of our company at large, but this, to me, it

(22:14):
reflects the facts on the ground and the most fair
way I can put them. We did a great episode
with Jonathan Strickland's UM maybe in two thousand fourteen, about
two fifty I can't remember, which about just how difficult
it is to truly be anonymous on the Internet. We're
talking about wearing a physical disguise, walking into a library

(22:34):
in a different state, without bringing your phone, once using
an assumed identity, and then never going back or being
that fake person again. It is difficult, and you know,
I feel I feel for a lot of the people
who are maybe a little bit more secure and have

(22:55):
a little bit more faith in their abilities to be
anonymous than they should be. Just stay safe out there, guys.
It makes me think of when you talk about, you know,
how now difficult it's becoming to be anonymous on the Internet.
There's a great book by Dave Eggers called The Circle,
and it's actually being made into a movie, or it's
they're working on it. UM is being developed and the
crux of it is there's this Facebook meets Google esque

(23:19):
giant conglomerate that basically owns the Internet, and they come
up with this concept, um, in order to sign on
to this service, this Facebook esque service that ultimately becomes
the Internet in this book, UM, you have to be yourself.
That's the only way to be a part of it.
You can't have an alias. You have to have your

(23:41):
one account that is tied to your identity and everyone
knows it's you. And ideally it means no more trolls,
it means no more mean comments on YouTube, it means
all of these great things theoretically, but the way it
plays out in the book not necessarily so great. I
can imagine a super revillain being born from that so

(24:01):
that everyone knows their infamy. Yeah, not only that. There's
a thing in the in the book as it develops,
and I don't want to spoil anything, but this is
very very early on where they develop these cameras that
people just start wearing everywhere, and they can place them everywhere,
They can place them in uh different locations across the world,
so that if there's any kind of social unrest or

(24:22):
any kind of injustice is being done. It's constantly being broadcasts. Again,
on the surface, sounds like a great idea, but it
means more than that. It means that everything is just static,
you know, like nothing can change kind of. I don't know.
It's it's very interesting book. I recommended, Hili. I love that. Yeah,
do you have a copy of can borrow? Actually did

(24:42):
it on audiobook, but um, it would be a good,
good late Christmas present. I really recommended. Like I said,
you know, read the book before the movie comes out.
Then you can talk. I talk about the book at
family Christmas, and then when the movie comes out next year,
everyone will be like, hey, little Johnny was talking about
this book last year. Little Johnny has become Indeed, last
little bit I want to add into this discussion that

(25:02):
you might have is the statement by Hillary Clinton recently
about a Manhattan project for encryption and basically breaking it
or wanting to break it and having an initiative to
do so. I didn't hear this the Internet. The internets,
just like when CISPO was coming through and people and
all that stuff, they are responding at least anyone who's

(25:26):
interested in encryption and keeping information safe. They are responding
with great vitriol to this. So if you are interested
in that, just do a Google search for Manhattan Project.
Uh and literally you will get all the news. It's
it's pretty insane. And last thing, if we're talking about

(25:46):
late Christmas presents, which I don't know I keep doing,
but I guess I've been getting some good gifts this year. Um,
have have you heard of the comics series The Manhattan Projects?
This sounds familiar, but I don't. But I don't. I've
never read it. I'll just give you the The basic
premise is that Robert Oppenheimer, who created the atomic bomb,
actually had a evil twin um who lived completely separately.

(26:11):
They were separated at birth, but they grew up completely,
completely separate environments. Whereas the real Robert up Robert Oppenheimer,
you know, was educated and became a very well respected
researcher scientist. His brother ended up on the streets and
you know, in different psychiatric facilities, etcetera. But they had
the same intellect. And the very first scene in the

(26:32):
book is basically the real Robert Oppenheimer sign signing on
for the Manhattan Projects and then his brothers showing up
and murdering him and taking his place. And it's also
set like in this kind of dystopian, weird sort of
future past kind of scenario where like not like steampunk,
but kind of like you know, it definitely feels like

(26:52):
the time period that it's supposed to, but there are
like aliens and there's weird technology and things were just
a little off. It's sort of this alternate reality, alternate
history kind of thing. Um. And it's ongoing, and it's
in trade paperback. So that's a that's a really cool
book I have. I'm not nearly in it enough as
I should be, as much as I should be, but
I recommend giving that a look. For sure. Writing it
down sounds awesome. We'll shoat me onto another topic. Oh well,

(27:17):
I don't know. UM, I guess I'm gonna call this
the Ballad of Martin Screlling, because I don't know. It's
such schaden freud, you know, but I just at the
end of the day, it's it's entertaining to me. And
it pointed out some really big, big issues with the
whole big Pharma um machine. And uh, this originally kind
of came up right around the time, um we did

(27:40):
an episode on the Big pharma and UM just how
a lot of the machinations and that business model you know,
are a little bit inherently shady, and but they're not
not necessarily um out in the open. And you have
this kid, Martin Screlly, who essentially broadcasts everything that's wrong
with this industry in the most you know, millennial oversharing

(28:03):
kind of way, you know, just tweeting out all of
these like responses to his critics. And if you guys
don't know Martin Screlly, um is this I believe he's
thirty thirty two years old, UM guy who has you know,
done very well for himself managing pharmaceutical companies and doing
these startup pharmaceutical companies. And he made the news, uh
several months back when he raised the price of a

(28:26):
very old drug that he had bought called dara prim
that's used to treat toxoplasmosis, which is a is a
condition that um is very common in general population, especially
in France and well people that a lot of people
that comes from cats. This is one thing that I
always here and it's very can go unnoticed undetected in
people that are healthy otherwise, but in cancer patients that

(28:50):
are receiving chemo and have lowered immune systems and um
AIDS HIV patients UM this can be debilitating, It can
totally destroy their immune system, shut manage. I just basically,
I don't wanna I don't wanna talk too much in
um in this in this show, because God knows I
talk a lot. But in Toxic we did an episode
about toxoplasmosis regarding the nature of the infection, because there's

(29:14):
compelling evidence that it actually changes people's personalities in terms
of accelerating some forms of mental illness, just schizophrenia or paranoia,
and it affects genders differently. So this is this is
something that uh, this is something that I know there
are a lot of stereotypes about France, but this is

(29:34):
something that baffles a lot of people to to nose
earlier point, ladies and gentlemen. Toxoplasmosis is not generally a
lifelong infection, nor is it generally lethal, but it can
change your behavior. So if you ever notice that your
friend with a lot of cats it's getting to be
a little bit of a shut in or even a
little bit promiscuous, take care and blame Martin Screlly because

(29:57):
it's going to be much more expensive for that person
and to get well. It's true, and so um going back,
that's that's interesting stuff for sure. I'm sorry. I have
images now of of the crazy cat lady who's just
very flirty, like overly flirty, but also just covered and
cut here well, and they say too that like if
you haven't, then cats are more attracted to you. I
think we talked about this, Ben does that. I think

(30:19):
that's true anyway that um So, this drug dar prem
has actually been around since nineteen three and up until now,
it's been believed to be the best treatment for this
particular parasite. And um so Martin Screlly and his company
Touring Pharmaceuticals, which he founded, um As, I guess I'm
gonna use the term pharmaceutical startup, which to me is counterintuitive,

(30:40):
like it just kind of like it seems like you
should shouldn't be able to just start a pharmaceutical company
overnight like you would an app or something like that.
But that's just me. So Screlly purchased the rights to
this particular drug and for his company and overnight raised
the cost of it more than fifty five fold. And um,
I believe it was something like, uh, seven hundred dollars

(31:02):
a pill from like fifty dollars a pille. Yeah, And
so there was this huge outcry overnight. He became you
know what, folks are calling the most hated man alive,
you know, and the Internet responded as they do with
you know, pitchforks and torches in the form of hateful
Twitter rants much deserved, and U Screlly just kind of

(31:26):
doubled down and responded directly and this was like quoting
rap lyrics and at his detractors and just didn't do
himself any favors and just kept doubling down. That's the
thing about the story that I find so fascinating because
it's like you're seeing all this in real time, these
things that the pharmaceutical industries don't want you to know
about this guy. This kid is just like spilling the

(31:48):
beans on all of this excess. I'm not saying that
everyone's like this. They you know, there was a big
pharmaceutical group that ejected him. The Pharmaceutical Researchers and Manufacturers
of America, which is a large consort shim of different
pharmaceutical companies, just completely threw him under the bus in
terms of you know, saying that this is not our philosophy.
This guy is completely counter to the way we do business.

(32:12):
And while that's a you know, probably a smart pr move,
I'm sure it's not entirely true. I mean, there's definitely
some underhanded dealings that go on in any kind of business,
and I would imagine in the pharmaceutical but especially because
price gouging has been a concern politically for a long
time and it's something that we still see. This to me, though,
was just such a brazen example of this just in

(32:34):
the public eye, someone that has zero filter, and uh,
the story gets weirder, doesn't it. Yeah, the the whole
live streaming thing, really, I don't know, maybe going yeah, well,
but even before that, so, you know, so he did
this thing with the drug and there was just a
public outcry. You went on talk shows and basically said,
you know, hey, I make money. That's that's what I do.

(32:56):
That's my job. You can't hold it against me that
I'm um charging what this particular drug is worth. You know,
it's been under uh you know, it's been undervalued for
this long and now based on you know, these calculations
that me and my people have done. We've decided that
it is in fact worth this and it is it
is a you know, an equitable cost for this treatment,

(33:17):
and you know how many based on how many people
it effects, etcetera. So then he after I mean, Bernie
Sanders was tweeting Adham, Hillary Clinton, you know, everyone just
totally throwing this guy under the bus. He comes back
and says, you know what, after some serious consideration, U
decided that we're going to lower the cost um. But
he doesn't say how much, doesn't say when, and then

(33:40):
basically he changes his mind again and says, you know what,
psych and completely lets it go. Not even basically that's
exactly what he did. Yeah, So then this is the
part where it gets real weird. Um, this guy has
a kind of easy, sort of a music freak. He's
really into collecting music memorabilia. Apparently he had as uh,

(34:00):
one of Kurt Cobain's credit cards that he whips out
at fancy cocktail parties to impress his friends. You know.
Weird right, So um, he there was Guys out there
may be aware that the Wu Tang Clan are really
popular hip hop outfit that's been around since the l
eighties early nineties, very very important group. A lot of

(34:22):
people went on from that to have a very successful
solo careers. Alderty Bastard, Um, the method Man, etcetera. And
the head of the group the Rizza. UM does a
lot of music for movies, Jim Jarmish movies, and UM
did a lot of the music for the Tarantino films,
the kill Bill series. UM. So they don't understand why,
but their newest record, they decided they were going to

(34:45):
make one insanely what's the word been, bespoke version. Yeah,
just just like completely like gold you know, Philip Greed
leather bound tome, you know, with like parchment pay bur
with the liner notes and this. You see it. It's
it's quite beautiful. But they didn't exactly put a price

(35:06):
on it, but they were going to auction it off
to the highest bidder, and the story dropped that it
had sold because people were kind of making fun of this.
They were like, it was gonna pay million dollars for
a woot tang record, and then all of a sudden
it's sold. And there's actually a lot of speculation for
a while on the Internet that it was in fact
Quentin Tarantino because he's a huge fan, has worked with Rizza, etcetera. Uh,
no surprise, it's their boy, Martin Screlly. Yeah, what a

(35:29):
freaking turn. I can't believe that that's who bought it.
It was absurd. It was like this guy had already
just been in the news just like becoming this this
hilarious like super villain. And now he's gonna take the
Woutang Clan record for himself. So so maybe he's he's
riding high. Even though riz A clearly despises him and

(35:49):
they have a public feud on Twitter, he still has uh,
an album that many hip hop fans would likely covet.
And uh, it doesn't end there, though it continues. It
does continue, but just there were some quotes in this
article where it talks where he kind of responds to
his feud with Rizza. And I read this and I'm like,

(36:10):
this is this real? Who said? Who would say these things?
And yes it's real. Quote, I bought the album. There's
a big bleeping check in Rizza an album producer Clevering's pocket. Now, um,
and he says, this Woodchan Klan thing is starting to
get pretty tense. You probably see that increasingly. I'm getting
pretty frustrated by it. I bought the most expensive album

(36:33):
in the history of mankind and bleeping Rizza is talking
bleep behind my back and online. In plain sight, I'm
just getting piste off. That's not the way I do business.
If I hand you two million dollars, bleeping show me
some respect, at least have the decency to say nothing
or no comment. And that's not the end, either, is it.

(36:54):
That is not the end. There's a There is a
happy ending, I would say, although we don't really know
how happy that ending is going to be. So last week,
on December seventeenth, the Internet rejoiced when Martin Screlly was
taken away from his Manhattan apartment wearing a gray hoodie
and handcuffs by the FBI for supposedly allegedly defrauding his

(37:18):
investors at the company that he had run prior to touring,
called Retro Finn. And supposedly he had made some um
investments on behalf of some folks and they did not
work out, and so he was basically funneling money through
the company allegedly in order to um put money back

(37:40):
where he had taken it, you know, and to kind
of make sure the investors. We're happy temporarily, but it
was all just kind of like a you know, robbing
Peter to pay Paul kind of situation security exact exactly. Um,
he bailed himself out for five million dollars and UM
now he's you know, awaiting, awaiting trial. And he basically

(38:01):
has come out and said that all of this high profile,
horrible behavior on his part was just a social experiment
just to kind of see, you know, how people would react.
It was a prank brouh. Yeah, I can I can
see him ending up in South America somewhere. I mean,
if you have two million dollars to spend on an album,

(38:22):
you probably have the means to get a fake passport
or even maybe a legitimate looking and perhaps actual passport.
And the final blip in this story thus far is
actually Um there at the end, right before he got busted.
Oh and also there's a wonderful you can find this online.
He live streamed several days of his life, UM, and

(38:44):
a lot of it is him playing Xbox, playing guitar,
chatting with UM high school seniors from his previous from
the place he went to high school in New York.
UM getting asked to the prom and you know, saying
that he would give references to Columbia University of these
particular students. Things like that. Um, really classy stuff. Um.

(39:04):
He The latest story is that he was fired as
the CEO of another company called Calobiospharmaceuticals that he acquired
relatively recently. UM and did some pretty interesting financial gymnastics
in order to inflate the price. And UM a lot
of investors who were doing a short sale, right, Yeah,

(39:26):
the definition would be the sale of a security that
you don't own or that you have borrowed. And so
your idea the motivation for that is, uh, you're making
a bet that the price of the security is going
to go down, so you can you can borrow it,
sell it. It'll go down to a lower price, and

(39:46):
you make a profit. So you can do it as
speculation or to hedge the downside risk of a of
a long game. So what actually happened was this particular
company was about to go under and Screwlly Uh and
his you know investors are touring, to my understanding, scooped

(40:07):
it up and completely screwed that short sale. So they
were investors that were betting that it was going to
go down, and in fact the price of the stock
and continued to rise. And so I was reading an
article where a guy was talking about how he it
was actually a message board that I found, um, where
this guy was talking about how he uh now all
of a sudden ode e trade two dollars just overnight

(40:30):
because of this pet did not work out in his favor.
And it's because of you know, this relatively shady transaction
that Mr Screwlly participated in look good for the company though, right,
maybe there are people who worked there. Don't let don't
let me interject too much here, but what maybe it's
better listeners, Um, I know a lot of people meet
myself included, will to know when when we hear this

(40:53):
abstract sort of removed financial talk. So let's root it
in a physical object. The three of us are guys.
Could you pick, like just an object of some sort
of worth. Rubik's cube? Okay, so a rube excube. So
here's how short selling works. So Noel has a rub excute,

(41:16):
Matt does not. But Matt wants to make a little money.
He wants to get a he wants to have a hustle. Right,
but he checks, he checks where he lives and where
he works, and it's Wall Street, so he can't just
go out and sell bootleg DVDs. Instead, what he does
is he borrows a rub Excute from Noel, and the

(41:38):
rub excube at the time he borrows it is worth
let's say, thirty dollars, and he sells this rube Excute
to someone else, which unfortunately would be me in the equation,
I'm the one getting swindled here, um, and I buy
it for thirty dollars. But then the price of not
just that rub Excute, but every rub excube in the

(41:59):
world old or in town or wherever rube excubes are held,
drops to fifteen dollars or even just five, and you're
still making money. And so what Matt does then is
buys another rub excube or buys the same rube exscue
back from me if I'm completely getting screwed, and then
returns your rube excube. No harm done, but he's got

(42:22):
fifteen extra dollars. That's how it works, and I and
I hope that's not um overthinking it, but it takes
it's difficult at times to understand just the abstract terms
getting thrown around without being in a physical object. It's
not illegal, yes, and I didn't mean to imply that

(42:42):
what he did was illegal, but it's just kind of,
um it's the kind of thing that people you know
suffer for. Yeah. Yeah again another, these are great things
to discuss at the dinner table or afterwards. Think so too.
And I mean this one if there's a lot of
humor in this story, to me, I think it's you know,
and it certainly could be something that if you've got

(43:03):
a hardcore capitalist uncle, you know, it is going to
be like, well, that's how it's supposed to be. You know,
this kid did did absolutely nothing wrong. He's totally in
the right, in the clear. But see, I think someone
who's taking that perspective is going to just not like
this guy because he's a young kid. That's the flame thing.
And I was talking with our coworker Casey about this story. Um,

(43:24):
he's been following it too, you know. And uh, in
a similar with a similar kind of schaden freud kind
of attitude is me because this kid, he's just got
the most punchable face. You know, it's just you just
want you want to see him go down because he's
just so cocky. You just I mean and brazenly just
unapologetic about this stuff. Um Casey was like, you know what,
I bet that you know, you know he did all

(43:46):
this stuff that is technically legal. Only now is he
getting led away in cuffs because you know, he took
some money from some rich folks on Wall Street supposedly,
and that's what it takes. But why but why now?
Because he's running his mouth too much. You know, he's
spilling the beans too much. You know, people don't want
this this out in the open on Twitter like this,

(44:08):
like put him away at least scare him, get him
to shut up, like you said, Maybe he just goes away,
Maybe he ends up in uh, you know, the Cayman
Island somewhere, you know. To be um, to be completely objective,
it is true that this investigation was ongoing before of
course before end. But yeah, I admit timings interesting. All right, now,

(44:29):
you know it's winded down, you guys are everybody's getting
a little tired. Everybody's skill us right now. Let's get
heavy with it, but not the way you might be thinking.
Let's talk about hallucinogens with the family. This is a
cool topic that you can bring up from a clinical
scientific angle. I guess you can discuss the things that

(44:53):
we talked about with using hallucinogens. More recently has treatments
for things such as PTSD, such as depression, and a
couple other addiction addiction, addiction. We've talked specifically about addiction,
so check out our episodes on this. I think it
will be a great thing to discuss because there is

(45:15):
somebody in your family who went to Woodstock. There's there's
probably somebody who maybe was a bit of a hippie
in your family back in the day. Uh somewh there
was somebody that was working in the labs in Berkeley.
Maybe one of your cousins is on acid right now,
that's true, maybe you are on mushrooms. Who knows, probably not,
hopefully not, but it I this is a cool subject

(45:36):
to discuss, kind of the way we're talking about with
the dreams, just the nature of consciousness, things big questions
that are people a lot of times have cool opinions
about and you might not know that you're let's say
aunt or maybe even your mom, your parents have opinions
about this that will blow your mind. I would highly

(45:56):
recommend it because they're also I don't know the way
draw are being treated in our country in particular, particular
in the US and in a couple of other countries
are really it's changing. And because the way our country
in particular and several other countries throughout the world, the
way we view drugs of the of this sort hallucinogens

(46:16):
is really changing, and I think we're again maybe seeing
the possible benefits as opposed to just demonizing them the
way we did in the seventies and then ongoing from there. Well,
not only that, I mean as a society, um, little
by little, it's not a quick process, but we are,

(46:37):
you know, having more discussion of things like drug courts
and then treatment for addiction rather than just demonizing addicts
as criminals. And you know, these things go hand in hand.
I don't know necessarily we're going to be in a
world where, uh, you know, harem antics are being treated
with LSD, but it's an interesting conversation to have. They're
definitely not in the same class, you know, Like we're

(46:58):
talking about something that opens up pathways, you know, in
your mind and lets you experience things in a different way,
versus something that literally ravages your body and makes you
dependent in a way that precludes you from doing pretty
much anything else, and that's what you seek at all times.
So I mean, I just think it's interesting that we
are getting to a place where these conversations are more

(47:21):
socially acceptable, and so why not try it out at
the Christmas innesse the waters if you're brave. All the
lucinogens are not created equally. There are several that are
not just known but expected to uh impart a non
enjoyable experience, something much more close to the revelatory act

(47:42):
of waking up as Keanu reeves in the Matrix or
excuse me, neo, I think it was supposed to be
acting in that show and pulling the tube out of
your mouth and realizing your pot in a giant machine world. Uh,
in this this kind of revelation, these would be things
like ahuasca, um ibu gain I think, or eyebo gain,
which and maybe mispronouncing which is apparently a sure fire

(48:07):
quit smoking aid as with other addiction as you guys mentioned.
So there's a big difference between the recreational stuff and
then the spiritual awakening stuff. And you know what though,
if um as Matt said, uh, if you're if your
relatives have already had experience with it. They'll know. I
don't know. I don't know if this is necessarily the

(48:28):
best dinner table discussion. But I did feel like I
should mention it because when we did the episode UM
a few weeks ago on Crisis Actors, I think I
was probably the most taken aback in the room by it. UM.
You know, I just find it a little bit difficult
to wrap my head around how anyone could honestly believe

(48:50):
some of these theories. The idea that you know, the
Sandy Hook shooting, for example, was staged in its entirety
that you know, UM, I just don't understand how you
can look at, um, you know, the fact that children,
you know, were killed, families were torn apart, lives were ruined,
and say that this didn't actually take place. And I

(49:11):
believe in the episode I likened it to, you know,
Holocaust denial. UM. But in the news there was a
Florida professor who was actually hired to teach a class
at Florida Atlantic University on conspiracy theories, James Tracy, James
Tracy in the video, and I think on here perhaps

(49:31):
on audio, Okay, I don't recall that I'm sorry. At
the time, he was a professor for Florida Pacific University. Well,
as it turns out, he was canned, UM just completely
because he was making some of these statements and you know,
UM actually UM bordering on harassment of the parents of

(49:52):
a six year old child who was killed in the shooting.
And the statement that UM the university released is as follows.
Today Jane Tracy, an associate professor in the School of
Communication and Multimedia Studies, was served a notice of proposed
discipline termination by the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at
Florida Atlantic University. And at the time, which was Saturday,

(50:14):
UM today being Tuesday, December, this happened on the nineteenth. UM,
he's had ten days to respond from that time. This
actually came after the boy's parents, UM Lenny and Veronic Posner,
wrote an op ed in a local newspaper, The Sun's
Sentinel of Brownard County, Florida, and they basically said that

(50:35):
Tracy had led a group of people, UM in you know,
encouraging them to harass these parents about their part that
they post supposedly played in this you know charade, and um,
you know, to promote his conspiracy theories that the the
event was staged, and they quote they seek us out

(50:57):
and accused us of being government agents who are faking
our grief and lying about our loss. So it's rough,
and that sort of mirrors the my perspective on the
whole thing when we were doing the episode, how I
you know, I kind of felt a little taken aback
by the whole concept. So yeah, interesting to see that development.
And you're one of the nicest people I know, so

(51:18):
for you to be a little bit taken aback, to me,
it's the equivalent of someone else being profoundly offended. You know.
We also received a number of tweets and emails regarding
crisis actors. I don't know if you checked out the
YouTube comments, but it is a very very um emotionally
charged subject and on both sides, I imagine. Yeah, And

(51:43):
you know, I really I want to speak directly to
you audience. Uh. And I can't speak for anyone else,
of course, but I personally immensely appreciate the feedback from
the folks who I thought that we did a good
job trying to address this topic because we don't we
don't like to suppress anything. It's not the nature of

(52:07):
this show, So we like to address everything to the
utmost of our ability, which means critical thinking, which means
looking at both sides of something and seeing what if
any evidence exists on either one. We try to handle
that respectfully, and I can say that I don't always
get it right, but luckily enough we have we have

(52:30):
you guys out there keeping us honest. All right, Well, guys,
unfortunately it looks like it's also almost our our time
and older. We have any said into the year music
or any like bitter sweet like it? It's gonna be okay?
Kinna is it sure? Nope? I don't like this? Turn

(52:51):
this off? How about this? Yeah? There? Yeah? Maybe third
tons yep, Oh that's it? Yep. Oh. Man. I have
maybe three feelings a year, and I think this is
one of them. So recently, uh SISPA, it's all that passed,

(53:13):
which is an Internet surveillance bill which removes the protections
that theoretically or nominally exist between your personal information is
known by a private corporation and is known by multiple governments.
So another thing that happens recently while we were all
Twitter paid it over Star Wars is that Zimbabwe moved

(53:35):
to make the Chinese one a legal currency. Aijian canceled
in return all of their debts as edges the way
on a little bit closer to being an international currency
capable of combating the petro dollar. So stay tuned to
your gas pumps. The petro dollars one that I wanted
to bring up, but I thought it. I wasn't sure

(53:56):
if it would be too much to discuss, but I
feel like that's a great way to get in some
of the larger ideas or the let's say the more uh,
some of the more specific conspiracy theories. I think the
petro dollar really brings things together as a way to
discuss smaller things. Yeah, maybe I missed it because I

(54:16):
was thinking things for um, the listener in seen it's
it may be entirely possible that you say, Zimbabwe as
a new as started using China's currency, And you know,
I don't know if people at your holiday party will care,
but well it would be cool if they did, because
I think it's important world news. I mean, that's really great.

(54:40):
I mean, at this point I would say the holiday
meal is done. Everyone's Comma tos on the couch. You know,
we're thinking about new year's let's think, let's give us
some more what what are some things to be thinking
about moving into What are the stories that the sea
you're seeing the seeds of now that are gonna really
take off? Sure? Well, of course you if you listen

(55:00):
to the show, you're probably familiar with the various conspiracy
theories regarding Donald Trump, which I talked about a little
bit on periscope, and regarding Bernie Sanders, which no I
believe you touched on in an earlier audio podcast, and
both have some intriguing points to them. Stay tuned to that.
If you are invest in US elections, you may also

(55:24):
you may also wonder about how the situation in the
Middle East will work out, Will they reach the tompt
um at this point? And how ironic because I was
working on an episode about prophecy and I got to
release date wrong, So I I think I'm gonna stay
away from predictions. Actually, um, no one really has a

(55:45):
crystal ball in the Middle East. We do have some
interesting stuff coming up about predicting the future, about gnasticism,
several of these in the new year. Let's see what
else from I touch on the nature of artificial intelligence
or even magic and we have a well, I guess
I'll let you in on the secret. We have a

(56:05):
long list of topics suggested both by you, by sources
that we go outside of the show, and things that
we have found in our individual ramblings through the dark
alleys of the internet and the places we travel. So
we have a lot more in store for you on

(56:28):
the way. I'd like to pass the mic to you, guys.
Do you have any year in statements to our listeners
before we bid them? Ado? Oh, I just want to
thank you guys for having me on the show. Um,
it's been a lot of fun and I look forward
to uh doing and into the new year. And it's
been cool passing from you know, the mixing desk into
the booth. So I've been really really appreciative of the opportunity,

(56:49):
and I hope everyone's been enjoying enjoying it. We love
having you. It's fantastic to have a third person in
here just to throw things off of. And you're really
you're you absorb what we talked about in here really
well and then you have ideas and throw them back out.
So good work, all right. I'm sorry, I'm not gonna
pat your back too. Much. But you're you're awesome, Noel.

(57:09):
I think our people agree. Yeah, I mean no, it's
no secret that we are not just work friends, were
French friends. We hang out and do stuff and laugh
at each other's jokes and whatnot. Also, you know, even
if that were the case, even if you are my
very best friend, even if you had saved my life

(57:32):
in a shark attack or a car crash or a
lottery deal gone wrong, or a shark crash or a
shark crash, even if that happened, you wouldn't be on
here if you weren't good at what you do. Well,
you know, I feel the same way. And it's a
lot of fun just chatting with you guys. And I
think it's been fun just taking some of the cool

(57:54):
conversations that ben you and I and Matt and you
and I as well, and I'll three of us in
at work and outside of work haven't kind of do
it do it on the show. So let's I appreciate it,
and I'm looking forward to next year. Heck, yeah, we're
getting Uh. I love this. We need to do this again.
Let's have a drunk podcast next year. Yes, yes, we'll

(58:14):
clear it. We'll clear it with the higher outs. No,
we'll just do it. I'd like to I'd like to
add briefly. I know the podcast is going on too
long at the moment, so i'll I'll make it short.
But you, yes, you, you specifically listening to this are
the reason this show exists in the first place. And

(58:36):
we have been close so many times to this, uh,
this thing not continuing. It has been endangered, it has
been vulnerable all those other words people use for animals dwindling, right,
it has. It has been in danger of cancelation. We
have been in danger many times of being fired. However,

(58:56):
somehow we made it, and all of our best idea
is as ever come from you. Yes, you specifically, so
we'd like to hear him. You can find us on
Twitter and Facebook at Conspiracy Stuff. We are all over
that place. You can also go to our website and
that is stuff they don't want you to know dot

(59:17):
com and that's where you can find blog posts, podcasts,
every podcast we've ever done, every video that you guys
have ever done, um and more. You can check out Periscope,
dot tv, slash Conspiracy Stuff, which is where Mr Bolan
normally does our stuff. We've got some guests who go
on there got a dude named Steve who chills with

(59:39):
Ben sometimes. I was Stephen Ben before. It was a
lot of fun. Oh and uh, I just really quickly.
I hope you've checked out our the meeting video episode.
That was a whole lot of fun to shoot the
other day. I really enjoyed being part of it. And
I am a little worried that it looks behind the
curtain but too much. But I think people can I
don't know they can get over it now for all

(01:00:00):
friends here. And lastly, if you don't want to do
any of that stuff gives you the willies, whatever, bride
a good old fashioned email. You can write that to
conspiracy that house stuff works dot com. From one on
this topic another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot com slash

(01:00:24):
conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch on Twitter
at the handle at conspiracy Stuff.