September 5, 2022 • 61 mins
The Governor of Mississippi warns people to avoid drinking any water from Jackson. A Texas law accidentally flags the bible -- and Florida rejects other dictionary donations due to a similar policy. Should plants have legal rights? It's a debate that may be on the horizon. All this and more in this week's Strange News. They don’t want you to read our book. They don’t want you to see us on tour.
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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 Grading. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Alexi's code ename Doc Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here, and that makes this the
stuff they don't want you to know. It is the
top of what people these days are calling the week,
(00:46):
which means that it is Monday. If you are hearing
this the day it comes out, folks. As always, we
have original episodes coming to you twice a week, and
we want to take the time to uh you don't
get away from the episodes a little bit, give you
what we call strange news and listener mail segments once
(01:08):
each week to tell you what's on our minds, on
the world's minds, and as always, to tell you some
of the uh stuff that certain establishments may not want
you to know about the news. Uh. The Nation of
Japan is urging younger generations to get this drink more alcohol.
(01:31):
Texas has followed uh in all sorts of directions with UH,
with the letter of the law versus the spirit of
their religious intent. But we know that people are also
worried about water, which we predicted a number of years ago.
(01:52):
But before we get to any of that, we have
some housekeeping announcements here in the world of conspiracy realism.
Many of our fellow listeners have written to us and said, hey,
I ordered the book. Thank you for doing so. By
(02:12):
the way, UH, but I am someone who likes to
encounter their books or experience them in an audio format, Matt. No,
people are asking whether we have an audio book, so
on behalf of everyone tuning in. Are the rumors true?
(02:33):
Do we have an audiobook? Can we Can we talk
about it? I think we can talk about it. It
doesn't exist in the world quite yet, but it will
very very soon. It is the audio version of the
stuff they don't want you to know book that will
be hitting shelves in a physical form on October eleven.
Preorder your copy now. Link available in our link tree
(02:54):
on Instagram. Um. But yeah, we each of the three
of us took our turns kind of round robbin ing
the chapters and you know, doing the audiobook version, and
I personally can say I had a blast doing it.
It's definitely different than just riffing on the podcast, but
I think it's gonna be a really fun listen. That's right.
And if you want to celebrate the book coming out
by hanging out with us, We're going on a little
(03:17):
bit of a tour. We're gonna be in Atlanta on
October eleventh, in Washington, d C. On the thirte October,
and on the fourteenth in Plainville, Massachusetts. Check out the website.
Stuff you should read books dot com again, stuff you
should read books dot com to check out those tour
dates and register to hang out with us today. And
(03:39):
for everyone who's written in across the world, say hey,
can you get over to London? Can you get over
to Denver? Can you get over to Kinshasha? Uh? Can
you get over to Perth? We would love to and
to do so. The best way to be the change
you wish to see in the world is to right
(03:59):
to us at Conspiracy at I Heart radio dot com.
I have no compunction about forwarding those messages and saying, hey,
put us on the road because we love hanging out
together in person. We are actual friends. And when we
say we're actual friends, we're counting you in that crew. Uh.
(04:21):
So we would we would love to be part of
your day to day experience and we are grateful that
you are a part of ours also like by the book,
and then our our overlords will be like, Yo, book
sales are doing well, let's send you to Perth. Yeah,
I was tasting. That's the best way to get us there.
(04:44):
Pre order a ton of books in your city. Now,
tell your friends, tell your drug dealer, tell your parole officer. Uh,
tell your telling that handler at the at the company.
Because I don't know if you guys heard this. Uh,
we are on this show. A lot of our fellow
listeners are tuning in and one of the front ads
(05:07):
they're getting, which I'll talk about later in a few weeks,
when the front ads they're getting is a c I
A recruitment ad, which is so interesting because back in
my day, they weren't doing ads on podcasts. But story
for another time. We would also that happened on our
(05:29):
show in twenty fifteen or sixteen as well. What have
you did it? At least a few of you are
company folks. Now, congratulations, stay safe, don't believe your bosses. So, uh,
(05:49):
we also have been on the road, as you've heard,
and uh, a couple of us traveled out to Texas. Texas,
the lone star state is always going to be a
chock full of stuff they don't want you to know. Recently,
know you encountered something not just in one state, but
(06:11):
in a couple that I think I would like to say,
not to speak for all of us, but I would
like to go on air saying it gave me a
chuckle because we have an upcoming secret episode about a
related topic. What is that secret episode, you may be asking, Well,
if you order the book last time, I'm gonna I'm
(06:35):
gonna shill forward on this on this strange news segment.
If you order the book, you'll be able to hear
that secret episode. If not, they're just gonna have to
read some tea leaves about the story we are about
to share. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't want to
use the term book band right up front, because that's
like super loaded. But there are some laws swirling around
(06:58):
um certain states and in our fair union, uh, one
of which is Texas, that are seeking to make it
a little easier for the powers that be to remove
certain books from the libraries you know of of young people. God,
it's sounding like a grandpapa young people. Um, but it's true,
Like we've always all of us, you know, have grown up,
(07:19):
um reading books that were assigned to us and certain
ones that others maybe we're a little controversial, things like
Lord of the Flies for example. Um, certain books like uh,
you know exactly, books that you know are a little
edgy potentially or have some other lore kind of associated
(07:40):
with them. Catching the Right for example, is a book
that often is associated with like school shooters, even though
the South Park episode the sort of like lampoons, that
whole thing points out that nothing really that remarkable happens
in the book. He doesn't school shoot he doesn't really
hurt anybody. He just sort of got a bad attitude. Um.
But it is a book that, you know, in the
right hands, can kind of like you know, give way
(08:01):
to a certain mindset of being, you know, other of
being like the person that everyone else is out to get. Um.
So it's easy if you're looking for blood and guts
and gore, get a book like that. It's sort of laughable.
But there are things in books that that can be
dangerous in the wrong hands or the right hands, I guess,
but that's the point of literature. We're able to, you know,
(08:21):
make our own decisions. Um. But certain people in in
power school boards and the like and the governing bodies
you know that governed school boards think that certain books
maybe should not be in the hands of young people
in places like Texas and Florida that tends to have
a lean towards puritanical kind of religious ideology, whereas like
(08:42):
the idea of being indoctrinated you know, by the left
or or something like that. Um. And this new kind
of you know, smattering of laws that have been making
the rounds really seeks to empower school boards to uh,
you know, have a heavier hand in pulling books from libraries.
And in Texas in particular, a school called Keller I.
(09:03):
S d Um was a really interesting case study in
one of these laws. Essentially they've had this for a while, UM,
where you know, they're there individuals that have like these
kind of committees that examined books that are you know,
on the shelves in school libraries and say, okay, we
need to like take a closer look at these. But
apparently this had already happened the previous year. A lot
(09:25):
of these books had already kind of made the cut,
and all of a sudden with this new law, uh,
they were re examined. And the irony here is that
one of these books was the Bible. The the Bible
all versions. In fact, an email that's circulated from the district,
you know, the school board there, Keller I s D
(09:46):
in the district they're part of. UM had a kind
of like a spreadsheet with a lot of these books
that needed to have another look given to them. And
it literally says the Bible in parentheses, all versions. And uh,
I don't know, like, is this an oversight? Like this
is clearly the reporting on this. This is from about
two weeks ago, but I think this is like a
(10:06):
larger conversation. The Bible was not banned in Texas schools.
That that is a very alarmist view, but the fact
that like whatever kind of broad stroke, kind of blunt
instrument approach to censoring books or towards taking a very
keen eye towards material that is inappropriate quote unquote for students,
(10:28):
somehow this one got caught up in the net UM.
So this email that went out said attached or a
list of books challenged that's the word they use, or
the term challenged this year. By the end of today,
I need all the books pulled from the library and classrooms.
More information will be sent regarding actions uh for these
books and UH. Included in that list was the Bible
(10:48):
all versions and and Frank's Diary, not the book though,
a graphic novel adaptation, which is interesting because it makes
me think this is a very imprecise kind of methodology
that goes into this because there were there was controversy
around and Frank's Diary in the past, not because of
what it said about, you know, the Nazis and because
(11:08):
of violence or whatever, specifically because in a certain version
of the book and Frank talks about getting her period,
and uh, there were certain people that thought that was
inappropriate for kids of a certain age to to hear about,
you know, a young woman getting her period. Yeah, but
does that does that not feel a bit disingenuous at most?
(11:29):
I mean that, you know, full disclosure. I recently visited
the m. Frank uh house and this, Uh, it just
feels as though someone were trying to find a reason
to have a problem like Okay, let's walk through the
structural reasoning the idea there. Will be very quick about this. Obviously,
(11:52):
the the idea there is, Hey, I have no problem
with children learning firsthand about the dangers of genocide, but
I don't want, for some reason, I don't want to say,
the authorities, uh for people to know about the idea
(12:15):
of menstruation, despite the fact that roughly half of the
reading audience is going to have firsthand knowledge about that experience,
if not while they're reading very soon. What do you
do as authority? You treat that as Santa Claus. It
just feels very insincere, But that that is, it was
a long time ago that that was the issue at hand.
(12:37):
The same with like that book Mouse, graphic novel Mouse,
which is about you know, Nazism from the perspective of
these like kind of anthropomorphized uh mice characters, which is
a you know, very powerful piece of graphic literature. Um.
But perhaps there was some bad language, or there was
something in it that was visually disturbing or whatever. But
(12:58):
how the Bible made this list is simultaneously bonkers to
me and also makes a lot of sense because what
book yeah, yeah, yeah, the swastika that's on there. Understand. Yeah,
well there's a beef story about Mels. But moving on it.
(13:20):
As you're saying the let's get back to the Bible.
I mean, of of all the books that are could
potentially be banned, I mean, the Bible is full of
sex and violence and misery. And I mean, you know,
our Christ, our Lord and Savior, was nailed to across
and you know, stabbed in the side, and and and
(13:41):
well you know, I'm in the parlance of Christians, Christianity, um,
you know, forced to wear a crown of thorns. I mean,
as we all know, the Mel Gibson film The Passion
of the Christ. Uh, it was massively popular amongst the
Christian community, but would you really watch it? It is
ultimately like torture porn. It is incredibly sadistic in the
violence that it portrays. So I do think it's interesting that,
(14:04):
like the Bible is unimpeachable in terms of like literature,
but the fact that it made the list here is
very fascinating to me, Like, what is the mechanism of
discerning you know, what is it is not appropriate for
young people to have access to in the library, especially
in a state like Texas, where obviously you know, Jesus
is everything, and like you know, religion, religion is a
(14:26):
massive mover and shaper of policy and ideology and upbringing
and all of that good stuff. So it makes me
really question what the mechanism of looking through and deciding
what books. It feels like someone made a mistake. And
it obviously was a very sexy headline to say Texas
bands the Bible, like have we gone too far? I mean,
(14:47):
you could say yes, but then if you look at
Snopes like, no, Texas did not ban the Bible. It
got momentarily pulled. But even the physical act of pulling
the Bible from a libraryes and that seem like heresy
to you, or would seem like to some I don't
know your hands of our Bible. That's interesting the version uh.
Christian authorities historically are the most likely to pull uh
(15:12):
Christian lore to which they object. That's the whole reason
that there's apocrypha right versus canonical books. But still, yes,
I agree with you. It does seem um kind of reflexive, reactive,
and it does make for a good headline. It also
makes for a good clarion call. Education is one of
(15:37):
the most vital battle grounds of any civilization throughout history.
Not for nothing was it illegal for certain classes of
different civilizations past to possess the power of literacy, which
is very much a superpower. And this, this means, like this,
(15:57):
I think shows us how yeah, I'll do it, how
devilishly easy it is to remove one's access to education.
For anybody who doesn't realize what a what a big deal,
this is, how existential this is. I do recommend checking
(16:21):
out our previous episode on the war over textbooks, because
all textbooks are not telling you and your children the
same stories. Oh and Matt, you know, I know you
have a Christian background, and you know, I know that
you probably took great effort to like read the Bible
and digest the Bible and you know, did Bible study,
(16:43):
and we're you know, encouraged to do so. But was
there was there ever a point in your upbringing or
you were questioning, like, wow, this is kind of messed
up the stuff that's in here, But not in terms
of like ideology, was in terms of content, in terms
of like the violence and the and the sex and
like the you know, the kind of depravity that is
represented in the pages of the of the Bible. Uh No,
(17:05):
because a lot of my study was guided by, like
at least early on, by the Methodist Church and what
the Methodist Church was instructing pastors throughout the country to
you know, teach that week or that month or whatever.
And often you're so focused in on you know, a
handful of stories that you don't even venture out into
(17:26):
the other territory unless you're doing it on your own.
And when you encounter it on your own, you have
a lot of questions, right like I did. I was
always like, what what does that mean? Why? Why is
this in here? But I would never go to a
pastor or someone who knew better than me and say hey,
why It was just like I just leave that over
(17:47):
here in my cognitive Uh, I don't know, it is
very curated. I grew up in the Methodist Church as well,
and it's all these little exercises and things that guide you,
and they they give you the That's why everything in
the Bible is like citable. It's all these like chapter
and verse, you know, because it's all meant to be
taken in these little nuggets. But when you read the
(18:09):
whole thing, taken as a whole it does beget a
lot of questions and a lot of like contradictions that
that you know, you want to know why they exist,
and they're sort of like, pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain, just look at this one and
then like do your little workbook assignment and then move on.
You know, like that's kind of the attitude. So it
is interesting to me that no one in um religious upbringing,
(18:32):
typically you know as as kids, encourages kids to read
the whole Bible. That is not a thing. They don't
give you a book report to read the whole Bible.
They make you study little parts. I uh yeah, I
will soft pushed back about that because there are many
Christians that I know who were just like kids in Islam.
(18:54):
They were they were tasked with reading the entirety and
welcomed uh to ask questions. I I personally do not
ascribe to Christianity myself, but I have read multiple versions
of the vibe the Bible, including the most famous ones
in Western Cannon, like the all People Love the King
(19:17):
James Bible. Nowadays you know they're all translations, uh, And
I remain although again I don't personally ascribe to a
lot of those beliefs. I remain grateful for the people
who said, read the whole book before you disagree with it,
ask us the questions, and let's let's explore them together.
(19:37):
And I think I think that kind of thought, that
structural application of thought is a big piece of our show.
I did not know you were both raised Methodists. Refresh
my memory that denomination does baptism by sprinkling holy water, right,
rather than by dunking somewhat water. Right. That's it's like
(19:59):
soft back, just kind of it's like Baptist. Their Baptist
religion is a little more um hard in the paint,
and Methodism is a little softer and more like you know, accessible,
I would argue, would say somber and uh serious about it.
It is, but it also has praise and worship bands
(20:19):
and youth group and youth tacos and stuff like, you know,
it doesn't have all the pomp and circumstance of a
Baptist you know, church service. It has much more of
this like modern kind of like you know, like the
Righteous Gemstones are probably meant to be Methodists. They don't
really go and talk about that in the show, but
that is the experience that I had with methodism where
it's like this wow mazow kind of like production of
(20:41):
like you know, rock and roll, kind of like like
youth group bands and stuff I have, Like, I know
that we have many many people who are adherence to
many many feasts uh in our audience today. And folks, UH,
if you have ever found yourself saying based on an
(21:04):
excerpt of something that has maybe been spun or presented
or curated for you based on excerptive religious text, if
you find yourself completely objecting to it, then I will say,
and I I do not really practice advice. I will
say as an observation that if you intellectually respect yourself,
(21:27):
and you intellectually respect those with whom you disagree, you
should respect those uh, then you owe it to yourself
as a dissenter to say I am informed. I again,
have read multiple religious texts. I I read the Bible
in full, and look, I'm gonna tell you it's uneven writing.
(21:49):
There's some really there's some real sexy stuff like the
Book of Songs. There's some real there's a couple of
things that are all just this person begat, this person
who begat this person. Uh. And I first part that old,
that old part. And there are some literal things like
the tree of life, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ also
on a thing that functions visually very much like a tree.
(22:11):
It's interesting, and if you disagree with something, you owe
it to yourself to understand that with which you disagree.
Not for nothing did Lucifer say, non serfium, I brought
it back. We're talking about that affair. Okay, I did it?
All right? Yeah, that's a great word. I will ask
you you guys this um. Are there versions of the
(22:35):
Koran versions in the way there are of the Bible
to be able to even say in parentheses all versions?
That implies And we know that King James version has
a spin, just like you mentioned earlier. Been our textbooks
have spins depending on the the ideology of you know,
the school board or whatever. Which parts we want to
leave ours parts we want to like big up or whatever? Like?
(22:58):
Does the Koran have versions? It's okay, I can I
can answer this. That what I want our fellow followers
of Islam, and I want a fellow Muslims in the
crowd two to write in and talk about this, because
there are canonically not different versions of the Quran. Uh.
(23:21):
There are different versions of reciting it, right, and there
are different versions of the idea of of the true
representative philosophy laid down by the prophet. The most well
known in the West would be Sunni and Shia, right.
(23:42):
But that's not the same thing as you see in uh,
you know LDS, or as you see in a Anglican
interpretation or a Baptist interpretation of the Christian Bible, which
is already sort of uh, it's sort of the remix
(24:03):
of ancient Judaic text with this new you know, it's
the double album. Maybe I'm asking kind of a silly
question because obviously, like in um, in translation, you're going
to have different versions. Like the very act of translation
is inherently a version, and the translator, you know, has
a lot of power, which is why the Karate is
(24:25):
only Karate if it's in Arabic, that's right. But with
the Bible, you have like the King James version, which
we know is a massive spin on like the content
of the Bible at the behest of King James, you know,
like to kind of like use that as a as
a as a means to kind of like enact some
of his um, you know, policies and ideas. So I
(24:46):
just we're kind of getting in the weeds here. But
I do think it's interesting to think about the Bible
in the same way we think about the way textbooks
are presenting a certain narrative. And the thing that's interesting
about the Bible to me too, is like some parts
are very historical record documentation of historical events, and some
parts of it are these like parables or like, you know,
(25:08):
is it real? Did it really happen? They don't really
tell you in the text. You have to kind of
decide for yourself. And then we have in the same way,
like we have lawmakers that are strict constructionists of the Constitution.
They look at it as if it's if it's written
down and that's the thing and there's no room for interpretation.
There are people that look at the Bible that way too,
like if it's in the Bible, then it definitely happened.
Um in terms of like Noah's Ark and you know,
(25:30):
the Whale and all of that stuff, which clearly if
you look at it from a place of pop culture,
that's the stories that stuff is like it meant to
teach a lesson, but I don't think Noah made an
arc and put all the animals on it, you know, not,
what do you think about that side of it? Just
about Noah's ark or the literal just about like the
parts of the Bible that are clearly literal and the
(25:51):
parts of the Bible that are like these massively spectacular tales.
I mean, they're the best parts of the book in
my opinion, there are also Probably One of the main
reasons I kind of lost my religion a little bit
was because it was trying to square what was supposed
to be taken literally and what was supposed to be
(26:11):
a parable what was in my mind clearly a made
up story to make a point, I guess, or to
teach a lesson um, and then not being able to
really discern what was which. That's that's where I had
my cognitive dissonance. But you know enough about me, uh no,
And to not have the person guiding you along be
able to tell you the difference maybe like and and
(26:34):
why these things didn't square with you. You didn't have
anybody that could explain to you the way you felt. Yeah, yeah,
well listen, we have to move on. But I want
to just part and parcel to we're talking about here Florida. Also,
one of these laws created a situation where they are
refusing donations of dictionaries. What could be a more innocuous
(26:55):
text than a dictionary? It just that's my whole point
is like what is a rubric for? Like what texts
are we rejecting versus what texts are we like welcoming?
And if a dictionary is getting banned again, not banned,
but like questions were like, oh, we're putting a pause
on accepting dictionaries for the for the time being. Um,
then then where is the cut off? Like at what
(27:17):
point are we just like losing it, losing the plot
in terms of like what literature and text actually is for.
It's a great point. All right, Well let's take a
quick break and then we'll be back with more strange news.
And we're back and for this story, we are traveling
(27:40):
to Jackson, Mississippi. So it's a pretty great city. Actually,
I don't have you guys ever been to Jackson? Yes,
in a lot of songs Jackson. Alright, okay, cool, Well yeah,
but we're going to Jackson because the citizens there are
going through a crisis similar to citizens of other cities
(28:00):
in the United States and across the world. Uh, there
are a lot of crises going on right now, and
there have been for quite a while. This one is
probably closest to the coverage we've done before on Flint, Michigan,
and a couple of other cities that are going through
water treatment plant crises. Um dang, Jackson is just it
(28:24):
seems like it's getting hit just blow after blow. There
was recently a lot of flooding in Jackson and other
parts of central Mississippi. The Pearl River flooded due to
just record rainfall that was occurring around that time, and
all of that water coming through Jackson caused some serious
issues with their water treatment system. And well, I guess
(28:47):
I'll let the Governor of Mississippi really sum it up
for us. On Monday, as we record this, Monday, August
twenty nine, there was an emergency press briefing given by
the Mississippi Governor, Tate Reeves, and this is what he said, quote,
please stay safe, do not drink the water. Yeah seriously,
(29:08):
like that alone, Good God. In too many cases it
is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes.
Be smart, protect yourself, Protect your family, preserve water, look
out for your fellow man, and look out for your neighbors,
and God save America. That's crazy. That's Independence Day level
(29:29):
of speech right there. That is wild. Yeah, it's like
a sorry. I hate when people say correct. No, yeah,
right on, I agree with you. This is also for
anybody unfamiliar with Mississippi in the US, this is the
largest city in that state. We are talking about just
one city with more than a hundred and sixty thousand residents.
(29:52):
If you look at the metro area, then that means
that this water issue affects way more than two thousand people.
This is serious. Yeah, the latest estimates I saw were
around a eighty thousand, but you're right, like up to
two thousand who are being affected directly by this. I'm
gonna continue with the governor's quote just a little bit
(30:14):
more because it shows why he's speaking in such a
dire manner. The governor said quote, until it is fixed,
we do not have reliable running water at scale. The
city cannot provide enough water to fight fires, to flush toilets,
and to meet other critical needs like that that alone,
like restaurants don't have water the tap when you turn
(30:37):
it on the water pressure is so low that barely
anything comes out, and when it does come out, it's
like it's raw water from the giant reservoir that is
just northeast of the city. Um, where the Pearl River
comes out of as its flow, which is not a
marketing thing. But by raw water we mean untreated. So
it is. Yes, it is complete a dice roll. And
(31:01):
let's be honest, if you live in the US, you
know this. It is a loaded dice roll. As to
whether this stuff has effluence jumping right, effluence would be dumping,
as as whether as possible bacterial contaminants, all the stuff
that would have been filtered out by wastewater treatment or
just water treatment, the types of things where you see
(31:23):
like fish advisories like because the fish like are pumped
full of merkety, that's because they exist in a part
of the of the river or whatever body of water
that has not been filtered in this way. We are
not meant to drink that water and we should not
eat those fish. No. Um. So, guys, if you just
think about that situation, you think about the economic impact
(31:45):
it's going to have on the city of Jackson, Like
the hospitality industry the entire thing is it's going to
have to be put on pause again after going through
the COVID break basically in in profits there that that
it's had. Um, you think about the each individual person
in individual parents who are trying to you know, what
(32:06):
do you do for your kid while you get bottled water?
And that's one of the only things you can do
or some other type of water product, right because you
can't just turn on tap anywhere in the entire city
and get water. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA
is headed there. They've been there this whole week attempting
to hand out as much bottled water as they can, obviously,
(32:29):
and you know, you can kind of predict this and
you know this, but there's not enough bottled water to
go around. And it's just the nature of tempting a
herculean effort like that. Um, it's just it's not enough.
The National Guard has even been called in by the governor,
even Joe Biden. President Joe Biden declared an emergency recently
this week. I believe that was yesterday today, yesterday. It's
(32:51):
a big deal. And this this is all happening, by
the way, after a month a month of water boil
advisory in Jackson. Guys, we live in Atlanta. We've been
through our share of water boil advisories, and you know,
generally when you experience one of those, at least that
I've been through personally, it's a couple of days week
(33:14):
maximum when there's been some kind of natural disaster or
just something really bad that's come through the city. But
can you imagine a full month, and when they do
it here or another, you know places, it usually feels
like in an abundance of caution, we advise you boil
your water. It would be a good idea, or drink
bottled water as opposed to definitely don't drink the water.
(33:35):
And may God have mercy on your soul? Um Can
we also point out that Jackson, Mississippi is any two
point four seven percent African American and it's demographic makeup. Yes, yes,
we can't. This is true. It's it's really bad. This
is a breaking story. So there's gonna be a lot
more development, probably even by the time you hear this
(33:57):
story when it comes out on the Monday that year
hearing it. But we're we're trying to just stay on
top of it and follow it as much as possible.
I would highly recommend heading over to Mississippi Today dot org.
It's a really great nonprofit news site where there's just
tons of information being pumped out. It appears to be
really great reporting, at least to my eyes there is.
(34:20):
There's so many articles they've written. It's Alex Rosier or
rose Er Rosier, I'm not exactly sure how you say it,
but writing alongside Bobby Harrison, Kaylee Skinner and a couple others.
They're just answering questions for people of Mississippi. So people
who are in and around Jackson, they've got great resources there,
(34:41):
like exactly where you can go physically right now if
you're in or near Jackson to get water. Uh, if
you just scroll down on their main website, they've got
it and it's continually updated there. And one thing that's
important to note. We're talking about specifically something called the
Obi Curtis Facility, and the folks who are working there
(35:02):
now are in crisis mode. Like many municipal employees, several
of whom are in the audience with us today. Welcome folks. Uh.
They are likely underpaid, definitely overworked, and they are at
the whims often of machinations far above their heads, right,
(35:23):
far above their ability to control. So there's another point
I want to make. It's a it is a larger,
deeper point. Uh. It is unexpected, right ideally on paper,
it is unexpected for a person in the United States
to need to purify or boil water, to have a
(35:47):
boil advisory as uh as Null pointed out, It's usually
phrased as something small happened, but with an abundance of caution,
we advise you to do such and such. This is
not the case in many, many other parts of the world.
It is simply expected that one must either boil water
(36:08):
or one must have bottled water of some sort. So
what is happening here, I would say, is something that
a lot of our international listeners are going to be
intimately familiar with as the average day today. But if
you are listening and you are in the US or
(36:32):
Canada or some parts not all parts, don't believe the
hype of Western Europe. This is something that you can
put in your journal as a harbinger of things to come,
not a Jordan harbinger, very nice, brilliant guy, but a
general harbinger of things to come. General Harbinger, General Harbinger,
(36:59):
and may God have mercy on yourself. The water. Uh,
the water crisis isn't coming, folks, It's already here. And
the heroic efforts, as you said, Matt, the herculean efforts
to make make water potable, drinkable, Uh, they are only
(37:22):
going to become more arduous, more challenging as time continues.
Just something to think about every time you ask yourself,
should I take a bath or take a shower? But
either way, I mean, that's not even the main issue here, guys.
This is an infrastructure story like this is. That's seriously,
what's at the heart of this. The mayor, chuckway La
(37:43):
Mumba made a point that, hey, this is not something
that may have happened. We've seen this on the horizon
for some time, for several years actually, we've noted that
this specific facility, the O. B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility,
it's failing and it's going to fail. It's not a
matter of if, but when. And it just happened to
(38:05):
occur now because of the catastrophic flooding. And I wonder
how many other cities, no matter what size they are
and no matter what country they're in have water treatment
facilities that are on the brink of failure just because
of the amount of water that needs to be pushed
through those things. And you know how where the water
(38:28):
is no longer flammable hopefully, But that's an enormous point, Matt,
that in your mind, readers, get that to the infrastructure
systems are already under tremendous stress, you know what I mean.
Like what it's um It's a situation where if you
think of that system the way you would think of
(38:50):
an anatomical system like a body, and it's agglomeration of
natural systems ease to the point where any of ends,
not even a black Swan event, any bad day, could
lead to a catastrophic series of dominoes. And it's it's
easy to hear about a story like this if you
(39:12):
don't live in Jackson, Mississippi. It's easy to hear about
it if you don't have family or friends in Jackson, Mississippi,
and then say, oh, gosh, thank goodness, I don't live there.
But it's uh, it's on tour. Sadly, statistically in the
United States, it is on tour and it is coming
to a town near you. If I had to guess,
(39:35):
I would say most likely, the next wave of these
things that will occur, the next wave of these dangerous
events will They won't be in the Los Angeles, they
won't be in the New York's, they won't be in
the Chicago's because those are very, very densely populated and
in some ways, very densely funded parts of this country.
(40:00):
They're gonna be doing is They're going to be happening
in the town's outside of Chicago. They're going to be
happening in the rural areas of you know, Arizona or
another very thirsty state. Wouldn't you say Flint was kind
of a harbinger of this. I mean, it wasn't flooding,
but it was about infrastructure. It was about like old,
outdated pipes with rust and all kinds of crazy stuff
(40:22):
that just wasn't addressed, you know, by the powers that be,
and then we should have been, well, it's about funding,
Like our city is going to get funding, you know,
either via the state or via federal spending. In this case,
the e p A entered into an agreement, at least
according to CNN, with Jackson, to provide seventy four I
(40:43):
think maybe seventy five million dollars to repair drinking water systems.
But then the mayor of Jackson, Lamombo, said, oh no,
it's gonna take two billion dollars to repair this water
treatment facility to fully replace it. Like a seventy four million,
seventy five millions not gonna do anything really, um and
(41:05):
and now and then it's who do you believe? Right,
do you actually need that much money? And if you do, well, dang,
we should probably invest that money somehow. But where does
it come from? And it becomes political decision priorities, and
like do you value life first or do you value
like other political kind of maneuvers that you can make,
(41:25):
like as a politician, Like that's how you value elections first.
That's always where's life on that list? Way down? Way low? Yeah, anyway,
I think I think we're just gonna have to continue
watching this. I you know, I hope everybody in or
around Jackson, if you're listening, I hope you're safe. Do
what you gotta do right to us and let us
(41:47):
know what you're going through right now. If you've been
through something like this in another city, we'd love to
hear your experience. And if you have any more information
about budgets and how how they get allocated to water
treatment facilities. We'd love to hear from you too, And
while we wait to hear from you, we're gonna hear
from our sponsors. Will be right back, all right, and
(42:12):
we have returned. Thanks so much everybody. We're going along.
We only have a little bit of time here, but
hopefully it will be worth your time. The only real
currency today's question, should plants have legal rights? Now? A
number of years ago there was this fantastic conversation across
(42:36):
so many disciplines regarding the idea of what's called legal personhood,
and this was applied to the concept of higher order animals.
When I say higher order, I'm not trying to be
a jerk. I'm talking about animals, non human animals that
are able to perform some of the cognitive trick that
(43:00):
were once thought unique to the genre of primates currently
calling itself human today this is stuff like um, the
idea of abstract thought, planning for the future, the idea
of deception, the idea of um, understanding oneself, of meta cognition,
(43:20):
thinking about thinking. That's what happens when you look in
a mirror and say, oh, that's not me. But is
it kind of me? But it's not me. Some animals
can do that too. It's amazing, right, And uh, this
argument or this this quandary is moving forward in the
world of plants. Related to this episode on legal personhood,
(43:44):
we earlier did an investigation on whether or not plants, Yes,
fellow green thumbs, this is for you, whether or not
plants could fit the definition of an intelligent being. Now,
of course, the human cannon, the human ivory tower, is
(44:07):
at a disadvantage here because that's a species that has
yet to arrive a real definition of intelligence, as yet
to arrive at the concept of a soul, has yet
to arrive at a concept of sentience. This stood out
to me. I would say, this is technically strange news,
(44:30):
but you're not going to see a debate about it
on your media avenue of choice. The idea came up
in the news recently in some of the forums I follow,
but it's largely inspired by a wonderful book that was
written a few years ago called Brilliant Green, The Surprising
History and Science of Plant Intelligence by a plant neurobiologist
(44:56):
named Stefano Mancuso, along with a journalist Alessandra Viola and this.
I don't know, do you guys remember the episode we
did on plant intelligence or the possibility thereof. It's been
a minute, but I mean, I'm fascinated about the idea.
I'm always like talking about mushrooms and they're like networks
(45:16):
of underground, you know, like stappses and stuff. I do
think it's a thing, no question about it. I do
remember being fascinated specifically with carnivorous plants and how that
evolution occurred, and then like what what caused that to happen.
I don't think we ever got to the bottom of
whether or not plants think, because we just can't tell you.
(45:37):
But I remember how interested I was in the topic. Yeah,
it is fascinating, man. I'm right there with you, because
if you have, it's an older idea that needs more attention.
Charles Darwin studied plants as well as animals for decades
of decades, and he ate them. While he was studying.
By the way, uh, he was one of the first
(46:01):
Western thinkers to say, hey, plants carnivorous and non carnivorous.
They move and respond to sensation. I would love for
any of us listening along in the audience today, to
go and talk to your plants while you water them,
and then get back to me and let me know
(46:21):
if you see a change in their growth pattern, and
whether you think that is some sort of vibe, whether
you think that is just uh, that you are exhaling
gases that are good for them, or you know, whether
they instantly died, which means you might be a bad conversationalist,
(46:43):
like I put that on you. Sorry, folks, forgive me.
But the idea is responding to stimulus from an environment.
It is the nature of life, right, That's the reason.
Rocks are apparently always rocks unless they are naturally soft
and they just harden up when you touch them. Just blue,
(47:03):
some blues, some minds in a freshman dorm somewhere. But
this is strange because if we get to the root
of it, we see that plants do exercise action in
their environment, which indicates at least uh. You know, people
(47:23):
get mad when you say understanding or desire, but it
indicates moves towards things that are good for them and
away from things that are bad for them. We know,
for instance, human beings may may pursue things that are
(47:45):
technically low level poisons. Right, Like people recreationally enjoy kept
sais in right, and that is something that is evolved
to deter consumption of plants of spicy right right, and
pep pep PEPs and uh we know that Uh, people
(48:06):
and other forms of animals on this planet. I have
enjoyed fermented things which you know contain alcohol or some
relation of alcohol that can also be be damaging to uh,
to a bodily system. But I've been thinking more our psilocybin. Well,
(48:29):
psilocybin is not necessarily damaging to a bodily system, uh
in this Well, No, it doesn't mean in terms of
like things that plants beget that we enjoy also fruit.
I mean there's like a whole symbiosis with plants that
we have this relationship with them, and we've tested it
and we know what will kill us and what won't.
So there's an interesting sort of entry point to interacting
(48:49):
with plants, like in terms of like life on Earth. Yeah,
I'm drawing a bright line around those first two examples
because they are things that are potentially dangerous to living forms.
Unlike psilocybin, it's not naturally dangerous, which despite what the
War on drugs would have us believe so. And I
was thinking about this. I was looking at a couple
(49:14):
of fantastic articles. I reread part of Brilliant Green, and
I went out on this patio I have where I'm
living now and just watched the plants move. And I
want to get kind of meta with this in the
in the small most smart, I mean, they know what
(49:34):
they want. You can't say that about everything. That's what
I mean. It's a it's a system. It's a very
honed system, that's all I'm saying. So part of my
question is this is also a setup for for an
episode I think we could visit in the future. But
part of my question for you guys, this is not
to trick you into an interview. This is a series
of me asking you and our fellow conspiracy realist what
(49:57):
you think. Part of my question here, the where we
get to the meta aspect, is simply put this, if
ever there were a widespread academic recognition of plants having
some sort of legal right, not just the tree that
(50:18):
owns itself, you know in Georgia, but but something like um,
something that says, for legal purposes, destroying a forest is
the same thing as mass murder. What would that mean
for the world. Do you think that's even a thing
that should or could happen. I don't think it could,
(50:39):
but should it? Well, it is illegal to set for
us on fire unless you're a logging corporation or like
a company that like owns it and can just like
do it, you know, unchecked. But it's a very interesting
question because some of the things that I'm fascinated by
involved being able to take of these things that these
plants provide. And if all the sudden the plant had
(51:01):
this personhood, you have to like ask permission or something.
But if you want to take the hippie kind of
dippy perspective, it's like the plants want you to eat them,
like the psilocybin wants you to eat them. Like they're
part of this system of the earth, like in terms
of like that like network of these like underground networks
of like electrically communicating kind of synapses that are mushrooms
(51:22):
that are this like kind of circle of life and
existence and like they're not I won't go so far
as to say that they're there for us, but like
they are a way of interacting with them, you eat
a plant. You're not killing the plant exactly, because it's
just gonna regrow itself. It's like cutting a lizard's tail off,
like thet of the ones that that regrow. So I
think it's fascinating. It's not like we're so even that
(51:44):
vegetarians who are so anti factory farming and stuff, they're
all about eating plants, and they're the ones that have
the most aggressive opinions on life of any of us.
So it's it's a very interesting question, It's all. I
don't know the answer, Matt, what do you What do
you think? Dude? I just had a very very clear
picture of Norman Borlog with a bull horn, standing up
(52:08):
on a platform and there's a wheat field and he's
just he asks, okay, now we need you to feed us.
Is that okay? And then can we have her consent?
Can you sign this pdf? Okay? Can you sign this
Adobe document? I don't know. To me, it was just
(52:29):
a very funny. But what do we do at that
point if plants have some kind of personhood, have some
kind of sentience that we acknowledge, Like, what do we
do to feed ourselves? Terrestrial entities that contact us are
not plant or fungi based, so we could eat that,
(52:49):
you know. There they don't come rocking through this little
backwater of this little backwater galaxy and say, holy crap,
what if they're based on connivorous plants? Man? You know, like,
what if they come through and they say, oh my gosh,
our versions of flies are eating us nuca or whatever,
our version of nucas. I don't think that will happen,
(53:12):
but I do think I do think it is um
It is a an idea that the human species could
leverage to be a little bit less of an unsustainable fad,
a little bit less uncool to the super organism of earth.
You know, I I know a lot of vegans of vegetarians.
(53:34):
I was a vegetarian for myself for some time. I
was privileged enough to be so, which is an important point.
But also there's this meta cognitive argument right like we
also it goes to so many levels, and I think
it's worth revisiting an actual episode because we have to
(53:54):
ask ourselves, is there a hierarchy of life? Right the vegan?
The vegetarian says, I know this is a living thing.
I wish to not do harm to others, perhaps, but
I also need to live, and like any human being,
(54:16):
I will put my survival over literally everything. What happens
when what happens when you tell thousands of people who
depend upon deforestation in a given area that they cannot
they cannot feed their families because they cannot interrupt this
great dance, this great cycle of life that has continued
(54:41):
millions of years before people were around. It's politically difficult,
but also again, politics is just sort of another religion
that humans have made up. And there's not money. Yeah
well there, yeah, money as well. I still have the
standing call for anyone, anyone to tell me the difference
between modern economic belief and religious belief. On their line,
(55:05):
politics and money are like, you know, two hands in
the same gloves. I feel you, But the the the
idea here is to me. It's fascinating because we know
a lot of people who are close with plants. And
this is an open call. By the way, you don't
even need to use the show contact information. You want
(55:26):
to find me on social media app and bowling or something.
Send me your pictures of your plants. I am here
for it. I love plants. There there's some of my
favorite living things. And if you have a plant in
your life. If you like live around plants, then I
am almost certain that if you are human and live
around plants, even if you are a botanist and well trained,
(55:50):
you would probably anthropomorphize them a bit. You've given them, yeah, yeah,
you've given them names, you know, you give them per senalities.
You might have put some plants next to each other
and you can tell whether or not they vibe. And
there's chemistry with that too. Plants do talk to one
another in in such that they communicate. They exude or
(56:16):
emanate different chemical signals. Plants scream to their kinful when
they are being hurt. They transmit signals when you are
mowing the grass, you monster, Where have you seen this?
Where's the study? I'm so fascinated by this, Like I
was gonna ask you, like, is it about pain like
(56:38):
animals versus plants? Like is it about pain? And how
do you register this what you're describing? I'm so fascinated
by this idea. The life cycle of a plant on
in most cases is to get its seeds ingested. We
may spread, So I just don't understand why it would
be I guess it would still be painful, but it's
(57:00):
also purposeful and then also what is the balanced chemicals
We would need Matt to communicate to the plant that
there is some sort of in our opinion, greater good,
you know, as they're an afterlife. I'm sorry, I mean
the whole episode. Whole episode. This is amazing. Um there's
a there's an amazing record called um oh gosh more
(57:24):
Garson Plantasia. It's a modular scynth record from the like sixties,
and it was designed to like play for your plants
with the with the understanding that it would like help
them grow. So there are like all these things that
we're talking about that it comes from this like kind
of counterculture like psychedelic movement of the idea that like
plants are sentient and that we are participating with them
in this like life cycle. But no one of all
(57:46):
those people, they never are like, oh, I'm worried if
I'm gonna hurt the plant if I like eat one
of its leaves. They're like, the plant welcomes me to
like eat of its leaves, as opposed to the cow
who we put in a pen and like hook up
a thing too. It's like teats and just suck the
life for out of it and like, yeah, those things
actually scream, you can hear it. It's it's awful. Um. Yeah,
it's fascinating to me on so many levels. And and
(58:07):
we don't have time now but to let you know
the specifics of reference. This an upcoming episode. The research
I read that was most compelling was in I want
to say, after we had recorded whether or not plants
or intelligent? Uh, there was this study out of Tel Aviv.
I believe it was that went specific. It's focusing specifically
(58:32):
on tomato and tobacco plants. And then it shows through
through literally holding a microphone, it shows that when under stress,
they admit frequencies that are inaudible to you know, the
average human ear between twenty two hundred killer hurts. I
hope I haven't ruined you know, anybody's like vegetarian feast
(58:55):
or whatever. I have plants. I ate them all the time.
Most people do or should. Uh. So we want to
hear your thoughts. What kind of conversations have you had
with your plants, What do you think about the future
of water? Where do you stand on the banning of books?
Is it always a bad thing? Are there some books
(59:18):
that should not be read? We think there's definitely one
you should read, which we're pretty explicit about because we'll
get dragged in the street and shot if we don't
mention it. So, uh, stuff there what you know of
the book? Ben said, true? Right, yeah, yeah, they're they're
after us. That Honda Odyssey is idling on my street
(59:39):
right now. Uh and that's not laughing because he's looking
out the window and she she's a van to But seriously,
we can't wait to hear from you. We try to
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And if you don't want to do any of the
(01:00:00):
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My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
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are you. You are here, and that makes this the
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(00:46):
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this the day it comes out, folks. As always, we
have original episodes coming to you twice a week, and
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get away from the episodes a little bit, give you
what we call strange news and listener mail segments once
(01:08):
each week to tell you what's on our minds, on
the world's minds, and as always, to tell you some
of the uh stuff that certain establishments may not want
you to know about the news. Uh. The Nation of
Japan is urging younger generations to get this drink more alcohol.
(01:31):
Texas has followed uh in all sorts of directions with UH,
with the letter of the law versus the spirit of
their religious intent. But we know that people are also
worried about water, which we predicted a number of years ago.
(01:52):
But before we get to any of that, we have
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Many of our fellow listeners have written to us and said, hey,
I ordered the book. Thank you for doing so. By
(02:12):
the way, UH, but I am someone who likes to
encounter their books or experience them in an audio format, Matt. No,
people are asking whether we have an audio book, so
on behalf of everyone tuning in. Are the rumors true?
(02:33):
Do we have an audiobook? Can we Can we talk
about it? I think we can talk about it. It
doesn't exist in the world quite yet, but it will
very very soon. It is the audio version of the
stuff they don't want you to know book that will
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Preorder your copy now. Link available in our link tree
(02:54):
on Instagram. Um. But yeah, we each of the three
of us took our turns kind of round robbin ing
the chapters and you know, doing the audiobook version, and
I personally can say I had a blast doing it.
It's definitely different than just riffing on the podcast, but
I think it's gonna be a really fun listen. That's right.
And if you want to celebrate the book coming out
by hanging out with us, We're going on a little
(03:17):
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(03:59):
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(04:21):
So we would we would love to be part of
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you are a part of ours also like by the book,
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(04:44):
Pre order a ton of books in your city. Now,
tell your friends, tell your drug dealer, tell your parole officer. Uh,
tell your telling that handler at the at the company.
Because I don't know if you guys heard this. Uh,
we are on this show. A lot of our fellow
listeners are tuning in and one of the front ads
(05:07):
they're getting, which I'll talk about later in a few weeks,
when the front ads they're getting is a c I
A recruitment ad, which is so interesting because back in
my day, they weren't doing ads on podcasts. But story
for another time. We would also that happened on our
(05:29):
show in twenty fifteen or sixteen as well. What have
you did it? At least a few of you are
company folks. Now, congratulations, stay safe, don't believe your bosses. So, uh,
(05:49):
we also have been on the road, as you've heard,
and uh, a couple of us traveled out to Texas. Texas,
the lone star state is always going to be a
chock full of stuff they don't want you to know. Recently,
know you encountered something not just in one state, but
(06:11):
in a couple that I think I would like to say,
not to speak for all of us, but I would
like to go on air saying it gave me a
chuckle because we have an upcoming secret episode about a
related topic. What is that secret episode, you may be asking, Well,
if you order the book last time, I'm gonna I'm
(06:35):
gonna shill forward on this on this strange news segment.
If you order the book, you'll be able to hear
that secret episode. If not, they're just gonna have to
read some tea leaves about the story we are about
to share. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't want to
use the term book band right up front, because that's
like super loaded. But there are some laws swirling around
(06:58):
um certain states and in our fair union, uh, one
of which is Texas, that are seeking to make it
a little easier for the powers that be to remove
certain books from the libraries you know of of young people. God,
it's sounding like a grandpapa young people. Um, but it's true,
Like we've always all of us, you know, have grown up,
(07:19):
um reading books that were assigned to us and certain
ones that others maybe we're a little controversial, things like
Lord of the Flies for example. Um, certain books like uh,
you know exactly, books that you know are a little
edgy potentially or have some other lore kind of associated
(07:40):
with them. Catching the Right for example, is a book
that often is associated with like school shooters, even though
the South Park episode the sort of like lampoons, that
whole thing points out that nothing really that remarkable happens
in the book. He doesn't school shoot he doesn't really
hurt anybody. He just sort of got a bad attitude. Um.
But it is a book that, you know, in the
right hands, can kind of like you know, give way
(08:01):
to a certain mindset of being, you know, other of
being like the person that everyone else is out to get. Um.
So it's easy if you're looking for blood and guts
and gore, get a book like that. It's sort of laughable.
But there are things in books that that can be
dangerous in the wrong hands or the right hands, I guess,
but that's the point of literature. We're able to, you know,
(08:21):
make our own decisions. Um. But certain people in in
power school boards and the like and the governing bodies
you know that governed school boards think that certain books
maybe should not be in the hands of young people
in places like Texas and Florida that tends to have
a lean towards puritanical kind of religious ideology, whereas like
(08:42):
the idea of being indoctrinated you know, by the left
or or something like that. Um. And this new kind
of you know, smattering of laws that have been making
the rounds really seeks to empower school boards to uh,
you know, have a heavier hand in pulling books from libraries.
And in Texas in particular, a school called Keller I.
(09:03):
S d Um was a really interesting case study in
one of these laws. Essentially they've had this for a while, UM,
where you know, they're there individuals that have like these
kind of committees that examined books that are you know,
on the shelves in school libraries and say, okay, we
need to like take a closer look at these. But
apparently this had already happened the previous year. A lot
(09:25):
of these books had already kind of made the cut,
and all of a sudden with this new law, uh,
they were re examined. And the irony here is that
one of these books was the Bible. The the Bible
all versions. In fact, an email that's circulated from the district,
you know, the school board there, Keller I s D
(09:46):
in the district they're part of. UM had a kind
of like a spreadsheet with a lot of these books
that needed to have another look given to them. And
it literally says the Bible in parentheses, all versions. And uh,
I don't know, like, is this an oversight? Like this
is clearly the reporting on this. This is from about
two weeks ago, but I think this is like a
(10:06):
larger conversation. The Bible was not banned in Texas schools.
That that is a very alarmist view, but the fact
that like whatever kind of broad stroke, kind of blunt
instrument approach to censoring books or towards taking a very
keen eye towards material that is inappropriate quote unquote for students,
(10:28):
somehow this one got caught up in the net UM.
So this email that went out said attached or a
list of books challenged that's the word they use, or
the term challenged this year. By the end of today,
I need all the books pulled from the library and classrooms.
More information will be sent regarding actions uh for these
books and UH. Included in that list was the Bible
(10:48):
all versions and and Frank's Diary, not the book though,
a graphic novel adaptation, which is interesting because it makes
me think this is a very imprecise kind of methodology
that goes into this because there were there was controversy
around and Frank's Diary in the past, not because of
what it said about, you know, the Nazis and because
(11:08):
of violence or whatever, specifically because in a certain version
of the book and Frank talks about getting her period,
and uh, there were certain people that thought that was
inappropriate for kids of a certain age to to hear about,
you know, a young woman getting her period. Yeah, but
does that does that not feel a bit disingenuous at most?
(11:29):
I mean that, you know, full disclosure. I recently visited
the m. Frank uh house and this, Uh, it just
feels as though someone were trying to find a reason
to have a problem like Okay, let's walk through the
structural reasoning the idea there. Will be very quick about this. Obviously,
(11:52):
the the idea there is, Hey, I have no problem
with children learning firsthand about the dangers of genocide, but
I don't want, for some reason, I don't want to say,
the authorities, uh for people to know about the idea
(12:15):
of menstruation, despite the fact that roughly half of the
reading audience is going to have firsthand knowledge about that experience,
if not while they're reading very soon. What do you
do as authority? You treat that as Santa Claus. It
just feels very insincere, But that that is, it was
a long time ago that that was the issue at hand.
(12:37):
The same with like that book Mouse, graphic novel Mouse,
which is about you know, Nazism from the perspective of
these like kind of anthropomorphized uh mice characters, which is
a you know, very powerful piece of graphic literature. Um.
But perhaps there was some bad language, or there was
something in it that was visually disturbing or whatever. But
(12:58):
how the Bible made this list is simultaneously bonkers to
me and also makes a lot of sense because what
book yeah, yeah, yeah, the swastika that's on there. Understand. Yeah,
well there's a beef story about Mels. But moving on it.
(13:20):
As you're saying the let's get back to the Bible.
I mean, of of all the books that are could
potentially be banned, I mean, the Bible is full of
sex and violence and misery. And I mean, you know,
our Christ, our Lord and Savior, was nailed to across
and you know, stabbed in the side, and and and
(13:41):
well you know, I'm in the parlance of Christians, Christianity, um,
you know, forced to wear a crown of thorns. I mean,
as we all know, the Mel Gibson film The Passion
of the Christ. Uh, it was massively popular amongst the
Christian community, but would you really watch it? It is
ultimately like torture porn. It is incredibly sadistic in the
violence that it portrays. So I do think it's interesting that,
(14:04):
like the Bible is unimpeachable in terms of like literature,
but the fact that it made the list here is
very fascinating to me, Like, what is the mechanism of
discerning you know, what is it is not appropriate for
young people to have access to in the library, especially
in a state like Texas, where obviously you know, Jesus
is everything, and like you know, religion, religion is a
(14:26):
massive mover and shaper of policy and ideology and upbringing
and all of that good stuff. So it makes me
really question what the mechanism of looking through and deciding
what books. It feels like someone made a mistake. And
it obviously was a very sexy headline to say Texas
bands the Bible, like have we gone too far? I mean,
(14:47):
you could say yes, but then if you look at
Snopes like, no, Texas did not ban the Bible. It
got momentarily pulled. But even the physical act of pulling
the Bible from a libraryes and that seem like heresy
to you, or would seem like to some I don't
know your hands of our Bible. That's interesting the version uh.
Christian authorities historically are the most likely to pull uh
(15:12):
Christian lore to which they object. That's the whole reason
that there's apocrypha right versus canonical books. But still, yes,
I agree with you. It does seem um kind of reflexive, reactive,
and it does make for a good headline. It also
makes for a good clarion call. Education is one of
(15:37):
the most vital battle grounds of any civilization throughout history.
Not for nothing was it illegal for certain classes of
different civilizations past to possess the power of literacy, which
is very much a superpower. And this, this means, like this,
(15:57):
I think shows us how yeah, I'll do it, how
devilishly easy it is to remove one's access to education.
For anybody who doesn't realize what a what a big deal,
this is, how existential this is. I do recommend checking
(16:21):
out our previous episode on the war over textbooks, because
all textbooks are not telling you and your children the
same stories. Oh and Matt, you know, I know you
have a Christian background, and you know, I know that
you probably took great effort to like read the Bible
and digest the Bible and you know, did Bible study,
(16:43):
and we're you know, encouraged to do so. But was
there was there ever a point in your upbringing or
you were questioning, like, wow, this is kind of messed
up the stuff that's in here, But not in terms
of like ideology, was in terms of content, in terms
of like the violence and the and the sex and
like the you know, the kind of depravity that is
represented in the pages of the of the Bible. Uh No,
(17:05):
because a lot of my study was guided by, like
at least early on, by the Methodist Church and what
the Methodist Church was instructing pastors throughout the country to
you know, teach that week or that month or whatever.
And often you're so focused in on you know, a
handful of stories that you don't even venture out into
(17:26):
the other territory unless you're doing it on your own.
And when you encounter it on your own, you have
a lot of questions, right like I did. I was
always like, what what does that mean? Why? Why is
this in here? But I would never go to a
pastor or someone who knew better than me and say hey,
why It was just like I just leave that over
(17:47):
here in my cognitive Uh, I don't know, it is
very curated. I grew up in the Methodist Church as well,
and it's all these little exercises and things that guide you,
and they they give you the That's why everything in
the Bible is like citable. It's all these like chapter
and verse, you know, because it's all meant to be
taken in these little nuggets. But when you read the
(18:09):
whole thing, taken as a whole it does beget a
lot of questions and a lot of like contradictions that
that you know, you want to know why they exist,
and they're sort of like, pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain, just look at this one and
then like do your little workbook assignment and then move on.
You know, like that's kind of the attitude. So it
is interesting to me that no one in um religious upbringing,
(18:32):
typically you know as as kids, encourages kids to read
the whole Bible. That is not a thing. They don't
give you a book report to read the whole Bible.
They make you study little parts. I uh yeah, I
will soft pushed back about that because there are many
Christians that I know who were just like kids in Islam.
(18:54):
They were they were tasked with reading the entirety and
welcomed uh to ask questions. I I personally do not
ascribe to Christianity myself, but I have read multiple versions
of the vibe the Bible, including the most famous ones
in Western Cannon, like the all People Love the King
(19:17):
James Bible. Nowadays you know they're all translations, uh, And
I remain although again I don't personally ascribe to a
lot of those beliefs. I remain grateful for the people
who said, read the whole book before you disagree with it,
ask us the questions, and let's let's explore them together.
(19:37):
And I think I think that kind of thought, that
structural application of thought is a big piece of our show.
I did not know you were both raised Methodists. Refresh
my memory that denomination does baptism by sprinkling holy water, right,
rather than by dunking somewhat water. Right. That's it's like
(19:59):
soft back, just kind of it's like Baptist. Their Baptist
religion is a little more um hard in the paint,
and Methodism is a little softer and more like you know, accessible,
I would argue, would say somber and uh serious about it.
It is, but it also has praise and worship bands
(20:19):
and youth group and youth tacos and stuff like, you know,
it doesn't have all the pomp and circumstance of a
Baptist you know, church service. It has much more of
this like modern kind of like you know, like the
Righteous Gemstones are probably meant to be Methodists. They don't
really go and talk about that in the show, but
that is the experience that I had with methodism where
it's like this wow mazow kind of like production of
(20:41):
like you know, rock and roll, kind of like like
youth group bands and stuff I have, Like, I know
that we have many many people who are adherence to
many many feasts uh in our audience today. And folks, UH,
if you have ever found yourself saying based on an
(21:04):
excerpt of something that has maybe been spun or presented
or curated for you based on excerptive religious text, if
you find yourself completely objecting to it, then I will say,
and I I do not really practice advice. I will
say as an observation that if you intellectually respect yourself,
(21:27):
and you intellectually respect those with whom you disagree, you
should respect those uh, then you owe it to yourself
as a dissenter to say I am informed. I again,
have read multiple religious texts. I I read the Bible
in full, and look, I'm gonna tell you it's uneven writing.
(21:49):
There's some really there's some real sexy stuff like the
Book of Songs. There's some real there's a couple of
things that are all just this person begat, this person
who begat this person. Uh. And I first part that old,
that old part. And there are some literal things like
the tree of life, the crucifixion of Jesus Christ also
on a thing that functions visually very much like a tree.
(22:11):
It's interesting, and if you disagree with something, you owe
it to yourself to understand that with which you disagree.
Not for nothing did Lucifer say, non serfium, I brought
it back. We're talking about that affair. Okay, I did it?
All right? Yeah, that's a great word. I will ask
you you guys this um. Are there versions of the
(22:35):
Koran versions in the way there are of the Bible
to be able to even say in parentheses all versions?
That implies And we know that King James version has
a spin, just like you mentioned earlier. Been our textbooks
have spins depending on the the ideology of you know,
the school board or whatever. Which parts we want to
leave ours parts we want to like big up or whatever? Like?
(22:58):
Does the Koran have versions? It's okay, I can I
can answer this. That what I want our fellow followers
of Islam, and I want a fellow Muslims in the
crowd two to write in and talk about this, because
there are canonically not different versions of the Quran. Uh.
(23:21):
There are different versions of reciting it, right, and there
are different versions of the idea of of the true
representative philosophy laid down by the prophet. The most well
known in the West would be Sunni and Shia, right.
(23:42):
But that's not the same thing as you see in uh,
you know LDS, or as you see in a Anglican
interpretation or a Baptist interpretation of the Christian Bible, which
is already sort of uh, it's sort of the remix
(24:03):
of ancient Judaic text with this new you know, it's
the double album. Maybe I'm asking kind of a silly
question because obviously, like in um, in translation, you're going
to have different versions. Like the very act of translation
is inherently a version, and the translator, you know, has
a lot of power, which is why the Karate is
(24:25):
only Karate if it's in Arabic, that's right. But with
the Bible, you have like the King James version, which
we know is a massive spin on like the content
of the Bible at the behest of King James, you know,
like to kind of like use that as a as
a as a means to kind of like enact some
of his um, you know, policies and ideas. So I
(24:46):
just we're kind of getting in the weeds here. But
I do think it's interesting to think about the Bible
in the same way we think about the way textbooks
are presenting a certain narrative. And the thing that's interesting
about the Bible to me too, is like some parts
are very historical record documentation of historical events, and some
parts of it are these like parables or like, you know,
(25:08):
is it real? Did it really happen? They don't really
tell you in the text. You have to kind of
decide for yourself. And then we have in the same way,
like we have lawmakers that are strict constructionists of the Constitution.
They look at it as if it's if it's written
down and that's the thing and there's no room for interpretation.
There are people that look at the Bible that way too,
like if it's in the Bible, then it definitely happened.
Um in terms of like Noah's Ark and you know,
(25:30):
the Whale and all of that stuff, which clearly if
you look at it from a place of pop culture,
that's the stories that stuff is like it meant to
teach a lesson, but I don't think Noah made an
arc and put all the animals on it, you know, not,
what do you think about that side of it? Just
about Noah's ark or the literal just about like the
parts of the Bible that are clearly literal and the
(25:51):
parts of the Bible that are like these massively spectacular tales.
I mean, they're the best parts of the book in
my opinion, there are also Probably One of the main
reasons I kind of lost my religion a little bit
was because it was trying to square what was supposed
to be taken literally and what was supposed to be
(26:11):
a parable what was in my mind clearly a made
up story to make a point, I guess, or to
teach a lesson um, and then not being able to
really discern what was which. That's that's where I had
my cognitive dissonance. But you know enough about me, uh no,
And to not have the person guiding you along be
able to tell you the difference maybe like and and
(26:34):
why these things didn't square with you. You didn't have
anybody that could explain to you the way you felt. Yeah, yeah,
well listen, we have to move on. But I want
to just part and parcel to we're talking about here Florida. Also,
one of these laws created a situation where they are
refusing donations of dictionaries. What could be a more innocuous
(26:55):
text than a dictionary? It just that's my whole point
is like what is a rubric for? Like what texts
are we rejecting versus what texts are we like welcoming?
And if a dictionary is getting banned again, not banned,
but like questions were like, oh, we're putting a pause
on accepting dictionaries for the for the time being. Um,
then then where is the cut off? Like at what
(27:17):
point are we just like losing it, losing the plot
in terms of like what literature and text actually is for.
It's a great point. All right, Well let's take a
quick break and then we'll be back with more strange news.
And we're back and for this story, we are traveling
(27:40):
to Jackson, Mississippi. So it's a pretty great city. Actually,
I don't have you guys ever been to Jackson? Yes,
in a lot of songs Jackson. Alright, okay, cool, Well yeah,
but we're going to Jackson because the citizens there are
going through a crisis similar to citizens of other cities
(28:00):
in the United States and across the world. Uh, there
are a lot of crises going on right now, and
there have been for quite a while. This one is
probably closest to the coverage we've done before on Flint, Michigan,
and a couple of other cities that are going through
water treatment plant crises. Um dang, Jackson is just it
(28:24):
seems like it's getting hit just blow after blow. There
was recently a lot of flooding in Jackson and other
parts of central Mississippi. The Pearl River flooded due to
just record rainfall that was occurring around that time, and
all of that water coming through Jackson caused some serious
issues with their water treatment system. And well, I guess
(28:47):
I'll let the Governor of Mississippi really sum it up
for us. On Monday, as we record this, Monday, August
twenty nine, there was an emergency press briefing given by
the Mississippi Governor, Tate Reeves, and this is what he said, quote,
please stay safe, do not drink the water. Yeah seriously,
(29:08):
like that alone, Good God. In too many cases it
is raw water from the reservoir being pushed through the pipes.
Be smart, protect yourself, Protect your family, preserve water, look
out for your fellow man, and look out for your neighbors,
and God save America. That's crazy. That's Independence Day level
(29:29):
of speech right there. That is wild. Yeah, it's like
a sorry. I hate when people say correct. No, yeah,
right on, I agree with you. This is also for
anybody unfamiliar with Mississippi in the US, this is the
largest city in that state. We are talking about just
one city with more than a hundred and sixty thousand residents.
(29:52):
If you look at the metro area, then that means
that this water issue affects way more than two thousand people.
This is serious. Yeah, the latest estimates I saw were
around a eighty thousand, but you're right, like up to
two thousand who are being affected directly by this. I'm
gonna continue with the governor's quote just a little bit
(30:14):
more because it shows why he's speaking in such a
dire manner. The governor said quote, until it is fixed,
we do not have reliable running water at scale. The
city cannot provide enough water to fight fires, to flush toilets,
and to meet other critical needs like that that alone,
like restaurants don't have water the tap when you turn
(30:37):
it on the water pressure is so low that barely
anything comes out, and when it does come out, it's
like it's raw water from the giant reservoir that is
just northeast of the city. Um, where the Pearl River
comes out of as its flow, which is not a
marketing thing. But by raw water we mean untreated. So
it is. Yes, it is complete a dice roll. And
(31:01):
let's be honest, if you live in the US, you
know this. It is a loaded dice roll. As to
whether this stuff has effluence jumping right, effluence would be dumping,
as as whether as possible bacterial contaminants, all the stuff
that would have been filtered out by wastewater treatment or
just water treatment, the types of things where you see
(31:23):
like fish advisories like because the fish like are pumped
full of merkety, that's because they exist in a part
of the of the river or whatever body of water
that has not been filtered in this way. We are
not meant to drink that water and we should not
eat those fish. No. Um. So, guys, if you just
think about that situation, you think about the economic impact
(31:45):
it's going to have on the city of Jackson, Like
the hospitality industry the entire thing is it's going to
have to be put on pause again after going through
the COVID break basically in in profits there that that
it's had. Um, you think about the each individual person
in individual parents who are trying to you know, what
(32:06):
do you do for your kid while you get bottled water?
And that's one of the only things you can do
or some other type of water product, right because you
can't just turn on tap anywhere in the entire city
and get water. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency FEMA
is headed there. They've been there this whole week attempting
to hand out as much bottled water as they can, obviously,
(32:29):
and you know, you can kind of predict this and
you know this, but there's not enough bottled water to
go around. And it's just the nature of tempting a
herculean effort like that. Um, it's just it's not enough.
The National Guard has even been called in by the governor,
even Joe Biden. President Joe Biden declared an emergency recently
this week. I believe that was yesterday today, yesterday. It's
(32:51):
a big deal. And this this is all happening, by
the way, after a month a month of water boil
advisory in Jackson. Guys, we live in Atlanta. We've been
through our share of water boil advisories, and you know,
generally when you experience one of those, at least that
I've been through personally, it's a couple of days week
(33:14):
maximum when there's been some kind of natural disaster or
just something really bad that's come through the city. But
can you imagine a full month, and when they do
it here or another, you know places, it usually feels
like in an abundance of caution, we advise you boil
your water. It would be a good idea, or drink
bottled water as opposed to definitely don't drink the water.
(33:35):
And may God have mercy on your soul? Um Can
we also point out that Jackson, Mississippi is any two
point four seven percent African American and it's demographic makeup. Yes, yes,
we can't. This is true. It's it's really bad. This
is a breaking story. So there's gonna be a lot
more development, probably even by the time you hear this
(33:57):
story when it comes out on the Monday that year
hearing it. But we're we're trying to just stay on
top of it and follow it as much as possible.
I would highly recommend heading over to Mississippi Today dot org.
It's a really great nonprofit news site where there's just
tons of information being pumped out. It appears to be
really great reporting, at least to my eyes there is.
(34:20):
There's so many articles they've written. It's Alex Rosier or
rose Er Rosier, I'm not exactly sure how you say it,
but writing alongside Bobby Harrison, Kaylee Skinner and a couple others.
They're just answering questions for people of Mississippi. So people
who are in and around Jackson, they've got great resources there,
(34:41):
like exactly where you can go physically right now if
you're in or near Jackson to get water. Uh, if
you just scroll down on their main website, they've got
it and it's continually updated there. And one thing that's
important to note. We're talking about specifically something called the
Obi Curtis Facility, and the folks who are working there
(35:02):
now are in crisis mode. Like many municipal employees, several
of whom are in the audience with us today. Welcome folks. Uh.
They are likely underpaid, definitely overworked, and they are at
the whims often of machinations far above their heads, right,
(35:23):
far above their ability to control. So there's another point
I want to make. It's a it is a larger,
deeper point. Uh. It is unexpected, right ideally on paper,
it is unexpected for a person in the United States
to need to purify or boil water, to have a
(35:47):
boil advisory as uh as Null pointed out, It's usually
phrased as something small happened, but with an abundance of caution,
we advise you to do such and such. This is
not the case in many, many other parts of the world.
It is simply expected that one must either boil water
(36:08):
or one must have bottled water of some sort. So
what is happening here, I would say, is something that
a lot of our international listeners are going to be
intimately familiar with as the average day today. But if
you are listening and you are in the US or
(36:32):
Canada or some parts not all parts, don't believe the
hype of Western Europe. This is something that you can
put in your journal as a harbinger of things to come,
not a Jordan harbinger, very nice, brilliant guy, but a
general harbinger of things to come. General Harbinger, General Harbinger,
(36:59):
and may God have mercy on yourself. The water. Uh,
the water crisis isn't coming, folks, It's already here. And
the heroic efforts, as you said, Matt, the herculean efforts
to make make water potable, drinkable, Uh, they are only
(37:22):
going to become more arduous, more challenging as time continues.
Just something to think about every time you ask yourself,
should I take a bath or take a shower? But
either way, I mean, that's not even the main issue here, guys.
This is an infrastructure story like this is. That's seriously,
what's at the heart of this. The mayor, chuckway La
(37:43):
Mumba made a point that, hey, this is not something
that may have happened. We've seen this on the horizon
for some time, for several years actually, we've noted that
this specific facility, the O. B. Curtis Water Treatment Facility,
it's failing and it's going to fail. It's not a
matter of if, but when. And it just happened to
(38:05):
occur now because of the catastrophic flooding. And I wonder
how many other cities, no matter what size they are
and no matter what country they're in have water treatment
facilities that are on the brink of failure just because
of the amount of water that needs to be pushed
through those things. And you know how where the water
(38:28):
is no longer flammable hopefully, But that's an enormous point, Matt,
that in your mind, readers, get that to the infrastructure
systems are already under tremendous stress, you know what I mean.
Like what it's um It's a situation where if you
think of that system the way you would think of
(38:50):
an anatomical system like a body, and it's agglomeration of
natural systems ease to the point where any of ends,
not even a black Swan event, any bad day, could
lead to a catastrophic series of dominoes. And it's it's
easy to hear about a story like this if you
(39:12):
don't live in Jackson, Mississippi. It's easy to hear about
it if you don't have family or friends in Jackson, Mississippi,
and then say, oh, gosh, thank goodness, I don't live there.
But it's uh, it's on tour. Sadly, statistically in the
United States, it is on tour and it is coming
to a town near you. If I had to guess,
(39:35):
I would say most likely, the next wave of these
things that will occur, the next wave of these dangerous
events will They won't be in the Los Angeles, they
won't be in the New York's, they won't be in
the Chicago's because those are very, very densely populated and
in some ways, very densely funded parts of this country.
(40:00):
They're gonna be doing is They're going to be happening
in the town's outside of Chicago. They're going to be
happening in the rural areas of you know, Arizona or
another very thirsty state. Wouldn't you say Flint was kind
of a harbinger of this. I mean, it wasn't flooding,
but it was about infrastructure. It was about like old,
outdated pipes with rust and all kinds of crazy stuff
(40:22):
that just wasn't addressed, you know, by the powers that be,
and then we should have been, well, it's about funding,
Like our city is going to get funding, you know,
either via the state or via federal spending. In this case,
the e p A entered into an agreement, at least
according to CNN, with Jackson, to provide seventy four I
(40:43):
think maybe seventy five million dollars to repair drinking water systems.
But then the mayor of Jackson, Lamombo, said, oh no,
it's gonna take two billion dollars to repair this water
treatment facility to fully replace it. Like a seventy four million,
seventy five millions not gonna do anything really, um and
(41:05):
and now and then it's who do you believe? Right,
do you actually need that much money? And if you do, well, dang,
we should probably invest that money somehow. But where does
it come from? And it becomes political decision priorities, and
like do you value life first or do you value
like other political kind of maneuvers that you can make,
(41:25):
like as a politician, Like that's how you value elections first.
That's always where's life on that list? Way down? Way low? Yeah, anyway,
I think I think we're just gonna have to continue
watching this. I you know, I hope everybody in or
around Jackson, if you're listening, I hope you're safe. Do
what you gotta do right to us and let us
(41:47):
know what you're going through right now. If you've been
through something like this in another city, we'd love to
hear your experience. And if you have any more information
about budgets and how how they get allocated to water
treatment facilities. We'd love to hear from you too, And
while we wait to hear from you, we're gonna hear
from our sponsors. Will be right back, all right, and
(42:12):
we have returned. Thanks so much everybody. We're going along.
We only have a little bit of time here, but
hopefully it will be worth your time. The only real
currency today's question, should plants have legal rights? Now? A
number of years ago there was this fantastic conversation across
(42:36):
so many disciplines regarding the idea of what's called legal personhood,
and this was applied to the concept of higher order animals.
When I say higher order, I'm not trying to be
a jerk. I'm talking about animals, non human animals that
are able to perform some of the cognitive trick that
(43:00):
were once thought unique to the genre of primates currently
calling itself human today this is stuff like um, the
idea of abstract thought, planning for the future, the idea
of deception, the idea of um, understanding oneself, of meta cognition,
(43:20):
thinking about thinking. That's what happens when you look in
a mirror and say, oh, that's not me. But is
it kind of me? But it's not me. Some animals
can do that too. It's amazing, right, And uh, this
argument or this this quandary is moving forward in the
world of plants. Related to this episode on legal personhood,
(43:44):
we earlier did an investigation on whether or not plants, Yes,
fellow green thumbs, this is for you, whether or not
plants could fit the definition of an intelligent being. Now,
of course, the human cannon, the human ivory tower, is
(44:07):
at a disadvantage here because that's a species that has
yet to arrive a real definition of intelligence, as yet
to arrive at the concept of a soul, has yet
to arrive at a concept of sentience. This stood out
to me. I would say, this is technically strange news,
(44:30):
but you're not going to see a debate about it
on your media avenue of choice. The idea came up
in the news recently in some of the forums I follow,
but it's largely inspired by a wonderful book that was
written a few years ago called Brilliant Green, The Surprising
History and Science of Plant Intelligence by a plant neurobiologist
(44:56):
named Stefano Mancuso, along with a journalist Alessandra Viola and this.
I don't know, do you guys remember the episode we
did on plant intelligence or the possibility thereof. It's been
a minute, but I mean, I'm fascinated about the idea.
I'm always like talking about mushrooms and they're like networks
(45:16):
of underground, you know, like stappses and stuff. I do
think it's a thing, no question about it. I do
remember being fascinated specifically with carnivorous plants and how that
evolution occurred, and then like what what caused that to happen.
I don't think we ever got to the bottom of
whether or not plants think, because we just can't tell you.
(45:37):
But I remember how interested I was in the topic. Yeah,
it is fascinating, man. I'm right there with you, because
if you have, it's an older idea that needs more attention.
Charles Darwin studied plants as well as animals for decades
of decades, and he ate them. While he was studying.
By the way, uh, he was one of the first
(46:01):
Western thinkers to say, hey, plants carnivorous and non carnivorous.
They move and respond to sensation. I would love for
any of us listening along in the audience today, to
go and talk to your plants while you water them,
and then get back to me and let me know
(46:21):
if you see a change in their growth pattern, and
whether you think that is some sort of vibe, whether
you think that is just uh, that you are exhaling
gases that are good for them, or you know, whether
they instantly died, which means you might be a bad conversationalist,
(46:43):
like I put that on you. Sorry, folks, forgive me.
But the idea is responding to stimulus from an environment.
It is the nature of life, right, That's the reason.
Rocks are apparently always rocks unless they are naturally soft
and they just harden up when you touch them. Just blue,
(47:03):
some blues, some minds in a freshman dorm somewhere. But
this is strange because if we get to the root
of it, we see that plants do exercise action in
their environment, which indicates at least uh. You know, people
(47:23):
get mad when you say understanding or desire, but it
indicates moves towards things that are good for them and
away from things that are bad for them. We know,
for instance, human beings may may pursue things that are
(47:45):
technically low level poisons. Right, Like people recreationally enjoy kept
sais in right, and that is something that is evolved
to deter consumption of plants of spicy right right, and
pep pep PEPs and uh we know that Uh, people
(48:06):
and other forms of animals on this planet. I have
enjoyed fermented things which you know contain alcohol or some
relation of alcohol that can also be be damaging to uh,
to a bodily system. But I've been thinking more our psilocybin. Well,
(48:29):
psilocybin is not necessarily damaging to a bodily system, uh
in this Well, No, it doesn't mean in terms of
like things that plants beget that we enjoy also fruit.
I mean there's like a whole symbiosis with plants that
we have this relationship with them, and we've tested it
and we know what will kill us and what won't.
So there's an interesting sort of entry point to interacting
(48:49):
with plants, like in terms of like life on Earth. Yeah,
I'm drawing a bright line around those first two examples
because they are things that are potentially dangerous to living forms.
Unlike psilocybin, it's not naturally dangerous, which despite what the
War on drugs would have us believe so. And I
was thinking about this. I was looking at a couple
(49:14):
of fantastic articles. I reread part of Brilliant Green, and
I went out on this patio I have where I'm
living now and just watched the plants move. And I
want to get kind of meta with this in the
in the small most smart, I mean, they know what
(49:34):
they want. You can't say that about everything. That's what
I mean. It's a it's a system. It's a very
honed system, that's all I'm saying. So part of my
question is this is also a setup for for an
episode I think we could visit in the future. But
part of my question for you guys, this is not
to trick you into an interview. This is a series
of me asking you and our fellow conspiracy realist what
(49:57):
you think. Part of my question here, the where we
get to the meta aspect, is simply put this, if
ever there were a widespread academic recognition of plants having
some sort of legal right, not just the tree that
(50:18):
owns itself, you know in Georgia, but but something like um,
something that says, for legal purposes, destroying a forest is
the same thing as mass murder. What would that mean
for the world. Do you think that's even a thing
that should or could happen. I don't think it could,
(50:39):
but should it? Well, it is illegal to set for
us on fire unless you're a logging corporation or like
a company that like owns it and can just like
do it, you know, unchecked. But it's a very interesting
question because some of the things that I'm fascinated by
involved being able to take of these things that these
plants provide. And if all the sudden the plant had
(51:01):
this personhood, you have to like ask permission or something.
But if you want to take the hippie kind of
dippy perspective, it's like the plants want you to eat them,
like the psilocybin wants you to eat them. Like they're
part of this system of the earth, like in terms
of like that like network of these like underground networks
of like electrically communicating kind of synapses that are mushrooms
(51:22):
that are this like kind of circle of life and
existence and like they're not I won't go so far
as to say that they're there for us, but like
they are a way of interacting with them, you eat
a plant. You're not killing the plant exactly, because it's
just gonna regrow itself. It's like cutting a lizard's tail off,
like thet of the ones that that regrow. So I
think it's fascinating. It's not like we're so even that
(51:44):
vegetarians who are so anti factory farming and stuff, they're
all about eating plants, and they're the ones that have
the most aggressive opinions on life of any of us.
So it's it's a very interesting question, It's all. I
don't know the answer, Matt, what do you What do
you think? Dude? I just had a very very clear
picture of Norman Borlog with a bull horn, standing up
(52:08):
on a platform and there's a wheat field and he's
just he asks, okay, now we need you to feed us.
Is that okay? And then can we have her consent?
Can you sign this pdf? Okay? Can you sign this
Adobe document? I don't know. To me, it was just
(52:29):
a very funny. But what do we do at that
point if plants have some kind of personhood, have some
kind of sentience that we acknowledge, Like, what do we
do to feed ourselves? Terrestrial entities that contact us are
not plant or fungi based, so we could eat that,
(52:49):
you know. There they don't come rocking through this little
backwater of this little backwater galaxy and say, holy crap,
what if they're based on connivorous plants? Man? You know, like,
what if they come through and they say, oh my gosh,
our versions of flies are eating us nuca or whatever,
our version of nucas. I don't think that will happen,
(53:12):
but I do think I do think it is um
It is a an idea that the human species could
leverage to be a little bit less of an unsustainable fad,
a little bit less uncool to the super organism of earth.
You know, I I know a lot of vegans of vegetarians.
(53:34):
I was a vegetarian for myself for some time. I
was privileged enough to be so, which is an important point.
But also there's this meta cognitive argument right like we
also it goes to so many levels, and I think
it's worth revisiting an actual episode because we have to
(53:54):
ask ourselves, is there a hierarchy of life? Right the vegan?
The vegetarian says, I know this is a living thing.
I wish to not do harm to others, perhaps, but
I also need to live, and like any human being,
(54:16):
I will put my survival over literally everything. What happens
when what happens when you tell thousands of people who
depend upon deforestation in a given area that they cannot
they cannot feed their families because they cannot interrupt this
great dance, this great cycle of life that has continued
(54:41):
millions of years before people were around. It's politically difficult,
but also again, politics is just sort of another religion
that humans have made up. And there's not money. Yeah
well there, yeah, money as well. I still have the
standing call for anyone, anyone to tell me the difference
between modern economic belief and religious belief. On their line,
(55:05):
politics and money are like, you know, two hands in
the same gloves. I feel you, But the the the
idea here is to me. It's fascinating because we know
a lot of people who are close with plants. And
this is an open call. By the way, you don't
even need to use the show contact information. You want
(55:26):
to find me on social media app and bowling or something.
Send me your pictures of your plants. I am here
for it. I love plants. There there's some of my
favorite living things. And if you have a plant in
your life. If you like live around plants, then I
am almost certain that if you are human and live
around plants, even if you are a botanist and well trained,
(55:50):
you would probably anthropomorphize them a bit. You've given them, yeah, yeah,
you've given them names, you know, you give them per senalities.
You might have put some plants next to each other
and you can tell whether or not they vibe. And
there's chemistry with that too. Plants do talk to one
another in in such that they communicate. They exude or
(56:16):
emanate different chemical signals. Plants scream to their kinful when
they are being hurt. They transmit signals when you are
mowing the grass, you monster, Where have you seen this?
Where's the study? I'm so fascinated by this, Like I
was gonna ask you, like, is it about pain like
(56:38):
animals versus plants? Like is it about pain? And how
do you register this what you're describing? I'm so fascinated
by this idea. The life cycle of a plant on
in most cases is to get its seeds ingested. We
may spread, So I just don't understand why it would
be I guess it would still be painful, but it's
(57:00):
also purposeful and then also what is the balanced chemicals
We would need Matt to communicate to the plant that
there is some sort of in our opinion, greater good,
you know, as they're an afterlife. I'm sorry, I mean
the whole episode. Whole episode. This is amazing. Um there's
a there's an amazing record called um oh gosh more
(57:24):
Garson Plantasia. It's a modular scynth record from the like sixties,
and it was designed to like play for your plants
with the with the understanding that it would like help
them grow. So there are like all these things that
we're talking about that it comes from this like kind
of counterculture like psychedelic movement of the idea that like
plants are sentient and that we are participating with them
in this like life cycle. But no one of all
(57:46):
those people, they never are like, oh, I'm worried if
I'm gonna hurt the plant if I like eat one
of its leaves. They're like, the plant welcomes me to
like eat of its leaves, as opposed to the cow
who we put in a pen and like hook up
a thing too. It's like teats and just suck the
life for out of it and like, yeah, those things
actually scream, you can hear it. It's it's awful. Um. Yeah,
it's fascinating to me on so many levels. And and
(58:07):
we don't have time now but to let you know
the specifics of reference. This an upcoming episode. The research
I read that was most compelling was in I want
to say, after we had recorded whether or not plants
or intelligent? Uh, there was this study out of Tel Aviv.
I believe it was that went specific. It's focusing specifically
(58:32):
on tomato and tobacco plants. And then it shows through
through literally holding a microphone, it shows that when under stress,
they admit frequencies that are inaudible to you know, the
average human ear between twenty two hundred killer hurts. I
hope I haven't ruined you know, anybody's like vegetarian feast
(58:55):
or whatever. I have plants. I ate them all the time.
Most people do or should. Uh. So we want to
hear your thoughts. What kind of conversations have you had
with your plants, What do you think about the future
of water? Where do you stand on the banning of books?
Is it always a bad thing? Are there some books
(59:18):
that should not be read? We think there's definitely one
you should read, which we're pretty explicit about because we'll
get dragged in the street and shot if we don't
mention it. So, uh, stuff there what you know of
the book? Ben said, true? Right, yeah, yeah, they're they're
after us. That Honda Odyssey is idling on my street
(59:39):
right now. Uh and that's not laughing because he's looking
out the window and she she's a van to But seriously,
we can't wait to hear from you. We try to
be easy to find online. That's right. You can find
us online where we are conspiracy stuff on Facebook, on
Twitter and on YouTube, or conspiracy stuff show on Instagram.
And if you don't want to do any of the
(01:00:00):
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