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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind New York Comic Con Stranger Things. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it all comes together on October six, from seven pm

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Speaker 1: to eight thirty pm at Hudson Mercantile in Manhattan. If

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Speaker 1: you're in the area, join us for Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind Live Stranger Science as we explore the exciting

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Speaker 1: science and tantalizing pseudo science underlying the hit Netflix show

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Speaker 1: Stranger Things. Stuff you missed in history class has a

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Speaker 1: show right after us in the same venue, so you

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Speaker 1: can really double down on your stuff. You do not

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Speaker 1: have to have a New York Comic Con badge to attend.

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Speaker 1: It is a separately ticketed event, and hey, the three

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Speaker 1: of us would love to meet you. This is the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to do it. Learn more and buy your tickets

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Speaker 1: at New York Comic Con dot com slash n y

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Speaker 1: C C hyphen presents Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your

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Speaker 1: Mind from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey you wasn't

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lawn

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Speaker 1: and my name is Christian Sager, and I made a

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Speaker 1: mistake this summer. Oh yeah, I decided it would be

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Speaker 1: a good idea to reread Stephen King's It over the

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Speaker 1: course of the summer in preparation of the new film

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Speaker 1: that just came out. How's that a mistake? That's a

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Speaker 1: that's a that's a fat book. But a good one

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Speaker 1: it was, and I was very happy with having read it,

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Speaker 1: but obviously my nightmare quota filled up rather quickly. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And there are some really disturbing stuff in that book

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Speaker 1: that uh isn't really an either film version, but they're

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Speaker 1: definitely percolating up here in the old brain noggin. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there is quite a bit of traumatizing material in that book.

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Speaker 1: It's been a long time since I've read it, but yeah,

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Speaker 1: there are certain things that that stand out to me today. Now.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we had that that mini series based on

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Speaker 1: Stephen King's It Comcourage that the day before I went

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Speaker 1: and saw the new movie too, so I've had a

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Speaker 1: full IT experience this summer. Awesome. Yeah, I mean the

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Speaker 1: mini series was was was fun for the time, very flawed,

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Speaker 1: but you had a wonderful performance by Tim Curry. Tim

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Speaker 1: Curry nails in them playing penny Wise, the dancing clown,

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Speaker 1: one of the many terrifying forms of this extra dimensional,

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Speaker 1: fear eating, child killing monstrosity. Right. Yeah, and then you

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Speaker 1: had what Oh, John Boy was in it. That's right,

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Speaker 1: John Boy was Bill down Burrow, John Ritters in it. Uh,

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Speaker 1: what's his name from Night Court? Yeah, Harry Harry Anderson

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Speaker 1: plays Ritchie. But I was gonna say Richard Major from

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Speaker 1: the Thing isn't as Stan grown up Stan. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: an amazing scene in the in the old mini series

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Speaker 1: where he is a severed head inside a mini fridge

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Speaker 1: talking to everybody. It's it's played for laughs, but it's

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Speaker 1: pretty funny. And of course this year were two thousand seventeen,

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Speaker 1: we just had this magnificent adaptation of at least the

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Speaker 1: first half of the novel. Yeah, and and I just

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Speaker 1: saw it the other night, Sunday night actually, and I

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Speaker 1: thought it was terrific me too. I saw it as well,

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Speaker 1: and I was grinning ear to ear because it's very

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Speaker 1: rare one that you get a good horror movie and

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Speaker 1: two that you get a good Stephen King adaptation. And

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Speaker 1: this was I just coming off the heels of the

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Speaker 1: Dark Tower movie. This was this was spectacular because that

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Speaker 1: Dark Tower movie was a little disappointing. Yeah. My only

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Speaker 1: gripe about this latest hit movie is we didn't have

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Speaker 1: a nice, cheesy Stephen King cameo. That's right. I know,

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Speaker 1: I forgot about that. Yeah, he used to do all this.

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Speaker 1: Has he done those lately though he's not like stan Lee,

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Speaker 1: but he used to in the eighties and the nineties.

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Speaker 1: I think he's done some for television. I thought I

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Speaker 1: saw something on his Twitter the other day where he's

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Speaker 1: doing Okay. Yeah, it's always fun to catch him, all right.

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Speaker 1: So obviously we're fans of it. We're we're fans of

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Speaker 1: of both adaptations. So we thought, hey, everybody's it crazy

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Speaker 1: right now? The films just performing like gangbusters out there,

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Speaker 1: So why don't we do an episode on the science

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Speaker 1: of it? And you know why, because it's October and

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Speaker 1: what do we do in October and stuff to blow

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Speaker 1: your mind? All Halloween theme topics, That's right. So we

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Speaker 1: are this is the beginning of our bonanza for four

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Speaker 1: weeks of doing topics on things not not necessarily it'll

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Speaker 1: scare you, but that are related to horror or the season. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we keep it seasonal to the point that we're actually

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Speaker 1: shoehorning material into September or postponing it until November, just

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Speaker 1: so we can focus on Halloween. Al Right, So in

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Speaker 1: this episode, We're just gonna lay out a few sort

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Speaker 1: of ground rules for everybody, so you know what we're

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Speaker 1: gonna do, what we're not going to do. First of all,

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Speaker 1: if you're wary of spoilers, we're not going to get

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Speaker 1: into like really hard spoilers. But we are going to

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Speaker 1: talk about characteristics of the novel of of the movie,

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Speaker 1: especially so you know, if you want to go in

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Speaker 1: just knowledgeless, uh, then maybe skip this episode and come back. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I would say, like if you've seen any

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Speaker 1: of our other monster science videos or episodes, like the

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Speaker 1: stuff that Robert and I have done on like zombies

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Speaker 1: or vampires, or the the science of the vampires from

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Speaker 1: the Strain, things like that, Like, for the most part,

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Speaker 1: we don't get into spoiler territory or deep plot details.

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Speaker 1: It's mainly about like how the monster works and then

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Speaker 1: how real life science applies to it. And likewise, we're

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Speaker 1: also not going to get into some of the more

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Speaker 1: esoteric stuff that is in the books but isn't necessarily

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Speaker 1: in the films. Right, right, So I want to start

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Speaker 1: off with a revelation. My grandfather was a clown. Good

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Speaker 1: for you, He was actually a doctor, but he was

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Speaker 1: also a clown like his thing was as a member

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Speaker 1: of the Shriners, he and a neighbor of his would

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Speaker 1: dress up like clowns and perform as clowns at various

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Speaker 1: hospitals or children's centers and at the circule us. And

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Speaker 1: I remember as a young kid going to the circus

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Speaker 1: and seeing my grandfather, I'll clowned up horsing around down

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Speaker 1: there on the stage and entertaining people. And so I

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Speaker 1: have some sympathy for Pennywise, but I also understand what

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Speaker 1: makes Pennywise so creepy. Well, I think one thing to

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Speaker 1: keep in mind with with Pennywise is that Stephen King

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Speaker 1: wrote this book really ahead of the full blown creepy

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Speaker 1: crunk clown culture, and certainly it played a part in

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Speaker 1: developing that culture. But I don't really blame King as

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Speaker 1: much for it, because the whole gimmick here is that

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Speaker 1: this awful creature from another dimension wants to take on

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Speaker 1: a pleasing form in order to lure kids in, and

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Speaker 1: then it also like manipulates that in terrorizing them. So

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Speaker 1: it makes sense that it would pick something you know,

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Speaker 1: pure and innocent and fun, the clown, yeah, right, rather

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Speaker 1: than like my little pony Yeah, like, if it were

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Speaker 1: operating today, the thing is probably would not use the clown,

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Speaker 1: would probably use something like, you know, a character from

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Speaker 1: Dinosaur Train or something, because kids is today have been

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Speaker 1: sort of generationally poisoned against the clown. They they haven't

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Speaker 1: grown up in the age of the clown. They've grown

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Speaker 1: up in the age of the creepy clown. And unless

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Speaker 1: you were going out of your way to foster an

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Speaker 1: appreciation for clowns, uh, then they're probably just not gonna

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Speaker 1: have it. Yeah, it's true, and I'm sure you're aware

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Speaker 1: of this, but there's been this backlash from actual clowns

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Speaker 1: who are saying, like, this movie is going to make

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Speaker 1: it harder for me to earn a living as a clown.

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Speaker 1: And it's kind of like, guys, I think it's maybe

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Speaker 1: more than the movie. I think, as Robert said, the

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Speaker 1: age of the clown is maybe coming to an end, right, Uh,

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Speaker 1: because we waged war against it and killed it. Like

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Speaker 1: there was this thing that was it was innocent and fun,

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Speaker 1: and as a culture we couldn't help but tear it

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Speaker 1: to pieces. And we have to address this right up

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Speaker 1: at the top. This is what we're referring to is

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Speaker 1: color phobia, which is the fear of clowns, the supposed

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Speaker 1: not really. Robert has covered this, uh in many venue. Uh.

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Speaker 1: We have a stuff to blow your mind video that's

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Speaker 1: all about this that you did, gosh four years ago maybe. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then there's a blog post in our site about

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Speaker 1: it as well. But let's just get it out of

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Speaker 1: the way, because it's what most viewers and commentators of

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Speaker 1: it are talking about right now. Um. So, okay, the

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Speaker 1: behavior of clowns is unpredictable in their body movements are

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Speaker 1: wild and exaggerated. So obviously that's something that can kind

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Speaker 1: of freak you out right. Uh. And in fact, they

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Speaker 1: nailed that with Pennywise in the movie. I thought, like

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Speaker 1: the the way that they had his body contortant, unusual ways,

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Speaker 1: I think really worked. Well. Yeah, I mean, but it

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Speaker 1: was it was not necessarily clownish, it was exaggerated. The

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Speaker 1: point where it was it was it was grote is monstrous. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: According though to author John G. Robertson, the term corephobia

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Speaker 1: is almost certainly a product of pop culture and the

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Speaker 1: Internet and isn't actually in any of the expected litter

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Speaker 1: narture on phobias. So this is like one of those

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Speaker 1: things that's it's great to talk about on the internet,

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Speaker 1: but it's not something that like a psychiatrist is actually

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Speaker 1: going to diagnose you with. It's probably not in the

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Speaker 1: D S M. Yeah, you know, I think by and large, yes,

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Speaker 1: a child can be scared by a clown, no question. Uh.

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Speaker 1: A grown up can have maybe even dramatic memories of clowns.

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Speaker 1: But this idea of like there's this widespread phobia of clowns,

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Speaker 1: you know, I I tend to be very skeptical of that. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think part of it, and you addressed this

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Speaker 1: in both of your pieces, is that for the last

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Speaker 1: couple of decades, we've had this plethora of scary clown imagery,

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Speaker 1: not just Pennywise from the book, in the mini series

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Speaker 1: and now this big movie, but you've got killer clowns

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Speaker 1: from outer Space, You've got the real life story of

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Speaker 1: John Wayne Gacy. Right, there's just all of this stuff

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Speaker 1: floating around that kind of makes clowns sinister. What's the

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Speaker 1: House of a Thousand Corpses? Right? His clowns? Yeah? Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: he just came out with the whole clown movie, didn't he.

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Speaker 1: I forgot about that. Yeah. Uh so but there is

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Speaker 1: a study. It's a two study at the University of

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Speaker 1: Sheffield that was published in Nursing Standard, and they found

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Speaker 1: that out of two hundred and fifty children, most kids

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Speaker 1: who were ages four to sixteen dislike clown imagery. Big surprise.

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Speaker 1: So what's the lesson here, Well, okay, they said, maybe

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Speaker 1: we shouldn't have clowns in hospitals anymore, especially because those

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Speaker 1: are places where kids are unsettled and scared. So if

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Speaker 1: my grandfather were still alive, I'd have to say to him,

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Speaker 1: like me, you might want to lay off the whole

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Speaker 1: clown thing. This is why in children's hospital it's so

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Speaker 1: funny that Rob Cordrey is always in clown makeup. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well then that's that sort of adds. They don't go

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Speaker 1: straight up with the creepy clown on that show, but

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Speaker 1: they do kind of toy with it a little. Well,

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Speaker 1: he's always got he's always got clown makeup on. But

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Speaker 1: then like his um smock, I guess you would call

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Speaker 1: it is always covered with blood as if as if

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Speaker 1: he just got out of surgery. Well, so here's something

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Speaker 1: I do want to point out, and that is, Uh,

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Speaker 1: first of all, I think a lot even perhaps even

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Speaker 1: the study. I don't have to study in front of me,

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Speaker 1: so I can't speak to it specifically. But I think

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Speaker 1: when people talk about fear of clowns, even if they're

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Speaker 1: not bringing to mind creepy clown imagery, like overtly purposefully

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Speaker 1: creepy clowns, they are bringing to mind certain clowns. They're

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Speaker 1: bringing to mind like a certain um, you know, archetype

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Speaker 1: of the you know, the full white makeup, red hair,

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Speaker 1: kind of a bose of the clown or a pennywise appearance.

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Speaker 1: And there's it's not really fair to reduce all clowning

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Speaker 1: traditions to that. Like there's there's a rich tradition of

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Speaker 1: clowning that spreads across cultures. In many cases these were

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Speaker 1: these are sacred traditions, um, you know, especially when you

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Speaker 1: look to various Native American customs like the gesture of

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Speaker 1: the clown, the fool, these are culturally important figures. Also,

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Speaker 1: the whole idea of like the Carnivalesque in in Europe

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Speaker 1: being sort of an active resistance the Comedia del arte,

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Speaker 1: that something along those lines, Right, there's a long history

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Speaker 1: behind all this. Oh yeah, and like if you go

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Speaker 1: to say a CIRCUSLA show, you'll see a lot of

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Speaker 1: a lot more modern takes on clowning. And I have

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Speaker 1: to say, as far as hospitals go, uh, my my

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Speaker 1: son was in in the children's healthcare center here in

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Speaker 1: Atlanta a few years back, and I did see some

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Speaker 1: clowns making the rounds and they did not look like

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Speaker 1: Bozo Pennywise clowns. They were they were using very light

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Speaker 1: clown makeup, they were using musical instruments, and it was

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Speaker 1: it was just kind of a delightful thing for the children.

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Speaker 1: So I do think that criticisms of clowns and discussions

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Speaker 1: of fear of clowns, it doesn't always take into account

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Speaker 1: the rich variety of clowning out there. Well, here's an

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Speaker 1: alternative theory, okay, And you actually presented this, but you

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Speaker 1: paired it with a nice bit of academic research. There's

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Speaker 1: a clinical psychology professor named Paul Salkov Skiss, and he

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Speaker 1: points out that children in general are far more susceptible

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Speaker 1: to extraordinary and unusual imagery. Right, So you then offered

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Speaker 1: this that it let's compare the clown to a shopping

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Speaker 1: mall Santa, Right, they're kind of equally terrifying and scary

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Speaker 1: to children, Like, how many times have you seen a

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Speaker 1: little kid forced to sit in Santa's lab at the mall?

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Speaker 1: It's just screaming, just absolutely upset. My nephew has done

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Speaker 1: this so far every time my sister takes him to

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Speaker 1: go see Santa. Um. So this I think speaks to

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Speaker 1: the idea right that the age of clowns is over

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Speaker 1: and is maybe just weirder to us than it used

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Speaker 1: to be, because as far as Santa's go, there's certainly

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Speaker 1: plenty of creepy Santa imagery out there, plenty of horror

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Speaker 1: films at cre that employ a killer Santa, mutant Santa, monster, Santa,

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Speaker 1: you name it. Yeah, yeah, there's probably more than clowns. Actually, yeah.

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Speaker 1: But it's resilient to this kind of shift because we

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Speaker 1: still culturally put a lot of value on it, and

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Speaker 1: we and we refuse to give up the wholesome vision

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Speaker 1: of Santa uh for the sake of this unwholesome with

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Speaker 1: the clowns. We weren't willing to main tane what was sacred.

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Speaker 1: So you want to take a break and then when

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Speaker 1: we get back, we can come back to we can

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Speaker 1: get past this clown stuff. And we can get into

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Speaker 1: the real nitty gritty of the science breakdown of Pennywise. Alright,

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Speaker 1: we're back. So what about Pennywise can't be explained by

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Speaker 1: science because, let's be honest, there's a lot of weird

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Speaker 1: stuff going on in these stories. Yeah, it's it's difficult

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Speaker 1: with with it because we're essentially talking about a magical

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Speaker 1: creature from outside of our world. Um, and also it

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Speaker 1: has psychic abilities that are also beyond our reality. However,

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Speaker 1: it does have to work in our world. It has

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Speaker 1: to interact with our world. It's engaging physically, into some

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Speaker 1: degree biologically with biological organisms. So we can derive I

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Speaker 1: think a number of biological parallels here. We can, we

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Speaker 1: can even get a little fringe at times, but I

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Speaker 1: think we just have to keep an eye out for

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Speaker 1: times when we're uh, you know, waiving the cudgel of

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Speaker 1: science after you know, imaginary monsters. Right. Yeah. I do

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Speaker 1: have to say though, after doing the research for this,

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Speaker 1: I was surprised at how well Stephen King's uh like

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Speaker 1: taxonomy of Pennywise fit into actual biological theories, to the

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Speaker 1: point that it made me wonder if he had done

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Speaker 1: like a lot of research along those lines, or if

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Speaker 1: it was just sort of common sense, for instance, like predators,

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Speaker 1: like how how actual predators act in the wild. Well,

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Speaker 1: this is something I think about a lot when I

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Speaker 1: do you know, monster science, bounce for the week, stuff

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Speaker 1: for stuff to blow your mind, and that's that you

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Speaker 1: have these fantastic creatures and then you find all these

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Speaker 1: biological parallels. So you ask yourself, how did this happen? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Is it in situation where somebody sat down and planned

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Speaker 1: it all out? I mean sometimes a creator is really

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Speaker 1: you know, clued into the scientific data out there. Other

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Speaker 1: times I think it's just this is the world we know,

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Speaker 1: This is what we assume bowle things out of, and

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Speaker 1: it matches, It ends up matching those forms in the

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Speaker 1: you know, in the same sense that one as symbols

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Speaker 1: a chimera out of existing animals. You kind of do

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Speaker 1: that on a subconscious level. But then also I think

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Speaker 1: it just comes down to the just the utter weirdness

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Speaker 1: and and the amazing nous of the natural world that

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Speaker 1: no matter how weird our imagination is, no matter just

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Speaker 1: how fantastically creative, Uh, this monster is that we dream up,

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Speaker 1: the natural world is gonna have as beat. Like that's

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Speaker 1: just how weird and wonderful um our our world of

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Speaker 1: biology is. Yeah, I mean, I can't list all of

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Speaker 1: the episodes that we've done on natural organisms that are

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Speaker 1: just like utterly crazy compared to anything I've ever seen

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Speaker 1: in a horror movie. I'm talking a lot of like

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Speaker 1: the underwater creatures we've covered, like the osadax bone worm

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Speaker 1: or the hydra stuff like that. Oh yeah, And in fact,

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Speaker 1: we'll be coming back around to some marine examples that

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Speaker 1: line up with various functions, uh of of its anatomy.

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Speaker 1: But first tell me this, So it lives in a sewer?

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Speaker 1: What other what other creatures that live in a sewer?

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Speaker 1: Does it have parallels with? Well, I mean you can

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Speaker 1: look at it two different ways, right, because they are

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Speaker 1: numerous examples of troglozines. Uh. And these are you know,

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Speaker 1: creatures that that live underground, but they don't completely finish

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Speaker 1: out their life cycle there. They have to you know,

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Speaker 1: come up for something in the case of of it

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Speaker 1: it comes up to eat in order to hunt at

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Speaker 1: any rate. Uh. So you have various subterranean creatures that

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Speaker 1: line up there, and indeed you have subtraining creatures that

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Speaker 1: live in a guano rich environment. Uh as with the

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Speaker 1: environments where the cave is filled with bat guano and

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Speaker 1: yet lives in a sewer. On the other hand, you

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Speaker 1: have a number of species that are very well adapted

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Speaker 1: to artificial human made subterranean systems, rats, fleas, and of

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Speaker 1: course mosquitoes, which we've talked about on the show here

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Speaker 1: in terms of the London mosquito, which is seems to

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Speaker 1: be diverging from the surface mosquito by virtue of its

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Speaker 1: life underground. And then coming back to that whole extreme

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Speaker 1: excrement thing as well. I mean, you have everything from

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Speaker 1: say a dung beetle to the African penguin depend on

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Speaker 1: feces for their life. So it's not something that I

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Speaker 1: think King really got into in the books or or

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Speaker 1: shows up in the movies at all. But you know,

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Speaker 1: it's not completely unrealistic to say that you would have

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Speaker 1: this strange creature that lives in such close confines with

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Speaker 1: with human excrement, human waste. Yeah, that does make sense.

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember from all three iterations, there's no

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Speaker 1: moment where they really address that beyond just and this

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Speaker 1: is in the trailer for the new movie where they

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Speaker 1: talk about gray Water and what gray water is, and

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Speaker 1: and uh, just the idea of them trapesing around in

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Speaker 1: this dirty water throughout the entire time that they're down there.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, there's no point where like, there's nothing scatological.

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Speaker 1: I think it's it's a suitably foul place for a

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Speaker 1: foul creature to live. But it seems to have other

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Speaker 1: benefits to it besides what it contains. Now, all right,

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Speaker 1: this maybe a spoiler, although I think like for this

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Speaker 1: the length of this story, this is just kind of basic,

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Speaker 1: uh role playing game rules of how it operates. Right.

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Speaker 1: So it's a periodic predator, right right, Uh, Yeah, one

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Speaker 1: of its most notable features is it has for starters

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Speaker 1: a ridiculously long life life span. And then as far

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Speaker 1: as this life cycle goes, it has these twenty seven

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Speaker 1: to thirty year hibernation periods. So it comes out, it eats,

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Speaker 1: and then it goes away for seven to thirty years

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Speaker 1: and then comes back again. And in the book, in

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Speaker 1: the show, it's been doing this since the mid eighteenth

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Speaker 1: century when people first started living in the dairy area. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's right, Like there's there's always these incidents, these horrific

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Speaker 1: incidents that precipitate it's a hunting period, right. So, like

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Speaker 1: they've got one where it's I think it's called the

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Speaker 1: Bradley Gang. They're like a bank rob regang. There's this

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Speaker 1: huge massacre with them, and then twenty seven years after that,

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Speaker 1: you've got the fire at the Black Spot where like

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Speaker 1: a lot of people died in this horrible fire. So

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Speaker 1: the thing is lengthy hibernation periods like this and not

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Speaker 1: completely out of keeping with the natural world. You have

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Speaker 1: thermophilic bacteria that may hibernate for up to a hundred

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Speaker 1: million years before they're swept from chilling depths to hot

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Speaker 1: spots of geothermic activity. And that's exactly the sort of

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Speaker 1: sleep cycle that even a you know, a billion year

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Speaker 1: old creature like it can probably appreciate. Now. Hibernation, of course,

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Speaker 1: is a way for an organism to ratchet down energy

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Speaker 1: expenditure and survive on energy reserves in order to survive

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Speaker 1: periods of otherwise lethal resource depletion or environmental change. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and there's actually a pretty interesting mathematical model that we

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Speaker 1: can turn to here to try to understand that system

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Speaker 1: a little better. It's called predator prey modeling, and it's

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Speaker 1: when you take equations to show a system in place

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Speaker 1: between a predator species like it and a prey speech

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Speaker 1: She's like the children of dairy main uh. And this

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Speaker 1: form of math helps predict how these species will interact,

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Speaker 1: especially when one is the primary food source for the other.

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Speaker 1: So the famous example that's been used in this is

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Speaker 1: a relationship between wolves and moose on Isle Royale in

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Speaker 1: Lake Superior. It's been studied since the nineteen fifties because

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Speaker 1: first of all, there's very little food for the wolves

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Speaker 1: to eat other than the moose on this aisle, and

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Speaker 1: second of all, the aisle itself is geographically isolated, which

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Speaker 1: limits other factors that would come into play, like, for instance,

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Speaker 1: hunting or migration. Now it's worth pointing out here just

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Speaker 1: because this this comes up a little bit here and

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Speaker 1: comes up later on. But for all intents and purposes,

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Speaker 1: it is stuck in dairy like. It does not seem

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Speaker 1: capable or willing to move to another area. It was

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Speaker 1: happy to just sit there and wait for people to

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Speaker 1: come to it. And I think this model may help

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Speaker 1: us figure that out a little bit. So the most

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Speaker 1: famous of these equations is called the Latka Voltaire system,

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Speaker 1: and it's aimed after the scientists who came up with it.

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Speaker 1: Latka argued that you can apply physical principles to biological systems,

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Speaker 1: and this was part of his broader work in this

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Speaker 1: book called The Elements of Physical Biology. Vol Terra was

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Speaker 1: a physicist who was trying to help his son in

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Speaker 1: law actually with a biology problem, and subsequently he ended

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Speaker 1: up working on the interactions of species, searching for a

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Speaker 1: mathematical theory of evolution. So this whole thing comes together.

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Speaker 1: Usually these equations boiled down to representations of the change

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Speaker 1: in a prey population versus the change in a predator population.

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Speaker 1: We saw something similar when we did that episode on

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Speaker 1: Zombie Math last year, which may have been one of

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Speaker 1: our October episodes I can't remember. But without getting too

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Speaker 1: far into the weeds on the math, each equation essentially

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Speaker 1: uses the following form birth function minus death function. Now,

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Speaker 1: in the ile royale example, the model looks like this.

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Speaker 1: In the absence of predators, the prey should increase at

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Speaker 1: a rate that is proportional to the current quantity of

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Speaker 1: the prey. Basically, what this means is the more moose

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Speaker 1: there are around to mate with each other without being hunted,

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Speaker 1: the more calves are going to be born, but in

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Speaker 1: the absence of prey, the predators should die off at

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Speaker 1: a rate that is proportional to the current predator population.

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Speaker 1: So if there are more wolves and they eat all

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Speaker 1: the moose and there's no more moose to eat, the

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Speaker 1: wolves are going to start to starve. So Latka argued

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Speaker 1: that prey should decrease and predators should increase at rates

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Speaker 1: that are proportional to the product of the prey times.

426
00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:39,960
Speaker 1: The predators, or alternatively, the moose deaths should be related

427
00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: to the interaction of the wolves and the moose, as

428
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: should the wolf births, so since then they will need

429
00:23:46,800 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: plenty of moose for food to have healthy pups. Right.

430
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:54,040
Speaker 1: Either way, there's this relationship between the predator population and

431
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:57,480
Speaker 1: the prey population. Too many prey results in more predators,

432
00:23:57,560 --> 00:24:00,200
Speaker 1: who then swamp the prey, which then subsequently called as

433
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: a decrease in their population. This would lead to the

434
00:24:03,520 --> 00:24:06,320
Speaker 1: predators dying out in the whole cycle beginning again. Now

435
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: let's apply this to the it Pennywise example. Okay, there's

436
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,680
Speaker 1: far more prey than there are predators since there's only

437
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: one Pennywise that's going around and eating children, So this

438
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:21,240
Speaker 1: should mean that there will be a proportional increase in

439
00:24:21,280 --> 00:24:24,119
Speaker 1: the population of human children, which there is as far

440
00:24:24,160 --> 00:24:26,399
Speaker 1: as we can tell. When we see the history of

441
00:24:26,480 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 1: Dairy the town gets bigger and bigger every time there

442
00:24:29,200 --> 00:24:32,360
Speaker 1: are these twenty seven year gaps. Pennywise as big as

443
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,720
Speaker 1: fear then should be that it itself will run out

444
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 1: of children to eat, which is probably why it hibernates

445
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:42,919
Speaker 1: every twenty seven years. Ultimately, this assists it so it

446
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 1: doesn't starve to death or subsequently it would have to

447
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: leave its layer for the rest of the broader unknown

448
00:24:51,040 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 1: territory of the rest of the world. Right, we don't

449
00:24:53,119 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: know why it never leaves the sewers of Dairy, Right Theoretically,

450
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:59,720
Speaker 1: I guess it could just like rampage around all of

451
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: them Erica and eat everything in its wake. But eventually

452
00:25:03,840 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: it would probably be discovered and taken down. Yeah, or

453
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:10,439
Speaker 1: we just presume that it it cannot move for some

454
00:25:10,480 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: reason or another. So what if Pennywise, though, were to

455
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: somehow give birth to more monstrosities, It may then face

456
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:24,320
Speaker 1: difficulties feeding this brood if there isn't enough food available

457
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:28,240
Speaker 1: to it. So perhaps this is why Pennywise allows the

458
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: dairy population to grow in these waves every twenty seven years,

459
00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:36,400
Speaker 1: so when it has children itself, there will be more

460
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 1: than enough to eat for its entire family. But it's

461
00:25:39,240 --> 00:25:43,159
Speaker 1: worth noting that Dairy's population isn't hunted by anything else,

462
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 1: and it has the capability of migration, right, So this

463
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,280
Speaker 1: is a lot more complex of a food system than

464
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 1: we see on this aisle with the wolves and the moose.

465
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:56,240
Speaker 1: So I think there has to be something else going

466
00:25:56,280 --> 00:25:59,560
Speaker 1: on here, possibly psychological, and maybe we'll talk about this

467
00:25:59,640 --> 00:26:03,720
Speaker 1: later in the episode that keeps the people in Dairy

468
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 1: so that food is always available every time Pennywise wakes up. Now,

469
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:12,639
Speaker 1: the scariest pragmatic rule about these predator prey models is

470
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:17,480
Speaker 1: this quote. Predators are always hungry and eat the same

471
00:26:17,520 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: proportion of prey no matter how large the number of

472
00:26:21,359 --> 00:26:25,639
Speaker 1: prey gets. So this implies no matter how big Dairy gets,

473
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,600
Speaker 1: Pennywise is always going to eat dozens of kids every

474
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 1: twenty seven years, and that I think is part of

475
00:26:32,080 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: what is so ultimately terrifying. Yeah, now here's a here's

476
00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: another reason to vanish for such long periods of time

477
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:44,640
Speaker 1: in between meals to counter anti predator adaptation. Okay, So,

478
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: so think about it. Periodical cicada's come up from time

479
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 1: to time and reference to it. They come up in

480
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:51,760
Speaker 1: the movie, and I presumably came up in the book

481
00:26:51,760 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 1: as well. There's been a while. Uh. These are highly

482
00:26:55,359 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: successful insects that are also prey species, and they spend

483
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: most of their life cycle underground, only emerging in massive

484
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:07,159
Speaker 1: broods in order to overwhelm the predators. Predators have a

485
00:27:07,200 --> 00:27:10,880
Speaker 1: feeding frenzy. They grow fat, but they can't eat everyone.

486
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:14,200
Speaker 1: That's the that's the basic cicada way. And then after

487
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:19,440
Speaker 1: that that feeding frenzy, they disappear for seven thirteen seventeen years.

488
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,280
Speaker 1: These are all prime numbers, by the way, before they

489
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:27,000
Speaker 1: emerge again and again, you know, just overpower the predators

490
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:29,840
Speaker 1: with sheer numbers. And the theory here is that the

491
00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:34,920
Speaker 1: prime numbers involved keep the predators from receiving periodic population

492
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:39,199
Speaker 1: boost by synchronizing their own generations to divisions of the

493
00:27:39,200 --> 00:27:42,040
Speaker 1: cicada's emergence period. This guy is according to a two

494
00:27:42,040 --> 00:27:46,439
Speaker 1: thousand one paper in Complexity Journal by Goals, Shoels and

495
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,400
Speaker 1: Marcus titled prime number selection of cycles in a predator

496
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 1: prey model. Okay, okay, so then so the theory applied

497
00:27:54,840 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 1: here then would be that it is doing something similar.

498
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:02,280
Speaker 1: It's trying to uh only have periodic population boosts by

499
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:05,320
Speaker 1: synchronizing its generations. But as far as we know, it

500
00:28:05,359 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 1: hasn't had an eight children yet. Uh correct, So yeah,

501
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: it's it's not really a you know, a one to

502
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: one comparison, because one is a model of of of

503
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:16,840
Speaker 1: of prey species dealing with predators, as a predator that

504
00:28:16,920 --> 00:28:21,920
Speaker 1: is hibernating in order to maximize its utilization of the prey.

505
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:24,880
Speaker 1: And then the other factor here is that it's dormacy

506
00:28:24,960 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 1: years may or may not be prime. It kind of

507
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,879
Speaker 1: depends how you you cut it. Twenty seven is a

508
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 1: popular number, especially in the movie, but I've also seen

509
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: it described as a twenty seven to thirty year dormacy,

510
00:28:35,359 --> 00:28:40,920
Speaker 1: so it could be prime. Uh. Perhaps it's periodic slumber

511
00:28:41,080 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: isn't just about allowing the herd to regrow, but also

512
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:48,240
Speaker 1: to prevent human populations of dairy from adapting to its cycle.

513
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:52,080
Speaker 1: Uh or and of course to prevent at least cultural

514
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,640
Speaker 1: anti predator adaptations. You know, certainly it's not really enough

515
00:28:55,640 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: time for any kind of evolved biological adaptation, but there

516
00:28:58,760 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: could be that could theoretically be enough time for people

517
00:29:01,640 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: to develop new strategies, new ways of living, or you know,

518
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: or just leaving and you know, go over to Castle Rock.

519
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: They seem to have a lot easier. Yeah. I don't

520
00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: know though, I think we'll get into this later, But

521
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:15,480
Speaker 1: it seems like there's something else going on with the

522
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: either the biology of it or the ecosystem of dairy

523
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:22,400
Speaker 1: that is keeping people there, and they seem to have

524
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: just clouded over the idea that there's this monstrous predator

525
00:29:25,320 --> 00:29:28,560
Speaker 1: in their midst. One more note about the hibernation. It

526
00:29:28,840 --> 00:29:32,320
Speaker 1: should point out that hibernation among carnivores is largely the

527
00:29:32,360 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: domain of reptiles and anthropods, and in these cases it's

528
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: it's about annual avoidance of cold or temperatures. Now we

529
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: might point to the fact that it seems to come

530
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,440
Speaker 1: out in the summer. I mean, certainly the movie takes

531
00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:48,200
Speaker 1: place in the summer. Uh, But then it disappears for

532
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:51,920
Speaker 1: so many years that it doesn't seem to really be

533
00:29:52,040 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 1: dependent upon temperature if I remember correctly. The timeline I

534
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,120
Speaker 1: think is supposed to be something like the first attack,

535
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:04,400
Speaker 1: which is Orgy, is in like October, and then months

536
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: pass and then summer starts up and that's when it

537
00:30:07,160 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 1: really heats up. Yeah. So this is another case where

538
00:30:09,960 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: the biology and the fantasy don't really line up that well,

539
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:16,600
Speaker 1: and we're kind of swinging that science cudgel at ghosts again.

540
00:30:17,080 --> 00:30:19,160
Speaker 1: So the thing that I think a lot of and

541
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,239
Speaker 1: I noticed there's a video online about this that a

542
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: lot of other you know, science communicators are trying to

543
00:30:25,320 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: tackle with the science of it, is the shape shifting aspect,

544
00:30:28,360 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 1: because there's lots of as we've discussed with many of

545
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,920
Speaker 1: our weird creatures on the show, animals that are able

546
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: to change their shape to survive and hunt. Yeah. Yeah,

547
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: everybody loves a good shape shifting monster, right. Uh. The

548
00:30:40,200 --> 00:30:43,000
Speaker 1: thing is true, shape shifting is difficult to come by

549
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:46,040
Speaker 1: in the natural world, and certainly if you look at

550
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:48,240
Speaker 1: it and it has this, you know, the additional here

551
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: of psychic and hallucination aided versions of itself, it becomes

552
00:30:53,520 --> 00:30:59,480
Speaker 1: even more impossible. Now, evolution certainly produces various versions of mimicry,

553
00:30:59,560 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 1: and yet does use this as was the initial as

554
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: with the initial Pennywise scene, you know, taking the form

555
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: of something to attract prey. But we're talking about a

556
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: gradual process and not something that can be really mixed

557
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:13,920
Speaker 1: up in real time. However, the version we see in

558
00:31:13,960 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 1: the book and film is a deceptive feat reminiscent of

559
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:21,959
Speaker 1: the mimic octopus, which can contort its body, size, color,

560
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: and texture to mimic such diverse species as lionfish, sea snakes,

561
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: sting rays, sea an enemies, and jellyfish, and and also

562
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: like yet, the mimic octopus also assumes the behavior and

563
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 1: movement of its target in addition to its mirror appearance.

564
00:31:36,760 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 1: So this provides one of I think the finest examples

565
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: of shape shifting in nature, at least in so far

566
00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:46,240
Speaker 1: as it matches up with our our, our fantastic notions

567
00:31:46,280 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: of shape shifting. Yeah, there's a lot of interesting stuff,

568
00:31:49,280 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 1: especially in this new version of the film with the

569
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 1: shape shifting in like how it uses the shape shifting to,

570
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 1: for instance, um move differently or squeeze through spaces and

571
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 1: things like that. You can get a lot of that

572
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:05,240
Speaker 1: in the old movie, for instance, because there was sort

573
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:09,400
Speaker 1: of this idea that it had more of a established

574
00:32:09,480 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: form that was hiding down in the sewers and that

575
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:15,000
Speaker 1: everything else were just hallucinations. But in the film version,

576
00:32:15,080 --> 00:32:17,360
Speaker 1: I get the impression that it's more like it's a

577
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:21,920
Speaker 1: shape shifting thing that's capable of creating your worst fear

578
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 1: through its shape shifting by psychically scanning you. Yeah, but

579
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: then again it kind of breaks down when you start

580
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: looking scene to scene because certainly there are some key

581
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,760
Speaker 1: shape shifting scenes in the movie where it all feels

582
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,200
Speaker 1: very biological and organic, But then you know it's also

583
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:41,480
Speaker 1: like crawling out of a projector screen. That's right, Yeah,

584
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,760
Speaker 1: and there's no there's no like rational way that that

585
00:32:43,840 --> 00:32:46,920
Speaker 1: works within the laws of our universe. Yeah. That definitely

586
00:32:46,920 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: struck me as being more along the lines of like

587
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:53,240
Speaker 1: a hallucination. Yeah. Alright, So one more thing I want

588
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 1: to touch on here, and that is the dead lights,

589
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:58,960
Speaker 1: the dead lights showing up, especially in the film. You

590
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: see it in the scene it opens its my mouth

591
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 1: real wide and you see these these three pinpoints of

592
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:10,719
Speaker 1: of hellish light that transfix the prey. And you know,

593
00:33:10,760 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: this is another area where we have to be careful

594
00:33:12,840 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: chasing magic with that, with that, with that cudgel of science,

595
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: but especially as we see in the movie, it uses

596
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 1: these things to subdue a victim or drive them mad.

597
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:25,720
Speaker 1: And here in the natural world, we certainly have creatures

598
00:33:25,720 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 1: with biolumin essence, and some of them do use their

599
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:32,520
Speaker 1: dazzling lights offensively against prey. Now, not all of them

600
00:33:32,880 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: directly apply here, but considered the famed angler fish, which

601
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 1: is just an endlessly fascinating and monstrous creature. The female's

602
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:44,760
Speaker 1: dorsal spine protrudes out over its mouth like a fishing

603
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:48,400
Speaker 1: pole with a fleshy luminous thanks to a symbotic bacteria

604
00:33:48,600 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: lure that attracts prey into swallowing distance. And then we

605
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 1: return to the cephalopods because the cuttle fish has been

606
00:33:56,880 --> 00:34:01,200
Speaker 1: known to manipulate its chromataphors that's the little UH elements

607
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 1: and its skin that you know, can manipulate color and

608
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 1: and all. It can use these to dazzle the intended

609
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: prey long enough to snatch it up, essentially hypnotizing it

610
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: or confusing it with a pulsating psychedelic display. And they're

611
00:34:15,200 --> 00:34:18,040
Speaker 1: they're particularly adapted just because their skin possess Their skin

612
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 1: posesses up to two hundred chromatophores per square millimeter, allowing

613
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:28,000
Speaker 1: for complex mating displays, but also this sort of predatory behavior. Man,

614
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:32,280
Speaker 1: I love a good cuddlefish video. There's nothing like watching

615
00:34:32,280 --> 00:34:34,920
Speaker 1: a cuddlefish video on YouTube or something like that. Like,

616
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: they are endlessly fascinating anytime I've ever seen them in

617
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: an aquarium. They just Actually the Chattanooga Aquarium was where

618
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 1: I first saw one, and uh, I this actually inspired me.

619
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: Like a decade ago, one of the first comics I

620
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:53,400
Speaker 1: ever wrote included a submarine that was modeled after a

621
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 1: cuddle fish, and it included, uh, they like added this

622
00:34:57,280 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 1: this fake skin with chromatophors into it so they it

623
00:35:00,120 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: could blend in with its surroundings. Yeah. Yeah, we we

624
00:35:02,600 --> 00:35:04,680
Speaker 1: should really come back and do uh do a new

625
00:35:04,719 --> 00:35:06,440
Speaker 1: episode on cuttle fish. We have I think we have

626
00:35:06,480 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 1: an older episode on them, but there's They're always there.

627
00:35:10,120 --> 00:35:12,160
Speaker 1: They get a lot of scientific at tensions, so I'm

628
00:35:12,200 --> 00:35:14,839
Speaker 1: sure there's new areas we could touch on, and they're

629
00:35:14,880 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 1: just always deserving of study. Absolutely, So let's take another

630
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 1: break and when we get back, we're going to get

631
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:28,720
Speaker 1: into its diet, which seems to be composed of fear. Alright,

632
00:35:28,719 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: we're back. Yeah. So I actually was talking to my

633
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 1: friend Dave Streepy about all this because he's he's a

634
00:35:34,160 --> 00:35:37,640
Speaker 1: huge Stephen King fan. He also reread the book this

635
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: year and he's seen the movie a couple of times.

636
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,080
Speaker 1: I was asking him, like, well, what's the deal? Refresh

637
00:35:42,120 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: my memory about about it? And it's diet And it

638
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: does seem to be a situation where it consumes fear

639
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 1: or possibly consumes some flesh that's been seasoned by fear,

640
00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:00,120
Speaker 1: or it only feeds on fear and only but it

641
00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: but it consumes flash because that's what monsters do, that's

642
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 1: what children expect a monster to do. Yeah. Yeah, it's

643
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: not entirely clear, but I think you've hit on the

644
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:13,880
Speaker 1: possibilities here, and I think that maybe what's going on

645
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: here is related to fear conditioning as we know it

646
00:36:17,239 --> 00:36:20,120
Speaker 1: in the psychological discipline. So I'm gonna see if we

647
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 1: can connect it here now. If you're unfamiliar, fear conditioning

648
00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 1: is a simple form of associative learning. This is where

649
00:36:26,840 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 1: an animal learns to associate the presence of something that's

650
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:33,640
Speaker 1: a neutral, conditioned stimulus and something like a light or

651
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: maybe a tone, with the presence of a motivationally significant

652
00:36:37,640 --> 00:36:42,759
Speaker 1: stimulus that is unconditioned, such as being electrocuted. This is

653
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: usually what they do is they electrocute a mouse, uh,

654
00:36:46,400 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: and they play a sound or they flash a light

655
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: at it beforehand, so that eventually this creates the classic

656
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 1: Pavlovian behaviorism style psychology, in which the fear memories are

657
00:36:58,880 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: consolidated over time aims such that they can be induced

658
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:05,160
Speaker 1: by presenting the conditioned stimulus on its own, so that

659
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:08,040
Speaker 1: every time you flash the light or you play the sound,

660
00:37:08,440 --> 00:37:11,239
Speaker 1: then the mouse or the rat is scared of that,

661
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: and that you don't even have to electrocute it anymore. Well,

662
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: you know, speaking about going to the movie theaters, I

663
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:21,959
Speaker 1: wonder to what extent the popcorn and coke is like that,

664
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: because I see people get the giant coke, the giant

665
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,759
Speaker 1: popcorn and they go into the theater to watch, you know,

666
00:37:27,800 --> 00:37:30,880
Speaker 1: something like Alien Covenant, and I'm like, why are you

667
00:37:30,920 --> 00:37:34,000
Speaker 1: planning to eat and drink during this film? Um? Do

668
00:37:34,040 --> 00:37:36,800
Speaker 1: you even want that overpriced popcorn and coke? Or is

669
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,319
Speaker 1: this just conditioning? Is this just a matter of this

670
00:37:39,360 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 1: is what I expect, This is part of the experience.

671
00:37:41,719 --> 00:37:43,839
Speaker 1: Oh yeah for me, like every time I get there,

672
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:47,319
Speaker 1: I just immediately start salivating sugar. Yeah, I think it's

673
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:51,439
Speaker 1: just a sugar fix um, which is probably related to

674
00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:55,040
Speaker 1: my experience of going into a dark room. So all right,

675
00:37:55,080 --> 00:37:57,880
Speaker 1: We know that Pennywise thrives on fear, so it's possible

676
00:37:57,920 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: that the citizens of Dairy are experience dancing their own

677
00:38:01,160 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: form of fear conditioning that then subsequently leads to mass

678
00:38:05,200 --> 00:38:08,879
Speaker 1: psychogenic behavior. And we're gonna unpack the mass psychogenic behavior later.

679
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: But over the centuries, Pennywise has conditioned them to both

680
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 1: experience fear that subsequently feeds it and to also freeze

681
00:38:18,600 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 1: in response to it, so they don't end up running

682
00:38:21,120 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 1: away or migrating leaving. Yeah, I think that that's that's

683
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 1: pretty solid. Not only critique would be how does how

684
00:38:29,000 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 1: does its periods of inactivity affect that? Yeah, that's what

685
00:38:32,760 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 1: I can't figure out either. And I'm trying to also

686
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:39,560
Speaker 1: understand what is the neutral stimuli that signals this to

687
00:38:39,600 --> 00:38:42,440
Speaker 1: the people of Dairy, Right, there's no light, there's no tone.

688
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,600
Speaker 1: Is it these balloons that suddenly start popping up everywhere

689
00:38:45,600 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 1: on the sewer grades or is it? Uh? Is it

690
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 1: giving off some kind of pheromone throughout the entire city?

691
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: That maybe that's why it lives in the sewer system.

692
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:57,120
Speaker 1: It's got access to all of the the grates that

693
00:38:57,120 --> 00:39:00,440
Speaker 1: go up into people's homes. I'm not sure, but that

694
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:02,600
Speaker 1: is an interesting idea that there could be some additional

695
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:08,799
Speaker 1: biological component here. Now, remember, fear is our human defensive

696
00:39:08,880 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: motivational system, and we evolved this way to protect ourselves

697
00:39:13,080 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: from threats in our environment. We can measure fear as

698
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: a complex constellation of behavioral and physiological responses. And we

699
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 1: also know that fear conditioning itself is linked to the

700
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 1: neurobiology of both learning and memory, So this is important.

701
00:39:31,239 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 1: Is it possible that the system of fear in dairy

702
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:39,720
Speaker 1: is what prevents its residence from remembering or even learning

703
00:39:39,719 --> 00:39:42,160
Speaker 1: about Pennywise in the first place, Like there's some kind

704
00:39:42,200 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 1: of weird reverse fear conditioning going on here that makes

705
00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 1: it so they can't remember it. And then, in fact,

706
00:39:48,680 --> 00:39:51,840
Speaker 1: fear conditioning is an ideal way for us to study

707
00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: how memory works in general, because a basic fear inducing

708
00:39:55,640 --> 00:40:00,120
Speaker 1: event can determine the way our brains actually shape memories. Oh,

709
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 1: if you go back and you look at the neural

710
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: pathways through which a situation causes a creature to learn

711
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: about fear, scientists actually hope that they can then figure

712
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: out what the general mechanism of memory formation is. So

713
00:40:13,120 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: hopefully by doing this they can better treat malfunctions and

714
00:40:16,600 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: our ability to control fear. So for example, treatment of anxiety,

715
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:24,680
Speaker 1: phobias and panic attacks. Now I think with dairy residents,

716
00:40:24,760 --> 00:40:28,160
Speaker 1: especially with the adults. So one psychological reality that comes

717
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:31,640
Speaker 1: to mind is a possible explanation is that of normalcy bias.

718
00:40:32,280 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: And there are plenty of examples of humans who simply

719
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 1: don't react appropriately to a sudden threat or even freeze

720
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:40,560
Speaker 1: up and are unable to act at all, or they

721
00:40:40,560 --> 00:40:43,840
Speaker 1: freak out completely. I always go back to the Aliens

722
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: example for this, So so think think too that the

723
00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:50,760
Speaker 1: scene and Aliens where everything's gone hey wire. The Aliens

724
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:54,879
Speaker 1: have massacured, uh, the Marines. If this were a game

725
00:40:54,920 --> 00:40:57,319
Speaker 1: of X Calm, you have gotten up poor rating and

726
00:40:57,400 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: lost like all your crew. But mostly uh so you

727
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:02,840
Speaker 1: have Private Hudson and his whole thing is we're you,

728
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:05,440
Speaker 1: We're all gonna die man game over right. He's just

729
00:41:05,560 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: hysterically running around. Yeah. Now, Lieutenant Gorman, I don't know

730
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:11,719
Speaker 1: if you remember him. I do. He's ostensibly supposed to

731
00:41:11,760 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 1: be as the leader. Yeah, and he just panics and

732
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: freezes up like he just can't he can't act. And

733
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 1: then we have Hicks and Ripley, and they take the lead.

734
00:41:20,400 --> 00:41:22,640
Speaker 1: They know how to act, They think rationally in the

735
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:25,440
Speaker 1: face of danger. Right, this is when Ripley like basically

736
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: pushes Gorman out of the way and drives that that

737
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,880
Speaker 1: awesome tank thing in there and saves whoever is left. Yeah.

738
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 1: The interesting thing is that this, uh, this, this kind

739
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,640
Speaker 1: of matches up with the various ways that people react

740
00:41:37,719 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 1: to disasters. I was reading an article this is actually

741
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: an I O nine by a writer esther English article.

742
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I like reading her stuff a lot, and

743
00:41:46,680 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: she put she pointed out in her article that seventy

744
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:53,640
Speaker 1: of people in a disaster exhibit this, uh, you know,

745
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: unusual Lotti da behator about ten to fiftcent freak out.

746
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:01,920
Speaker 1: You know, they go Private Hudson on everything, and then

747
00:42:01,920 --> 00:42:05,520
Speaker 1: the other ten to they go the Ripley Hicks direction

748
00:42:05,920 --> 00:42:09,320
Speaker 1: and they actually get stuff done. So in other words, uh,

749
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:11,799
Speaker 1: you know, they get the hell out of dodge. So

750
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:15,160
Speaker 1: the question people ask them is what's going on with that?

751
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:18,080
Speaker 1: Uh that seventy percent, you know why wind is seventy

752
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,320
Speaker 1: percent of people faced with, say, you know, a massacre

753
00:42:21,440 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 1: by alien monsters or potentially um, you know, the steady um.

754
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: You know, massacre of children by an extra dimensional shape shifter.

755
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: And then the idea here is that you have to

756
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 1: look at it two different ways. So seventy percent of

757
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 1: people freezing and just kind of becoming doll people in

758
00:42:39,160 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 1: the shape of face of danger, it could be a

759
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,799
Speaker 1: good thing because it means that that people who are

760
00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:47,000
Speaker 1: in that state, they're gonna be docile. They can be

761
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:49,960
Speaker 1: directed through the chaos by others, so they can they

762
00:42:49,960 --> 00:42:51,799
Speaker 1: can set there. Yeah, they're not really helping a lot,

763
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,480
Speaker 1: but they'll listen when Ripley says, hey, you need to

764
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:56,840
Speaker 1: go drive that tank. Interesting, I never thought about it

765
00:42:56,880 --> 00:42:59,359
Speaker 1: that way before. I mean, you can certainly have it's

766
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 1: you know, a burning building scenario for example. There's a

767
00:43:01,960 --> 00:43:04,239
Speaker 1: downside because it means they need to be let out,

768
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,840
Speaker 1: that they might otherwise stick around too long and suffer

769
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 1: for it. Well, Gorman certainly does end up lasting for

770
00:43:10,360 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: quite a while until he ends up finally getting taken out. Yeah,

771
00:43:13,800 --> 00:43:16,359
Speaker 1: well he has I think a moment of redemption he does.

772
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:21,319
Speaker 1: The downside here, of course, is that those that that

773
00:43:21,320 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 1: that frees up, that that are unable to really grasp

774
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 1: what's happening. Uh, they retard the progress of the ten

775
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 1: to fifteen percent of people who are acting appropriate. Now,

776
00:43:32,320 --> 00:43:35,520
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how he's slowing the rest of us down. Yeah, yeah,

777
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:37,800
Speaker 1: even though they're the ones who need to be saved.

778
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly how this would would break down

779
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: for the population of Dairy, But I think one of

780
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:47,800
Speaker 1: the one of the interesting things here is that since

781
00:43:47,880 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: it is praying exclusively on children and adolescence, it's praying

782
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: on individuals who have less of a say in what

783
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: the culture is doing, what what the society of the

784
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: town is doing. They're less a part of the decision

785
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,600
Speaker 1: making process, and they're going to have a harder time

786
00:44:07,640 --> 00:44:11,160
Speaker 1: finding acceptance and belief when they tell their story to adults.

787
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: So it doesn't it almost doesn't matter that you have

788
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:17,920
Speaker 1: that that ten to fifteen percent ideal. I guess the

789
00:44:17,960 --> 00:44:22,319
Speaker 1: Losers Club from the movie and the books, they're the

790
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,280
Speaker 1: ten They're gonna stand up, but they can they can't

791
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 1: do as much about it because they are cut off

792
00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:30,840
Speaker 1: from the adult world. And you get the impression in

793
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 1: all three versions of it that, regardless of what's going

794
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 1: on with Pennywise, there's something wrong with this town in

795
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: terms of adults just turning away from horrific acts. Right. Like, so,

796
00:44:45,560 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: for instance, that scene that you see in the trailer,

797
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 1: and this I believe was also in the mini series

798
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,279
Speaker 1: and is definitely in the book, is whenever they're the

799
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:56,360
Speaker 1: Losers club kids are getting harassed by the bullies, the

800
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 1: adults just tend to turn the other way and go

801
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:01,600
Speaker 1: back indoors or or though like there's a scene where

802
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: like they're driving by and they just look kind of

803
00:45:04,800 --> 00:45:08,360
Speaker 1: casually and then just keep going like they very rarely

804
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: stop and try to break it up. Yeah, and then

805
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:12,560
Speaker 1: in the in the same way that especially the book

806
00:45:12,600 --> 00:45:17,480
Speaker 1: explores racism, homophobia, and other issues. It's it's very much

807
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,600
Speaker 1: a story. It's very much a work that says, hey,

808
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 1: what what were some of the horrible things about the

809
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:26,799
Speaker 1: world that we grew up in? What was wrong with it?

810
00:45:26,840 --> 00:45:29,560
Speaker 1: What didn't work? Uh, you know from on a social

811
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: and cultural level. I mean in a way that's the whole.

812
00:45:32,239 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: It's kind of symbolized with Pennywise, right, the symbol of

813
00:45:35,160 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: childhood innocence that's corrupted by a darker force. Yeah, I

814
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:40,160
Speaker 1: think you just hit the nail on the head of

815
00:45:40,200 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 1: like the strongest theme in the book that works so well,

816
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:45,040
Speaker 1: you know, why why we keep coming back to this

817
00:45:45,080 --> 00:45:48,479
Speaker 1: one Stephen King's story over and over again. Now, one

818
00:45:48,560 --> 00:45:53,160
Speaker 1: thing scientists have learned by experimenting on rats is let's

819
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 1: think about the brain for a second. Here, Okay, the

820
00:45:55,680 --> 00:46:00,120
Speaker 1: auditory cortex part of the brain isn't necessary if you

821
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:04,640
Speaker 1: want to fear condition a rat using audio. They've actually

822
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 1: placed lesions on these rats brains, specifically in the auditory

823
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 1: thalamus and the auditory midbrain, and they found that these

824
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: lesions eliminated a rats susceptibility to conditioning. This is weird

825
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 1: because we know that the nerve fibers of the auditory

826
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:27,960
Speaker 1: thalamus extend into the auditory cortex. They looked, the scientists

827
00:46:28,040 --> 00:46:31,520
Speaker 1: and they found that fibers are also reaching out to

828
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:35,600
Speaker 1: several subcortical locations in the brain. Okay, and the major

829
00:46:35,680 --> 00:46:39,600
Speaker 1: area where these are all located and that is affected

830
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:43,600
Speaker 1: by fear is the amygdala. And this has been considered

831
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:47,320
Speaker 1: the most important brain region when it comes to various

832
00:46:47,400 --> 00:46:50,680
Speaker 1: forms of emotional behavior. So, if we're talking about fear

833
00:46:50,760 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: here and and pennywise, either eating fear or creating fear conditioning,

834
00:46:56,440 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: the amygdala seems to be where we want to look.

835
00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: They found that the central nucleus inside of the amygdala

836
00:47:03,680 --> 00:47:07,520
Speaker 1: is the pivotal component of all of our fear conditioning circuitry,

837
00:47:07,800 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: and this is because it provides connections to the various

838
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:14,839
Speaker 1: brain stem areas that are involved in controlling our spectrum

839
00:47:14,920 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 1: of responses to fear. So the amygdala, and specifically it's

840
00:47:18,840 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 1: lateral nucleus, is the sensory system interface when it comes

841
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:28,200
Speaker 1: to fear conditioning. By following this research, the scientists who

842
00:47:28,200 --> 00:47:30,000
Speaker 1: have been looking at this and they've actually been able

843
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 1: to map the entire stimulus response pathway in the brain

844
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: from you know, basically whether that light goes on or

845
00:47:37,440 --> 00:47:40,839
Speaker 1: there's a tone or you get electrocuted, to how it

846
00:47:41,080 --> 00:47:46,839
Speaker 1: travels through the brain and essentially triggers your fierce response. Now,

847
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: one thing I think that's worth thinking about here is

848
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:52,239
Speaker 1: that the book, in the films, I think they tend

849
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:54,400
Speaker 1: to work with sort of a non scientific idea of

850
00:47:54,400 --> 00:47:57,359
Speaker 1: what fear is and how the mind works. But if

851
00:47:57,400 --> 00:48:01,040
Speaker 1: we're to believe that it is psychic and perhaps also telekinetic,

852
00:48:01,560 --> 00:48:05,000
Speaker 1: then perhaps it has the ability to manipulate this portion

853
00:48:05,040 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 1: of the brain through some form of electromagnetic stimulation that

854
00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:10,359
Speaker 1: could totally be it and then let's look. Let's drill

855
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:14,320
Speaker 1: down on the molecular level. It seems that emotional memories

856
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:18,800
Speaker 1: are established for us and stored through the amino acid

857
00:48:18,920 --> 00:48:23,319
Speaker 1: transmitter glutamate. Okay, this is important. It's present in our

858
00:48:23,360 --> 00:48:26,360
Speaker 1: cells and the ones that reach the lateral nucleus I

859
00:48:26,400 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: was just referring to, and it's transmission is implicated in

860
00:48:30,200 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: our memory formation. So likewise, some researchers have been able

861
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: to totally block fear conditioning in animals by blocking the

862
00:48:38,840 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: receptors they have for glutamate inside the amygdala. So this

863
00:48:43,640 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 1: may explain what Pennywise is actually eating when it comes

864
00:48:48,400 --> 00:48:50,719
Speaker 1: to fear, now, outside of any kind of uh I

865
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:54,920
Speaker 1: guess like transcendental idea of it eating the actual emotion

866
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:58,400
Speaker 1: in the air. Right, we know that when we experience

867
00:48:58,480 --> 00:49:02,399
Speaker 1: fear there is neuro endocrime changes that include the rise

868
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: of plasma prolactin, adreno, cortico tropin, corticosterone, and catacola mines.

869
00:49:10,760 --> 00:49:14,160
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the increase in these chemical levels that are

870
00:49:14,239 --> 00:49:18,840
Speaker 1: either satiating it or somehow attracting it. Right, So, like

871
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 1: it is able to smell that fear somehow for lack

872
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: of a better term. Well, one thing that comes to

873
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:28,640
Speaker 1: mind is that you could have a situation where, you know,

874
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:31,319
Speaker 1: it's a magical organism, so maybe it doesn't really need

875
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: to eat in the way that the actual real world

876
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:36,879
Speaker 1: organisms do. But you could also have a situation where, yeah,

877
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,640
Speaker 1: it lives off of bacteria or you know, something in

878
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 1: the waste waters of the dairy sewer, but it still

879
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: needs a few key components that are only found in

880
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:48,800
Speaker 1: human brain chemistry, and this out of keeping with the

881
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 1: natural world, because you do have certain organisms where some

882
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:55,520
Speaker 1: of their prey decisions are based on the very specific

883
00:49:55,600 --> 00:49:59,360
Speaker 1: chemical needs. Yeah. Right, So then if that's true, what

884
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:02,480
Speaker 1: is pen Wise actually eating. Is it eating the amygdala?

885
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:06,480
Speaker 1: Is it eating the glutamate? We actually see it chewing

886
00:50:06,600 --> 00:50:08,759
Speaker 1: on arms and all these kinds of things, right, But

887
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,960
Speaker 1: that seems that it's actually more for the purpose of

888
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 1: generating fear based stimuli. It doesn't look like it's actually

889
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 1: eating the arms. It's just kind of chewing on them

890
00:50:17,600 --> 00:50:20,640
Speaker 1: to freak everybody out. Yeah, it's just doing what children expect,

891
00:50:20,640 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 1: I'm monstered to do. Now you brought up other animals.

892
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:27,560
Speaker 1: Does Pennywise eat other animals other than human beings? I

893
00:50:27,560 --> 00:50:31,600
Speaker 1: mean other animals experienced fear. It occurs nearly every animal group.

894
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:36,240
Speaker 1: You've got fruit flies, snails, birds, lizards, fish, rabbits, rats, monkeys,

895
00:50:36,280 --> 00:50:40,160
Speaker 1: and of course people, all of them exhibit fear. Is

896
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 1: it also scarfing down snails inside that sewer? No, I

897
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:46,400
Speaker 1: don't think so, because there's a whole bit where it's

898
00:50:46,400 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: set there and waited until humans were available. Yeah. Uh.

899
00:50:50,080 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: And then the mechanisms that fear operates are different in

900
00:50:55,360 --> 00:50:58,600
Speaker 1: other creatures. But it seems at least that the pathways

901
00:50:58,640 --> 00:51:01,840
Speaker 1: in mammals and possibly all vertebrates are very similar. So

902
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:05,960
Speaker 1: there's something specifically going on with humans. It seems in

903
00:51:06,080 --> 00:51:09,359
Speaker 1: this something that we're creating that's different from the other

904
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:12,839
Speaker 1: mammals around dairy, that it could be scaring and picking off.

905
00:51:13,680 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: So then all right, we've we've got all this. We

906
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:19,080
Speaker 1: seem to understand how it's eating, or what it's eating,

907
00:51:19,320 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 1: at least, how it's creating fear. But what's up with

908
00:51:23,320 --> 00:51:25,680
Speaker 1: the freezing? Why are the people in dairy just kind

909
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 1: of you know, not acting. So fear conditioning, even if

910
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:35,680
Speaker 1: the motivationally significant stimulus isn't present, actually can lead to immobility,

911
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:40,080
Speaker 1: high blood pressure, and a faster heartbeat. So the actual

912
00:51:40,320 --> 00:51:43,719
Speaker 1: freezing up seems to be the symptom the citizens of

913
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:47,879
Speaker 1: Dairy are exhibiting. But why is that. Well, it's an

914
00:51:48,000 --> 00:51:52,719
Speaker 1: adaptation that allows them to decrease the probability of detection

915
00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:55,919
Speaker 1: while also conserving energy. So somewhere deep in the back

916
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 1: of these adults minds, they know there's something dangerous going

917
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 1: on and they're desperately trying not to be detected by it. Well,

918
00:52:03,719 --> 00:52:05,839
Speaker 1: this this comes back to normaltly buy us a little

919
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:09,319
Speaker 1: bit and the topic of psychogenic death. Um we haven't.

920
00:52:09,360 --> 00:52:11,399
Speaker 1: We have an older episode that that covers that's off

921
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:12,840
Speaker 1: the link to that on a landing page for this

922
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: episode of Stuff to Buy your Mind dot Com. But yeah,

923
00:52:15,719 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 1: this gets into the area of say like a possum

924
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 1: playing dead animals freezing up when threatened, and also going

925
00:52:22,680 --> 00:52:26,319
Speaker 1: back to the amygdala and glutamate receptors. Remember that's all

926
00:52:26,480 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: related to learning and memory, and there's a huge aspect

927
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 1: in this story in that the kids who know about

928
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:36,920
Speaker 1: it forget about it, and the adults can't seem to

929
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:40,560
Speaker 1: form memories about it. So it seems like somehow there's

930
00:52:40,640 --> 00:52:43,440
Speaker 1: something about brain formation going on here that allows the

931
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:47,359
Speaker 1: children to remember it. But maybe they're amygdalas aren't fully

932
00:52:47,480 --> 00:52:49,799
Speaker 1: formed yet or something like that, and that is why

933
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 1: they're able to be more conscious of the pennywise creature

934
00:52:54,920 --> 00:52:57,959
Speaker 1: rather than the adults they're regardless of The amygdala isn't

935
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:00,400
Speaker 1: the only learning center of the brain, and it's an

936
00:53:00,440 --> 00:53:04,440
Speaker 1: important component, but the entire network of the brain is necessary.

937
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: I don't want to mislead our listeners by thinking, like, oh,

938
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:09,640
Speaker 1: the amygdala is like the one way that we learn

939
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: or form memories. That this would basically be like saying

940
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:14,920
Speaker 1: like a car engine is the only part of a

941
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:18,799
Speaker 1: car that's necessary in order to drive somewhere. So we're

942
00:53:18,840 --> 00:53:20,440
Speaker 1: all grown ups here, I mean, we know that all

943
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: this talk of an extra dimensional organism that takes the

944
00:53:23,160 --> 00:53:25,360
Speaker 1: form of a clown and kills our children is just

945
00:53:25,440 --> 00:53:30,240
Speaker 1: completely unbelievable. As such, let's present a few alternate theories

946
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:32,759
Speaker 1: as to why a town like Dairy could seem to

947
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 1: go bad and or just have this shared experience of

948
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:42,360
Speaker 1: this awful interloper. I remember when I was younger and

949
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:44,920
Speaker 1: I was having a hard time in school, like getting

950
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:48,239
Speaker 1: bullied and stuff like that, saying to my mom because

951
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: I had read it saying there's something about this town.

952
00:53:52,239 --> 00:53:54,399
Speaker 1: There's something it's like a Stephen King book. There's something

953
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:57,360
Speaker 1: wrong with the people. There's something bad about them. I

954
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 1: wonder if there's something in the water. Yeah, this is

955
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:03,120
Speaker 1: we're thinking about. We're gonna get into possible things in

956
00:54:03,160 --> 00:54:07,839
Speaker 1: the water here, because all right, if we're gonna analyze

957
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:10,000
Speaker 1: what's going on with Dairy, we have to we have

958
00:54:10,080 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: to sort of identify it as something that can be,

959
00:54:14,160 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: you know, more easily studied. So we might surmise that

960
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,239
Speaker 1: Dairy suffers from just a high crime rate. Certainly have

961
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 1: all these murders, disappearances, etcetera. And the interesting thing here

962
00:54:24,280 --> 00:54:26,720
Speaker 1: is that the crime is often grouped under the category

963
00:54:26,920 --> 00:54:29,880
Speaker 1: of a wicked problem, which we've discussed about, a problem

964
00:54:29,960 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 1: that is maybe not that easy to identify and then

965
00:54:32,960 --> 00:54:36,840
Speaker 1: difficult to treat. Any any kind of large scale treatment

966
00:54:37,200 --> 00:54:39,920
Speaker 1: changes the problem. It does certainly seem like in the

967
00:54:40,040 --> 00:54:43,760
Speaker 1: narrative that even outside of Pennywise roaming around and hunting

968
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:46,800
Speaker 1: all these children, that Dairy is a pretty violent place

969
00:54:46,880 --> 00:54:49,600
Speaker 1: to live. Yeah. Now, you might take, for instance, the

970
00:54:49,680 --> 00:54:51,760
Speaker 1: high crime rate of New York City during the seventies

971
00:54:51,800 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: and eighties and and the subsequent lowering of that crime level. Uh,

972
00:54:55,280 --> 00:54:58,320
Speaker 1: and certainly key individuals and institutions were more than willing

973
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:01,799
Speaker 1: to take credit for that drop. But you you're you're

974
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:03,839
Speaker 1: left with a lot of different theories as to why

975
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:06,960
Speaker 1: we have this uh, this surgeon crime and then this

976
00:55:07,400 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 1: decrease into crime, this this inverted you uh scenario. And

977
00:55:12,520 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 1: you'll find theories relating to gun control, policing, prison sentencing,

978
00:55:16,680 --> 00:55:20,760
Speaker 1: access to legal abortions, etcetera. But one of the possible causes,

979
00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 1: and one which I think is most interesting for discussion here,

980
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,319
Speaker 1: is pollution based and I think we might be able

981
00:55:26,360 --> 00:55:28,040
Speaker 1: to apply it to dairy if we tweak it a

982
00:55:28,080 --> 00:55:31,240
Speaker 1: little bit. So, Yeah, this guy, Carl Smith, the professor

983
00:55:31,239 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 1: of Public Economics and Government of the University of North

984
00:55:34,080 --> 00:55:38,880
Speaker 1: Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he defines crime as an epidemic.

985
00:55:39,120 --> 00:55:40,600
Speaker 1: And he says, all right, if it is an epidemic,

986
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:43,360
Speaker 1: then you have to break down the spread of epidemics

987
00:55:43,400 --> 00:55:46,720
Speaker 1: to determine their cause. So he says, all right, first question,

988
00:55:46,840 --> 00:55:50,480
Speaker 1: does it spread along communication lines? If so, then it's informational.

989
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:54,400
Speaker 1: Does it spread along transportation lines, If so, then it's microbial.

990
00:55:55,160 --> 00:55:59,319
Speaker 1: If it's everywhere at once, then it's probably a molecule. Now,

991
00:55:59,520 --> 00:56:02,840
Speaker 1: horror action presents plenty of examples of these. Uh. You know,

992
00:56:02,920 --> 00:56:05,360
Speaker 1: you can think of the curse of the Ring in

993
00:56:05,440 --> 00:56:07,920
Speaker 1: the Mouth of Madness. These are straight up you know,

994
00:56:08,080 --> 00:56:13,319
Speaker 1: informational uh, curses, informational contagions. Yeah, the medic in a way. Yeah.

995
00:56:14,080 --> 00:56:15,840
Speaker 1: And that doesn't seem to be the case in Deary,

996
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:19,080
Speaker 1: right because the kids only later realize that they're seeing

997
00:56:19,120 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 1: the same clown. So it's not like this idea that

998
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:23,640
Speaker 1: you tell the story of Penny Wise and it spreads.

999
00:56:24,440 --> 00:56:29,120
Speaker 1: Now transportation lines, well, every disease or zombie horror movie

1000
00:56:29,160 --> 00:56:31,880
Speaker 1: gets into this and uh, and here in dairy, if

1001
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:35,880
Speaker 1: it were transportation based. Uh. And if we limit just

1002
00:56:36,040 --> 00:56:38,960
Speaker 1: our study to the dairy area, then you could make

1003
00:56:39,000 --> 00:56:41,719
Speaker 1: a case for the water sewage system transporting it around. Yeah.

1004
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:43,680
Speaker 1: And this is this comes up over and over again

1005
00:56:43,719 --> 00:56:46,080
Speaker 1: in all versions of it. This is where they end

1006
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:48,960
Speaker 1: up finding the town maps and layering them on top

1007
00:56:49,040 --> 00:56:51,120
Speaker 1: of how the sewage system works, and where it all

1008
00:56:51,200 --> 00:56:54,760
Speaker 1: pops out. Yeah, and uh, I guess the only criticism

1009
00:56:54,840 --> 00:56:56,680
Speaker 1: there would be, well, hey, is is there really a

1010
00:56:56,800 --> 00:57:00,840
Speaker 1: safe place in dairy? Like certainly if you're close to

1011
00:57:00,960 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 1: that sewage line, and certain certain key locations you're in

1012
00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:08,160
Speaker 1: more danger. But I never got the sense that they

1013
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:11,200
Speaker 1: were safe neighborhoods. No, I don't think so, because if

1014
00:57:11,239 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 1: you think about it, regardless of like how big the

1015
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:16,720
Speaker 1: openings are to to the sewer system, if you live

1016
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:19,400
Speaker 1: in any kind of abode that is connected to the

1017
00:57:19,440 --> 00:57:22,760
Speaker 1: sewage system, it has access to you, right like Beverly

1018
00:57:22,920 --> 00:57:25,040
Speaker 1: is able to hear it through just the hole in

1019
00:57:25,120 --> 00:57:28,600
Speaker 1: her sink. Ye. Now, all of this non dairy stuff

1020
00:57:28,640 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 1: that I've been discussing here about about the spread of

1021
00:57:31,640 --> 00:57:33,840
Speaker 1: some sort of an epidemic. This comes from a two

1022
00:57:33,920 --> 00:57:37,760
Speaker 1: thousand sixteen Mother Jones article titled lad America's Real Criminal

1023
00:57:37,880 --> 00:57:41,560
Speaker 1: Element by Kevin drum And he profiles the work of

1024
00:57:41,720 --> 00:57:45,760
Speaker 1: Rick Nevin, who who made the argument that gasoline lad

1025
00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:48,720
Speaker 1: may explain as much as of the rise and fall

1026
00:57:48,880 --> 00:57:52,800
Speaker 1: violent crime over the past half century. So Nevin here

1027
00:57:52,880 --> 00:57:55,760
Speaker 1: he'd worked on he'd worked for initiatives to to get

1028
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:58,840
Speaker 1: lead paint out of homes uh due to the connection

1029
00:57:58,920 --> 00:58:02,720
Speaker 1: between lead exposure and small children and later life complications

1030
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 1: like lower i Q, hyperactivity, behavioral problems, and learning disabilities.

1031
00:58:07,800 --> 00:58:10,240
Speaker 1: So that The idea here is that lead emissions from

1032
00:58:10,320 --> 00:58:13,720
Speaker 1: tailpipes rose steadily from the early forties through the early seventies,

1033
00:58:14,120 --> 00:58:19,200
Speaker 1: nearly quadrupling. Then as unleaded gasoline began to replace leaded gasoline,

1034
00:58:19,240 --> 00:58:22,640
Speaker 1: emissions plummeted, all in an upside down you pattern that

1035
00:58:22,840 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 1: lines up with the rate of violence. Yeah, so he

1036
00:58:26,240 --> 00:58:29,880
Speaker 1: points out quote when differences of atmospheric lead density between

1037
00:58:29,960 --> 00:58:33,320
Speaker 1: big and small cities largely when went away, so did

1038
00:58:33,400 --> 00:58:36,400
Speaker 1: the differences in murder rates. Now, the exact culprit here

1039
00:58:36,400 --> 00:58:39,400
Speaker 1: would be tetra ethyl lead. But for this to work

1040
00:58:39,680 --> 00:58:43,160
Speaker 1: as adery theory, I think we'd need a continuous or

1041
00:58:43,160 --> 00:58:46,880
Speaker 1: at least fluctuating high level of of that lead in

1042
00:58:46,920 --> 00:58:49,959
Speaker 1: the local environment. Now, Deary was an iron working town

1043
00:58:50,200 --> 00:58:54,080
Speaker 1: where we're told, and I believe there's a textile industry

1044
00:58:54,120 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 1: there as well, so you could probably make some sort

1045
00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:01,640
Speaker 1: of case for a localized high level of atmospheric lead density.

1046
00:59:02,520 --> 00:59:05,240
Speaker 1: So this could possibly be why just Dairy's just like

1047
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:08,520
Speaker 1: a mean town, even outside of the fact that there's

1048
00:59:08,520 --> 00:59:12,360
Speaker 1: an extraterrestrial shape shifting clown monster. Yeah. Yeah, and you

1049
00:59:12,440 --> 00:59:13,959
Speaker 1: know you can I guess you can sort of tease

1050
00:59:14,000 --> 00:59:17,680
Speaker 1: apart what the relationship between it's inherent vileness and the

1051
00:59:17,760 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: presence of this creature would happen to be. UM. Now,

1052
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:25,680
Speaker 1: I wouldn't explain hallucinations of clowns obviously. For that you

1053
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:30,080
Speaker 1: might look to UH to ergot poisoning, which we've we

1054
00:59:30,160 --> 00:59:33,840
Speaker 1: discussed in our LSD episodes and also in an older

1055
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:37,680
Speaker 1: episode that Joe and I did, the Psychedelic Nightmare of Ergotism,

1056
00:59:38,320 --> 00:59:40,440
Speaker 1: and I'll leave everyone to check out that episode for

1057
00:59:40,600 --> 00:59:44,840
Speaker 1: a full explanation of of that. But we're talking ergot

1058
00:59:44,920 --> 00:59:48,000
Speaker 1: We're talking about one of the organic precursors of LST

1059
00:59:48,200 --> 00:59:51,320
Speaker 1: that acts as a parasite of grasses, including rye. So

1060
00:59:51,440 --> 00:59:53,960
Speaker 1: if you have contaminated rye and enough of it makes

1061
00:59:54,000 --> 00:59:56,480
Speaker 1: it into the local food supply, a town can experience

1062
00:59:56,560 --> 01:00:01,760
Speaker 1: the symptoms UH, certain symptoms that a rather nightmarish and

1063
01:00:01,880 --> 01:00:06,320
Speaker 1: horrific UH. In gangrenous argotism, we're talking black and appealing flesh,

1064
01:00:06,720 --> 01:00:11,160
Speaker 1: and in convulsive argantism you're talking like a nervous dyssunction,

1065
01:00:11,280 --> 01:00:15,960
Speaker 1: a feeling of the spiders are crawling on your body, seizures, hallucinations, mania,

1066
01:00:16,080 --> 01:00:18,760
Speaker 1: and psychosis, and accounts of this kind of poisoning go

1067
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:21,920
Speaker 1: back as far as at least six BC in Assyria

1068
01:00:22,160 --> 01:00:27,400
Speaker 1: and continue on up to around n So, okay, those

1069
01:00:27,440 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 1: are some pretty good hypotheses for external stimulants that are

1070
01:00:33,080 --> 01:00:37,560
Speaker 1: causing this, right pollution, Maybe ergat what about something internal?

1071
01:00:37,680 --> 01:00:43,479
Speaker 1: What if it's psychological? So let's look at what's termed

1072
01:00:43,520 --> 01:00:49,280
Speaker 1: as mass psychogenic or mass sociogenic illness. This term is

1073
01:00:49,440 --> 01:00:53,560
Speaker 1: used in epidemiology to refer to the rapid spread of

1074
01:00:53,760 --> 01:00:57,840
Speaker 1: illness signs and symptoms affecting members of a cohesive group

1075
01:00:58,320 --> 01:01:03,320
Speaker 1: originating from a nervous to disturbance involving excitation, loss, or

1076
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:08,160
Speaker 1: alteration of function, whereby physical complaints that are exhibited unconsciously

1077
01:01:08,600 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 1: have no corresponding organic set of causes. Now, this is

1078
01:01:13,360 --> 01:01:17,720
Speaker 1: thought to be related to conversion disorder, where symptoms like

1079
01:01:17,800 --> 01:01:22,880
Speaker 1: for instance, blindness, paralysis, and other neurological symptoms are caused

1080
01:01:22,960 --> 01:01:27,760
Speaker 1: by psychological conflicts, not physiological stimuli. So this could be

1081
01:01:27,880 --> 01:01:30,800
Speaker 1: used in the context of the actual credible threat that's

1082
01:01:30,840 --> 01:01:35,800
Speaker 1: provoking the anxiety. Is pennywise right. For instance, it goes

1083
01:01:35,840 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 1: along the lines that sometimes people get psychologically freaked out

1084
01:01:38,880 --> 01:01:41,680
Speaker 1: when they smell a noxious odor if they fear that

1085
01:01:41,800 --> 01:01:44,640
Speaker 1: they're going to be under some kind of chemical attack anyways.

1086
01:01:45,400 --> 01:01:49,400
Speaker 1: So what's interesting is that most physicians are less knowledgeable

1087
01:01:49,480 --> 01:01:52,280
Speaker 1: about this uh than they are in terms of like

1088
01:01:52,600 --> 01:01:56,640
Speaker 1: individual cases of hysteria. The actual like epidemic hysteria hasn't

1089
01:01:56,800 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 1: really become common knowledge in our medical fields yet. So

1090
01:02:01,680 --> 01:02:03,800
Speaker 1: this is despite over the fact that there are two

1091
01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:08,120
Speaker 1: hundred published accounts of mass responses to situations that involved

1092
01:02:08,520 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 1: either suspected poisonings or other events, and unfortunately the impact

1093
01:02:13,360 --> 01:02:17,480
Speaker 1: of such events is either under reported or underappreciated. So again,

1094
01:02:17,840 --> 01:02:20,680
Speaker 1: this could potentially explain what's going on in dairy why

1095
01:02:21,160 --> 01:02:26,440
Speaker 1: because it's difficult to recognize actual outbreaks of sociogenic illness

1096
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:29,680
Speaker 1: because they're so diverse in nature. In fact, if you

1097
01:02:29,760 --> 01:02:32,120
Speaker 1: take a historical overview and you look at all of them,

1098
01:02:32,480 --> 01:02:35,960
Speaker 1: it tells us that the features of mass sociogenic illnesses

1099
01:02:36,480 --> 01:02:41,800
Speaker 1: tend to mirror popular social and cultural preoccupations that are

1100
01:02:41,880 --> 01:02:46,200
Speaker 1: defined by distinct eras for instance, alien abduction as we've

1101
01:02:46,440 --> 01:02:49,560
Speaker 1: we've recently talked about on the show. Or they could

1102
01:02:49,600 --> 01:02:52,520
Speaker 1: also reflect our unique social beliefs about the nature of

1103
01:02:52,560 --> 01:02:56,240
Speaker 1: the world. So maybe this is why Pennywise takes the

1104
01:02:56,320 --> 01:02:58,840
Speaker 1: form of a Clown right now, in the original novel

1105
01:02:59,200 --> 01:03:02,360
Speaker 1: this is all uh taking place in the fifties, right,

1106
01:03:02,480 --> 01:03:04,440
Speaker 1: and then again in the eighties, and the new films

1107
01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:06,440
Speaker 1: taking place in the eighties. Both of those I think

1108
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:09,360
Speaker 1: fall pretty well within the era of the clown. Yeah

1109
01:03:09,360 --> 01:03:12,760
Speaker 1: I meanes was when I was watching Bozo the Clown

1110
01:03:12,920 --> 01:03:17,080
Speaker 1: on TV pretty regularly. Yeah me too. Now, mass psychogenic

1111
01:03:17,160 --> 01:03:21,240
Speaker 1: illnesses can actually be complex when stress gets built up

1112
01:03:21,480 --> 01:03:25,560
Speaker 1: and becomes chronic in an entire population. For instance, in

1113
01:03:25,840 --> 01:03:29,960
Speaker 1: regions where people live in constant fear of chemical weapons

1114
01:03:30,200 --> 01:03:34,800
Speaker 1: or maybe witchcraft, or you get these mass psychogenic events

1115
01:03:34,880 --> 01:03:37,640
Speaker 1: that can affect hundreds or even thousands of people at

1116
01:03:37,680 --> 01:03:40,360
Speaker 1: a time. And it can also be linked to physical

1117
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:45,040
Speaker 1: illnesses that are muscular ticks, twitching, and shaking. Here's a

1118
01:03:45,080 --> 01:03:49,720
Speaker 1: quick example. In eight hundred children in Jordan believed that

1119
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 1: they had suffered from some kind of side effect of

1120
01:03:52,520 --> 01:03:57,360
Speaker 1: a tetanus, diphtheria toxoid vaccine that was administered in their school.

1121
01:03:57,760 --> 01:03:59,560
Speaker 1: Hundred and twenty two of them were admitted to a

1122
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:02,440
Speaker 1: hospital at all, but the vast majority of these symptoms

1123
01:04:02,760 --> 01:04:06,400
Speaker 1: were actually psychological and not physical. So let's look at

1124
01:04:06,440 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: Pennywise as an example, perhaps the towns people of Dairy

1125
01:04:10,480 --> 01:04:14,840
Speaker 1: are experiencing a mass sociogenic illness and that they have

1126
01:04:15,040 --> 01:04:19,600
Speaker 1: lost the functional ability to care when harm is being

1127
01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 1: done to their children. Their mass nervous system, if you

1128
01:04:23,560 --> 01:04:26,800
Speaker 1: want to call it, that appears to somehow be inhibited,

1129
01:04:27,360 --> 01:04:31,320
Speaker 1: and no one else outside of Dairy even recognizes this, right, Like,

1130
01:04:31,440 --> 01:04:34,760
Speaker 1: there's gonna be towns around Dairy, But because these outbreaks

1131
01:04:34,840 --> 01:04:37,320
Speaker 1: are so difficult to pin down, they don't recognize that

1132
01:04:37,360 --> 01:04:41,320
Speaker 1: there's anything wrong going on. So what's the credible threat

1133
01:04:41,360 --> 01:04:44,800
Speaker 1: though that's provoking their anxiety into apathy? Is it pennywise

1134
01:04:45,000 --> 01:04:48,400
Speaker 1: or is it pennywise getting by on their response to

1135
01:04:48,560 --> 01:04:51,160
Speaker 1: something else that's distinct to that era. Maybe it's the

1136
01:04:51,240 --> 01:04:54,200
Speaker 1: high crime rate that you were talking about earlier because

1137
01:04:54,240 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 1: of lead poisoning or something else. Subsequently, this anxiety can't

1138
01:04:59,040 --> 01:05:02,440
Speaker 1: be managed clinically because of how difficult it is to

1139
01:05:02,560 --> 01:05:06,680
Speaker 1: just identify the stimulus that's introducing it so you can

1140
01:05:06,800 --> 01:05:09,880
Speaker 1: then reduce it. It could potentially come down to those

1141
01:05:10,120 --> 01:05:12,640
Speaker 1: violent events that occur every twenty seven years, like we

1142
01:05:12,720 --> 01:05:15,440
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. Right, you've got the black Spot burning down,

1143
01:05:15,520 --> 01:05:18,400
Speaker 1: the Bradley Gang rob robberies, the mass murders at the

1144
01:05:18,480 --> 01:05:21,200
Speaker 1: Dairy settlement when it was originally founded. All of these

1145
01:05:21,240 --> 01:05:25,400
Speaker 1: could have acted as triggering events that are causally related

1146
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:29,000
Speaker 1: to the maladay, invoking anxiety and stress in the population

1147
01:05:29,120 --> 01:05:33,960
Speaker 1: and causing a temporary emotional detachment. So if all of

1148
01:05:34,040 --> 01:05:37,120
Speaker 1: this is sociogenic in origin, there may be other symptoms

1149
01:05:37,160 --> 01:05:39,560
Speaker 1: as well. For instance, I wonder if the people in

1150
01:05:39,680 --> 01:05:44,360
Speaker 1: Dairy are experiencing nausea or dizziness, or headaches or weakness,

1151
01:05:44,400 --> 01:05:46,720
Speaker 1: because these all seem to go along with such events.

1152
01:05:46,800 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 1: We do see a lot of lethargic adults, that is true. Yeah,

1153
01:05:50,200 --> 01:05:54,200
Speaker 1: and there is a big pharmacy. Uh so. Yeah. I

1154
01:05:54,360 --> 01:05:58,520
Speaker 1: think the pennywise narrative actually works better in this nineteen

1155
01:05:58,600 --> 01:06:02,080
Speaker 1: eighties setting than it does in then eighteen fifties. Specifically

1156
01:06:02,200 --> 01:06:05,800
Speaker 1: because the child abuse kidnapping panic that was going on

1157
01:06:05,880 --> 01:06:08,600
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties it was super prevalent in that decade,

1158
01:06:08,840 --> 01:06:12,080
Speaker 1: So that would seem to be a predisposing factor that

1159
01:06:12,280 --> 01:06:17,160
Speaker 1: produces the sociogenic illness in the first place. Based on

1160
01:06:17,280 --> 01:06:20,680
Speaker 1: the historical shifts, you know, whether you've got these surges

1161
01:06:20,800 --> 01:06:23,400
Speaker 1: of violence going on every twenty seven years, and then

1162
01:06:23,880 --> 01:06:27,000
Speaker 1: you've got the fear and uncertainties that are preoccupying the

1163
01:06:27,080 --> 01:06:30,200
Speaker 1: citizens of Dairy to begin with, wouldn't it be crazy if,

1164
01:06:30,840 --> 01:06:33,240
Speaker 1: like everything that's happening in Castle Rock is just one

1165
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:37,640
Speaker 1: percent legit. Everything is happening in Jerusalem's a lot legit,

1166
01:06:38,200 --> 01:06:40,720
Speaker 1: and even like the you know, the little bald doctors,

1167
01:06:40,760 --> 01:06:45,320
Speaker 1: Crimson King, all of that real. But it just causes

1168
01:06:45,400 --> 01:06:49,680
Speaker 1: everyone in Deary to have this uh, this mass um

1169
01:06:50,480 --> 01:06:53,640
Speaker 1: hallucination of none of them. Yeah, nothing is actually going

1170
01:06:53,720 --> 01:06:57,480
Speaker 1: on in Dairy, whether whether we're talking about it or

1171
01:06:57,640 --> 01:07:00,200
Speaker 1: any of the other Stephen King novels that take place there.

1172
01:07:00,360 --> 01:07:02,240
Speaker 1: Oh no, I say, everything else is happening in dear

1173
01:07:02,760 --> 01:07:07,280
Speaker 1: is happening, but it's just causing. It's causing everyone to imagine, Pennywise,

1174
01:07:07,960 --> 01:07:10,520
Speaker 1: that's an interesting explanation, I won't I wonder what Uncle

1175
01:07:10,600 --> 01:07:13,200
Speaker 1: Stevie would say to that. Yeah, you know what it

1176
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:15,680
Speaker 1: does raise raise an interesting question, you know, because so

1177
01:07:15,800 --> 01:07:20,120
Speaker 1: much of our consideration of perceptions of the supernatural and um,

1178
01:07:20,520 --> 01:07:24,400
Speaker 1: you know, alternate century experiences. It's it's a situation where

1179
01:07:24,480 --> 01:07:29,280
Speaker 1: the fantastic becomes real due to real world stimuli. So

1180
01:07:29,720 --> 01:07:31,440
Speaker 1: if you have a world in which you have all

1181
01:07:31,440 --> 01:07:33,560
Speaker 1: of this real world stimuli that makes us see crazy

1182
01:07:33,640 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 1: things anyway and feel think crazy things anyway. If you

1183
01:07:36,680 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 1: had something that was actually supernatural and real, what would

1184
01:07:41,160 --> 01:07:45,680
Speaker 1: that do to the to the fraudulent cases? Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

1185
01:07:46,200 --> 01:07:49,400
Speaker 1: we have lots of examples. I'm not gonna drill through

1186
01:07:49,520 --> 01:07:52,800
Speaker 1: all of them here, but there's four or five examples

1187
01:07:52,840 --> 01:07:55,680
Speaker 1: in our notes here of cases that are very similar

1188
01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:59,160
Speaker 1: to this. You've got a cotton mill in Lancashire, England

1189
01:07:59,200 --> 01:08:03,280
Speaker 1: and seven where people were hysterical thinking that there was

1190
01:08:03,320 --> 01:08:07,840
Speaker 1: a disease that was contaminating cotton. In forty pupils at

1191
01:08:07,880 --> 01:08:11,160
Speaker 1: the Outwood Academy and Ripping, England had to be treated

1192
01:08:11,200 --> 01:08:16,040
Speaker 1: for dizzyness and nausea because they had a mass psychogenic illness.

1193
01:08:16,360 --> 01:08:19,639
Speaker 1: You had another instance in nineteen nine in Belgium, twenty

1194
01:08:19,680 --> 01:08:23,960
Speaker 1: six children from one school developed nausea, headache, fatigue, palpitations,

1195
01:08:24,040 --> 01:08:26,479
Speaker 1: all this stuff. They thought it was because of bottled

1196
01:08:26,520 --> 01:08:30,400
Speaker 1: Coca cola. It went so far Coca Cola themselves thought

1197
01:08:30,479 --> 01:08:33,240
Speaker 1: they might be responsible for the outbreak and they blamed

1198
01:08:33,240 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 1: it on bad carbon dioxide and possibly a fungicide that

1199
01:08:36,960 --> 01:08:39,960
Speaker 1: was applied to the transport palettes that the coke was on.

1200
01:08:40,280 --> 01:08:42,840
Speaker 1: Turned out all of it was psychological. And then my

1201
01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:45,080
Speaker 1: favorite example, and I wish maybe we should just do

1202
01:08:45,120 --> 01:08:46,559
Speaker 1: a whole episode on this because I have a ton

1203
01:08:46,640 --> 01:08:51,240
Speaker 1: of notes on this is the Pokemon panic example from seven.

1204
01:08:51,280 --> 01:08:53,640
Speaker 1: A lot of people remember this when there was that

1205
01:08:53,920 --> 01:08:57,400
Speaker 1: that phase where in Japan it was reported that like

1206
01:08:57,640 --> 01:09:01,920
Speaker 1: six hundred and eighteen child views were all experiencing these

1207
01:09:02,000 --> 01:09:06,599
Speaker 1: symptoms of nausea, shortness of breath, dizziness, headaches, etcetera. They

1208
01:09:06,640 --> 01:09:09,080
Speaker 1: thought there was like some kind of mass epileptic event

1209
01:09:09,200 --> 01:09:11,840
Speaker 1: going on because they were all watching Pokemon, and it

1210
01:09:11,920 --> 01:09:15,880
Speaker 1: turned out again they're pretty sure this was all psychological. Yeah,

1211
01:09:16,360 --> 01:09:19,360
Speaker 1: you know that. Two of my favorite examples are our

1212
01:09:19,439 --> 01:09:23,200
Speaker 1: spring Hill Jack from nineteenth century London and the Mad

1213
01:09:23,320 --> 01:09:28,840
Speaker 1: Gasser of Mattun of Mattoon, Illinois, Int. Five and in

1214
01:09:29,080 --> 01:09:31,200
Speaker 1: in that case, it was the idea that there was

1215
01:09:31,439 --> 01:09:36,160
Speaker 1: a mysterious stranger going around gassing people with a gas gun.

1216
01:09:36,479 --> 01:09:39,760
Speaker 1: What if every town has a Pennywise in it, but

1217
01:09:39,880 --> 01:09:43,520
Speaker 1: you have to suffer a mass psychogenic event for Pennywise

1218
01:09:43,600 --> 01:09:46,400
Speaker 1: to be able to basically run around and do what

1219
01:09:46,560 --> 01:09:48,680
Speaker 1: it does. And so you've got the mad Gasser in

1220
01:09:48,720 --> 01:09:51,080
Speaker 1: this one town. You've got a clown in another town.

1221
01:09:51,680 --> 01:09:54,960
Speaker 1: You've got spring Hill Jack in another town. We just

1222
01:09:55,200 --> 01:09:57,479
Speaker 1: really need to keep it together. It's a franchise, and

1223
01:09:58,040 --> 01:10:00,840
Speaker 1: mostly most small towns out there have at least one

1224
01:10:00,920 --> 01:10:05,559
Speaker 1: statue of a clown at their local McDonald's restaurants. Okay, well,

1225
01:10:06,080 --> 01:10:09,640
Speaker 1: I think we've done a pretty exhaustive look at what

1226
01:10:09,880 --> 01:10:12,320
Speaker 1: could be going on, not just with penny Wise, but

1227
01:10:12,439 --> 01:10:15,080
Speaker 1: with the citizens of Dairy who just seemed to be

1228
01:10:15,280 --> 01:10:19,960
Speaker 1: strangely unaware of what's going on with their children getting

1229
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:24,120
Speaker 1: eaten by a clown. Yeah. So, hey, if you have

1230
01:10:24,720 --> 01:10:27,640
Speaker 1: thoughts you'd like to share about the book, the miniseries,

1231
01:10:27,760 --> 01:10:31,240
Speaker 1: the motion picture, and of course our analysis here today,

1232
01:10:31,560 --> 01:10:33,240
Speaker 1: you can get in touch with us a number of

1233
01:10:33,320 --> 01:10:35,640
Speaker 1: different ways. First of all, hit us up on the

1234
01:10:35,840 --> 01:10:39,160
Speaker 1: social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, Instagram, and on

1235
01:10:39,240 --> 01:10:42,080
Speaker 1: Facebook we have that wonderful discussion module. Uh. It's a

1236
01:10:42,160 --> 01:10:46,040
Speaker 1: group that you can, you know, apply to join. Basically,

1237
01:10:46,040 --> 01:10:47,600
Speaker 1: you just have to know what the show is to

1238
01:10:47,640 --> 01:10:49,760
Speaker 1: get admitted and then you can have discussions with us,

1239
01:10:49,800 --> 01:10:52,800
Speaker 1: but also with other insightful fans of the show. And Hey,

1240
01:10:52,880 --> 01:10:54,800
Speaker 1: if you want to check out all of these other

1241
01:10:54,960 --> 01:10:58,280
Speaker 1: instances of monster science or monster of the Week type

1242
01:10:58,320 --> 01:11:01,240
Speaker 1: related programming that we've on You can find all of

1243
01:11:01,320 --> 01:11:03,800
Speaker 1: that on stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. We've

1244
01:11:03,840 --> 01:11:08,519
Speaker 1: got lots of it. That's where Robert's Colorophobia clown videos

1245
01:11:08,560 --> 01:11:11,559
Speaker 1: and blog post lives. That's where all of our previous

1246
01:11:11,680 --> 01:11:15,760
Speaker 1: monster science videos live. Although it's October people, we're going

1247
01:11:15,880 --> 01:11:18,240
Speaker 1: to be placing all of that stuff on our social

1248
01:11:18,320 --> 01:11:21,479
Speaker 1: media channels. Get ready for some monster science and if

1249
01:11:21,479 --> 01:11:22,639
Speaker 1: you want to get in touch with us the old

1250
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:24,920
Speaker 1: fashioned way, just shoot us an email. I Blow the

1251
01:11:25,000 --> 01:11:37,200
Speaker 1: Mind and how stuff Works dot com for more on

1252
01:11:37,280 --> 01:11:39,759
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics because it how stuff

1253
01:11:39,760 --> 01:12:00,280
Speaker 1: Works dot com. F