WEBVTT - From the Vault: Anthology of Horror, Volume 7 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:08.559 Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.120 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And it's Saturday. 0:00:12.200 --> 0:00:14.560 Time to go into the vault for a classic episode 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.800 of the show. Uh, this one originally aired? Did this 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:21.120 one make it in after the October cut off last year? 0:00:21.200 --> 0:00:24.759 Was this beginning of November? That's what That's what I'm reading. Yes, yes, 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:27.520 but we would have I guess recorded it maybe on 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:31.040 Halloween or maybe before Halloween, so it all works out. 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.120 The first week of November is still Halloween. In fact, 0:00:34.159 --> 0:00:36.519 the second week of November is still Halloween, and I 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:39.240 would say maybe the third and fourth and and sometime 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:44.599 beyond that. Yes, this originally aired on November two. This 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.840 is our Anthology of Horror series, Volume seven. We hope 0:00:48.880 --> 0:00:55.080 you enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production 0:00:55.080 --> 0:01:04.280 of My Heart Radio. Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.000 Your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:10.720 And it won't be the first time that Halloween themed 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.440 content is spilling over into November. That We've got a 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:17.039 really good excuse this time, which is uh, and I 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:20.280 didn't know this before before before we started recording Today, 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:24.360 our producer Seth was telling us that apparently quite a 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:27.640 few Simpson's Treehouse of Horror episodes have had to air 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.880 after Halloween because they've been preempted by baseball or something. Yeah. 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:34.240 I mean, and of course, you know, we can always 0:01:34.600 --> 0:01:37.520 drive on the fact that not all scary movies come 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.920 out during the month of October. Many come out throughout 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:43.280 the rest of the year, and ultimately, on this show, 0:01:43.319 --> 0:01:47.640 it's you know, it's kind of Halloween year round. Um. Though, 0:01:47.680 --> 0:01:51.280 I guess the tragedy is that sometimes we put off content. 0:01:51.520 --> 0:01:53.480 We're like, oh, this will be perfect for Halloween, let's 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.040 save this for October, and then we make it through 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.040 October and we're like, ah, didn't actually fit that one 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:02.640 in this year. Maybe this will happen next October. But hey, 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.240 we're keeping another tradition alive right now because this is 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:09.200 going to be the Is this the seventh anthology episode 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:11.720 we've done for October? I think it is. I think 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:14.080 this is number seven. Um, that doesn't mean we've been 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.919 doing it seven years, because some years we've put out 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.280 more than one volume. But basically, the idea here is 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.200 these kind of spinoff of some old creepy post episodes 0:02:24.240 --> 0:02:27.200 that we did back in the day where we look 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:31.640 to the world of horror anthology films and especially TV shows, 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:35.240 we pick something out of the basket and we we 0:02:35.360 --> 0:02:37.840 sort of use it as an excuse to talk about 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:43.760 something something you know, science, e or um, you know, cultural, basically, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.480 some sort of sort of topic that that in many 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:48.959 cases might not make for a full episode of stuff 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.600 to blew your mind on its own, but the horror 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:55.280 anthology episode gives us an excuse to talk about it, 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:58.239 and vice versa, the topic gives us an excuse to 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:01.320 talk about that particular episode. This is especially valuable back 0:03:01.360 --> 0:03:04.320 in the days before Weird House Cinema, when we did 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:08.320 not have a weekly outlet for for any obsessions with 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:12.000 macab viewings. So I guess with Weird House, we're always 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:15.480 talking about movies and uh and and I know specifically, 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:18.160 what you've got in your heart with these anthology episodes 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:23.519 is like the nineties Outer Limits Revival. Yes, yeah, I 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.639 look forward to talking about about one of those. I've 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:31.680 really been enjoying watching those throughout the pandemic. Um My 0:03:31.680 --> 0:03:35.440 wife and I have been watching these pretty much every week, 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:40.360 remotely with a couple of friends of ours. Actually, uh, 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:43.480 they host a podcast by the name of Talking Tofu, 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:47.320 So if you want a like a vegan themed funny podcast, 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:49.400 I recommend that. I don't know if they're gonna talk 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.880 about Outer Limits at all in there. Maybe they're leaving 0:03:51.920 --> 0:03:54.560 that all for me. But at any rate, I've really enjoyed, 0:03:55.040 --> 0:03:58.920 um exploring and re exploring the nineties Outer Limits episodes 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.520 because there's there's some real garbage in there, um, but 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:05.960 there are some great episodes and and also just about 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:10.560 anybody who was doing TV during the nineties seems to 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.800 show up at one point or another, as well as 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:16.200 a wide variety of Canadian actors. So I to think 0:04:16.240 --> 0:04:18.320 long and hard about which episode to pick here and 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:21.080 ended up going with one from the second season. This 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.279 is the sixteenth episode of season two, came out in 0:04:25.640 --> 0:04:29.080 and it's titled The d Programmers Now Rob. I ended 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:31.080 up having to jump through a lot of digital hoops 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:33.080 to watch this one, but I'm so glad I did. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:37.120 This is a phenomenal pick. Yeah, these these episodes were 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.320 I think there is of this recording. They're in kind 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:42.520 of a streaming limbo where you can fortunately still purchase 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.360 them digitally, which is not the case for some anthology 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:48.400 shows like I think Tales from the Crypt is still 0:04:48.640 --> 0:04:51.039 exceedingly hard to get ahold of digitally right now because 0:04:51.040 --> 0:04:55.200 of some rights issues. UM. Outer Limits, Yeah, if you're gonna, 0:04:55.279 --> 0:04:57.760 if you're gonna just straight up stream them without purchasing them, 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:01.040 sometimes you have to. You have to find unique ways 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:02.960 of viewing them. But if you look around, you can 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:05.160 find them, and I believe you can digitally purchase these 0:05:05.200 --> 0:05:08.680 episodes still. Uh So The Deep Programmers is out there 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.720 for anyone who who wishes to view it, all right, 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.120 give me the scoop on the Deep Programmers, all right. 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:15.960 So I'm just I'm not gonna give it the full 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.040 weird House treatment obviously, but just to go through the 0:05:18.040 --> 0:05:21.479 people involved. Um. It was directed by Joseph L. Scanlon, 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:26.479 who lived through longtime TV genre director who worked on 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.760 such shows as as Outer Limits. He did seven episodes 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:32.000 of that, He did four episodes of Star Trek The 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:34.960 Next Generation, He did an episode of Quantum Leap, and 0:05:35.080 --> 0:05:38.440 seven episodes of Land of the Lost, among many other things. 0:05:39.040 --> 0:05:42.680 The writer on this was James Crocker, TV writer who 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:45.680 wrote multiple episodes of The Outer Limits as well as 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:50.640 the early two thousand's Twilight Zone revival, which, um, I'm 0:05:50.720 --> 0:05:54.280 not sure I remember that one. He also did some 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.880 Star Trek Deep Space nine as well as the nineteen 0:05:56.920 --> 0:06:01.159 eighties Twilight Zone Revival and more. But speaking of Trek, 0:06:01.640 --> 0:06:06.920 the most notable casting in this episode is Brent Spiner. Um. Yes, 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:13.080 Data himself plays this uh, this reprogrammer that that's introduced 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:15.320 as being kind of like this this um part of 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.200 the like the human Resistance movement. He's there to deprogram 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:22.480 people who have been brainwashed by the the enemy alien overlords. 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:25.760 And he's a real pleasure in this because you know, 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:27.960 if everybody loves Data. He was great on on Star 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.520 Trek Next Generation and then the you know, the related movies. Um. 0:06:31.720 --> 0:06:35.200 Some people may know him from Independence Day uh. Seven 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:38.520 episodes of Night Chord Uh. He pops up in Shocker 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:42.080 and The Aviator, few episodes of Blunt Talk, various other things. 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:43.599 A lot of work, but this is one of the 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.080 few play if not the only place I can remember 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.320 seeing mean Brent Spiner. Like, he's he's he's he's rough 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.200 and tumble. He's a bad cop in this, yeah he is. Uh. 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.240 I actually having never seen tons of Star Trek. The 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.680 next generation. I remember I a few years back. I 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.360 was like, Okay, everybody my age has watched a bunch 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.400 of TNNG, I should like watch, you know, go through it. 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.240 And I started in the first season, and oh it was. 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.000 It was rough going. I am to understand it gets 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.560 better as it goes on, but but I didn't make 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:16.360 it all that far though. Of course, you know, he 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.880 is there in the first season as data. So when 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:21.640 I think of Brent Spiner, I think of Dr oakein 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.280 an Independence Day. Who you know is a who is 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.480 really one of the biggest rays of sunshine in that movie. 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.760 He plays a uh, I don't even know how. He 0:07:32.080 --> 0:07:36.360 plays a sort of h emotionally stunted, sort of childlike 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:39.760 scientist who has apparently been in a bunker for forty 0:07:39.840 --> 0:07:43.840 years or something. Yeah, yeah, he's um a goofy man 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:46.160 scientists kind of a character. But wait, who is he 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:48.360 in Shocker? I've seen Shocker a number of times and 0:07:48.360 --> 0:07:51.520 I don't remember him at all. It's listed on his filmography. 0:07:51.600 --> 0:07:54.440 I've never seen Shocker. I've only heard heard you gush 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:58.600 about it. You heard me gush huh, yeah, I thought 0:07:58.720 --> 0:08:01.160 you liked it, right, you have nice things to say 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:04.200 about it. I mean, Shocker is very bad, but it's 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:07.640 a it's an entertaining bad. It's it's ridiculous. All right. Well, 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.040 we'll speaking of actors in this. Uh, just a couple 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.360 of others of note here. Um. Eric Anderson plays Evan 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.240 Robert Cooper. Uh. This is a TV and film actor 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.200 who played Rob in Friday the Thirteenth. The final chapter 0:08:20.560 --> 0:08:22.120 is that one of the good Ones is that one 0:08:22.120 --> 0:08:24.680 of the are there good ones? That's the that's the 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.760 last one in which Jason is a human before he's 0:08:27.800 --> 0:08:31.080 an undead revenant. So it goes one through four he's 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.680 a human, and then in the fifth one it's a 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.440 copycat killer, and then in the sixth one that's when 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.439 he's a revenant. This is the last one before he 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:43.400 gets his head cut in half by Corey Feldman. Okay, 0:08:43.960 --> 0:08:46.840 but Rob, the character in this is a sort of 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:50.520 he's a sort of dashing hero who shows up. You know, 0:08:50.640 --> 0:08:52.360 you think he's going to save the day, but I 0:08:52.360 --> 0:08:57.600 think ultimately Jason just kills him in a basement. Alright. Well, 0:08:57.640 --> 0:09:00.800 the basic pitch the plot for this episode of the 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:03.280 Outer Outer Limits. Uh. And in the one of the 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.200 should drive on one of the great things about these 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:09.280 nineties episodes of the Outer Limits is that generally they're 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:12.559 they're very earnest, they really want to say something important 0:09:12.600 --> 0:09:17.439 about the human condition, and that serious tone is often 0:09:17.440 --> 0:09:20.560 what makes them so delightful, because sometimes there are wonderful 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.320 sci fi ideas explored in them, sometimes not so much. 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.520 Sometimes the attempt is there, but maybe not the delivery. 0:09:28.040 --> 0:09:32.080 But it also makes the things that don't work that 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:33.800 make you know, some of the maybe some of the 0:09:33.800 --> 0:09:36.800 performances they're not that crisp uh, it makes them all 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.480 the more hilarious because they're definitely not aiming for comedy. 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:42.480 There maybe one or two I think that that do 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:45.199 kind of aim for something more whimsical and fun, and 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.080 I think some of those are the ones that really 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:49.480 don't hold up. But for the most part, it's Uh, 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.080 it's the seriousness that makes it work. Like if it 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:54.680 was more self conscious, that would actually kind of cheapen 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.560 it and make it not as fun. Yeah. So in 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:00.640 this one, it takes place on a future Earth. Earth 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:05.559 we find out is ruled by alien overlords called the Torqure. Uh. 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:11.240 They're kind of these repellent, reptilian humanoid titans who seem 0:10:11.320 --> 0:10:14.440 to live solitary lives, like they is if they evolve 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.880 from some sort of a solitary predatory species instead of 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:22.520 something that had some sort of communal system. Yeah, they're 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.360 like eight foot tall alligator men. So they've got these 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:29.400 reptilian outsides, and they they're very haughty, and they just 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:33.000 like to sort of lord around their their bathtub and 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.040 yell at their their human servants and say, oh, why 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.120 aren't you bringing me my oil faster. Yeah, they're kind 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:43.040 of like giant reptile Mr. Burns's, you know, they're they're 0:10:43.080 --> 0:10:45.960 that level of of awful um. And I guess there's 0:10:46.000 --> 0:10:49.920 probably more than a dash of um Battlefield Earth to 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:54.160 this as well. Yes, because of course that involved uh, 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.920 super tall alien overlords who you know, have a like 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:01.679 a brutal rule imposed over Earth. I made that exact note. 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:04.600 I mean this to be clear. This episode is much 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.080 better than Battlefield Earth. But I got some of those 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:10.360 notes when I was just reminded of John Travolta in 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.800 the movie yelling I told you to get some man 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:17.920 animals in here to fix this. Yeah, they look great 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.320 in this. By the way, that the Torquor when we 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:23.320 first encounter them we don't see their faces, we just 0:11:23.360 --> 0:11:26.400 see their arms. So there's kind of a sense of 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.440 the one sler in the lorax uh to it. And 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:31.120 then later we get to see them more or less 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.080 in full and uh. Like like most of these episodes 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:36.600 of The Outer Limits, whenever there is a creature effect, 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.360 it's practical and very well executed. So anyway, yes, we 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:44.600 have torquor overlords ruling over everything. Helping them are these 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:48.840 mentally reconditioned human slaves that are called Joe them. So 0:11:48.880 --> 0:11:50.800 the idea, at least at the beginning of the episode 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:52.960 is that all of the humans left on Earth after 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:56.760 it's been conquered by these aliens are brainwashed into being 0:11:56.880 --> 0:12:01.160 subservient to their their new alien masters. Right, And so 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:04.160 we meet up with our our Joe Lem characters, our 0:12:04.200 --> 0:12:07.559 main jo Lem character Evan here, and he's working for 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:11.480 a tor Core overlord named col Tak. And there's this 0:12:11.520 --> 0:12:14.840 scene where they're preparing him his slime bath. They're preparing 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:19.000 him his saragon oil. Uh. The other Joe Lom drops 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:23.400 the saragon oil and breaks it and so uh this 0:12:23.480 --> 0:12:26.439 so coal Tag is brutally murders him. There's a lot 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:29.720 of coal Tak complaining that the oil is not arriving 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:32.480 fast enough, so he's in his slime bath. Bring it 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.480 to me the oil. I need the oil. You Jolum 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.240 are always so slow. Yeah, there's a there's a very 0:12:39.240 --> 0:12:43.360 strong Kangan kodos vibe to their their voices in this. Yes, 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:46.040 the Kangan Kodos thing was also very strong, and I 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:50.320 wonder what is the timing on that Kangan kotos. So 0:12:50.760 --> 0:12:54.200 they came out before ninety right, yeah they did? Yeah, yeah, 0:12:54.240 --> 0:12:56.520 so they must predate this though then again, I mean 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.240 this is I think the same year as Citizen Kang, 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.640 which is may be the closest analogue. Yeah, my my 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:05.320 bed is they're both essentially inspired by some of the 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:09.240 same sci fi precursors, except, of course, the Simpsons took 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:13.760 it in a intentionally comedic direction and The Outer Limits 0:13:14.000 --> 0:13:16.640 took it in a serious direction, not realizing how comedic 0:13:17.320 --> 0:13:20.920 it comes off. But it's really amusing in this episode. Yeah, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:25.320 it is uncanny how much kol Tax sounds like Kang. Now. Um. 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.480 The next big phase in this is that we find 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.920 out well Evan Uh first of all, is spared. He's 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:34.480 not going to die uh and his luck would have it. 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.360 He's about to go off to rejuvenation training because a 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:40.480 good Joe Loman is worth keeping around for a very 0:13:40.520 --> 0:13:44.520 long time via life extending a lien technology. So he 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:49.319 boards a bus to the Bliss Renewal Center. UM. Which 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:51.880 reminded when I saw this one for this time, it 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:57.280 just instantly made me think of Simpsons and ren education. Um. 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:01.880 Sit back and let the hooks do the work exactly. UM. 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:04.760 But on the way he is kidnapped by the Human 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:09.960 Resistance Movement and they attempt to deprogram him to remove 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.319 all of this uh, this this alien brainwashing that has 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:16.360 turned him into a servant and make him part of 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.960 the resistance movement to take back Earth. And this is 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.560 where we meet Brent Spiner's character, Resistance D programmer Professor 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.800 Trent Davis, who is all about stopping a mud hole 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:27.920 in a Joe Lom if it busts up that that 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:30.880 old Joe Loam conditioning. Yeah, and I guess this is 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:35.080 playing up on the idea of an aggressive practice of 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:39.400 D programming. UM. Trying to to say, okay, this guy 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:43.680 Evan here, the main character has been has been conditioned, 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:48.200 or you might say brainwashed by by this alien programming 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.160 that to to sort of like make him fear having 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.960 a will of his own, and you and Brent Spiner's ideas, 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:56.880 you've got to really like make him snap out of 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:00.000 it with a bunch of kind of brutal and even 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:03.920 violent tactics, yelling in his face, burning him, cutting him, 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.160 that kind of thing. Now, the twist here, and so 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.040 you know, standard warning if you don't want this spoiled, 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:11.560 if you want to go out and see this for yourself, 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.120 pause right now and then come back later. But the 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:18.200 twist is that they put him through this deep programming system. 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:20.800 It seems to work. He's part of the resistance. Now 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:24.720 he helps them in an attempt to assassinate um, his 0:15:24.880 --> 0:15:28.680 former overlord. And then what do we find out at 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.200 the end. We find out, Oh, Brince Spiner was a 0:15:32.280 --> 0:15:35.600 Joe Loom all along himself. He was. He was not 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:38.120 part of the human resistance. He was just part of 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.880 a rival torque course plot to take out one of 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:46.000 his his his his rival alien overlords. Right, So what 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:49.640 you thought was a was a human rebellion against these 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:55.280 alien invaders was in fact an intra alien political struggle. Yes, 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:58.640 which is a nice twist and one of the interesting 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.920 things about these Outer Limits episod is they usually have 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.080 a twist, so if you watch enough of them, you 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:05.000 end up spending half the time just trying to guess 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:07.440 what the twist is going to be. Uh did you 0:16:07.480 --> 0:16:10.920 guess this one, Joe? Well, I did sort of see 0:16:10.960 --> 0:16:13.600 the twist coming, but only because I knew there was 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:15.760 gonna be a twist. If I had not known there 0:16:15.800 --> 0:16:17.360 was going to be a twist, I might not have. 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:20.240 There may be episodes where the twist is there's no twist, 0:16:20.320 --> 0:16:22.160 but I can't think of what it would be off. 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.600 And there are some episodes where the twist occurs super 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.400 early and then it's all about sort of the the 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:31.680 ramifications of that twist. But there's a twist in there somewhere. 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.840 They're they're kind of a happy like San Junipero of 0:16:34.960 --> 0:16:39.800 the of the Outer Limits. Um, there might be Ah, 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.160 I'm trying to think and nothing's coming to mind. Um. 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:48.160 The real twist is this is so sweet most of 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:50.320 the time, you know, because you have the cool narration 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:52.560 that comes on at the end where the narrator kind 0:16:52.560 --> 0:16:54.480 of drives it home for you. And usually it's something 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:58.320 like when the humans expand into the stars, they'll deal 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:01.960 with their greatest enemy themselves. You know, it's always something 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:04.400 like that, you know, Yeah, this one has some kind 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.440 of pretentious phrases about free will. It was like, at 0:17:07.480 --> 0:17:10.640 what point does a humans free will cease to exist? 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:14.400 And at that point would we still be human? Questions 0:17:14.440 --> 0:17:17.560 that are are not really exploring in this episode. It's 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:28.000 questions than the episode we're discussing here. Naturally, this all 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.320 takes place within the context of an extreme sci fi scenario. 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.520 Humans are conditioned to be joe Lems, presumably from a 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.720 very young age, and then this conditioning is continually enforced 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:40.840 across a lifespan that they might prove quite long due 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:45.000 to these rejuvenation treatments. And there certainly is a human 0:17:45.040 --> 0:17:48.359 component to the culture that forces this worldview on them. 0:17:48.400 --> 0:17:50.320 But at the helm of all of this are these 0:17:50.359 --> 0:17:54.560 alien masters. Well one thing, though, you mentioned being conditioned 0:17:54.600 --> 0:17:57.480 since childhood. In this case, they say that the alien 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:01.440 invasion was only about two years ago. Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah, 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:05.440 so uh so, really these guys haven't been I guess 0:18:05.480 --> 0:18:08.320 that's the long view is that is that they're going 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:11.840 to keep him around for a while. But Evan has 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.199 couldn't have been a Jolem for that long. Uh. But 0:18:15.359 --> 0:18:17.879 still the idea is that he's he's largely forgotten his 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.480 previous life. He's forgotten what it was to be a 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.840 free human, and now all he thinks is the joelem way. 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:28.920 So um. Again, this episode is called the d Programmers. 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:34.000 And when the term d programming has been used before 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.399 in the context of real world ideologies, were generally talking 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.840 about a scenario of an alleged cult or some other 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.840 group with an ideology that's deemed harmful. And I was 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:47.720 looking into this a bit. Uh. The the idea emerged 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:50.959 pretty much during the nineties seventies as a part of 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:56.160 the counter cult movement. Now, before we did that, force 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:58.520 us to back up another step, because, of course, the 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:02.280 first big question would be constitutes the cult um. You'll 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.359 typically encounter a list of criteria that includes stuff like 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.520 separation from one's pre existing support group, devotion to a 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.280 single domineering figure. I read one list that focused on 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:16.840 charismatic leaders, transcendent belief systems, systems of control, and systems 0:19:16.880 --> 0:19:20.640 of influence. But obviously there's a great deal of ambiguity 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:24.320 in in some of these um definitions. And while we 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:28.880 can all point to specific, especially historic examples of destructive 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:31.679 cults and say, yes, well that's a cult. You can 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:36.720 also throw this word at various religious and political ideologies. Um. Now, 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.240 certainly harmful and abusive cults. It do exist centered around 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:44.959 harmful ideologies, harmful systems, and or harmful individuals. Uh. So 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:47.639 that the question isn't whether so groups exists, but to 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:52.440 what degree other groups are lumped in with them? Uh, etcetera. Now, 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:55.520 another key to understanding this idea of DP programming is 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:59.360 the notion of brainwashing. H. This is a term coined 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:03.040 by journal list and propagandist Edward Hunter, who lived nineteen 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.600 or two through ninety eight, who wrote Brainwashing in Red 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:10.679 China The Calculated Destruction of Men's Minds, a nineteen fifty 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.240 two anti communism book based on a nineteen fifty article 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.600 that he wrote. And Uh, this was apparently an outlandish 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:22.360 idea even at the time. Contemporary psychologist and had it 0:20:22.400 --> 0:20:25.920 took issue with it. Later commentators would criticize it. Um, 0:20:26.000 --> 0:20:28.360 but it struck a nerve. It made its way into 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.760 mainstream fiction even uh and uh when we see that 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.439 in films like The Manchurian Candidate and various works of 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:38.560 visual or written media, and it also made its way 0:20:38.600 --> 0:20:42.200 into political discourse. I think you can possibly see this, 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.840 this type of ideas being associated with behaviorist trends in 0:20:45.920 --> 0:20:50.040 psychology that maybe later psychologists would look back on and 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:53.760 say that they may have sort of over emphasized the 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:57.520 role of like mechanistic conditioning and how much it could 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:02.480 do in shaping a person's cognitive and behavior role tendencies. Yeah. Absolutely, 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.520 I mean you take you take some understanding of behavioralism, 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.800 throw in a few more pop psychologists, a hefty dose 0:21:08.840 --> 0:21:11.480 of red scare, and you have you have a firm 0:21:11.520 --> 0:21:16.159 bedrock upon which to build this idea of of of brainwashing. 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:19.359 Uh and and even you have like, for instance, the 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.119 CIA's mk Ultra program gets in on it and tries 0:21:22.160 --> 0:21:26.160 to uh to weaponize the idea of mind control, thinking 0:21:26.200 --> 0:21:29.920 that the enemy may have developed techniques that do this. 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.359 And ultimately, of course, the mk Ultra revolve around seeking 0:21:33.359 --> 0:21:37.080 answers and methods. Um from from print, for instance, the 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:40.679 World of Psychedelics, thinking, well, psychedelics seem to have this 0:21:40.720 --> 0:21:42.720 effect on the way people view the world. Maybe we 0:21:42.760 --> 0:21:46.000 could use that to break down the human mind and 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.720 then build something up in its place. Yeah, and I 0:21:48.760 --> 0:21:52.320 think the question is, like, what level of mechanistic control 0:21:52.440 --> 0:21:56.800 can you ultimately have over somebody else's behavior? Can you? 0:21:56.840 --> 0:21:59.560 Can you essentially just sort of like format the hard 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:04.480 drive of somebody's brain and completely rewrite their their personality, 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:08.360 their behaviors, and program them like a robot or much 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:10.880 more likely, you know, is sort of the reality that 0:22:11.240 --> 0:22:13.359 in the kind of mundane way that we would all 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:17.280 observe throughout our lives. Yeah, humans can have strong influences 0:22:17.320 --> 0:22:19.920 on each other, especially if there's if there's a lot 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:22.720 of them, and they form a kind of, uh a 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:26.240 reinforced social network. But humans don't have lines of code 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:28.320 in their brain, and you can't like just format the 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:33.239 hard drive and rewrite their operating system exactly. Uh. An 0:22:33.240 --> 0:22:35.720 excellent source on this that I recommend um as a 0:22:35.760 --> 0:22:39.439 Slate article written by Lorraine Bosonal titled The True Story 0:22:39.440 --> 0:22:42.800 of Brainwashing and How It Shaped America. Um It's great 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:46.280 reading gets into all this in detail, but essentially they 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.800 write that the brainwashing and mind control, both of these 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.800 were essentially a boogeyman based on fear of communism, fear 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:57.520 of Eastern culture, and the fear that Russia, China and Ultimately, 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:00.800 Korea had something that we didn't have. They had some 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:05.040 tool for breaking down people's will and uh and changing 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.240 their mindset. But as it turned out, the author describes, 0:23:08.320 --> 0:23:12.200 brainwashing was not real. Torture and trauma very much were. 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:17.640 And for instance, the POWs that were observed, Uh, there 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:19.920 was this fear that that, oh, well, those the p 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:22.359 owes during the Korean War, that they had undergone some 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:25.119 sort of brainwashing, that there, you know, their their minds 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:28.440 had been changed, when in reality they were they were 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:33.600 just really traumatized individuals subjected to torturous conditions. Uh. So 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:37.840 there were no brainwashed sleeper agents. There were just traumatized humans. 0:23:38.359 --> 0:23:42.800 But she she quotes Timothy uh Melly, professor of English 0:23:42.840 --> 0:23:45.199 at Miami University at the time of the writing. At 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:48.960 any rate, uh and uh, this individual says, quote, the 0:23:49.000 --> 0:23:52.399 basic problem that brainwashing is designed to address is the 0:23:52.480 --> 0:23:56.480 question why would anyone become a communist? And I feel 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:59.240 like that kind of summarizes a lot of this, uh 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:01.600 right there. Yeah, And I guess you could apply that 0:24:01.640 --> 0:24:04.840 actually to any kind of ideological or life change that 0:24:04.920 --> 0:24:07.320 you don't understand. I mean, you can ask the same question, 0:24:07.440 --> 0:24:10.159 like why would somebody join what you might think of 0:24:10.200 --> 0:24:12.359 as a cult or why would somebody do X? Or 0:24:12.359 --> 0:24:14.919 why something that doesn't at all seem appealing to you 0:24:14.960 --> 0:24:18.080 and you can't understand why somebody would do it, you 0:24:18.119 --> 0:24:20.080 may at that point have to assume that it's like 0:24:20.160 --> 0:24:23.080 it's like the computer of somebody's brain has been hacked 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:26.560 and there there's malware in it, when in fact, a 0:24:26.560 --> 0:24:30.400 more useful model might be to uh uh think more 0:24:30.440 --> 0:24:33.440 outside the box in terms of what human incentives are. 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:35.919 I mean, I I personally think that a lot of 0:24:35.960 --> 0:24:39.159 times we can just have a failure of imagination in 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:44.760 fathoming people's say, desire for certain kinds of social interactions 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:47.639 and how much like a is something that even is 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:51.400 a like truly harmful cult or ideology could fulfill these 0:24:51.440 --> 0:24:55.040 needs for people if they're not getting them elsewhere exactly. Yeah, 0:24:55.800 --> 0:25:00.560 And so looking back to the early nineteen seventies, here, uh, 0:25:00.720 --> 0:25:05.840 at heart, you just had controversial, ideologically driven groups uh 0:25:05.880 --> 0:25:08.679 that were often attractive to young people. And this was 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:12.080 not an exclusive reality of the nineteen seventies, obviously, but 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:15.080 this was a pronounced period of concern over it. The 0:25:15.119 --> 0:25:18.919 mid twentieth century United States provides more than enough, not 0:25:18.960 --> 0:25:22.560 only cult Panic, but also Red Panic, Satanic Panic, and 0:25:22.640 --> 0:25:25.800 much more. We got Panics of plenty. Oh yeah, yeah, 0:25:25.840 --> 0:25:28.560 we have an endless, endless supply of them. And again 0:25:28.720 --> 0:25:30.679 not to say that some of these groups were not, 0:25:31.560 --> 0:25:33.640 you know, ultimately harmful, but many of them were not. 0:25:34.040 --> 0:25:37.880 Many of them were just different ideologies that seemed scary 0:25:38.000 --> 0:25:42.399 to certain parts of of the public. I was reading 0:25:42.440 --> 0:25:45.439 a source on this titled Exit Counseling and the Decline 0:25:45.440 --> 0:25:49.320 of d Programming UM. This was by sociologist Stephen A. 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:52.240 Kent and um in A counselor by the name of 0:25:52.320 --> 0:25:56.520 Joseph p uh Simhart was published in two thousand two 0:25:56.560 --> 0:25:59.560 in Cultic Studies Review, And they were talking about just 0:25:59.600 --> 0:26:02.960 how this deep programming approach work. The the idea that, Okay, 0:26:02.960 --> 0:26:05.280 someone has been exposed to uh to ac cult, they've 0:26:05.320 --> 0:26:06.919 joined a cult, and now we want to get them 0:26:06.960 --> 0:26:08.840 out of it. What can we do? How do we 0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:14.320 how do we reverse mindwashing? Well, we have to deprogram them. Um. So, 0:26:14.320 --> 0:26:16.360 So the first of all, just the the the obvious 0:26:16.400 --> 0:26:19.520 thing here is that that we know that that that 0:26:19.680 --> 0:26:23.720 brainwashing uh and and and mind control. These are uh, 0:26:23.760 --> 0:26:28.440 these are at at least oversimplifications of far more complex problems, 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:32.440 and therefore the idea of deep programming is based in 0:26:32.720 --> 0:26:36.280 in that fallacy and that oversimplification. At least from the outside, 0:26:36.280 --> 0:26:37.800 it has always kind of seemed to me that the 0:26:38.000 --> 0:26:43.480 the logic behind deprogramming is essentially counter brainwashing. That someone 0:26:43.560 --> 0:26:46.840 has brainwashed you to be in a cult, and now 0:26:46.880 --> 0:26:50.040 we have to like brainwash you back out of it. 0:26:50.119 --> 0:26:52.919 Like you know, it's I took you into this thing, 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:55.280 and I'm gonna take you out the same way. Uh, 0:26:55.320 --> 0:26:58.840 So you you have to like use sort of like aggressive, 0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:04.200 uh forceful tactics to try to essentially brainwash somebody back 0:27:04.240 --> 0:27:08.399 into whatever is deemed the legitimate culture. Is yeah, And 0:27:08.400 --> 0:27:09.960 of course the first step and all of that is 0:27:10.040 --> 0:27:14.159 just by establishing or labeling, uh, the offending ideology or 0:27:14.240 --> 0:27:16.520 group as a cult, as something that is in some 0:27:16.600 --> 0:27:19.639 way deviant, that is engaging in mind control, and therefore 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:23.280 there's something to reverse. But then the d programming itself 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:26.720 that often took the form of involuntary extractions from the 0:27:26.760 --> 0:27:31.879 allegedly deviant ideology or group and then attempts to forcibly 0:27:31.920 --> 0:27:35.720 reverse the alleged mind control or brainwashing. And of course 0:27:35.760 --> 0:27:37.760 all of this should raise just a number of red 0:27:37.800 --> 0:27:41.840 flags for anyone, because, among other things, it assumes that 0:27:41.880 --> 0:27:45.080 the individual, often a young adult, just has no agency 0:27:45.200 --> 0:27:48.080 or choice, like they cannot be trusted to make make 0:27:48.200 --> 0:27:51.400 choices about what they believe in and what they do. Um. 0:27:52.320 --> 0:27:55.400 You know, they are pulled in one direction by charismatic force, 0:27:55.440 --> 0:27:57.119 and now we have to pull them back in another 0:27:57.200 --> 0:28:00.679 direction through intensive uh you know, strong arm tactics like 0:28:00.720 --> 0:28:03.240 it's a boot camp or something. And then on top 0:28:03.280 --> 0:28:05.720 of that, you run the risk of engaging in actual 0:28:05.800 --> 0:28:09.240 kidnapping and abuse in an attempt to deprogram somebody. So 0:28:09.280 --> 0:28:12.680 you quickly get into very legally and ethically murky waters, 0:28:12.960 --> 0:28:16.200 assuming you don't land on as bad or as you know, 0:28:16.320 --> 0:28:20.520 worse UM situation uh compared to what you were attempting 0:28:20.560 --> 0:28:24.320 to save them from. UM. So charges of religious oppression 0:28:24.359 --> 0:28:27.080 and civil rights violation were also made. There were various 0:28:27.160 --> 0:28:32.119 lawsuits related to D programming efforts, and so one of 0:28:32.119 --> 0:28:33.800 the things that that Kent and is co out there 0:28:33.840 --> 0:28:37.320 point out is that is that you saw this um, 0:28:37.840 --> 0:28:42.480 this movement away from D programming um uh, this idea 0:28:42.520 --> 0:28:45.920 that that first of all, D programming didn't prove all 0:28:45.960 --> 0:28:49.040 that effective, but then it gave way to techniques that 0:28:49.080 --> 0:28:53.160 were more progressive, non coercive, that we're more about the 0:28:53.200 --> 0:28:56.680 autonomy of the individual and an attempt to value everyone 0:28:56.800 --> 0:29:00.560 present um and find a structure uh that would like 0:29:00.640 --> 0:29:04.880 work with everyone's value systems, including the value system um 0:29:04.920 --> 0:29:07.760 of the group that the individual is is that they're 0:29:07.760 --> 0:29:10.440 attempting to extract them from all. Right, so maybe there 0:29:10.520 --> 0:29:12.720 is a recognition of flaws within some of these so 0:29:12.840 --> 0:29:15.200 called d programming tactics, But of course you would still 0:29:15.200 --> 0:29:18.240 have the problem that people are ending up in in 0:29:18.240 --> 0:29:20.560 in cults that at least you know their loved ones 0:29:20.600 --> 0:29:23.400 are uh could probably make a strong case or a 0:29:23.440 --> 0:29:26.320 really negative influence on their lives and are certainly hurting 0:29:26.520 --> 0:29:30.000 hurting family relationships and stuff like that. Uh So, so 0:29:30.160 --> 0:29:32.800 is there something else people go to? Is another option 0:29:32.920 --> 0:29:35.960 for trying to trying to help guide their loved ones 0:29:36.000 --> 0:29:38.480 out of these groups? Right, And it seems like, yeah, 0:29:38.480 --> 0:29:40.680 this this idea of exit counseling, or at least this 0:29:40.720 --> 0:29:43.960 basic approach seemed to largely replace it, which which which 0:29:44.240 --> 0:29:47.160 sounds like a no brainer, right, Should we maybe do 0:29:47.320 --> 0:29:49.680 something more like counseling? And what we think of now 0:29:49.760 --> 0:29:52.440 is intervention with a family member we're worried about, or 0:29:52.440 --> 0:29:55.480 should we kidnap them with the aid of some sort 0:29:55.480 --> 0:29:58.480 of third party. Um, you know it. It seems certainly 0:29:58.520 --> 0:30:01.920 from from illegal and more world standpoint, Uh, there's only 0:30:01.920 --> 0:30:04.560 one direction you should go in. And of course it 0:30:04.600 --> 0:30:07.760 also seems that that d programming had had had a 0:30:07.840 --> 0:30:11.080 checkered success rate as well. Reminds me of some other 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:15.120 stuff I was reading about the Scared Straight programs that 0:30:15.200 --> 0:30:17.800 of course we're quite big what I guess back in 0:30:17.840 --> 0:30:22.200 the nineties, especially the idea that if you had like 0:30:22.320 --> 0:30:26.400 problem kids or kids that that were at risk, you 0:30:26.440 --> 0:30:29.240 would have somebody come in and scare them straight with 0:30:29.320 --> 0:30:33.840 a really scary talk about prison life and how you know. Ultimately, 0:30:34.160 --> 0:30:39.160 some of the numbers didn't subsequently did not support the 0:30:39.200 --> 0:30:42.240 idea that this was effective. Yeah, I can imagine. I 0:30:42.240 --> 0:30:44.400 think it comes down to the just the reality that 0:30:44.440 --> 0:30:47.120 that human beings are far more complicated than that. You know, 0:30:47.200 --> 0:30:49.480 you can't just scare someone straight, you in order to 0:30:49.520 --> 0:30:52.520 move them away from from one way of life or 0:30:52.520 --> 0:30:56.800 worldview towards another. You can't. You can't rescue them from 0:30:56.840 --> 0:31:00.280 from a particular you know, social group or ideology by 0:31:00.360 --> 0:31:03.560 essentially kidnapping them and um and just pointing in the 0:31:03.600 --> 0:31:05.920 other direction like they're an automaton. It just needs to 0:31:05.960 --> 0:31:07.800 be Oh, all you have to do is just get them, 0:31:07.960 --> 0:31:09.760 wind them up and point them in the right direction 0:31:09.760 --> 0:31:12.280 and they'll be fine. Like that's just that's that's not 0:31:12.320 --> 0:31:14.600 really how people work. Well, yeah, it just seems like 0:31:14.640 --> 0:31:17.200 a very top down way of viewing your ability to 0:31:17.240 --> 0:31:20.760 influence other people. So if you want to steer somebody 0:31:20.840 --> 0:31:24.200 toward a path in life that you might very well 0:31:24.240 --> 0:31:26.480 correctly think would be much better for them in the 0:31:26.520 --> 0:31:28.480 long run and might make them much happier in the 0:31:28.480 --> 0:31:30.360 long run and make their loved ones happier in the 0:31:30.400 --> 0:31:33.280 long run, obviously there are ways of doing that other 0:31:33.360 --> 0:31:36.040 than just trying to sort of like dominate and command 0:31:36.160 --> 0:31:38.320 them to move in that direction. I mean, I mean, 0:31:38.320 --> 0:31:41.880 obviously sometimes you can influence people by by sort of 0:31:41.920 --> 0:31:44.960 dominating and commanding them, But you can also influence people 0:31:45.000 --> 0:31:49.480 with say positive incentives, reminding them of reminding them of 0:31:49.480 --> 0:31:52.400 all the good things and opportunities that are open to 0:31:52.440 --> 0:31:55.240 them in in in a freer life outside of the 0:31:55.240 --> 0:31:58.200 strictures of whatever kind of you know, culture or other 0:31:58.240 --> 0:32:02.520 thing this is yeah. Uh so it's this is ultimately 0:32:02.520 --> 0:32:04.760 I think in oversimplification, but it seems like the mind 0:32:04.760 --> 0:32:08.080 control D programming model was more based in the idea 0:32:08.400 --> 0:32:11.080 that something was done to an individual and that thing 0:32:11.200 --> 0:32:14.280 can be undone, you know, and um, you know, it's 0:32:14.320 --> 0:32:17.840 ultimately based in the in the the simplistic fallacy of 0:32:17.880 --> 0:32:20.800 mind control and brainwashing. Now, as for how that relates 0:32:20.840 --> 0:32:23.640 to this Outer Limits episode, Um, you know, I think 0:32:23.640 --> 0:32:28.400 this episode ultimately has a dark view on life and uh, 0:32:28.440 --> 0:32:30.400 you know, one one in which you're going to be 0:32:30.440 --> 0:32:34.680 manipulated by one alien overlord or another, you know, sort 0:32:34.680 --> 0:32:38.120 of you've got to serve somebody vibe. Uh. It feels 0:32:38.200 --> 0:32:41.440 like they're striking a very anti D programming chord here, 0:32:41.520 --> 0:32:44.440 which I think is the chord to strike in your 0:32:44.440 --> 0:32:47.360 in your fiction, as our main character is is just 0:32:47.480 --> 0:32:52.000 D program quote unquote into serving just another cruel master. Well, 0:32:52.120 --> 0:32:54.719 one bit of complexity that this Outer Limits episode does 0:32:54.760 --> 0:32:57.160 get into is we didn't mention that they're actually multiple 0:32:57.280 --> 0:33:02.320 human parties involved in UM in the programming process. So 0:33:02.400 --> 0:33:04.640 in this episode you have Brent Spiner and yet he's 0:33:04.680 --> 0:33:07.760 playing this like brutal D programmer, who's you know, yelling 0:33:07.800 --> 0:33:10.560 at yelling at Evans, saying, wake up, snap out of it. 0:33:10.600 --> 0:33:12.680 You know you're a human, and like cutting him with 0:33:12.680 --> 0:33:15.640 a knife and kicking him around and all this again 0:33:15.680 --> 0:33:18.680 trying to top down just like dominate and coerce him 0:33:18.800 --> 0:33:21.640 into into snapping out of it. But then the other 0:33:21.680 --> 0:33:26.240 side is alongside them is evans wife from before the 0:33:26.280 --> 0:33:29.000 alien invasion. They had become separated, they didn't know what 0:33:29.040 --> 0:33:33.120 had happened to each other and uh, and by getting reacquainted, 0:33:33.480 --> 0:33:35.880 she actually I think that the episode shows that she 0:33:36.160 --> 0:33:39.680 is more effective than Brent Spiner is in breaking through 0:33:39.720 --> 0:33:43.600 with him, and she's actually not not knowingly part of 0:33:43.640 --> 0:33:46.280 the alien plot to get him to assassinate. She is 0:33:46.320 --> 0:33:50.520 also confused about what's going on. So in a way, 0:33:50.560 --> 0:33:52.400 even though it has a cruel twist at the end, 0:33:52.720 --> 0:33:55.480 the episode might sort of be making the point that 0:33:56.160 --> 0:33:59.200 you might have more success breaking through to somebody who 0:33:59.240 --> 0:34:02.120 has been uh, who has been conditioned into a state 0:34:02.160 --> 0:34:05.360 of un freedom by offering them sort of like positive 0:34:05.360 --> 0:34:08.319 incentives of love and connection and reminding them of what's 0:34:08.400 --> 0:34:11.560 good about the other way of life, rather, you know, 0:34:11.680 --> 0:34:14.280 maybe more so than just like beating them and yelling 0:34:14.320 --> 0:34:18.280 at them and trying to command them to be free. Yeah, 0:34:18.920 --> 0:34:21.719 in a way, it's a shame they didn't re explore 0:34:21.880 --> 0:34:24.359 this world in other episodes of the Outer Limits, because 0:34:24.360 --> 0:34:27.160 the nineties Outer Limits Show they did this from time 0:34:27.200 --> 0:34:29.800 to time there there. Sometimes they would do a series 0:34:29.840 --> 0:34:34.080 of even like three or four episodes that took place 0:34:34.120 --> 0:34:38.480 within the same universe and uh and continued. Uh. Sometimes 0:34:38.800 --> 0:34:42.520 same characters or or same faction, same world like this 0:34:42.520 --> 0:34:44.120 would have been. It would have been an interesting one 0:34:44.160 --> 0:34:46.279 for them to come back to and explore that compassion 0:34:46.320 --> 0:34:49.520 angle more and maybe give us some more uplifting ending, 0:34:49.600 --> 0:34:52.759 you know. Yeah, maybe that's how the humans actually do 0:34:52.880 --> 0:34:57.839 rebel successfully against the uhever whatever they're called, the alligator men. Yeah, 0:34:57.920 --> 0:35:00.920 give them a gift basket of saragonal and then that 0:35:01.000 --> 0:35:04.239 they would they'll realize, Oh, the drolem really do care 0:35:04.280 --> 0:35:07.160 about me. No, no, no, I didn't mean that for them. 0:35:07.239 --> 0:35:19.520 I mean, yeah, mount to resistance than All right, well, 0:35:19.560 --> 0:35:23.080 let's switch gears. Let's get into the next next anthology 0:35:23.120 --> 0:35:25.439 selection here. What do you have for us show? All right, well, 0:35:25.480 --> 0:35:29.360 I've got an episode of the Hammer House of Horror. 0:35:29.640 --> 0:35:32.759 Rob Do you know the Hammer House of Horror? Yes, 0:35:32.960 --> 0:35:35.319 now I have to say I've I've only watched the 0:35:35.400 --> 0:35:38.759 one episode, the one we're discussing here today. But um, 0:35:38.760 --> 0:35:42.240 but it's a it's a it's a pretty fun little series. Uh. 0:35:42.520 --> 0:35:46.000 This came out what eight, so you know we're we're 0:35:46.200 --> 0:35:48.799 we're balanced right there on the edge, you know of 0:35:48.840 --> 0:35:51.520 the nineteen seventies and the nineteen eighties. Essentially it's nineteen 0:35:51.600 --> 0:35:55.320 late nineteen seventies production. Uh comes to us from from Hammer, 0:35:55.400 --> 0:35:58.240 so it has that hammer you know, British horror drive 0:35:58.440 --> 0:36:02.600 vibe to it. But each episode is a different story. Um, 0:36:02.680 --> 0:36:05.560 and some of them have some pretty great casts. I 0:36:05.600 --> 0:36:07.160 mean they all, I think they all have a pretty 0:36:07.160 --> 0:36:10.080 great cast. If one episode we have Peter Cushing and 0:36:10.160 --> 0:36:12.759 of young Brian Cox if you're not sure what a 0:36:12.920 --> 0:36:15.840 young Brian Cox looks like, Uh, this is an episode 0:36:15.840 --> 0:36:18.560 worth checking out. And there's another episode, by the way, 0:36:18.680 --> 0:36:22.000 titled Guardian of the Abyss uh in the plot of 0:36:22.080 --> 0:36:25.120 this one involves John D's mirror, or a mirror that's 0:36:25.120 --> 0:36:27.839 supposed to be one of John D's mirrors. I didn't 0:36:27.840 --> 0:36:29.160 get a chance to watch it in full, but I 0:36:29.160 --> 0:36:32.560 had to see if what mirror they showed, and I 0:36:32.600 --> 0:36:34.360 included a picture of it here for you, Joe. It 0:36:34.480 --> 0:36:38.759 it is, obviously is not the fabled magic mirror, the 0:36:38.760 --> 0:36:42.360 Aztec mirror that that John d actually had. This is 0:36:42.440 --> 0:36:44.920 a real They really goth this one up. They had 0:36:44.920 --> 0:36:48.239 to make it look like a like a European haunted mirror. Yeah, 0:36:48.239 --> 0:36:50.319 it's got like a silver rim and a bunch of 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:52.680 elaborate handles. Get out of here with that, give me 0:36:52.719 --> 0:36:56.719 that or gone face on a yeah. Yeah. But this 0:36:56.800 --> 0:37:00.160 episode that we're gonna talk about here is titled The 0:37:00.200 --> 0:37:03.000 Mark of State. Yes, and boy does it have that 0:37:03.080 --> 0:37:05.439 hammer horror field. Like you say, it's got that late 0:37:05.480 --> 0:37:08.839 seventies British thing. It just this whole thing just like 0:37:08.920 --> 0:37:13.360 it smells like back bacon, you know, Heinz baked beans. 0:37:13.480 --> 0:37:15.640 It's all there. You can smell it through the film. 0:37:16.000 --> 0:37:18.840 So this episode, I guess I'll describe it first and 0:37:18.840 --> 0:37:21.520 then we can talk about what what this connected to 0:37:21.680 --> 0:37:25.640 for me. So this episode begins with a scene of 0:37:25.800 --> 0:37:28.920 brain surgery. You've got a team of doctors who are 0:37:29.000 --> 0:37:34.120 opening up a patient's skull and suddenly the patient he 0:37:34.200 --> 0:37:37.319 seems to show signs of awareness. His eyes start to move, 0:37:37.520 --> 0:37:41.279 scanning the room. He twitches. You see these sort of 0:37:41.320 --> 0:37:45.680 flickers of waxing consciousness, and then the patient starts to 0:37:45.719 --> 0:37:48.800 talk in the middle of the brain surgery. He's moaning 0:37:48.880 --> 0:37:54.640 and he says, leave my soul alone. Solid opening. They 0:37:54.640 --> 0:37:57.120 had me right there at the beginning. Yeah, yeah, we 0:37:57.200 --> 0:38:00.759 got a supernatural or potentially supernatural hospital drama of some 0:38:00.840 --> 0:38:03.319 sort of intense surgery with all sorts of tools and 0:38:03.680 --> 0:38:08.680 like clamps holding the character's head in place. Ye leave 0:38:08.840 --> 0:38:13.520 my soul alone. So next we meet our protagonist who 0:38:13.600 --> 0:38:17.520 is named Edwin Roared, and Edwin works in the morgue 0:38:17.560 --> 0:38:21.359 at the same hospital. He is assigned to process the 0:38:21.400 --> 0:38:25.080 cadaver of the patient from the surgery in the opening scene, 0:38:25.680 --> 0:38:28.400 and we learn in this in this next scene that 0:38:28.440 --> 0:38:32.960 the patient was someone named Samuel Holt. Now. Roared is 0:38:33.000 --> 0:38:35.960 played by the actor Peter mcinry who was born in 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:39.000 nineteen forty and he's quite good in this. He plays 0:38:39.000 --> 0:38:41.480 a nice focal point of insanity, you know, that kind 0:38:41.520 --> 0:38:45.479 of that necessary character to so many weird tales where 0:38:45.520 --> 0:38:49.239 like the madness is overtaking them. Um. I was not 0:38:49.280 --> 0:38:51.600 really familiar with this guy, but he had a strong 0:38:51.680 --> 0:38:55.640 career on the British stage and on television. Among other things. 0:38:55.719 --> 0:38:58.640 He was in the nineteen seventy three horror anthology film 0:38:59.040 --> 0:39:03.480 Tales that Witness Madness. And another interesting genre piece that 0:39:03.480 --> 0:39:05.840 he's credited to is a film I haven't seen, but 0:39:05.840 --> 0:39:08.920 now I'm super interested in Footprints on the Moon from 0:39:09.040 --> 0:39:13.919 ninety five um, which also featured klas Kinski in a role. 0:39:14.280 --> 0:39:18.160 It was a well received, seemingly surreal jallow film by 0:39:18.239 --> 0:39:23.600 Luigi Bezzoni in which the actor Florinda Bulkan plays a 0:39:23.600 --> 0:39:27.560 woman who is psychologically disturbed by these dreams she keeps 0:39:27.600 --> 0:39:32.360 having about an astronaut dying on the moon. Wow. Yeah, 0:39:32.400 --> 0:39:35.359 so I love that pitch. I'm intrigued. I've never heard 0:39:35.360 --> 0:39:37.680 of it. Uh yeah, I gotta look that up. A 0:39:37.719 --> 0:39:40.360 couple of other actors have noted in this one. Conrad Phillips, 0:39:40.360 --> 0:39:45.839 who lived twenty sixteen, plays um Dr Manders, a delightfully 0:39:45.840 --> 0:39:49.680 impish character. Yeah he's uh what, there's a partner at 0:39:49.680 --> 0:39:52.239 the beginning where he's like, well, gentlemen, we are looking 0:39:52.239 --> 0:39:57.319 at the mortal remains of an individualist. And then we 0:39:57.360 --> 0:39:59.800 also have Georgina Hale. And this was born in nineteen 0:39:59.800 --> 0:40:02.759 four three place Stella. She was in a number of 0:40:02.800 --> 0:40:08.000 Kin Russell movies, including The Devil's Which is, which is 0:40:08.040 --> 0:40:11.399 of course an excellent and uh famed film, infamous I'm 0:40:11.440 --> 0:40:14.080 to understand, and infamous in some circles as well. But 0:40:14.719 --> 0:40:17.120 and and for a long time hard hard to get 0:40:17.120 --> 0:40:20.120 your hands on. But at any rate, um, it's an 0:40:20.160 --> 0:40:23.000 un notable film no matter where you stand on it, 0:40:23.040 --> 0:40:26.439 whether you want to to view it or or burn it. Also, 0:40:26.520 --> 0:40:29.040 getting back to the plot of the episode, we go 0:40:29.120 --> 0:40:31.920 through the autopsy of the patient from the opening scene, 0:40:32.080 --> 0:40:35.160 Samuel Holt, who was in brain surgery and said leave 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:39.080 my soul alone. We uh. It is revealed that prior 0:40:39.200 --> 0:40:43.240 to his brain surgery, this patient, Samuel Holt, had tried 0:40:43.280 --> 0:40:47.600 to perform a self trepidation. He attempted to create a 0:40:47.680 --> 0:40:52.040 hole in his own skull with a power drill, allegedly 0:40:52.080 --> 0:40:57.080 to relieve pressure in his brain. I think Dr Manders 0:40:57.080 --> 0:40:59.400 has some kind of comment about this. He's like, you know, 0:40:59.680 --> 0:41:01.719 pres here in the brain. Leads to a trip to 0:41:01.760 --> 0:41:06.680 the Old Iron Manga and while sewing up holds body 0:41:06.760 --> 0:41:11.360 after the autopsy, Edwin accidentally pricks his finger with the 0:41:11.400 --> 0:41:14.799 suture needle, and at first he doesn't think anything of this. 0:41:14.920 --> 0:41:17.200 He just puts some iodine on it. But when his 0:41:17.320 --> 0:41:21.040 boss finds out, his boss gets very upset. He's like, uhh. 0:41:21.080 --> 0:41:24.120 He tells Edwin that he needs to go to casualty, 0:41:24.880 --> 0:41:26.759 and I think it tells him he needs to get 0:41:26.760 --> 0:41:30.520 his tetanus shots and a bunch of stuff because well, 0:41:30.600 --> 0:41:33.319 it turns out that when Holt was dying of a 0:41:33.360 --> 0:41:37.759 blood clot in the brain, Holt himself had believed that 0:41:38.120 --> 0:41:42.200 this this was caused by an infection, an infection that 0:41:42.280 --> 0:41:45.839 he called an evil virus. So the guy who said 0:41:45.920 --> 0:41:48.719 leave my soul alone, he believed he was infected with 0:41:48.800 --> 0:41:53.279 a virus of evil. Now, a couple of threads begin 0:41:53.360 --> 0:41:56.200 to develop in this episode that reflects something about Edwin's 0:41:56.320 --> 0:42:02.279 deteriorating psychological state. So one thing is that Edwin perceives 0:42:02.320 --> 0:42:07.239 a strange pattern emerging everywhere he goes. He notices the 0:42:07.320 --> 0:42:11.160 number nine. There's an office sweepstakes that pays out a 0:42:11.200 --> 0:42:14.720 prize of nine pounds. He has to store Holtz body 0:42:14.800 --> 0:42:17.360 and freezer number nine. He has to sew up a 0:42:17.400 --> 0:42:21.320 body using nine stitches to every three inches, and things 0:42:21.360 --> 0:42:26.319 like that. Even more alarmingly, he sometimes believes he can 0:42:26.400 --> 0:42:30.440 hear radio signals in his head, and these are seemingly 0:42:30.520 --> 0:42:33.719 broadcasted from a weather vane on the roof of the hospital. 0:42:34.080 --> 0:42:37.160 Beyond that, he starts to believe that crowds of ominous 0:42:37.200 --> 0:42:41.240 strangers wearing sunglasses or sort of following him around town, 0:42:41.520 --> 0:42:45.000 watching him and menacing him. Now eventually we see his 0:42:45.080 --> 0:42:47.960 home situation, which is that Edwin is single and he 0:42:48.040 --> 0:42:51.160 lives in a house with his extremely grumpy and judgmental 0:42:51.239 --> 0:42:54.800 mother along with a tenant who lives in the house 0:42:54.920 --> 0:42:57.480 named Stella, and this is this character is played by 0:42:57.480 --> 0:43:02.160 Georgina Hale. Edwin at some point tells Stella about you know, 0:43:02.239 --> 0:43:07.360 he's explaining the delusions he's experiencing, and she, very unhelpfully 0:43:07.520 --> 0:43:12.319 is pretty much like, oh yeah, yep um. And so 0:43:12.440 --> 0:43:16.120 it seems like everywhere he goes things nobody's really intervening 0:43:16.360 --> 0:43:20.000 to make things better. So his psychological state worsens. He 0:43:20.040 --> 0:43:23.880 comes to believe that his mother has somehow infected him 0:43:23.960 --> 0:43:27.839 with an evil virus that is attacking his brain, and 0:43:27.920 --> 0:43:30.600 he believes that she may have killed his father years 0:43:30.600 --> 0:43:33.040 ago with the same virus, though it seems his father 0:43:33.080 --> 0:43:36.799 actually died of meningitis. At one point, Edwin visits a 0:43:36.880 --> 0:43:41.680 priest to seek counsel, and then the priest very helpfully 0:43:41.719 --> 0:43:44.120 decides to tell him about the passage in the Book 0:43:44.120 --> 0:43:49.000 of Revelation concerning the number of the Beast. So it's like, oh, yes, uh, 0:43:49.080 --> 0:43:52.000 this man is suffering from some form of psychosis. What 0:43:52.120 --> 0:43:55.560 he needs is the Book of Revelation. Yes, but the 0:43:55.600 --> 0:43:59.840 faith offers many directions for your your your your confusion 0:43:59.840 --> 0:44:03.399 and obsession that may tell you about it. So from 0:44:03.440 --> 0:44:07.200 here things get worse and worse. Edwin ends up doing murders. Uh. 0:44:07.239 --> 0:44:10.560 He's having these full blown delusions that a a coven 0:44:10.640 --> 0:44:14.839 of Satan worshiping doctors and acquaintances of his have put 0:44:14.880 --> 0:44:18.040 a virus in his brain in order to control him, 0:44:18.120 --> 0:44:20.640 and that they want him to eat a baby for Satan. 0:44:22.000 --> 0:44:24.439 But then there's a strange so you know, this could 0:44:24.440 --> 0:44:27.120 just be a story about a man losing his mind, 0:44:27.239 --> 0:44:31.480 But the the episode develops that the same exact delusion 0:44:32.000 --> 0:44:34.920 we discover was held by the man from the surgery 0:44:35.000 --> 0:44:37.960 at the beginning of the episode, Samuel Holt, and in 0:44:38.040 --> 0:44:41.680 the end, Edwin, like Holt, tries to relieve himself of 0:44:41.719 --> 0:44:45.880 the pressure by performing a self trepidation with an electric drill, 0:44:46.440 --> 0:44:49.640 and he also, like Holt, ends up in neurosurgery and 0:44:49.760 --> 0:44:53.200 echo of the opening scene, and the doctors are operating 0:44:53.239 --> 0:44:56.799 on Edwin's brain and we hear a moaning plea leave 0:44:56.920 --> 0:45:01.560 my soul alone, And the ending is very ambiguous. I 0:45:01.600 --> 0:45:04.440 think the viewer is meant to understand that there actually 0:45:04.480 --> 0:45:08.200 is no Satanic coven and that this is in Edwin's head. 0:45:08.239 --> 0:45:10.719 But I think the unanswered question in the narrative is 0:45:10.760 --> 0:45:16.080 whether Edwin was somehow actually infected with this demonic obsession 0:45:16.200 --> 0:45:19.840 and and this this imagery when he pricked his finger 0:45:19.920 --> 0:45:22.680 while he was working on Holt's body. It sort of 0:45:22.760 --> 0:45:25.680 raises this question of would it be possible for this, 0:45:25.680 --> 0:45:29.640 this series of demonic images and ideas to somehow infect 0:45:29.680 --> 0:45:33.960 a person like an evil virus. Now. I don't know 0:45:34.000 --> 0:45:37.600 of any realistic mechanism by which something like this would happen. 0:45:37.640 --> 0:45:39.960 I kind of doubt there is, But I would like 0:45:40.040 --> 0:45:42.799 to explore a sort of related idea that that is 0:45:42.880 --> 0:45:45.680 quite real, which has to do with the idea of 0:45:45.680 --> 0:45:50.680 a relationship between virus like mechanisms and the deep contents 0:45:50.719 --> 0:45:53.600 of the human brain, even things that somebody might think 0:45:53.640 --> 0:45:56.719 of as the soul. Now, UM. The fact that this 0:45:56.840 --> 0:46:01.320 episode centers around round Trepid Nation I found kind of interesting, 0:46:01.480 --> 0:46:04.120 especially since it came out in Britain in nineteen eighty. 0:46:04.440 --> 0:46:07.840 This would have been right after the Countess of weims 0:46:07.920 --> 0:46:11.960 And UH and Mark Amanda Fielding first ran for British 0:46:12.000 --> 0:46:15.240 Parliament on the platform Trap Nation for the National health, 0:46:15.719 --> 0:46:21.360 advocating research into its benefits. UM. She famously trepanned herself 0:46:21.440 --> 0:46:26.719 in nineteen seventy, following Dutch Trap Nation proponent Bart Huges's example, 0:46:27.280 --> 0:46:31.920 and UM, you know this UH may sound a bit crazy, 0:46:31.960 --> 0:46:34.720 but as as Michael Paulin pointed out in his excellent 0:46:34.719 --> 0:46:38.120 book How to Change Your Mind, Fielding has proven herself 0:46:38.160 --> 0:46:41.840 to be an effective drug policy reformer UH. In subsequent years, 0:46:41.880 --> 0:46:46.360 lobbyist and research coordinator. In she founded the Foundation to 0:46:46.440 --> 0:46:52.240 Further Consciousness, later renamed the Beckley Foundation, which supports neuroscientific research. 0:46:52.719 --> 0:46:55.560 Her recent and current work, paul And writes, shifted away 0:46:55.560 --> 0:46:59.040 from Trepin Nation and towards the possibilities posed by psychedelics. 0:46:59.360 --> 0:47:02.279 So you think it's possible this episode was influenced by 0:47:02.520 --> 0:47:06.080 by her famous advocacy for for drilling a hole in 0:47:06.080 --> 0:47:09.799 your skull. Yes, yeah, I I I would, I would 0:47:09.800 --> 0:47:12.040 almost bet on it. You know, it seems like the time, 0:47:12.200 --> 0:47:15.799 you know, like a lot of horror uh fiction, you know, 0:47:16.000 --> 0:47:18.920 it speaks to what's going on in the public mindset, 0:47:18.960 --> 0:47:20.880 and so I feel like there's just there's just too 0:47:20.960 --> 0:47:24.239 much trepinnation in the in the in the in the 0:47:24.280 --> 0:47:26.279 air for this not to be kind of at least 0:47:26.280 --> 0:47:28.640 a partial response to it. Not that it has anything 0:47:28.680 --> 0:47:31.680 particularly you know, deep to say about trepin Nation itself, 0:47:33.000 --> 0:47:35.200 but it's it's it leans, it's a it's just a 0:47:35.239 --> 0:47:38.680 concept that leans, uh, that allows one to lean into 0:47:38.680 --> 0:47:42.200 the horror a bit. You know. It's it's just it's like, uh, 0:47:42.239 --> 0:47:45.239 you know, it's like fly paper for for horror writing. Now, 0:47:45.280 --> 0:47:47.480 if you'd like to hear more about about trepin Nation, though, 0:47:47.520 --> 0:47:49.759 we we did an episode several years back titled The 0:47:49.800 --> 0:47:52.879 Stone of Madness UM that gets into all of that. 0:47:53.000 --> 0:47:55.120 And you know, it's sort of the the older historical 0:47:55.200 --> 0:47:59.759 idea of trepin nation as well as um the more 0:48:00.280 --> 0:48:03.600 modern twentieth century advocates of it. But you know, the 0:48:03.840 --> 0:48:08.040 basic idea came down in the modern sense that you 0:48:08.160 --> 0:48:11.640 have you known increase of blood in the brain that 0:48:11.680 --> 0:48:16.000 could bring about altered states of consciousness, um, etcetera. It's 0:48:16.040 --> 0:48:19.360 a it's a really fascinating, um fascinating topic. To be 0:48:19.440 --> 0:48:22.000 clear that this is what was claimed by its advocates, 0:48:22.000 --> 0:48:25.160 not that we're advocating trepidis right, there's no. I don't 0:48:25.200 --> 0:48:27.680 don't believe there's any scientific evidence that it actually works, 0:48:27.680 --> 0:48:30.919 but it had its vocal proponents. But if you're even 0:48:31.080 --> 0:48:34.040 halfway tempted, I think you should you should take you 0:48:34.080 --> 0:48:37.400 should just follow the model of a Manda Fielding, who 0:48:37.440 --> 0:48:41.240 who again has turned away from um from advocating trepid 0:48:41.280 --> 0:48:45.560 nation and looking more into uh, actual you know, legitimate 0:48:45.560 --> 0:48:49.880 research into psychedelics. Uh. So you know ultimately that that's 0:48:49.920 --> 0:48:52.880 that's a whole area of research that does not require 0:48:52.960 --> 0:48:55.200 drilling a hole in your skull. And it goes without 0:48:55.200 --> 0:48:57.480 saying don't drill a hole in your skull, especially based 0:48:57.480 --> 0:49:00.000 on anything that you hear on this podcast or see 0:49:00.080 --> 0:49:03.400 on the hammer House of Horror. Yeah, don't make major 0:49:03.480 --> 0:49:06.600 life decisions based on the hammer House of Horror series. 0:49:13.280 --> 0:49:17.200 But on the subject of viruses in mind. Uh, this, 0:49:17.200 --> 0:49:19.359 this does bring up a really interesting question of like, 0:49:19.440 --> 0:49:21.799 did you ever wonder, you know, down at the cell level, 0:49:21.840 --> 0:49:26.520 at the molecular level, what is the mechanism of say, 0:49:26.560 --> 0:49:30.120 memory formation. You know, our memories, to to a great extent, 0:49:30.480 --> 0:49:32.520 are a lot of what makes us who we are. 0:49:32.600 --> 0:49:35.000 And so you might say that in a metaphorical since 0:49:35.080 --> 0:49:37.240 you know, memories are a big part of what would 0:49:37.239 --> 0:49:40.080 make your soul. And so I was reading about some 0:49:40.160 --> 0:49:44.480 interesting research and a couple of articles from January. One 0:49:44.480 --> 0:49:48.520 of them was a news feature in Nature by Sarah 0:49:48.520 --> 0:49:52.480 Reardon called cells hack virus like protein to communicate, and 0:49:52.520 --> 0:49:55.439 another one was in The Atlantic by Ed Young called 0:49:55.480 --> 0:50:00.640 brain cells share information with virus like capsules. And these 0:50:00.680 --> 0:50:04.359 two articles were in turn summarizing and reacting to the 0:50:04.400 --> 0:50:08.720 pretty much simultaneous publication of a couple of scientific papers 0:50:08.760 --> 0:50:12.840 in the journal Cell, both concerning a very interesting gene 0:50:12.960 --> 0:50:16.560 and its associated protein, which is known as ARC arc 0:50:16.600 --> 0:50:20.040 A r C. One of these papers was by Ashley 0:50:20.080 --> 0:50:22.400 at All in in Cell and the other one was 0:50:22.480 --> 0:50:25.359 by Petution at All. Now, the gene known as arc 0:50:25.440 --> 0:50:28.759 is present in all kinds of different organisms. You you 0:50:28.800 --> 0:50:32.799 can find different versions of it, saying human cells, in 0:50:32.840 --> 0:50:36.239 the cells of mice, in the cells of flies like 0:50:36.320 --> 0:50:41.239 Drosophila flies in the cells of reptiles and birds, and 0:50:41.640 --> 0:50:45.520 it apparently encodes a product known as the ARC protein, 0:50:45.640 --> 0:50:51.520 where ARC stands for activity regulated cytoskeleton associated protein, and 0:50:51.719 --> 0:50:54.360 ARC has been known about since the nineteen nineties, but 0:50:54.719 --> 0:50:58.080 some recent discoveries have made it seem even more interesting. 0:50:58.320 --> 0:51:01.520 Uh And and there's an interesting scene that Ed Young 0:51:01.600 --> 0:51:04.080 describes in his article about this where he's summarizing the 0:51:04.080 --> 0:51:07.120 research on one of the authors on one of these papers, 0:51:07.239 --> 0:51:11.000 a neuroscientist named Jason Shepherd who works at the University 0:51:11.040 --> 0:51:14.400 of Utah in Salt Lake City, who was studying the 0:51:14.560 --> 0:51:17.920 ARC gene and it's associated proteins in mice in the 0:51:18.080 --> 0:51:21.960 I believe the in the motor neurons of mice. And 0:51:22.040 --> 0:51:25.640 what the article describes is that Jason Shepherd was observing 0:51:25.880 --> 0:51:30.440 the proteins that were made by this gene under a 0:51:30.800 --> 0:51:33.680 under a highly powerful microscope, and when he first saw 0:51:33.760 --> 0:51:38.799 the structures, what he thought was that they looked like viruses. Now, 0:51:38.800 --> 0:51:41.680 of course, these are not viruses, These are not external 0:51:41.719 --> 0:51:45.640 infectious agents. These are structures that are produced by the 0:51:45.800 --> 0:51:49.640 natural cells in a mouse's body. So what both of 0:51:49.640 --> 0:51:52.600 these papers were looking at were that they were studying 0:51:52.640 --> 0:51:56.200 what are known as extra cellular vesicles, and these are 0:51:56.200 --> 0:52:00.759 sort of little chunks of cell membranes that's separate from 0:52:00.760 --> 0:52:03.920 their original host cells and then they go off somewhere 0:52:03.920 --> 0:52:05.640 and do their own things, so that you know, they 0:52:05.680 --> 0:52:08.440 actually are a part of a cell that leaves the 0:52:08.480 --> 0:52:11.720 cell and floats free of it to maybe go connect 0:52:11.760 --> 0:52:14.480 with another cell or do something else in the body. 0:52:14.640 --> 0:52:18.320 And extracellular vesicles can be found all throughout the body, 0:52:18.320 --> 0:52:20.279 but there are a lot of questions about what they do. 0:52:20.320 --> 0:52:23.000 We don't really know a lot, uh, And apparently these 0:52:23.040 --> 0:52:27.239 two teams were looking at these these extracellular vessels that 0:52:27.280 --> 0:52:31.080 were released by various neurons cells in the nervous system 0:52:31.120 --> 0:52:33.839 to find out what they were doing, and they independently 0:52:33.840 --> 0:52:36.680 found that the vesicles that are released by neurons in 0:52:36.719 --> 0:52:42.200 both flies and mice contain this ARC gene. Now it's 0:52:42.200 --> 0:52:46.680 interesting because there is already existing research to show some 0:52:46.719 --> 0:52:49.200 things about this ARC gene, for example, that the ARC 0:52:49.239 --> 0:52:53.600 gene helps neurons form connections between one another, and of 0:52:53.640 --> 0:52:56.440 course connections between neurons underlie a lot of what the 0:52:56.480 --> 0:53:00.239 brain does. And there is also research to show very 0:53:00.280 --> 0:53:04.960 interesting macro behavioral effects of the arc gene. For example, 0:53:05.560 --> 0:53:09.000 mice that are genetically altered to lack the ARC gene 0:53:09.520 --> 0:53:14.279 have difficulty with memory formation tasks. It seems like they 0:53:14.360 --> 0:53:17.799 can't learn, they can't make long term memories. So, say, 0:53:17.800 --> 0:53:20.879 if you train a mouse to run a maze, if 0:53:20.920 --> 0:53:23.120 they don't have the ARC gene, they can't make the 0:53:23.239 --> 0:53:27.160 ARC protein. They apparently can't learn anything about the maze 0:53:27.200 --> 0:53:29.000 that sticks with them. They might have to, you know, 0:53:29.080 --> 0:53:31.680 do the maze as if for the first time every time. 0:53:32.320 --> 0:53:35.160 So it seems that ARC is very important in whatever 0:53:35.280 --> 0:53:40.360 process it is in the brain that turns experiences into 0:53:40.920 --> 0:53:44.160 structural changes in the brain that would you know, allow 0:53:44.200 --> 0:53:46.600 you to say, cement a memory that could be referenced 0:53:46.680 --> 0:53:51.200 later on. But I mentioned that at Young's article describes 0:53:51.280 --> 0:53:55.120 the scene where this researcher is looking at the at 0:53:55.160 --> 0:53:58.680 the ARC proteins under the microscope and that when he 0:53:58.760 --> 0:54:02.120 examined them, he saw what looked like these these hollow 0:54:02.160 --> 0:54:06.880 shells that very much resembled viruses. Specifically, they looked like 0:54:07.040 --> 0:54:11.160 textbook illustrations of HIV, which of course is a type 0:54:11.160 --> 0:54:15.000 of virus known as a retrovirus. And apparently a shepherd 0:54:15.560 --> 0:54:19.000 ran these images by some viral experts, and they did 0:54:19.040 --> 0:54:21.839 confirm that yes, these shells that were being made by 0:54:21.920 --> 0:54:25.560 these cells within the mice's bodies looked a lot like 0:54:25.680 --> 0:54:28.640 the protein shells the capsids that you would find around 0:54:28.680 --> 0:54:32.239 viruses like HIV. So apparently the arc genes that you 0:54:32.239 --> 0:54:35.799 would find in animals like mice today, it descends from 0:54:35.840 --> 0:54:41.239 an ancient class of ancestral genes, types of retro transposons, 0:54:41.280 --> 0:54:43.120 and they can be found in the genomes of all 0:54:43.200 --> 0:54:46.480 kinds of animals. As I said, but these genes are 0:54:46.560 --> 0:54:50.680 very interesting in that they can behave almost like independent 0:54:50.840 --> 0:54:55.359 infectious agents. They can copy themselves and then insert those 0:54:55.400 --> 0:54:59.759 copies of themselves somewhere else within the host's genome. But 0:55:00.000 --> 0:55:04.560 apparently at some point these ancestral retro transposons gain the 0:55:04.600 --> 0:55:08.560 ability not only to copy and paste themselves elsewhere within 0:55:08.600 --> 0:55:12.200 the genome, but to build a protein shell, essentially to 0:55:12.280 --> 0:55:16.640 build themselves a spaceship that would surround this gene, surround 0:55:16.760 --> 0:55:21.160 this length of genetic material, and then allow this cage 0:55:21.200 --> 0:55:26.200 protected strand of genetic information to leave its original host cell, 0:55:26.280 --> 0:55:29.040 to fly off into space and and to go boldly 0:55:30.200 --> 0:55:32.440 and ed young Wrights that this actually is believed to 0:55:32.480 --> 0:55:35.200 be the origin of retroviruses. So in a way, we 0:55:35.280 --> 0:55:39.719 have these genes within our bodies that are actually cousins 0:55:39.800 --> 0:55:44.319 of wild infectious retroviruses that infect people and harm them, 0:55:45.080 --> 0:55:47.440 uh and it. And this apparently is why the shells 0:55:47.520 --> 0:55:51.160 or the capsids made by these stretches of DNA are 0:55:51.200 --> 0:55:53.960 so similar. The ARC gene that you find in animals 0:55:54.000 --> 0:55:56.440 is apparently very similar to a viral gene called a 0:55:56.520 --> 0:55:59.440 GAG gene. And and again this is the gene that 0:55:59.520 --> 0:56:02.759 codes for the construction of this this protein shell, the 0:56:02.800 --> 0:56:07.120 capsid that protects the genetic material of a virus and 0:56:07.160 --> 0:56:09.880 allows it to get into a cell and infect it. 0:56:10.360 --> 0:56:12.680 So what we have here is that there are cells 0:56:12.760 --> 0:56:15.879 within the brains or the nervous systems of animals as 0:56:15.920 --> 0:56:20.160 diverse as you know, from mice to to Drosophila two flies, 0:56:20.719 --> 0:56:24.320 that use this gene similar to a gene found in viruses, 0:56:24.800 --> 0:56:28.560 to build this protein shell or capsid, this structure to 0:56:28.719 --> 0:56:33.279 surround a strand of RNA based information like viruses do, 0:56:33.760 --> 0:56:37.440 and then send that RNA information to another cell again 0:56:37.680 --> 0:56:41.600 like viruses do. So so in a way, you could 0:56:41.640 --> 0:56:45.320 look at the the brain cells as using a very 0:56:45.360 --> 0:56:49.120 similar structure to what is used in viruses to sort 0:56:49.160 --> 0:56:52.600 of infect one another with something with some kind of 0:56:53.080 --> 0:56:56.680 RNA information. So why would cells in the brain be 0:56:56.800 --> 0:57:00.200 doing this? And one possibility is that it's a way 0:57:00.200 --> 0:57:03.040 for neurons to sort of control each other, to exert 0:57:03.120 --> 0:57:06.319 some kind of pressure influence on each other. Of course, 0:57:06.320 --> 0:57:08.319 in the case of a virus, a virus wants to 0:57:08.400 --> 0:57:10.760 infect a new cell so that it makes more copies 0:57:10.800 --> 0:57:13.839 of the virus. But in this case, a neuron could 0:57:13.880 --> 0:57:17.360 maybe use ARC to send RNA to a nearby cell, 0:57:17.520 --> 0:57:21.600 which upon arrival would influence which genes are activated within 0:57:21.680 --> 0:57:25.320 that cell. Now, there's still tons of questions that we 0:57:25.400 --> 0:57:28.600 don't have answered about what what is going on here, 0:57:28.680 --> 0:57:32.760 like what is exactly this RNA cargo for, what does 0:57:32.800 --> 0:57:36.160 it do? What does it do exactly? Though again it's 0:57:36.320 --> 0:57:39.600 very interesting to view this virus like behavior at the 0:57:39.760 --> 0:57:43.240 at the cell level, uh, in light of what we 0:57:43.320 --> 0:57:46.240 know about the macro behavioral effects of the ARC gene. 0:57:46.280 --> 0:57:49.800 Once again, if you disable ARC, a mouse without it 0:57:49.840 --> 0:57:54.200 apparently can't learn or make memories. Fascinating, So we have 0:57:54.280 --> 0:57:58.480 this this this kind of ancestral potential ancestral viral component 0:57:58.560 --> 0:58:01.080 to uh to to to some of the like the 0:58:01.120 --> 0:58:04.520 basic attributes of what do we think to think think 0:58:04.560 --> 0:58:07.360 of having a mind or having a certainly having consciousness, 0:58:07.360 --> 0:58:10.320 but even having just like a functional animal brain. Right though. 0:58:10.360 --> 0:58:14.400 A very interesting thing is though lots of animals have ARC, 0:58:15.000 --> 0:58:18.760 they're not all descended from a common ARC ancestor, or 0:58:18.760 --> 0:58:22.160 at least not within the animal line. So fruit flies 0:58:22.160 --> 0:58:25.200 have ARC genes, mike mice have ARC genes, Humans have 0:58:25.320 --> 0:58:29.880 ARC genes. But it appears that say flies and vertebrates 0:58:29.960 --> 0:58:34.640 acquired these genes, these similar genes from different sources uh 0:58:34.680 --> 0:58:37.920 in uh to quote ed young in separate events that 0:58:37.960 --> 0:58:41.360 took place millions of years apart, and yet they've both 0:58:41.400 --> 0:58:44.360 got this stuff. So it seems like it is something 0:58:44.400 --> 0:58:49.120 that is probably liable to be co opted by by 0:58:49.200 --> 0:58:52.880 animal genomes in a way that is very useful, such 0:58:52.960 --> 0:58:55.640 that it happened multiple times in the history of life. 0:58:56.760 --> 0:58:59.480 And so there are all these really interesting possibilities about 0:58:59.520 --> 0:59:02.760 what this could mean in terms of learning more about 0:59:03.080 --> 0:59:05.920 how our brains work and how our bodies evolved, but 0:59:06.000 --> 0:59:10.080 also in even potentially in in therapeutics, because as we 0:59:10.080 --> 0:59:12.720 were talking about, ARC has been highlighted as possibly playing 0:59:12.720 --> 0:59:16.120 a role in a number of neurological disorders, including some 0:59:16.240 --> 0:59:20.720 age related loss of mental capacity. So Jason Shepard is 0:59:20.960 --> 0:59:24.120 quoted in in ned Young's article as as observing that 0:59:24.200 --> 0:59:27.560 the brains of young mice produce way more ARC protein 0:59:28.120 --> 0:59:30.760 than the brains of old mice. And it looks like 0:59:30.800 --> 0:59:34.840 that possibly by inducing an increased supply of ARC protein 0:59:34.920 --> 0:59:38.200 in an older mouse's brain, the older mouse's brain will 0:59:38.240 --> 0:59:42.160 show improved abilities to learn and adapt, maybe acting a 0:59:42.160 --> 0:59:44.760 little bit more like a younger mouse's brain, having that 0:59:45.240 --> 0:59:50.160 uh that more plastic potential. So I found this fascinating 0:59:50.200 --> 0:59:53.240 that it could quite literally be the case that there's 0:59:53.280 --> 0:59:57.440 something pretty much like a virus in the brain that 0:59:57.640 --> 1:00:01.240 makes our minds what they are. That's fascinating, and it 1:00:01.840 --> 1:00:03.720 of course to how to bring it back to hammer 1:00:03.720 --> 1:00:08.479 House of horrors. Um not. Obviously, nobody's making the point 1:00:08.480 --> 1:00:11.440 that this research means that this episode is entirely possible 1:00:11.520 --> 1:00:19.000 or practical or anything that proof of the episode um revealed. 1:00:19.000 --> 1:00:22.680 But uh no, it um. It does make you uh uh, 1:00:22.840 --> 1:00:27.439 you know, sort of reflect on the seemingly outrageous notion here, 1:00:27.520 --> 1:00:32.280 maybe being a little more reasonable than one might assume. 1:00:32.400 --> 1:00:35.440 Just one watching it. I mean, obviously I can't imagine 1:00:35.480 --> 1:00:38.960 how arc proteins or something similar would make you, uh, 1:00:39.320 --> 1:00:43.640 you know, start obsessing over numerology and uh feeling like 1:00:43.800 --> 1:00:47.080 you have there's a there's an outside pressure from people 1:00:47.080 --> 1:00:50.960 in sunglasses for you to eat a baby. But but 1:00:50.960 --> 1:00:54.200 but still, uh you know, the the basic premise, uh 1:00:54.240 --> 1:00:56.760 you know, matches up with this idea A little bit 1:00:56.920 --> 1:00:59.920 segue to something totally different. I remember when I was 1:01:00.040 --> 1:01:02.560 a kid one time, this is one of my hotel 1:01:02.640 --> 1:01:06.960 cable memories. Do you have hotel cable memories from being Yeah? 1:01:07.160 --> 1:01:10.280 One of mine was we went somewhere we had the 1:01:10.320 --> 1:01:12.800 hotel channels and I saw an episode of Hammer House 1:01:12.800 --> 1:01:15.680 of Horror when I was way too young, and I 1:01:15.760 --> 1:01:18.240 don't remember much about it except that it was an 1:01:18.240 --> 1:01:20.920 episode that had a werewolf in it. And then the 1:01:21.040 --> 1:01:25.200 real twist was, uh, so you think, okay, werewolf, somebody's 1:01:25.240 --> 1:01:27.680 gonna get you know, bit by the werewolf, gonna get mauled, 1:01:27.720 --> 1:01:30.440 and that's the real that's the shocker at the end. 1:01:30.520 --> 1:01:33.120 But instead somebody got killed with an axe in the 1:01:33.120 --> 1:01:36.200 werewolf episode, just about like a guy with an axe. 1:01:36.760 --> 1:01:39.360 I wonder if that was the Peter Cushing episode. I 1:01:39.360 --> 1:01:42.240 think that one involves the animal human hybrids. I don't 1:01:42.240 --> 1:01:44.120 think it had Peter Cushing because I think I would 1:01:44.160 --> 1:01:48.320 have recognized him at least from Star Wars. I. You know, 1:01:48.400 --> 1:01:50.720 this whole mention to this episode. It does make me wonder, 1:01:50.800 --> 1:01:56.200 like what was in the waters too to inspire these 1:01:56.200 --> 1:01:58.360 other elements. You know, we can point to the trap 1:01:58.520 --> 1:02:01.760 nation influence, uh that would have been present in the 1:02:01.800 --> 1:02:06.520 news and so forth. But this idea of of a virus, 1:02:06.800 --> 1:02:10.360 an evil virus um, it reminds me a little bit 1:02:10.400 --> 1:02:14.240 of the plot of The Creeping Flesh from nineteen seventy three, 1:02:14.320 --> 1:02:17.040 which had Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in it, And 1:02:17.080 --> 1:02:21.320 it involves the development of a serum against evil, the 1:02:21.400 --> 1:02:24.120 idea that that you could you could that I think 1:02:24.160 --> 1:02:27.480 Peter Cushing's characters working on developing one and about to 1:02:27.480 --> 1:02:30.240 have a big breakthrough, like where where did this strange? 1:02:30.360 --> 1:02:32.880 I mean, I guess it's kind of a you know, 1:02:33.480 --> 1:02:37.920 a dumb idea in some respect is very uh. It 1:02:38.000 --> 1:02:42.200 produces the the idea of of evil to something that 1:02:42.240 --> 1:02:44.720 you know, kind kind of like getting back through the brainwashing, uh, 1:02:44.840 --> 1:02:47.680 the programming idea that something has been done and it 1:02:47.720 --> 1:02:51.440 can be undone like that that evil is a broad 1:02:51.480 --> 1:02:55.600 tent concept and in human civilization, uh, that we could 1:02:55.640 --> 1:02:59.240 find some sort of underlying cause of it, cause behind it, 1:02:59.480 --> 1:03:03.160 and and and effectively remove it and everything would be fine. 1:03:03.520 --> 1:03:05.680 You know, sometimes the dumb idea is a brilliant idea. 1:03:06.000 --> 1:03:09.760 There's almost something exactly like that in John Carpenter's Prince 1:03:09.800 --> 1:03:12.040 of Darkness. You know that we have to discover like 1:03:12.280 --> 1:03:16.080 they discover essentially a jar of Satan. It's like this 1:03:16.400 --> 1:03:19.200 physical substance or it's not quite it's something I think 1:03:19.200 --> 1:03:22.440 they call it, like the anti god and there's anti God. Yeah, 1:03:22.480 --> 1:03:27.320 there's some very loose uh pseudo scientific connections actually well 1:03:27.320 --> 1:03:29.840 I mean talking about real physics, but the connections I 1:03:29.840 --> 1:03:32.600 guess would be the pseudo part where they're saying, oh, yeah, 1:03:32.640 --> 1:03:35.040 so there's a particle in an anti particle in in 1:03:35.120 --> 1:03:37.800 modern physics, and so you have the same thing as 1:03:37.840 --> 1:03:39.960 true like God is like the particle and then you've 1:03:40.000 --> 1:03:43.600 got an anti particle anti God that they come together 1:03:43.640 --> 1:03:46.960 and they annihilate. Yeah. I agree that a dumb idea 1:03:47.200 --> 1:03:51.080 take into uh to the limit. You know, you can 1:03:51.120 --> 1:03:54.000 make it very entertaining or sometimes a kind of dumb 1:03:54.080 --> 1:03:57.400 or traditional idea given a new code of paint using 1:03:58.000 --> 1:04:01.040 you know, some current scientific buzz word, uh, you know, 1:04:01.120 --> 1:04:03.160 or something from the headlines like that can make all 1:04:03.200 --> 1:04:06.200 the difference as well, because the basic idea here is like, 1:04:06.400 --> 1:04:10.040 is a curse idea a contagious curse. Man catches curse 1:04:10.080 --> 1:04:12.680 from cursed individual and then has to deal with the curse. 1:04:12.880 --> 1:04:16.160 It's not unlike many werewolf stories, except instead of the 1:04:16.200 --> 1:04:19.200 curse of turning into a wolf uh and killing people, 1:04:19.320 --> 1:04:23.440 it's this, uh, this curse of of these these various 1:04:23.800 --> 1:04:27.560 more you know, I guess, the more obscure, more mysterious, 1:04:27.640 --> 1:04:32.160 um psychological issues popping up. Yeah, and that ultimately makes 1:04:32.160 --> 1:04:34.840 it more terrifying because it's these are these are things 1:04:34.880 --> 1:04:37.000 that that we can point to in the real world 1:04:37.000 --> 1:04:40.080 that he's suffering, you know, like a sudden obsession over things, uh, 1:04:40.160 --> 1:04:43.320 you know, a change and behavior consciousness. Well, and in 1:04:43.360 --> 1:04:45.840 the light of the scientific stuff we were talking about today, 1:04:45.880 --> 1:04:48.440 I think, I don't know, it sort of invites you 1:04:48.520 --> 1:04:50.960 to rethink the idea of what a what a virus 1:04:51.040 --> 1:04:54.200 or infectious agent is. I mean, we naturally think of 1:04:54.280 --> 1:04:58.400 infectious agents as things that are bad and harmful because 1:04:58.440 --> 1:05:01.160 I mean usually when it's like it is, uh, you know, 1:05:01.240 --> 1:05:03.640 a pathogen in the body that is infecting you in 1:05:03.720 --> 1:05:06.000 order to make copies of itself and it doesn't really 1:05:06.000 --> 1:05:08.000 care how much. You know, if it makes you miserable 1:05:08.160 --> 1:05:12.000 or debilitates you some way in the process, that's obviously bad. 1:05:12.400 --> 1:05:16.320 But there are also these essentially things that function like 1:05:16.560 --> 1:05:20.360 infectious agents that have very similar behaviors that are within 1:05:20.440 --> 1:05:22.880 the body, and they might even be things that make 1:05:23.000 --> 1:05:26.680 you who you are in a very inextricable way. Yeah, 1:05:26.880 --> 1:05:29.240 and kind of driving home, would you know, to come 1:05:29.240 --> 1:05:31.960 back around to head Young and his work. The idea 1:05:32.040 --> 1:05:34.480 that you know, we are multitudes. You know that that 1:05:34.560 --> 1:05:37.320 this idea of there being this single thing and this 1:05:37.360 --> 1:05:41.840 is what we are, uh, you know is obviously fall asleep. 1:05:41.840 --> 1:05:43.800 But then you know, when you start looking at like 1:05:43.840 --> 1:05:47.240 the the organism itself, well, there is the organism, but 1:05:47.280 --> 1:05:49.920 then there are all the additional organisms within it that 1:05:50.040 --> 1:05:54.320 make make it up and and influence the ultimate presentation 1:05:54.360 --> 1:05:57.360 and experience, right, I mean, so you you could make 1:05:57.400 --> 1:05:59.760 distinctions that are valid distinctions. You can look at a 1:05:59.800 --> 1:06:02.040 sell in the body and say this is an animal cell, 1:06:02.080 --> 1:06:04.520 this is a you know, mammalian cell and then this 1:06:04.600 --> 1:06:07.760 is a bacterial cell. But in fact, I think he 1:06:07.840 --> 1:06:09.640 makes a good case that when we think about what 1:06:09.720 --> 1:06:12.560 we are, it should probably actually include both, Like the 1:06:12.600 --> 1:06:16.960 bacteria are also us. Yeah. Now, if you're interested in 1:06:17.000 --> 1:06:21.040 watching Hammer House of Horror, our producers Seth informs us that, 1:06:21.240 --> 1:06:24.760 as of this recording, it is currently available on peacock. Uh. 1:06:24.800 --> 1:06:28.200 I was looking around and I found it available to 1:06:28.200 --> 1:06:30.320 to view as a part of a few different streaming 1:06:30.360 --> 1:06:34.040 packages online, you know, various channels. Uh, so it's it's 1:06:34.080 --> 1:06:37.680 definitely out there. Um, you know, multiple episodes. This is 1:06:37.680 --> 1:06:40.200 the only one I've seen, and and I don't have 1:06:40.240 --> 1:06:44.880 the benefit of your your your hotel cable experience of 1:06:44.880 --> 1:06:48.400 of watching uh watching it earlier in life. But but 1:06:48.720 --> 1:06:50.200 it looks like a really it's a really good shows. 1:06:50.400 --> 1:06:52.840 Like I said, check out the titles, check out the 1:06:53.080 --> 1:06:56.400 cast members. Uh, there are several of these that look 1:06:56.440 --> 1:07:00.720 really interesting. Got that classic British crime Yeah, all right, Well, 1:07:00.760 --> 1:07:02.760 we'd love to hear from everyone, of course. Do you 1:07:02.760 --> 1:07:05.840 have favorite episodes of the Hammer House of Horror, favorite 1:07:05.880 --> 1:07:08.320 episodes of the nineties Outer Limits series you'd like to 1:07:08.360 --> 1:07:10.640 chat about with us? We'll let us know. We'd we'd 1:07:10.720 --> 1:07:12.400 love to hear from you, And of course, if you 1:07:12.440 --> 1:07:15.880 have thoughts about the scientific or cultural topics that we 1:07:16.000 --> 1:07:19.680 touched on in these episodes, um, everything's fair game right 1:07:19.680 --> 1:07:22.640 in We've we'd we'd love to discuss it with you. 1:07:23.200 --> 1:07:25.400 Our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind published 1:07:25.400 --> 1:07:28.680 on Tuesday's and Thursdays. Check them out in the Stuff 1:07:28.680 --> 1:07:31.040 to Blow your Mind podcast feed, and that is where 1:07:31.080 --> 1:07:33.200 you will find them wherever you get your podcast. We 1:07:33.280 --> 1:07:36.720 also have listener Mail on Monday's, Artifact on Wednesdays, and 1:07:36.760 --> 1:07:40.360 Weird House Cinema on Friday's Huge Thanks, as always to 1:07:40.400 --> 1:07:43.959 our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would 1:07:43.960 --> 1:07:45.840 like to get in touch with us with feedback on 1:07:45.880 --> 1:07:48.120 this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for 1:07:48.160 --> 1:07:50.440 the future, just to say hello, you can email us 1:07:50.480 --> 1:08:01.120 at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. 1:08:01.120 --> 1:08:03.640 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. 1:08:04.000 --> 1:08:06.080 For more podcasts for my heart Radio, that's the I 1:08:06.160 --> 1:08:09.000 Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to 1:08:09.000 --> 1:08:22.400 your favorite shows.