Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: A production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 3: my name is Noel.
Speaker 2: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 2: super producer Alexis the Britt Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
Speaker 2: You are here. That makes this the stuff they don't
Speaker 2: want you to know. Fellow conspiracy realists, longtime listeners, it
Speaker 2: feels so great to be back now. Like hopefully the
Speaker 2: majority of America, we took June teenth off. We treated
Speaker 2: it as the holiday it deserves to be treated as.
Speaker 2: And as a result, we had a couple of classic
Speaker 2: episodes in place of our strange news and listener mail
Speaker 2: programs last week. We hope you enjoyed them, and we
Speaker 2: hope they freaked you out as much as they freaked
Speaker 2: us out when we recorded them.
Speaker 3: Back in nineteen forty seven.
Speaker 2: Yes, as the human calendars reckon, we have a lot.
Speaker 2: We have a lot of cool stuff to get to
Speaker 2: because well I say cool, it's interesting stuff. It is
Speaker 2: strange news and what we found was that. Weirdly enough,
Speaker 2: last week when we were going to previously on stuff
Speaker 2: they don't want you to know, when we were going
Speaker 2: to record Strange News, we had a bevy, a literal
Speaker 2: cavalcade of different stories. A lot of things happened in
Speaker 2: the interim between our time now and our time then,
Speaker 2: and we cannot wait to share them with you.
Speaker 4: And the good news, some of them have developed even
Speaker 4: further since that time, and others have just remained delightfully evergreen.
Speaker 2: We'll get into brain rots, We'll get into corporate medical malfeasance,
Speaker 2: We'll get into so many things, including our buddies at
Speaker 2: the Pentagon. For now, we're going to take a quick break,
Speaker 2: and then we're going to talk about our buddy Julian,
Speaker 2: who's going home, all right, Julian Massage. If you know
Speaker 2: this show, it is not your first time listening to
Speaker 2: stuff they want you to know, then you know the
Speaker 2: story of Julian Assage quite well, the creator, the originator
Speaker 2: of the world changing online resource known as WikiLeaks. And
Speaker 2: we talked about Julian in the past. We have not
Speaker 2: spoken directly to him, just to be clear. We know
Speaker 2: that he spends some time in a little bit of
Speaker 2: a you know, a legal pickle, a bag of diplomatic badgers.
Speaker 4: Sort of like a diplomatic limbo, a lot of treadmilling. Right,
Speaker 4: then they have a cat at some point.
Speaker 5: Support gap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Julian usage fundamentally changed the actions of nation states,
Speaker 2: arguably radicalized and informed many public populations across the planet.
Speaker 2: He was also being hunted by Uncle Sam as a
Speaker 2: result of his release of diplomatic cables that arguably endangered
Speaker 2: the lives of US service members, and particularly he may
Speaker 2: have played a role in the outcome of some US
Speaker 2: elections by not all the secrets he was given from
Speaker 2: folks across the world, but from his curation thereof the
Speaker 2: stuff he decided to leak versus the stuff that he withheld.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a complicated figure, like a lot of the
Speaker 3: figures we've we talked about on this show, because without him,
Speaker 3: the American public, you, us, everyone wouldn't have known about
Speaker 3: a great and many things, right, or at least without
Speaker 3: someone who took the ac actions that he chose to take. So,
Speaker 3: but it's weird.
Speaker 4: But then hearing in that though the choice right there
Speaker 4: is in the complexity there is like sort of a
Speaker 4: potentially problematic angle to this guy that he has like
Speaker 4: an agenda and isn't just out there for the pure
Speaker 4: but you know, proliferation of truth and justice, right, yeah,
Speaker 4: no way.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. But and weirdly enough, the reason why he's
Speaker 3: getting out is because he has been I was going
Speaker 3: to use the word suffering. But he has been in
Speaker 3: captivity of one form or another for a long time,
Speaker 3: whether it was a choice or because he had to
Speaker 3: stay somewhere, right, he.
Speaker 2: Was in the liminal space of embassy grounds. As we
Speaker 2: all know, fellow nerds, embassy grounds are kind of like
Speaker 2: freeports in that they are technically the soil of the
Speaker 2: country right in the embassy. So Ecuador helped him out.
Speaker 2: He got arrested on in April eleventh, twenty nineteen. He
Speaker 2: went to one of the crappiest prisons in the United Kingdom, Belmarsh.
Speaker 2: There's a reason that people write about it, and he
Speaker 2: now recently this is the breaking news. He waited. I
Speaker 2: want to be careful I say this. He waited for
Speaker 2: some scandals, the cycle of scandals and outrage to circle through,
Speaker 2: you know, a real wheal of time kind of thing.
Speaker 2: With the amount of attention people give to News. He
Speaker 2: pled guilty to espionage in US courts, to the Department
Speaker 2: of Justice, essentially, and now he is released. He released,
Speaker 2: He is a free man. In returning to Australia post
Speaker 2: haste texted you guys, News wrote publicly, I think he
Speaker 2: made a deal.
Speaker 3: Well, he made some kind of deal because they gave
Speaker 3: him time served. They said, you've spent five years behind
Speaker 3: bars already, so get out of here, and he went
Speaker 3: straight to well, how do you say the capital of Australia, Canberra,
Speaker 3: can bren.
Speaker 5: Bra, can Bra.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it was crazy to watch footage of him
Speaker 3: just walking into an airplane because we've been watching him
Speaker 3: since what two thousand and seven maybe, yes, I mean
Speaker 3: like we we've made videos on him. Some of the
Speaker 3: first videos we did were about not about Wiki leaks
Speaker 3: in particular, but about people who were whistleblowers, and he
Speaker 3: was one of the top guys.
Speaker 4: It is interesting how like when a government does what
Speaker 4: a Sane did, it's you know, good trade craft or
Speaker 4: what have you like, it's it's part of the business
Speaker 4: of you know, intelligence. But when someone like Assane does
Speaker 4: it and runs a foul of a government like the
Speaker 4: United States, Uh, it's essentially treason US or you know,
Speaker 4: it's considered like almost an act of informational terrorism. And
Speaker 4: there's an article on the Wall Street Journal that would
Speaker 4: somewhat agree with that headline.
Speaker 5: Julian is no hero.
Speaker 4: A guilty plea might free him, but remember why the
Speaker 4: US pursued him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me give us the statement from the US
Speaker 2: district judge who made this, made this official, right, made
Speaker 2: this legit. This US district judge is Ramona Manglona, and
Speaker 2: she told Assage the following quote. With this pronouncement, it
Speaker 2: appears you will be able to walk out of this
Speaker 2: courtroom a free man. I hope there will be some
Speaker 2: peace restored with that, mister Massage. It's apparently an early
Speaker 2: happy birthday to you. I understand your birthdays next week.
Speaker 2: I hope you will start your new life in a
Speaker 2: positive manner. And it is true, Julian Assange turns fifty
Speaker 2: three years old on July third, So if you're hearing this,
Speaker 2: happy birthday, man. Birthdays are the only real New Year's
Speaker 2: I walk down the street to continually diss the calendar.
Speaker 4: No, he's one of those cats that has had white
Speaker 4: hair like since forever.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Targerian in that respect, which we talked about earlier.
Speaker 5: Little Megala maniacal too like the Targarian.
Speaker 2: Again, complicated figure. But also perhaps the most interesting thing
Speaker 2: for those of us playing along at home tonight, wherever
Speaker 2: you find yourself in this wide world, is that he.
Speaker 5: Made a deal.
Speaker 2: He clearly made a deal. There was an incentivized There
Speaker 2: was incentivization on both sides of the bargaining table. And
Speaker 2: the question we have to ask is what did she
Speaker 2: give up? What did this great secret keeper or this
Speaker 2: liberator of secrets? What did he give Uncle Sam in
Speaker 2: return for a again free life in Australia?
Speaker 3: All right, yeah, mayapothesis. They sat across the table and said, Julian,
Speaker 3: don't do this again. We're gonna let you go. Don't
Speaker 3: do this again, and he's like okay.
Speaker 2: When they said, hey, Putin's not your friend. Also maybe
Speaker 2: they played a little parody song like there are five
Speaker 2: private eyes watching you.
Speaker 3: Well. Yeah, at times, Wiki Leaks had to completely shut
Speaker 3: down because of the intense surveillance that it was under.
Speaker 3: And the way they function is whistleblowers reach out to WikiLeaks,
Speaker 3: you know. They That's kind of how it all began.
Speaker 3: It was information gathering from individuals and groups who wanted
Speaker 3: to blow the whistle.
Speaker 2: They self selected, self submitted.
Speaker 3: Yep, they send the stuff to WikiLeaks. Wiki leaks uses
Speaker 3: whatever journalistic you know, parameters that they go by, and
Speaker 3: sometimes they would even link up with an outfit. Sure,
Speaker 3: and I'll feel like the Guardian or someone like like
Speaker 3: that connect with them. Then they release, like what were
Speaker 3: we saying, some small amount of whatever it is that
Speaker 3: they've been given. But those people who would be blowing
Speaker 3: the whistle didn't feel comfortable reaching out we anymore because
Speaker 3: the government was peering over their shoulders at at all.
Speaker 2: Times, because the the interface got compromised honestly, pretty early on.
Speaker 2: If we're talking about the just sheer amount of powerful
Speaker 2: actors who wanted control over that right, they they want
Speaker 2: to see the secrets. When people are they practice information asymmetry.
Speaker 2: You know, it doesn't matter if they're a government or
Speaker 2: a business or an individual. It is a like it
Speaker 2: is a hallmark of bad faith actors.
Speaker 3: So it's not that mean though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, information asymmetry in this case would be if you like,
Speaker 2: imagine you've got some boffins and they crack the code
Speaker 2: on wiki leaks, right, the first thing you want is
Speaker 2: not to let wiki leaks know it has been compromised.
Speaker 2: You want people to continue feeling safe whispering their secrets
Speaker 2: into this ostensibly black box. And then you want to
Speaker 2: leverage that and the next move would be to start
Speaker 2: sending fake information in there right to see how your
Speaker 2: adversaries will react. And I'm not being America a US
Speaker 2: centric when I say this. Any country, any institution, would
Speaker 2: have taken advantage of this if possible. And then if
Speaker 2: things started to go sideways, they would spin out the
Speaker 2: conversation by saying, hey, we're just as surprised as you are.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean. We're just trying to get
Speaker 2: along with this Julian guy. He's crazy. It is still
Speaker 2: there's still a lot of questions to be answered here
Speaker 2: right What is the nature of the deal, what is
Speaker 2: the information exchanged? What will the consequences be? But we
Speaker 2: do know people get up to shenanigans again, So much
Speaker 2: stuff happened this week. We're going to follow up on
Speaker 2: assanj But we haven't even talked about the Pentagon getting
Speaker 2: busted on propaganda.
Speaker 4: Oh quick, quick question on assand real quick, if you
Speaker 4: don't mind, hasn't even kind of out of the loop
Speaker 4: and for a long time, Like, why would they be
Speaker 4: interested in information that he has? Would it still be relevant,
Speaker 4: or would it be some kind of something that he's
Speaker 4: been holding on to, or that.
Speaker 5: He kept us some sort of insurance policy or what
Speaker 5: I know, We don't know, but I mean, I'm wondering.
Speaker 3: He's had a team of attorneys behind him for I mean,
Speaker 3: since he's been in prison, right, twenty nineteen, since he
Speaker 3: was arrested, even before that, when even he was in
Speaker 3: the embassy, people have been attempting attorneys, right, powerful smart
Speaker 3: attorneys have been attempting to get him out of the situation.
Speaker 3: So I wonder if they're pulling levers as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So to answer those questions, there are two things. First,
Speaker 2: in general, information is perishable, meaning you know, you can
Speaker 2: know everything about what's going down in Basra in two
Speaker 2: thousand and seven, but does that matter in twenty twenty four?
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: The second thing is the idea of a dead man's hand,
Speaker 2: dead man's switch. This is off then brought up in
Speaker 2: conspiratorial forms when we're talking about things like the death
Speaker 2: of Jeffrey Epstein, when we're talking about the evil and
Speaker 2: brilliant nuclear strategy of the former Soviet Union. It's kind
Speaker 2: of a you can't fire me, I quit and the
Speaker 2: building's burning idea. On an individual level, a dead man's
Speaker 2: hand is meant to or dead man's switch is meant
Speaker 2: to function as a kind of insurance. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about insurance later this week as well. In a
Speaker 2: different aspect.
Speaker 4: Well, it's a way of like almost holding somebody hostage,
Speaker 4: or it's like a blackmail kind of opportunity. I guess
Speaker 4: it's like dirt that if in the event that something
Speaker 4: happens to me, this will be triggered and y'all who
Speaker 4: wish me harm are screwed.
Speaker 2: So the primary concern there is that whatever this information
Speaker 2: may have been, it was enough to secure the safe
Speaker 2: international passage of a guy will doubtlessly be followed for
Speaker 2: the rest of his life in ways that may be
Speaker 2: invisible to him. Even and he's super smart.
Speaker 4: He'll venture into the deep, deep deep bush where some
Speaker 4: of these undiscovered cryptids are hanging out. Yeah, hard time
Speaker 4: tracking him there.
Speaker 2: Maybe he'll give some information on the anti VAXX program.
Speaker 2: Now we have to get to we missed your last week, folks.
Speaker 2: The news broke courtesy of Reuters the Pentagon, which is
Speaker 2: housed in the world's largest office building. What a weird flex.
Speaker 2: They also no longer have a subway, which is a shame.
Speaker 2: But it turns out the news broke thanks to journalists
Speaker 2: Chris Bing and Joel Schechtman on June fourteenth, twenty twenty four,
Speaker 2: that the US military launched a clandestine secret program that
Speaker 2: was an anti vaccination disinformation campaign targeted at the nation
Speaker 2: of the philip and to a smaller degree, people in
Speaker 2: the Filipino diaspora across the world. It was entirely meant
Speaker 2: to discredit the Chinese vaccination program for COVID nineteen.
Speaker 5: And it was.
Speaker 2: It was sophisticated, it was organized, It was the kind
Speaker 2: of thing that you might associate with other adversarial countries,
Speaker 2: and it shows us an important lesson.
Speaker 4: I guess my question is to what ends, you know,
Speaker 4: as my question often is just to smear them, embarrass
Speaker 4: them publicly, or is there some actionable you know next steps.
Speaker 3: Wasn't it supposed to basically warn people against specific vaccinations
Speaker 3: coming out of China.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the larger aim, the chess game of it
Speaker 2: was meant to It was an avenue of attack to
Speaker 2: diminish China's perceived growing influence on the Philippines, which are
Speaker 2: super crucial in that region. We know that China is
Speaker 2: on a maritime level, super beefed up with pretty much
Speaker 2: every other country in Southeast Asia that has access to
Speaker 2: the Pacific Ocean. Right, it's the China Sea, it's the
Speaker 2: South China Sea, and another countries say, we never agreed
Speaker 2: to that. So the idea here, from the idea here
Speaker 2: from the doctor Strange Loves of the United States, was
Speaker 2: this would be a clever and cost effective means of
Speaker 2: reducing Chinese influence on the nation of the Philippines. The
Speaker 2: concern being that if that Chinese influence grows past a
Speaker 2: certain threshold, the Philippines will become a vassal state like
Speaker 2: Myanmar is a vassal state of China. So there was
Speaker 2: a greater good argument. There was a chess game greater
Speaker 2: good argument for it. But it also probably costs some lives,
Speaker 2: just statistically, because they're telling people, they're telling people not
Speaker 2: to get vaccines.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but think about all the people who didn't get
Speaker 3: those nanobots injected into them as a result of this campaign.
Speaker 3: I'm just joking.
Speaker 5: I'm just true.
Speaker 2: Think about the people who are still immune to five
Speaker 2: g right shut out to our classic episode. This thing
Speaker 2: started in twenty twenty. It went beyond Southeast Asia, That's
Speaker 2: what I mean when I'm talking about touching the diaspora.
Speaker 2: And it terminated officially in twenty twenty one. But they
Speaker 2: rolled out bought armies on x or on Twitter. They
Speaker 2: also had the thing you can see with a lot
Speaker 2: of bots, which is talking points slightly rephrased, super common
Speaker 2: on Reddit. What it shows us, Oh gosh, we don't
Speaker 2: even have the time. I think this is an episode
Speaker 2: my Spidery Sen says, because we were talking off air
Speaker 2: about the idea of just putting podcasting and join the
Speaker 2: company responsible for this incredibly successful campaign. Let's just be honest.
Speaker 2: General Dynamics Information Technology. Looking.
Speaker 5: I can use the sex of your name, but that
Speaker 5: they do good work.
Speaker 2: We need innocuous names. If we're up to Shenanigans, look
Speaker 2: it up. The other stuff we didn't get to. There
Speaker 2: is a Connecticut sized dead zone that's coming out in
Speaker 2: the Gulf of Mexico, so be careful where you swim.
Speaker 2: California is fighting against hidden fees. Walmart is getting into
Speaker 2: surge pricing. Watch out for bacteria in Japan.
Speaker 4: Oh, French people are pooping in the seen and protest
Speaker 4: of the Olympics. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing.
Speaker 3: Oh, and we need to do a Boeing update because
Speaker 3: their star Liner issues are intense. As we record this,
Speaker 3: there are two astronauts still stuck up there in the
Speaker 3: star Liner because they can't Boeing can't figure out how
Speaker 3: to get it to work right.
Speaker 2: And we know that we know that Boeing made some
Speaker 2: pretty heavy statements about whistleblowers recently, and.
Speaker 4: Do oj I believe is starting to look at them
Speaker 4: for criminal prosecution.
Speaker 3: Yep, there's a lot in there.
Speaker 2: If you're using titanium, you know, we should be titanium. Oh,
Speaker 2: we're gonna pause for we're from our sponsors when we
Speaker 2: come back. There's something I think we I think multiple
Speaker 2: ones of us had us in here. There's a very
Speaker 2: interesting statement from the US Surgeon General which jibes with
Speaker 2: our earlier comments about social media as a dopamine casino.
Speaker 4: Skimmity, Right, we are back skimmity. Yeah, wiz on we
Speaker 4: in Ohio. Duke Dennis, did you play today? Wivvy Dunn
Speaker 4: Whizzing Up, Baby Gronk, Sussy, Impostu, Pibby Gwitch and We Wife,
Speaker 4: Sigma Alpha, Omega, Maw Grime, st Andrew, Tait, Goon.
Speaker 5: Cave One, Eddy faz Bear. Yeah you heard me. That's right,
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about Look max Ing, I'm talking about Zesty, Poggers,
Speaker 4: I'm talking about Selvesta, Kwandale, Dingle, Glizzy, Roase, toy Ancha, Zone,
Speaker 4: Thug Shaker, Morbon Time, DJ Tallit, Sissyphis, Ocean Gate, Shadow, Wizard,
Speaker 4: Money Gang Ao the pizza here?
Speaker 3: What or what is happening?
Speaker 4: Sorry, guys, have a touch of the brain rot there.
Speaker 5: What any of that means? What any of that means? Oh? Boy, guys.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I have the benefit, I suppose or curse
Speaker 4: depending on what where you stand, of having a fifteen
Speaker 4: year old kid and having being around kids also through
Speaker 4: their friendships and other friends I have who have younger kids.
Speaker 5: Kind of getting this a.
Speaker 4: Pretty broad picture of some of the Internet meme culture
Speaker 4: of like my kid's generation and the one beneath it
Speaker 4: and jen Alpha as it's known, really getting up to
Speaker 4: some very interesting beyond absurdist like slang and lingo and
Speaker 4: meme worship and a lot of it comes from streamers
Speaker 4: and twitch stuff, which has never really been.
Speaker 2: Absurdist, though sorry to interject, is it absurdist or is
Speaker 2: it simply because this is an outside looking in perspective.
Speaker 4: Yes, I would argue it is absurdist, I think, and
Speaker 4: I think that's where the appeal comes from with with
Speaker 4: the kids. I think they just like, you know, to me,
Speaker 4: absurdist is things like Tim and Eric awesome show, great job.
Speaker 5: You know. It's like that kind of.
Speaker 4: Level of which also is sort of memi and Internet
Speaker 4: kind of in terms of like what it feels like
Speaker 4: it's mimicking or like the kind of content.
Speaker 5: That we would see that you know, but like they're.
Speaker 4: Also mimicking like old infomercials from the nineties. Is a
Speaker 4: certain quality of that VHS weird still acting kind of
Speaker 4: bad infomercial thing that's made its way onto the Internet
Speaker 4: as proliferated in memes and has generated all of this
Speaker 4: crazy content. Of course, the biggest offender, I guess is TikTok,
Speaker 4: because it's all about a torch, a short attention span,
Speaker 4: theater kind of mentality.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just rattled off a bunch of.
Speaker 4: These crazy bizarro non sequitors that all do have, you know,
Speaker 4: for the most part, explanations like, for example, riz is
Speaker 4: you know, short for charisma. It's how you you know
Speaker 4: when you're looking good. A way of attracting a romantic partner.
Speaker 4: Only in Ohio is a thing. It's a meme that
Speaker 4: implies that strange events apparently only happen in Ohio. It's
Speaker 4: not good. Apparently Ohio is considered like lame or kind
Speaker 4: of milk toast.
Speaker 3: My son says, we're going to Ohio all the time.
Speaker 4: Exactly, So your son's totally in that same set as
Speaker 4: the twins that I'm referred to, Mike.
Speaker 2: It's reached normcore.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, it's interesting, but it's okay.
Speaker 4: This this will probably be educational for youmat you've probably
Speaker 4: heard the term sigma.
Speaker 5: A sigma is a term.
Speaker 4: With a lot of these two even cross over into
Speaker 4: some of the kind of weird inseell e type men's
Speaker 4: rights type things, like a sigma male is a term
Speaker 4: describing sort of a lone wolf type who is successful
Speaker 4: but doesn't necessarily attach themselves to any kind of social
Speaker 4: norms or hierarchies. And you of course have an alpha
Speaker 4: which is a dominant, and then a beta which is,
Speaker 4: you know, also been co opted by certain other communities
Speaker 4: like a beta cook, et cetera. Point being, there's a
Speaker 4: term called brain rot that is used to describe, I guess,
Speaker 4: a state of being kind of almost overwhelmed by all
Speaker 4: of this kind of content. You may have heard of
Speaker 4: skibbity toilet. It's the skibbitty adopp Yes, yes, me. This
Speaker 4: is weird little video with a dude's head popping out
Speaker 4: of a toilet, and now the kids say, skibbity.
Speaker 5: There's a dance. Everything's got a dance.
Speaker 4: The meme songs by a little Big and there's multiple
Speaker 4: versions of it, and a lot of people have taken
Speaker 4: this stuff and made other short form, weirdo non secular content,
Speaker 4: and the constant the idea of being inundated with this
Speaker 4: stuff and maybe a little too obsessed with it. I guess,
Speaker 4: with the infinite scroll that we have on social media
Speaker 4: is a brain rot. And as it turns out, the
Speaker 4: Surge in general and some other pretty significant authorities in
Speaker 4: medicine are starting to look at this and take it
Speaker 4: rather seriously. There's an article on The New York Times
Speaker 4: that came out recently by Jessica Roy who's a Paris
Speaker 4: based writer called if you know what brain rot means,
Speaker 4: you might already have it. Subtitle is a popular term
Speaker 4: captures the condition of being terminally online with humor and pathos.
Speaker 4: Example that she uses as I quote, I've been watching
Speaker 4: so many tiktoks, I have brain rot.
Speaker 5: And it's a term.
Speaker 4: That's really only kind of come into the public, kind
Speaker 4: of mainstream ish consciousness in the last handful of years.
Speaker 5: Like a lot of this stuff happens overnight, I swear.
Speaker 5: Even the term like on God.
Speaker 4: And No Cap, I didn't know until maybe a couple
Speaker 4: of years ago, and then all of a sudden it
Speaker 4: was everywhere. You know, this stuff just kind of spreads
Speaker 4: like wildfire. So to Ben's point, the Surgeon General of
Speaker 4: the United States is starting to looking at this as
Speaker 4: a legitimate medical concern, a legitimate kind of sociological breakdown
Speaker 4: in the youth, that they're getting this brain rot and
Speaker 4: they're worried that it's you know, literally causing them to
Speaker 4: be kind of zombified or in some way thrown into
Speaker 4: some kind of like fugue state, you know, and therefore
Speaker 4: is recommending that through what would take an Act of
Speaker 4: Congress to include warning labels Surgeon General warning labors on
Speaker 4: many social media websites and, according to them, to regularly
Speaker 4: remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been
Speaker 4: proved safe. Yeah, and it would require formal congressional approval.
Speaker 4: And this guy's name, by the way, is Vivek Murphy,
Speaker 4: who's the US Surgeon General.
Speaker 5: And I don't know that this is sort of a
Speaker 5: two prong story.
Speaker 4: There's there's on the one hand, the brain rot thing
Speaker 4: and the fact that it's now being looked at and
Speaker 4: researched as a legitimate kind of psychological disorder that is,
Speaker 4: you know, internet triggered. Doctor Michael Rich who's a pediatrician
Speaker 4: at the Digital Wellness Lab at the Boston Children's Hospital,
Speaker 4: they have determined this to be considered a form of
Speaker 4: problematic interactive media use. And sorry, Rich actually found it
Speaker 4: the Digital Wellness Lab and he has this to say
Speaker 4: about just classifying brain rot as a way of describing
Speaker 4: what happens when you spend a lot of your time
Speaker 4: online and you have shifted your awareness over to the
Speaker 4: online space as opposed to in real life, and are
Speaker 4: filtering everything through the lens of what has been posted
Speaker 4: and what can be posted. He adds that many of
Speaker 4: his patients actually consider having this condition I guess to
Speaker 4: be a badge of honor, like how much screen time
Speaker 4: are you getting? Like I'm you know, being terminally online
Speaker 4: is almost like a contest in some of some of
Speaker 4: these kids. And maybe that might seem ridiculous, but I
Speaker 4: think it is a particularly younger generation. Like I know
Speaker 4: these two twins who are psychotically online.
Speaker 5: They can't you.
Speaker 4: Take away their iPad for five seconds. They can't cope.
Speaker 4: It's literally the only way they know how to view
Speaker 4: the world. And the last point I'll make on the
Speaker 4: brain rot thing is that there is another school of
Speaker 4: thought that refers to this as a form of self soothing,
Speaker 4: and that this type of behavior is also just kind
Speaker 4: of acting out in order to self soothe, like people
Speaker 4: often do with drugs, miss self medication, they call that.
Speaker 4: Because there's an underlying condition that isn't being addressed, whether
Speaker 4: it be some form of spectrum type type condition, you know, autism,
Speaker 4: whatever it might be, depression, what have you, that just
Speaker 4: isn't being addressed because the parents just shove the iPad
Speaker 4: into the baby's hands, make them.
Speaker 5: Leave them alone for five minutes. You know, So I
Speaker 5: don't know'st's start with? The warning? Is social media like cigarettes?
Speaker 4: And is a warning gonna do a damn thing other
Speaker 4: than maybe let parents know if they don't already know,
Speaker 4: the internet is maybe not the best to have unfettered
Speaker 4: access to when you're six years old. Maybe I don't
Speaker 4: know a warning is gonna help with those folks. What
Speaker 4: do you guys think Is that gonna do anything? Is
Speaker 4: it that simple? Is the genie already out of the bottle?
Speaker 2: So before I answer this question, I'd like to point
Speaker 2: people to This is the thing I was sending around
Speaker 2: when I first learned about the news on June seventeenth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. It's a guest essay by doctor Murphy
Speaker 2: himself in New York Times, and he has a line
Speaker 2: that really stood.
Speaker 5: Out to me.
Speaker 2: I'd like to read it here. It gets into poetry.
Speaker 2: It says the following and this is a very short read.
Speaker 2: It's very good. It's high impact stuff. You should read it, folks,
Speaker 2: if you have an interest in this. He says the
Speaker 2: following quote. There is no seat belt for parents to click,
Speaker 2: no helmet to snap in place, no assurance that trusted
Speaker 2: experts have investigated and ensured that these platforms are safe
Speaker 2: for our kids. They're just parents and their children trying
Speaker 2: to figure it out on their own, pitted against some
Speaker 2: of the best product engineers and most well resourced companies
Speaker 2: in the world. I was like pumping my fist at
Speaker 2: the end of that, because that is very much true.
Speaker 2: Legislation lacks behind technological innovation, and I don't think this
Speaker 2: is in any way way some kind of political grand standing.
Speaker 2: I would argue this is a legitimate concern. Something like
Speaker 2: this technology has not existed previously.
Speaker 4: No, I mean, and I think you're absolutely right, Ben,
Speaker 4: and I would argue that this starting this conversation at
Speaker 4: that level of government where something can be done about it,
Speaker 4: is seemingly to me a step in the right direction.
Speaker 4: We also know that, you know, the US spending a
Speaker 4: whole lot of time targeting TikTok because of its Chinese ownership,
Speaker 4: while pretty much letting Twitter do whatever the f they want,
Speaker 4: including promoting you know, vehement racism, why nationalism, hardcore pornography, whatever,
Speaker 4: unfettered you know, hate speech. So it's this guy is
Speaker 4: obviously not coming down with an agenda. He's the surgeon General.
Speaker 4: He doesn't really necessarily care what the political rhetoric.
Speaker 2: I mean, his agenda is technically two key people healthy,
Speaker 2: and I.
Speaker 5: Think it's a good way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Matt, And you know you mentioned the boys talking
Speaker 4: about Ohio risen up and all that, Like, what do
Speaker 4: you feel like that with with kids that have already
Speaker 4: had access to this stuff? Is it too late? You
Speaker 4: can't if you take it away from him? Their heads
Speaker 4: all freaking book.
Speaker 3: I would say it's not too late. Humans are extremely adaptable.
Speaker 3: Children will get over things. I know I got over
Speaker 3: a great many things that didn't have to do with
Speaker 3: the Internet. I just you know, I'm sure we all did.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I feel pretty strongly about it. Today. I literally bought
Speaker 3: my son a device that doesn't have Internet access, but
Speaker 3: he can call me on it nice. Yeah, And I
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time and unfortunately money to make
Speaker 3: sure that it was advice that he could not access
Speaker 3: this stuff. Even if he wanted to write, He couldn't
Speaker 3: get the drug no matter what.
Speaker 2: He couldn't hack this device or root it.
Speaker 3: Well, maybe if one day, when he's old enough to
Speaker 3: hack the device, he'll probably have a device of his
Speaker 3: own that already has Internet access. Because he'll need it
Speaker 3: for whatever school thing.
Speaker 5: He's doing right seven, he's eight.
Speaker 2: It'd be pretty impressive if he did hack the device
Speaker 2: you got him.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, my devices are already hacked and I
Speaker 3: didn't do it. But it's all good. We'll figure that
Speaker 3: stuff out. But I wanted to give another quote here,
Speaker 3: just with that stuff in mind. This is from The Atlantic,
Speaker 3: writing about the New York Times piece. And this is
Speaker 3: a writer, another writer who didn't write the Atlantic piece,
Speaker 3: commenting on the New York Times piece. This writer's name
Speaker 3: is Jonathan hate Haidt. And this is a great quote
Speaker 3: because this is how I feel. Quote. We as a
Speaker 3: country are generally careful about the consumer products and medications
Speaker 3: that harm small numbers of children, small numbers of children,
Speaker 3: Yet we have done nothing, absolutely nothing, ever to protect
Speaker 3: children from the main consumer product they use every day,
Speaker 3: which is social media, which is I think, guys, the
Speaker 3: problems with social media. Tell me if I'm wrong here.
Speaker 3: I think there's they're completely separate from the language kids
Speaker 3: are using that we would, maybe, to Ben's point earlier,
Speaker 3: an outside perspective looking in. I thought about it for
Speaker 3: a while as we were talking there. I think you're
Speaker 3: absolutely right. When it comes to the language, because that
Speaker 3: is when I think about it more and more. It's
Speaker 3: the same thing we did. We've talked about this before
Speaker 3: on the show. In our generation, we would use phrases
Speaker 3: and stuff to be insular so that maybe the parents
Speaker 3: don't know exactly what we're talking about.
Speaker 5: You guys are one hundred percent right.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying the choices in the language are absurd.
Speaker 4: It's there's a certain absurd itce bet to the comedy
Speaker 4: and the humor, but you're abu out of the coded language.
Speaker 5: Also keep things for showing them, search terms, et cetera.
Speaker 3: But the dangerous stuff with social media is the stuff
Speaker 3: that the three of us for sure experience when we're
Speaker 3: just interacting with other people. We're putting ourselves out there
Speaker 3: hoping that people enjoy or like what we're doing, and
Speaker 3: when they don't or if they're mean, it affects us,
Speaker 3: whether we want it to or not. Right, even if
Speaker 3: we can brush it off, it still hits right. Even
Speaker 3: if you can take a punch, you're still taking a punch.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: And please do folks, please do read that op ed
Speaker 2: by the Surgeon General himself and Matt I think you
Speaker 2: make a beautiful play. I appreciate the backup on this,
Speaker 2: you know, because there is the intergenerational aspect, right. You
Speaker 2: build community through the original technology of language. You see
Speaker 2: this in thieves. Can't you see this in demographic specific things.
Speaker 2: It's not inherently bad. It has simply been exacerbated by
Speaker 2: this new, previously non existent technology. If there was social
Speaker 2: media in fourteen hundreds France, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: history might have gone a different way and we would
Speaker 2: have a lot more weird French terms.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, I think too, just the.
Speaker 4: Length of time the Internet has been around and how
Speaker 4: much information is available to young people.
Speaker 5: I think it speaks volumes to the.
Speaker 4: Vast different parts of culture that get pulled from to
Speaker 4: make some of these terms, you know, like they're from
Speaker 4: all over the place. A lot of it's from like
Speaker 4: you know, drag culture, sleigh or whatever. But there's a
Speaker 4: lot of terms that are borrowed from, like hip hop.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of terms that are borrowed from, you know,
Speaker 4: just memes or things that come up or that like
Speaker 4: catch phrases that certain streamers say, or things that happen
Speaker 4: in like Fortnite or whatever. It's just interesting the way
Speaker 4: this stuff kind of evolves like a virus.
Speaker 5: It's almost like these complex systems.
Speaker 3: My son really quickly there's a cat who is living
Speaker 3: here right now, and the I used the term to
Speaker 3: describe what the cat was doing. Instead of saying meow
Speaker 3: her vocalization mew, I said mew and my son said
Speaker 3: that's not mewing that. I was like, yeah, it is,
Speaker 3: And then he demonstrated what mewing is and I was like,
Speaker 3: what how what ye your eight my son.
Speaker 5: Anyway, it's a lot more than you think they do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that's that's some of the absurd stuff too,
Speaker 4: because mewing I'm doing it. It's just kind of like
Speaker 4: think of a villain stroking their beard kind of while
Speaker 4: making a weird like blue steel like from Zulander face
Speaker 4: kind of.
Speaker 5: It's like this gigachad kind of face.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It's and it's like, I don't really even know where
Speaker 4: that comes from or what it refers to, but it's
Speaker 4: a thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's really really interesting.
Speaker 4: I do think that, you know, having a warning at
Speaker 4: least it puts something out there like that. Parents maybe
Speaker 4: if they're just totally in the dark, gives them access
Speaker 4: to the fact that, hey, from a place of authority,
Speaker 4: this is maybe not the best thing to let your
Speaker 4: kid do at an early age.
Speaker 3: What if it was like, what was that campaign, the
Speaker 3: anti smoking campaign from back in the day that was
Speaker 3: like aimed directly at the kids and it was cool,
Speaker 3: was like Joe Cammel.
Speaker 5: No, the kids loved Joe Cammell.
Speaker 3: No, it was an anti smoking ad. It was the
Speaker 3: ones that were really like hit back in the day
Speaker 3: about true smoke truth. Yeah, what if they use that
Speaker 3: kind of model and they used meme speak like this
Speaker 3: kind of stuff we're talking about.
Speaker 2: The anti spoking campaign was paid by tobacco companies as
Speaker 2: part of legal rea.
Speaker 3: But what I'm saying is, what if you can make
Speaker 3: the messages super like that? What this app is totally Ohio?
Speaker 3: Or is going man? This app is in Ohio.
Speaker 4: The Internet today guys who cover the story as well
Speaker 4: pointed out, I can't remember which one of them said it,
Speaker 4: but you know, in Europe, pretty much everywhere except for
Speaker 4: the United States, you might pack of cigarettes. It's kind
Speaker 4: of an image of a black lung on it. It
Speaker 4: has an image of someone who's had their leg amputated
Speaker 4: due to poor blood flow. It's got like children weeping
Speaker 4: over there into mommy or daddy in a hospital.
Speaker 2: This is clearly a story that we hope resonates with
Speaker 2: you folks, definitely resonates with us internally. I gotta say
Speaker 2: my favorite example of those warning things in South Korea.
Speaker 2: Every time I go, I see a warning pack. They
Speaker 2: have the you know, the pantheon of graphic pictures of
Speaker 2: physiological problems. But my favorite is the picture on the
Speaker 2: pack of a child looking unhappy and crying while taller
Speaker 2: parents are arguing and smoking. I feel like that's more effective,
Speaker 2: at least for that market. But the warning labels are important,
Speaker 2: and to your point, this is, at the very least
Speaker 2: this is a step in thinking about things in a
Speaker 2: more serious way.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, and I'm with you on the tall people.
Speaker 4: Smoking is the greatest deturnent of all, especially the children.
Speaker 5: But the internet today, guys.
Speaker 4: The point that they made was if you're going to
Speaker 4: do something like that with social media, it would need
Speaker 4: to be like an image of suicide or something like
Speaker 4: what would be the smoking equivalent that you could shock
Speaker 4: kids into thinking twice before they jump down the social
Speaker 4: media rabbit hole. Essentially, the problem is that it makes
Speaker 4: you disconnected from society, and it can make you really
Speaker 4: depressed because you're viewing all of these other people that
Speaker 4: are better than you, smarter than you, better looking than you,
Speaker 4: more popular than you, etc.
Speaker 5: And it can send you down a rabbit hole.
Speaker 4: I'm grateful that my kids seems to have a decent
Speaker 4: head on their shoulders about it and isn't as terminally
Speaker 4: online as sum So, you know, small, small wins there.
Speaker 4: But I think this might be worth an episode unto itself,
Speaker 4: just this whole concept that we're talking about in this
Speaker 4: gen alpha phenomenon, and further exploring what could happen with
Speaker 4: a government intervention. We have heard, for example, snapchats already
Speaker 4: starting to self impose some restrictions that could potentially protect
Speaker 4: young people.
Speaker 5: But anyway, let's take a.
Speaker 4: Quick break and we'll hear worth more sponsor than to
Speaker 4: be back with another piece of strange mans.
Speaker 3: And we've returned, and we're doing a bit of a
Speaker 3: time machine jump here. Boys, we are going back to
Speaker 3: two thoy twenty two December in fact, to an unrelated
Speaker 3: CBS Evening News report covering the ADHD prescription drug shortage
Speaker 3: was time travel.
Speaker 5: Cue finger, Oh, we're there.
Speaker 3: We're back, guys. Remember the pandemic. It was only two
Speaker 3: and change years ago, so.
Speaker 5: It was only a decade ago.
Speaker 2: So you know, I loved the mystery of going to
Speaker 2: the grocery store and everybody had about two thirds of
Speaker 2: their face covered up. Eye contact, had so much gravitas.
Speaker 2: And also also yeah, I still yeah, very expressive. Everybody
Speaker 2: was weighing the rock Johnson for a second. And I
Speaker 2: got to tell you, in these pandemic times, Matt, I
Speaker 2: loved it. I got so spoiled by not having to
Speaker 2: look at people's mouths. And I personally still rock a
Speaker 2: mask because I look better with two thirds of my
Speaker 2: face covered up.
Speaker 5: Agreatable, but.
Speaker 6: Okay, how it makes you feel just to put us
Speaker 6: all our fellow conspiracy realist in the moment twenty twenty two,
Speaker 6: when will this end?
Speaker 2: Things are getting weird.
Speaker 3: We're there, especially early on when there were intense travel
Speaker 3: restrictions and health formation. Yeah, not all information. The health
Speaker 3: concerns were very high, and there was a problem getting prescriptions.
Speaker 3: Not only was it impossible for a short time to
Speaker 3: go into the doctor to get prescribed a specific drug,
Speaker 3: it was very difficult to get an appointment after that time.
Speaker 3: For a pretty large window. So the US government, the
Speaker 3: good old US government, lifted a tiny little rule that
Speaker 3: required a an in person medical visit to a medical
Speaker 3: professional before a patient could be prescribed what they consider
Speaker 3: controlled substances. One of these controlled substances was ADHD. Prescription
Speaker 3: medication such as amphetamine salts were also known as adderall.
Speaker 3: Now that's cool, that makes sense, right, Hey, I have
Speaker 3: this thing. I need a prescription for it. I need
Speaker 3: to be diagnosed with it, which is a big deal.
Speaker 3: That's a big deal. So to get one of these drugs,
Speaker 3: a doctor has to say, hey, you need one of
Speaker 3: these drugs in the US, in the United States, and
Speaker 3: they do that through assessing you right before they had
Speaker 3: to see you in person. Now, after this restriction was lifted,
Speaker 3: you could get an online appointment and health a telehealther exactly.
Speaker 3: Medical professional could look at you through the camera and go, hmmm,
Speaker 3: I think this person needs adderall.
Speaker 2: And I've done just not to make this bout me.
Speaker 2: I have had those telehealth conversations, and I understand the
Speaker 2: skepticism when I'm thinking, you know, okay, I get it.
Speaker 2: Between the two of us, one is a doctor, but
Speaker 2: I also use zoom pretty frequently, and I'm not sure
Speaker 2: how good your spidy sense is.
Speaker 3: Man. Yeah, well, especially for something like ADHD right.
Speaker 2: Right, which is an internal mechanism.
Speaker 3: It requires quite a bit of discussion. I mean, you
Speaker 3: would listen to a patient as a medical professional, but
Speaker 3: also watch them and see their mannerisms and a lot
Speaker 3: of that I would I would guess could you could
Speaker 3: diagnose or look at over a camera. But I think
Speaker 3: there's little things that would be missed, and there's potential
Speaker 3: for someone to try and get over on a medical
Speaker 3: professional to get a drug that they don't need prescribed
Speaker 3: but they want.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: Because medications like adderall and other stimulants like that can
Speaker 3: be abused.
Speaker 2: Exams are coming up, etc.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, they can be used for a lot of
Speaker 3: different things there as a studying drug, which was very
Speaker 3: popular and is still popular, or as a party drug,
Speaker 3: as a let's stay up. It's a stimulant, not not
Speaker 3: like but not unlike cocaine.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 3: It's like one of those drugs that's rides the line
Speaker 3: there sometimes and it depends on who you are and
Speaker 3: what's going on internally how it could be used or abused.
Speaker 3: All right, So that's back in twenty twenty two. At
Speaker 3: the time, CBS Evening News was reporting on how capitalism
Speaker 3: did its thing in response to these restrictions being lifted,
Speaker 3: and companies like Cerebral and Done Global and countless others
Speaker 3: they popped up or they pivoted, let's say, to begin
Speaker 3: trying to prescribe as many people as they could adderall
Speaker 3: and other stimulants.
Speaker 2: Because capitalism is a drug that sells you drugs, that's right.
Speaker 3: That drug keeps on drugging and then it goes into
Speaker 3: other countries and finds the stuff that you need to
Speaker 3: make the drugs, and secures that it brings it home.
Speaker 2: A little bit of democracy, Yeah it's fine. It's fine
Speaker 2: to getting situations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fine. So back then in twenty twenty two,
Speaker 3: at the very end of it, there's this person named
Speaker 3: Kyle Robertson who was for quite a time and officially
Speaker 3: on paper forever, the founder of Cerebral, which was one
Speaker 3: of these companies who was doing this. And if you
Speaker 3: watch this video, it's a short video. In a pretty
Speaker 3: long report out of CBS Evening News, they discuss how
Speaker 3: this person was ousted at the company. This Kyle Robertson
Speaker 3: of Cerebral but he made some statements before that whole
Speaker 3: thing happened, and I think right after it happened, alleging
Speaker 3: that quote, major investors pushed for increased prescriptions of adderall.
Speaker 3: So it was the money that was going into the
Speaker 3: company and the people who are providing the money for
Speaker 3: the company saying, hey, we need you to up these prescriptions.
Speaker 5: Guys, that's not how it's supposed to work. Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: exactly how it's supposed to work.
Speaker 3: Well, here's why where it gets weird and how we
Speaker 3: get to our main story for this segment. So that's
Speaker 3: cerebral Cerebral Health. I think it's called that was back
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two. We are jumping to June eighteenth,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four, when there's another telehealth company that just
Speaker 3: got in big trouble and there were arrests made. Let's
Speaker 3: quickly just talk about how weird that is. Generally, when
Speaker 3: we bring these stories to you, if it's about a
Speaker 3: corporation or a big company, something that has a lot
Speaker 3: of profits that could be potentially helpful. Let's say, for
Speaker 3: the bottom line of the old GDP thing in the US,
Speaker 3: the company gets slapped with a fine because Uncle Sam
Speaker 3: gets his cut, and then that's it. They don't have
Speaker 3: to say, hey, we did a bunch of wrong things.
Speaker 3: Nobody goes to jail. It's just, hey, y'all did a
Speaker 3: bad thing. You're not supposed to do that. Give us
Speaker 3: some money, okay.
Speaker 2: And if the punishment for a crime is a fee,
Speaker 2: then ultimately the crime is being poor. That's just true.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's a cost of doing business, as we've said.
Speaker 2: And this is what I really appreciate about the point
Speaker 2: you're building here, man, is that we have seen numerous
Speaker 2: other instances wherein the individuals responsible for the commission of
Speaker 2: the crime are not themselves punished as human individuals. Shout
Speaker 2: out the Sackler family, right. So this case is different
Speaker 2: in that there are decision makers who are in criminal trouble,
Speaker 2: not civil court or anything like that.
Speaker 5: Correct.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm going to give you the headline of this
Speaker 3: article and then we'll jump into the specifics the article
Speaker 3: that you can find right now. Telehealth ceo charged in
Speaker 3: alleged one hundred million dollar scheme to provide quote easy
Speaker 3: access unquote to adderall and other stimulants. This is out
Speaker 3: of CBS News June eighteenth, and in this article it
Speaker 3: describes how two of the top people, the CEO and
Speaker 3: I guess it's the clinical president or the head doctor
Speaker 3: of this company, were both arrested and they have been
Speaker 3: charged with some pretty serious crime, some allegations that the
Speaker 3: Department of Justice is saying these are not good. I'll
Speaker 3: just give you from the article here the two individuals.
Speaker 3: Ruthia he r U t Hi A H E. This
Speaker 3: is the founder of Done Global d N E G
Speaker 3: L O B A L. This person was arrested in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, and this is over allegations that she I'm
Speaker 3: going to list them off. One participated in the distribution
Speaker 3: of adderall over the internet, two submitted false and fraudulent
Speaker 3: claims for reimbursements, and three obstructed justice. The company's clinical president,
Speaker 3: a separate person named David Brody, was also arrested, this
Speaker 3: time in San Rafael, California, same charges. So are the
Speaker 3: two main arrests that have occurred. Which is already a
Speaker 3: big deal, right.
Speaker 5: Is this what you might call a pill mill? Is
Speaker 5: this similar to that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Okay, pill mills exactly, at least according to the Department
Speaker 3: of Justice and Ann Milgram, who is oh gosh, she's
Speaker 3: the dea administrator currently the Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator. This
Speaker 3: company was basically just trying to get as many people
Speaker 3: as they could hooked on adderall, and not via a
Speaker 3: full on prescription that you would get from a doctor
Speaker 3: if you went in it was. It was selling people
Speaker 3: monthly subscriptions to a service wherein they can just get adderall.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense? The difference between a prescription and
Speaker 3: a subscription.
Speaker 2: It's called being a drug dealer because a prescription is
Speaker 2: prescribed for a defined window of time. A subscription expires
Speaker 2: when you decide not to pay for the fee.
Speaker 4: And certain I I have a prescription low dose prescription
Speaker 4: for some anxiety medication, and it has zero refills every
Speaker 4: single round, right, so one refill lasts an entire month,
Speaker 4: and then the doctor has to call it in every time,
Speaker 4: and after a certain number.
Speaker 5: Of those I have to I'm required.
Speaker 4: To go in for a visit for them to check
Speaker 4: up on me and make sure I'm still worthy of
Speaker 4: the anxiety medication or whatever it is. But it's a
Speaker 4: way of keeping track and checking on you and making
Speaker 4: sure you're not just willy nilly popping these things like
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: Jujubes well and anxiety medications very similar to ADHD. Medications
Speaker 3: can have some pretty gnarly effects, especially yes, especially when
Speaker 3: you combine, and can be extremely addictive.
Speaker 2: Sotius effects, addiction spirals. Yeah, check out our new Tropics
Speaker 2: episode as well.
Speaker 4: So we'll talk about that a little bit too in
Speaker 4: next Listener Mail episode.
Speaker 3: YEP. I want to make sure we get this out there.
Speaker 3: Every understands the company is done Global Incorporated, don Global Incorporated.
Speaker 5: The certainly are done.
Speaker 3: Well well, I don't know. If you go to the website,
Speaker 3: it looks like everything's still going. They've been arrested, bad
Speaker 3: stuff's happening, but as of right now they're in litigation
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, right And also, again, getting in trouble as
Speaker 2: a corporation is different from if you are a John
Speaker 2: or Jane do Schmo and you get in trouble. I
Speaker 2: think one important point before we really drive this home,
Speaker 2: met is we haven't said it yet, but this medication
Speaker 2: is mission critical and life changing for many people. It's
Speaker 2: not everybody is out there recreationally doing adderall. Some people
Speaker 2: need it to function at a competent level and absolutely
Speaker 2: improve their lives to a massive degree.
Speaker 5: And it has a completely different effect for those people.
Speaker 4: The people that are just taking it recreationally or to
Speaker 4: get it edge or whatever.
Speaker 5: It's an amphetamine.
Speaker 4: But for people that really need it for ADHD or
Speaker 4: true whatever you know, similar condition, it calms them down.
Speaker 4: I've always found that to be an interesting paradox. That's
Speaker 4: true of a lot of drugs, Like if you're using
Speaker 4: it for the right reasons, it's different effect so different.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I know several people very close to me who
Speaker 3: use that medication because they need it, and since they
Speaker 3: need it, they see a psychiatrist who helps them make
Speaker 3: sure they still need it and all of that. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's exactly what you were talking about. No, there's a
Speaker 3: medical professional who was there for them, who is providing
Speaker 3: that service and taking literally medical care of them by
Speaker 3: providing this.
Speaker 2: Stuff, combined with secondary treatments and mitigation strategies like meditation,
Speaker 2: mindfulness exercises which everybody should be attempting. Listening like active
Speaker 2: listening exercises are big for ADHD. As someone who struggled
Speaker 2: with it, it's not you know, like a waiting for the
Speaker 2: turn to get the dopamine a talking kind of thing,
Speaker 2: you know, And that that I think really really expands
Speaker 2: the afficacy of this kind of.
Speaker 3: Medication fully, fully and that's I think why DEA administrator
Speaker 3: and Milgram, and you know, the DOJ is so kind
Speaker 3: of upset at these folks who are who are taking
Speaker 3: this and turning it on its head to turn a profit. Right,
Speaker 3: I'm going to read just a quick statement here from
Speaker 3: DEA administrator and Milgram. She released this on June fourteenth,
Speaker 3: after the arrests were announced by the DJ. It's kind
Speaker 3: of long, guys, but I think this just drives it
Speaker 3: home of what's happening. The defendants allegedly preyed on Americans
Speaker 3: and put profits over patients by exploiting telemedicine rules that
Speaker 3: facilitated access to medications during the unprecedented COVID nineteen public
Speaker 3: health emergency. Instead of properly addressing medical needs, the defendants
Speaker 3: allegedly made millions of dollars by pushing addictive medications, in
Speaker 3: many cases done global prescribed ADHD medications when they were
Speaker 3: not medically necessary. And this is important. The allegations are
Speaker 3: that they knew these medications were not necessary, but there
Speaker 3: was a push from above to get as many quote
Speaker 3: monthly subscriptions as they possibly could. And all of these
Speaker 3: medical providers, because they did actually hire medical providers to
Speaker 3: do these telehealth these interviews basically, and they were pushed
Speaker 3: and pressured to give the green light to a subscription
Speaker 3: rather than you do anything else. Oh and they were
Speaker 3: also pushed from above to only have one meeting, one
Speaker 3: medical visit, right, shake and bake.
Speaker 4: I do wonder if there's something in the way they
Speaker 4: talk to their patients or the boxes they tick on
Speaker 4: their intakes that cover their butts in some way, because
Speaker 4: I describe my situation with anxiety stuff.
Speaker 5: But when I go into the.
Speaker 4: Office, they don't like probe me about it. They don't
Speaker 4: really test anything. They just look at me and make
Speaker 4: sure I'm not cuckoo bananas, and then they give me
Speaker 4: my script, you know, and even getting it in the
Speaker 4: first place, like wasn't insanely hard. I'm not saying that
Speaker 4: I'm going in and trying to you know, fleece doctors
Speaker 4: for like prescription meds. But I just said, you know,
Speaker 4: I've been experiencing some pretty significant stresses with work, and
Speaker 4: and you know, just as simple as that, here you go,
Speaker 4: my boy, have this low dose of alpraz lamb or whatever.
Speaker 4: So I would argue this isn't that far off from
Speaker 4: the way the model's supposed to work, But there is
Speaker 4: a little extra level of oversight in the legitimate form.
Speaker 4: I just wonder what they're asking to cover their butts,
Speaker 4: because they have to have some on paper reason they're
Speaker 4: giving these out. Or do they just throw caution into
Speaker 4: the wind and not give a flip.
Speaker 3: They have a medical professional make an assessment, what.
Speaker 4: I mean, But it's up to their discretion, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but on's defend themselves.
Speaker 3: I guess once you have that as the company, I'm
Speaker 3: assuming they just chose to say this is good enough, right.
Speaker 2: It's like a president mm hmm.
Speaker 3: It's like when sometimes when we're performing interviews or something
Speaker 3: and we're doing it more man on the street style. Officially,
Speaker 3: we need to get some document signed that says, hey,
Speaker 3: this is who I am, and I give you permission
Speaker 3: to use this interview. But if we can't get that,
Speaker 3: or we don't have one of those on us, or
Speaker 3: we're in a rush, you can do something where a
Speaker 3: human being looks into the camera and records themselves saying, Hi,
Speaker 3: I am X, and you can use this footage of
Speaker 3: me in your interview. That way, it covers our butts
Speaker 3: if we ever use that interview, right.
Speaker 2: And it's also ethical for us to do that at
Speaker 2: the end, so they know what they're agreeing to share.
Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely, and the butt covering involves in case they
Speaker 4: change their mind or regret something they said.
Speaker 5: But even in those situations, we're more.
Speaker 4: Likely to like work with someone and be like, you know,
Speaker 4: we're not going to like drag you.
Speaker 3: Or whatever exactly. But guys, just to take this back
Speaker 3: to the top one more time, to twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: In this statement from Anne Milgrim, she puts this towards
Speaker 3: the end. There was a shortage of adderall and other
Speaker 3: stimulants in twenty twenty two. The FDA issued to notice
Speaker 3: about this. It was a big deal. It was all
Speaker 3: over the news. We even mentioned it. I think back
Speaker 3: back then and this pill mill style thing that was
Speaker 3: not necessary anymore because in twenty twenty two, I don't
Speaker 3: know if y'all remember, we could drive places again, we
Speaker 3: could go to places again, and if we really, if
Speaker 3: a human being needed to go get a prescription, you
Speaker 3: could go see a medical professional. Doesn't mean it wasn't
Speaker 3: necessary for a lot of people, right, But it does
Speaker 3: mean that the vast majority of humans didn't need or
Speaker 3: have those restrictions anyway.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 2: But another thing we could argue, we see this in
Speaker 2: other industries, prices have prices spike during similar supply chain issues.
Speaker 2: In the pandemic, however, all that really happened is corporations
Speaker 2: figured out they could shift the overton window. The prices
Speaker 2: didn't go down. So if you have a rule that's
Speaker 2: supposed to be a limited time i'm rule for a
Speaker 2: global catastrophe, why would you dial it back as the
Speaker 2: corport It's like to say, if it is advantageous to you,
Speaker 2: that's the pickle, right, that's the bag of badgers here?
Speaker 2: Why would you step that back? You could even if
Speaker 2: you want to play along at home. If you have
Speaker 2: a doctor that you feel maybe somehow incentivized to go
Speaker 2: a little hard on stuff that might be a solution
Speaker 2: you ask yourself about after a couple of other interventions,
Speaker 2: then there's nothing wrong with asking the doctor. Are there
Speaker 2: steps between this, like steps between ADHD or heavy psychoactive meds?
Speaker 2: Depending on how you feel about your doctor, you could
Speaker 2: even ask have you been in any way incentivized to
Speaker 2: immediately recommend this?
Speaker 4: It seems like if if they are they wouldn't tell you.
Speaker 4: I know there are honorable people in the medical profession.
Speaker 4: I know there are dishonorable people in the medical profession,
Speaker 4: as there are in any profession. But I just you know,
Speaker 4: you got me thinking, guys, how many think about how
Speaker 4: many things just kind of stayed around after COVID, Like
Speaker 4: it just became the new norm, you know, like not
Speaker 4: going into the office, and then there became all of
Speaker 4: these kind of mitigating efforts to try to push back
Speaker 4: the clock and make things like they used to be.
Speaker 4: But it's really hard once you got that critical mass.
Speaker 4: So now you do have companies like Hymn's and hers.
Speaker 4: I mean there's always been prescription male things, but it seems.
Speaker 5: Like now it's really taken off.
Speaker 4: And we're also going to get into another discussion soon
Speaker 4: about how this supply chain shortage thing for drugs like
Speaker 4: a jozepic and manjarro are now affecting the folks that
Speaker 4: have needed those drugs for a long time for reasons
Speaker 4: other than you know, dropping some pounds.
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, the Overton window of normalization and that I
Speaker 2: don't want to derail us here, but I feel what
Speaker 2: you're saying, like the larger context of this. If anything,
Speaker 2: the scary thing, the scared very aspect of this story
Speaker 2: is the extraordinary part being individual human beings were arrested,
Speaker 2: got in trouble at criminal court. That is by far,
Speaker 2: unfortunately the most anomalous part of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a big deal. It's a really big deal.
Speaker 3: This comes from court documents and this is how I
Speaker 3: want to end it.
Speaker 5: Guys.
Speaker 3: These individuals in the company are accused of structuring the
Speaker 3: company's platform to quote facilitate access to adderall and other stimulants,
Speaker 3: including by limiting the information available to the prescribers, the
Speaker 3: people who bought the monthly subscription, instructing DONE prescribers. Prescribers
Speaker 3: these are the medical professionals to prescribe adderall and other
Speaker 3: stimulants even if the DONE member did not qualify, like
Speaker 3: according to the assessment, did not qualify, and by mandating
Speaker 3: that those medical professionals, those prescribers in their initial encounters,
Speaker 3: limited them to thirty minutes or less. So literally, you've
Speaker 3: we've got thirty minutes. Make sure this person gets an adderall.
Speaker 2: Prescription, make sure they walk out the door with it.
Speaker 3: Mm hmm, and are paying us monthly because we need
Speaker 3: to make over one hundred million dollars at least according
Speaker 3: to the documents there. Good golly, no, thanks.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, and it is you know, it is
Speaker 2: a function of several active conspiracies, right, the privatization, the monetization,
Speaker 2: commodification of basic human rights like healthcare. It's something, Matt,
Speaker 2: you tell us, is this something that you think will
Speaker 2: set precedent for other similar activities in the world of medicine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's already happening. And this is one
Speaker 3: of many companies that are doing this precise thing. Maybe
Speaker 3: not in the same way, right, maybe they are actually
Speaker 3: attempting to get people prescribed the medications that they need.
Speaker 3: But kind of what you're saying, the window is open now, right,
Speaker 3: and anybody with enough capital to get in there and
Speaker 3: start a company and you tackle this stuff and capture
Speaker 3: it can do that.
Speaker 4: But on the flip side, do you think, with this
Speaker 4: attention being brought to this case, if others are going
Speaker 4: to start coming out of the woodwork and then there's
Speaker 4: going to be more of a crackdown on this type
Speaker 4: of behavior. Is this like just the first step in
Speaker 4: a series of chess moves that ultimately could topple this
Speaker 4: kind of structure.
Speaker 3: Well, we were talking about how Cerebral got in big
Speaker 3: trouble for doing something very similar to this, and I
Speaker 3: think I think ADHD medications are just one of those
Speaker 3: things that can be used in this way. Right now,
Speaker 3: There's gonna be others, and there have been others. I'm
Speaker 3: sure I just don't know them right now. Guys, this
Speaker 3: is the response from DONE Global really quickly. They strongly
Speaker 3: disagree with the criminal charges filed last week against their founder,
Speaker 3: which are based on events that principally occurred between twenty
Speaker 3: twenty and twenty twenty three. Since our founding, guys, they've
Speaker 3: worked to make mental health care accessible for tens of
Speaker 3: thousands of Americans trapped in a spiraling national crisis. Done
Speaker 3: Global will continue to operate and do everything in their
Speaker 3: power to ensure that tens of thousands of Americans that
Speaker 3: rely on us do not lose access to their mental
Speaker 3: health care.
Speaker 2: By paying their subscription.
Speaker 4: Well, guys, I don't know about you, but I take
Speaker 4: them at their word. I'm satisfied. I think we should
Speaker 4: move on.
Speaker 3: No, I really I think you're right.
Speaker 2: And with this, folks, we are ending our exploration of
Speaker 2: strange news for the moment. We will return with even
Speaker 2: more bizarre things in the future. We can't wait for
Speaker 2: you to join us. We want to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 2: We always get fantastic feedback from our fellow listeners, who
Speaker 2: are the most important part of the show. Just going
Speaker 2: to get in front of the emails real quick, running behind.
Speaker 2: Got to write to several people in place of a
Speaker 2: night walk this evening. But there are some breaking news
Speaker 2: that happened as we were recording. The US Supreme Court
Speaker 2: just today struck down the anti corruption law that makes
Speaker 2: it a cry to take gifts from donors.
Speaker 5: Yeah, who needs anti corruption? Me corrupt? It's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a non surprising six 's three vote. Shout
Speaker 2: out to our George boy Clarence. I hope he writes
Speaker 2: the I hope he writes a poetic defense of recreational vehicles.
Speaker 5: But those those vacations, does any boys?
Speaker 2: Our views are so cool though objectively I'm with him
Speaker 2: on that on that part. But again, more news to come.
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Speaker 3: We are conspirac because I forgot to add one line
Speaker 3: in here from this, I gotta tell you this. This
Speaker 3: is this is the icing on the cake. According to
Speaker 3: Done Global, they're going to continue to quote support our
Speaker 3: clinicians as they exercise independent clinical judgment. Passing the buck
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