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. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nola. They call me Ben.
Speaker 3: We're joined with our guest producer, Ben the outlaw Hackett.
Speaker 3: Most importantly, you are you. You are here. That makes
Speaker 3: this the stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
Speaker 3: I guess this is sort of our real estate episode
Speaker 3: in a very dark way.
Speaker 4: Oh fine, it's sounds six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's our urban planning episode.
Speaker 4: Let's flip some properties, y'all.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, yeah, you know, before we get started. Have
Speaker 3: you guys ever speculated on that. I don't think we've
Speaker 3: ever talked about it, but if you ever wanted to
Speaker 3: be a house slipper.
Speaker 4: My girlfriend rely likes those shows, though I kind of
Speaker 4: can't stand them. Frankly, Yeah, it's kind of weird energy.
Speaker 4: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 3: Weird energy is a good way to say it.
Speaker 2: You have to have a certain amount of money in
Speaker 2: standing to get the first one, right. Then once you
Speaker 2: get that one, sure you can make some repairs, sell it,
Speaker 2: get another one. But when you're doing it with like
Speaker 2: ten twenty one hundred houses at a time, probably not
Speaker 2: as an individual, right, But that's one of these giant
Speaker 2: investment companies. We've talked about it just it verges on
Speaker 2: an ick factor that I am very much not comfortable.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it sort of starts to get into slumlord territory
Speaker 4: after a certain point, right.
Speaker 3: Very quickly. Yeah, and shout out to I'm not going
Speaker 3: to name him here, but shout out to one of
Speaker 3: my old favorite landlords who was a self professed slum lord,
Speaker 3: and he was like, a lot of people aren't going
Speaker 3: to be honest with you about that, Ben, I run slums. Hell, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what I do.
Speaker 4: I never met a slum I didn't like.
Speaker 2: Something we'd never well, I mean, I guess we've mentioned
Speaker 2: it before, but we don't talk very much about the
Speaker 2: massive corporations that have investments in real estate, both commercial
Speaker 2: and residential, and how those companies also have like five
Speaker 2: percent seven percent stakes in companies that manufacture cereal and
Speaker 2: other foods like that and own restaurants and chains, and
Speaker 2: it's all one big it becomes one big ownership thing.
Speaker 2: And I think that's what that's what's at the heart
Speaker 2: of this episode, the concept of ownership.
Speaker 3: Yes, indeed nailed it and shout out to Blackrock in
Speaker 3: the least polite way possible.
Speaker 4: For sure, Halfaway and all these other we're like shouting
Speaker 4: at Blackrock. There we go.
Speaker 3: And also, of course, as we mentioned in previous episodes
Speaker 3: with this, with these institutional investors are a big part
Speaker 3: of the drive to get people working back in offices.
Speaker 3: That's a big part of their calculus. And then also
Speaker 3: there are algorithms now that automate the pricing of things
Speaker 3: and it becomes a profit maximization thing, so it's going
Speaker 3: to have terrible results down the line.
Speaker 2: But in offices that somebody at some point walked onto
Speaker 2: a piece of land, put a flag in the ground
Speaker 2: literally and said this mine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go, let's get to it land.
Speaker 4: I think it came up briefly on a previous episode,
Speaker 4: just this idea of how it's so easy to take
Speaker 4: for granted, the idea that land. You know, people can't
Speaker 4: just walk up on your land anymore and say, hey,
Speaker 4: you got to go, this is mine now, I mean,
Speaker 4: but at the same time, you know, there is a
Speaker 4: tenuousness to the nature of like owning property, and it's
Speaker 4: all just your one document or misprint away from being
Speaker 4: dispossessed of your land. You know, it's all kind of
Speaker 4: a bit of an illusion of security. So maybe I
Speaker 4: take back my whole thing where it's like, oh, we're
Speaker 4: all good now, we're past that.
Speaker 3: I don't know. We're in kind of a despite all
Speaker 3: the dangers, we're in kind of a halcyon era of
Speaker 3: stability in that regard, you know.
Speaker 2: And you have to be a citizen of a recognized
Speaker 2: sovereign country.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes you do. And well we'll get to this,
Speaker 3: we'll get to micronations, we'll get to all kinds of things,
Speaker 3: but let's start. Let's start here with the idea that
Speaker 3: that we're we're hitting on the right to live on land,
Speaker 3: to move through it, to possess that land or the
Speaker 3: things found upon or under it, and to sell that stuff.
Speaker 3: It's one of the primary concerns of all human civilizations.
Speaker 3: And it's not just humans. A lot of animals are
Speaker 3: very territorial. Territorial as well.
Speaker 2: It's a to me, yeah, yeah, they don't have attorneys
Speaker 2: and laws, right, well.
Speaker 3: I can't wait.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a law thing. That's all it is. That's
Speaker 2: a law thing.
Speaker 4: Well, and that's what I was getting at the idea.
Speaker 4: The tenuousness of it is that we have these structures,
Speaker 4: these things built into society that we accept to be true,
Speaker 4: that give us certain guarantees. But it's all just kind
Speaker 4: of a concept at the end of the day. And
Speaker 4: if you're gonna get strong armed by someone who's got
Speaker 4: more legal firepower than you, then it's certainly possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And just like the stock market or the global economy,
Speaker 3: it's a collective story humanity tells itself, and as long
Speaker 3: as the majority of people believe in that story, then
Speaker 3: the magic works. So we're talking today about this weird
Speaker 3: idea in this very crowded world. Fellow conspiracy realist, you
Speaker 3: may be surprised to find that there is still some
Speaker 3: land out there on planet Earth that officially nobody wants.
Speaker 3: Here are the facts. I mean, I love the point
Speaker 3: you bring up. Know that right now, most borders are
Speaker 3: pretty set like there are tons of border disputes all
Speaker 3: over the world, but for most of human history, borders
Speaker 3: were likely to shift back and forth. And this always happened,
Speaker 3: especially if there wasn't a geographical barrier like a river
Speaker 3: or an ocean or a mountain range.
Speaker 4: You know. A couple of months ago, construction started on
Speaker 4: this lot next to my property that it had like
Speaker 4: a burned out house on it, and they tore the
Speaker 4: house down. Now they're building something new. And I got
Speaker 4: a knock on the door and it was my neighbor
Speaker 4: or the guy that bought the property, and he goes, hey,
Speaker 4: this is kind of awkward, but looks like your fence
Speaker 4: line is about ten feet Oh no, in the wrong place.
Speaker 3: Oh boy.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I had a surveyor come out. He's like,
Speaker 4: I know, it's a pain in the butt, but we
Speaker 4: don't have to worry about it now. We'll deal with
Speaker 4: it when the time is right. But in my mind,
Speaker 4: I'm like, I do I have to hire a counter
Speaker 4: surveyor to prove that this guy's telling the truth. And
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 2: It's like a weird micro border, dude, I don't want
Speaker 2: to tell somebody that we work with. We all respect
Speaker 2: a lot. Just dealt with this in Massachusetts and it
Speaker 2: was really bad and it took a long time. No,
Speaker 2: so just just be prepared or just it's it's a.
Speaker 4: Weird democrawt, I'll move the thing. He said he'd paid
Speaker 4: for the moving of the I'm not worried about it
Speaker 4: as long as it's accurate, you know. I just like
Speaker 4: I said, It's just it's just another little nuisance that
Speaker 4: I have to deal with to hire somebody to confirm
Speaker 4: what this guy's saying is true.
Speaker 2: Well, let's shout out our Venezuela Giana episode, right, because
Speaker 2: that's exactly what we're talking about here. And did you
Speaker 2: guys see the news Exon Mobile has decided to go
Speaker 2: ahead and move forward with drilling explorations right on that area,
Speaker 2: like off the coast of that area, which is again
Speaker 2: it all ties back into this episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we kind of set it up with Venezuela
Speaker 3: and Guiana, and Exon has some very important friends in
Speaker 3: the US military industrial complex, so they gave they pretty
Speaker 3: much gave Venezuela a f a FO. Notice, we'll trying
Speaker 3: to keep us a family show on this one. But
Speaker 3: since we have company over since Ben's.
Speaker 5: Here uation, yes, sir, And it's weird because too if
Speaker 5: for anybody speaking of going to the northeast map for
Speaker 5: anybody who is uh living or traveling near the US
Speaker 5: Canadian border, especially in rural areas.
Speaker 3: You'll see the way that borders used to be for
Speaker 3: most of human history. There's a there's a gradient, there's
Speaker 3: a gradual change in culture. Like people who live on
Speaker 3: the US side of the of the Canadian border often
Speaker 3: they we saw this in our Maple Syrup episode. They
Speaker 3: work in Canada. So every day they get up they
Speaker 3: are an international traveler. They pass by like a little
Speaker 3: equivalent of a phone booth, and then some very nice
Speaker 3: customs officers like oh, hey Jerry, or hey Aaron or whatever,
Speaker 3: and then they drive.
Speaker 2: Back, especially as you get towards the Pacific, the Pacific Northwest,
Speaker 2: My gosh, that's a quagmire of property rights issues and
Speaker 2: like who gets to claim land out there, and which
Speaker 2: sovereign country that once planted a flag now gets to
Speaker 2: sell it to the United States.
Speaker 3: And shout out to the dispossessed First Nations and Native
Speaker 3: American communities who struggle today in the court system to
Speaker 3: regain the land that was stolen from them under manifest destiny.
Speaker 3: I mean back in the day. It might surprise a
Speaker 3: lot of us to learn how recent modern borders are.
Speaker 3: As more and more people populated the world, like, here's
Speaker 3: how it used to work. You would travel probably by foot,
Speaker 3: maybe on some animal, and the languages would start to
Speaker 3: get mixed up. Different currencies would start to be accepted,
Speaker 3: think of like the Silk Road. And then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, at some point that is not clearly demarcated,
Speaker 3: you have left ancient land one. Now you're an ancient
Speaker 3: land two. And it's there's not really unless there's a river,
Speaker 3: unless there's a mountain or a desert, there's not a
Speaker 3: way to have a hard border, which is what we
Speaker 3: have today. The Roman Empire didn't even really fortify their
Speaker 3: borders militarily. They were trading posts. They were there to
Speaker 3: like make sure the taxes were paid. And if you
Speaker 3: went to a place like England where there weren't a
Speaker 3: ton of distinctive landmarks, that's where people built walls, like
Speaker 3: Hadrian's Wall is where he said, okay, here, this is
Speaker 3: going to be the spot.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, you know, there are certain elements in
Speaker 4: modern politics that are all about bringing back walls. It's
Speaker 4: like they think it's a surefire and history tested technology
Speaker 4: and totally foolproof. Dare we say, impenetrable by something like
Speaker 4: the common ladder.
Speaker 3: Right, they haven't heard of the asymmetrical warfare called the ladder.
Speaker 3: They're catching up with that one. But also, without getting
Speaker 3: too political, I think a lot of people in the
Speaker 3: US don't realize there have already been walls for a
Speaker 3: long long time.
Speaker 4: There was a big one in Berlin. I heard for
Speaker 4: a long time.
Speaker 3: I've got a little piece of it too. Yeah, yes, waits,
Speaker 3: I didn't get one of the cool I'm sure that
Speaker 3: was like a premium thing.
Speaker 4: But they were getting wallchunk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were getting traded all around when the wall fell.
Speaker 3: It was kind of like how in the military they
Speaker 3: hand people challenge coins and things like that. So you
Speaker 3: got a little piece of wall. That was because capitalism
Speaker 3: came in immediately when the wall fell, Like as soon
Speaker 3: as the wall fell, a bunch of German people ran
Speaker 3: up and grabbed little pieces of it and started selling
Speaker 3: them on the streets side side hustle, gig economy. Right,
Speaker 3: So most modern borders actually date back from just a
Speaker 3: couple of centuries ago, like the modern versions of them,
Speaker 3: and many only count their ages in decades. So to
Speaker 3: the earlier point you made. As permanent as these things
Speaker 3: may look, they're actually quite ephemeral. They have great capacity fluidity.
Speaker 3: You know, borders blur, and even now borders are defined
Speaker 3: as much by their disputes as they're agreed upon limits.
Speaker 3: Right Like the hard borders that used to exist or
Speaker 3: that still exist. A lot of those came from the
Speaker 3: Cold War, the DMZ on the Korean Peninsula, Kashmir, the
Speaker 3: Berlin Wall. Like you mentioned, we found a really cool
Speaker 3: quote from a writer named Joshua Jelly Shapiro who talks
Speaker 3: about borders writing for The New Yorker. As a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, let's just summarize this and please read jelly
Speaker 3: Shapiro's full article here. Joshua points out that these Cold
Speaker 3: War scenarios are replicated with borders dividing countries who still have,
Speaker 3: you know, the shared system of democracy. Their armies are
Speaker 3: at peace, and they still really really want these borders,
Speaker 3: Like look at the border between India Bangladesh, the way
Speaker 3: that South Africa handles the Zimbabwe and border and I
Speaker 3: didn't know this. In Hungary for a time, they lace
Speaker 3: the potato fields with barriers to keep out refugees. And then,
Speaker 3: like you mentioned, Noo, there's the cyclical US Mexico border panic,
Speaker 3: which somehow seems to gain attention only during elections. Do
Speaker 3: you guys notice that?
Speaker 4: You know, I know, you're like a good poetry reference.
Speaker 4: But Robert I didn't realize this until just now when
Speaker 4: I was looking at up. But Robert Frost is actually
Speaker 4: the originator of the line good fences make good neighbors
Speaker 4: comes from a poem literally about mending a wall.
Speaker 3: From something there is that doesn't love a wall.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's talk a little bit just about why governments
Speaker 2: feel these borders are so important and why they feel
Speaker 2: it's important to control the human beings migrating across a border.
Speaker 2: And it goes back to law. Right, if you are
Speaker 2: a citizen of a country, you are beholden through contract,
Speaker 2: essentially to the laws of that country. If you're a
Speaker 2: citizen of another and you enter into a new country,
Speaker 2: you're not necessarily subject to laws in the same way. Often,
Speaker 2: you know, the there would be an extradition process to
Speaker 2: get you out of a country rather than charged with
Speaker 2: a major crime or something if you if you were
Speaker 2: to do it across the border. Right, So it's about.
Speaker 4: Tidiness, right, It's sort of about like keeping things from
Speaker 4: getting to messiuh, legally, I guess that's part of it.
Speaker 2: But you're also not an economic battery for that country
Speaker 2: that you're operating in in the form of taxes. Right,
Speaker 2: So there's all there are, all of these legal reasons
Speaker 2: and legal apparatus. Is the apparatus that are created to
Speaker 2: make sure that the trafficking of humans across borders is controlled.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's resource extraction, I think is the primary,
Speaker 3: the primary thing, and it's treating humans as a resource.
Speaker 4: And I'm not really up on all of the minutia
Speaker 4: of this, but I just got to wonder how something
Speaker 4: like Brexit figures into this where exit you know, there
Speaker 4: was all of this free movement, you know of United
Speaker 4: Kingdom citizens throughout Europe. You know, bands that live there
Speaker 4: could tour all throughout Spain and Amsterdam and all of
Speaker 4: the countries that are connected, you know by rail, and
Speaker 4: it was a very easy answer. And now with Brexit,
Speaker 4: all that stuff's out the window and there's like basically
Speaker 4: new borders that were like did not previously exist, even
Speaker 4: though the UK is its own country.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, Brexit is interesting because it was talking with
Speaker 3: some folks about it and the change was electric. It's
Speaker 3: a Machavelian super move in the way that conspiracy was orchestrated.
Speaker 3: The only people who support Brexit now are the very
Speaker 3: wealthy who made a lot of money off of it
Speaker 3: and then immediately relocated their assets to tax friendly.
Speaker 4: Countries, which is so hypocritical because that's like the antithesis
Speaker 4: of what the whole thing was supposed to be about.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, well they manifested it. It works a lot
Speaker 3: of people. Yeah, a lot of people who supported Brexit
Speaker 3: didn't really know what they were getting into, so hoping
Speaker 3: wishing them the best as the cost of living skyrockets and.
Speaker 4: The but the argument was in some way to keep
Speaker 4: that those economic batteries, you know, more benefiting the United
Speaker 4: Kingdom rather than all of this free passage back and
Speaker 4: forth throughout the other surrounding countries, right right.
Speaker 3: The idea was that by being a member of the EU,
Speaker 3: you are sacrificing your sovereignty as a country. And they
Speaker 3: were feeling like, hey, we're an independent country. We don't
Speaker 3: want to be treated like a state of a larger country.
Speaker 3: And then you know, honestly, the vote hinged on a
Speaker 3: ton of racism in theocraty English, right, very very v
Speaker 3: for vendetta, very children of men. But this, with all
Speaker 3: these things, and this is almost a separate episode itself,
Speaker 3: it leads us to this other question. In a world
Speaker 3: that's more crowded than ever before, with so many bored disputes,
Speaker 3: so many things just on the tip of becoming hot wars,
Speaker 3: is there really still land that nobody wants? Well answer
Speaker 3: the question after a word from our sponsors, here's where
Speaker 3: it gets crazy. Yes, this is our this is our
Speaker 3: phrase for the evening. The concept is terra nullius, land
Speaker 3: without a master or unclaimed land. We mentioned this in
Speaker 3: a previous episode. It's an odd, sometimes conspiracy laden concept
Speaker 3: that feels nerdy and, past a certain point, incredibly dangerous.
Speaker 3: It's a group term. It can describe a couple of things.
Speaker 3: It can describe land that nobody wants. It can also
Speaker 3: describe the idea of sovereign powers exercising squatter rights like
Speaker 3: literally as we as we said at the top of
Speaker 3: the show, coming into a place, say dibbs for England.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know we're gonna get there, but it's gotta
Speaker 4: have something to do with If nobody wants it, it's
Speaker 4: probably because it's inconvenient to own or to possess or
Speaker 4: it's just not strategically of value, or perhaps it's you know,
Speaker 4: Baron or something like that. I don't know. This is
Speaker 4: a new concept for me, so we're kind.
Speaker 2: Of well, it's the it's the thing England used to
Speaker 2: roll into Georgia and say Tara Knowles under the doctrine
Speaker 2: of discovery, this is now ours.
Speaker 3: Yeah, manifest destiny is another example.
Speaker 2: But that's this is the legal right that was claimed
Speaker 2: by the Crown when they rolled into the New World
Speaker 2: for the first time, and then as they contend, Thomas
Speaker 2: Jefferson claimed Tara Nollis in doctrine of discovery as he
Speaker 2: went as he sent people westward who was.
Speaker 3: In clerk style. And also that's another example, like also
Speaker 3: that is going to be spoiler, folks, that's kind of
Speaker 3: our conspiratorial turn, and that's going to be one of
Speaker 3: the most important parts of the exploration tonight because this
Speaker 3: can be weaponized. I thought we would enjoy just a
Speaker 3: little bit of the background of how humans got to
Speaker 3: Tara nullius, because it's pretty recent relatively, like the phrase
Speaker 3: being written in international law that only happens in the
Speaker 3: late eighteen hundreds, but in practice it's obviously so much older.
Speaker 3: And it's related to a concept I had never heard
Speaker 3: of res nullius. That it's a Roman idea from Roman law,
Speaker 3: and it literally means nobody's thing. What's that nobody's thing?
Speaker 3: Do you want it?
Speaker 4: It's nobody's yeah, exactly, So, I mean, if you wanted
Speaker 4: to take it back to those earliest origins in the
Speaker 4: Roman days, stuff that was considered res nulius was legally
Speaker 4: up for grabs by anyone who happens upon it. And
Speaker 4: this was a little tricky because Roman law only saw
Speaker 4: certain people as people. And this is going to apply
Speaker 4: to a lot of the manifest destiny stuff and some
Speaker 4: other stories you know, from other parts of the world
Speaker 4: that we're going to get to. It's very common that
Speaker 4: the invading forces only recognize people who look like them
Speaker 4: as being, you know, worthy of possessing things and anyone else. Nah,
Speaker 4: you might as well just be livestock, you know, get
Speaker 4: out of here. This is mine.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And my understanding is it really did relate to
Speaker 2: do you have an army that can tell us no
Speaker 2: when we roll in?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Is there a small French occupation in a part of
Speaker 2: this land? Right? If we're England rolling through. If there is,
Speaker 2: then we've got a problem. If there's not, then we
Speaker 2: get to claim it, right.
Speaker 3: Or we'll have a war, why not?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, but.
Speaker 2: It is weird, like I don't I know, it's not
Speaker 2: directly related to Christianity in any way, but it does
Speaker 2: seem like the Christian based powers that were practicing colonization
Speaker 2: really were the ones that were out there claiming this stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, using that term and ideology. Ideology has always been
Speaker 3: a tremendously powerful tool of rationalization. You know, in the
Speaker 3: dawn of the Great Caliphates or in the heyday of
Speaker 3: the Great Caliphates, they did very much the same thing.
Speaker 3: They just didn't call it terr nulius. They said, you know,
Speaker 3: we are the people in the right right. Our belief
Speaker 3: in Islam is justifies our expansionist tendencies and all the
Speaker 3: violence we may enact upon the infidels.
Speaker 4: That was certainly the case with Spanish as well, like
Speaker 4: Spanish conquistadors, you know, who were out there murdering and
Speaker 4: pillaging as well, in the name of God, because they
Speaker 4: felt as though they were imbued with some sort of
Speaker 4: like mystical power from God that gave them the right
Speaker 4: to do this.
Speaker 3: And if we if we look at the modern day.
Speaker 3: This is a pretty surprising thing, because this is a
Speaker 3: very dark topic. If you look at the modern day,
Speaker 3: you can still do terra nullius. You can still claim
Speaker 3: this like if we for some reason had a boat,
Speaker 3: just for some reason, let's call it the USS Conspiracy,
Speaker 3: and we're sailing the high seas, and our guest producer
Speaker 3: Ben Hackett is like, you, guys, I would did not
Speaker 3: sign up for all this, but we've conscripted him. We're
Speaker 3: all in our tiny four person navy or five person
Speaker 3: with you listening. D of course, why not. It has
Speaker 3: all the stuff. And as we're sailing in international waters
Speaker 3: that no one state controls, we see a newly formed
Speaker 3: volcanic island. Maybe it's like way out in the Pacific,
Speaker 3: like Round Point Nemo or something. And so we can
Speaker 3: sail up to this island, we can occupy it ourselves,
Speaker 3: or which more likely, we can claim it in the
Speaker 3: name of another nation, another established state. And with just
Speaker 3: that explanation and nothing else, we can we go around
Speaker 3: and pitch the idea to other world powers. And I'm like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know us, we found this island, we got your
Speaker 3: flag in it, We put your flag in it. We
Speaker 3: thought you would be cool with that. Is that all right? Like,
Speaker 3: are you going to arrest us? Or do we get
Speaker 3: a medal?
Speaker 2: You know, it's so weird.
Speaker 3: It is, and it's pretty uncool because we see examples
Speaker 3: of it in the modern day and earlier. The question
Speaker 3: was like, can you guess what parts of the world
Speaker 3: are most likely to be quote unquote unclaimed today? Like,
Speaker 3: and I say this as in parts of the world
Speaker 3: that don't have people actively living on them. You Narctica,
Speaker 3: You nailed it, You nailed it, nailed it. Yes, Antarctica.
Speaker 3: It's not the coolest place to live, or I guess
Speaker 3: technically it is one of the quallest places to live.
Speaker 3: It's quite cool. Yeah, there's a place called marie Bird Island.
Speaker 3: It's the largest case of ter Nulius on the planet.
Speaker 3: It's huge. It's like sixty two hundred thousand square miles
Speaker 3: in west Antarctica, and nobody wants it.
Speaker 2: I want it, I'll claim it.
Speaker 3: You got it?
Speaker 2: Do that ice is gonna melt soon. Let's go. Let's see,
Speaker 2: let's see what we find under there.
Speaker 3: There's there's there's one guy who has tried to claim it.
Speaker 3: There there are two guys instrumental in history. One is
Speaker 3: Admiral Richard E. Byrd might be familiar, right Operation Hijump
Speaker 3: shout out New Schwapia.
Speaker 2: Yes, when when German forces went down and occupied some
Speaker 2: land in Antarctica. And dude, we've talked about this many
Speaker 2: times in the past. But look at some point when
Speaker 2: you've got some free time, look at the territorial divides
Speaker 2: that exist in Antarctica. Uh mostly, I guess the closest
Speaker 2: part is that is that right towards South America looking
Speaker 2: after I'm trying to imagine the map in my head
Speaker 2: where it divide it up in these weird little pie
Speaker 2: It's a pie basically.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And this is this discovery goes before quote
Speaker 3: unquote discovery. Every time we say discovery, folks, please picture
Speaker 3: a lot of air quotes and caveats because other people
Speaker 3: are clearly aware of this and you don't need the
Speaker 3: Piirees map to prove it. So Admiral Richard E. Bird
Speaker 3: is flying over this territory in nineteen twenty nine and
Speaker 3: he sees this expanse of desolate Arctic desert that is
Speaker 3: just horrible, like it's impossible to live there even now.
Speaker 3: It's so inhospitable that they can't even camp there temporarily,
Speaker 3: so they have to go to the nearby Ross Eyeself
Speaker 3: and sleep there. It makes you wonder why he named
Speaker 3: it after his wife, What was going on there?
Speaker 2: I guess we'll never know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean we can side with optimism and say
Speaker 3: maybe he just wanted to impress her, which is what
Speaker 3: I think we all do in relationships. You want to
Speaker 3: impress your part. Right, So hopefully it was happy, but
Speaker 3: not much has changed. The climate is warming. It's a
Speaker 3: good time to get in early. Some people might say,
Speaker 3: but it's so much trouble to occupy this place, and
Speaker 3: there aren't really proven resources that justify it, and you
Speaker 3: would be gambling against the Antarctica treaties, so you would
Speaker 3: run the risk of other nations getting really mad at you.
Speaker 3: Even if you were like you guys weren't using it.
Speaker 3: Then they might say, hey, but you signed a piece
Speaker 3: of paper and then, like you said, Matt, it comes
Speaker 3: down to the armies. There have been a couple of
Speaker 3: expeditions since twenty nine, but most of the observation has
Speaker 3: to be from the air, and Noel. If Matt does
Speaker 3: tried to take over and declare a micro nation. He's
Speaker 3: going to have one dissenting voice that we know of.
Speaker 3: One guy is going to be like, hey, I already
Speaker 3: called DIBs.
Speaker 2: Is it the guy that runs the ice cube observation thing?
Speaker 2: That's nuts? Not there that we're talked about, because all
Speaker 2: that exploration is in the name of science, right, at
Speaker 2: least most of it is the army slash scientific exploration.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what happens if someone gets murdered in McMurdo, Right,
Speaker 3: there's that episode. No, there's a guy just learned about
Speaker 3: in two thousand and one and a seaman weird adults
Speaker 3: for the US Navy named Travis McHenry. He said, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna declare this my own nation. It is the Grand
Speaker 3: Duchy of West Arctica.
Speaker 4: I love a grand duchy. Yeah, I do love a
Speaker 4: grand duchy. Yeah, this story is super weird. He did
Speaker 4: this while serving as a seaman. I'm a child in
Speaker 4: the United States Navy. When the Navy found out that
Speaker 4: he was contacting foreign governments and you know, floating this
Speaker 4: new nation to them, they quickly told him to knock
Speaker 4: it out. Yeah. I mean seriously, Today, this cro nation
Speaker 4: has somewhere around three and fifty six citizens though none
Speaker 4: actually lived there. I guess they're what citizens like in spirit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got the right idea. It's for them. It's
Speaker 2: post melt, post melt society, that's what it's gonna be.
Speaker 2: And everybody's gonna move there. About two hundred of them
Speaker 2: will make it there, and uh, it'll it'll prosper you guys.
Speaker 2: I can see it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, Travis is a forward looking dude. He also
Speaker 3: I don't like to recommend Wikipedia, but his Wikipedia page
Speaker 3: is very interesting himself.
Speaker 4: He's like the kind of guy that would edited himself.
Speaker 3: He might maybe in the talk section. So whenever you
Speaker 3: whenever you have to look at a Wikipedia article, I
Speaker 3: can't recommend enough, go to the talk tab. That's where
Speaker 3: you see the Wikipedia wars. That's where you see the
Speaker 3: editors beefed up with each other and mentioning very weird things.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I bet you'll find some cool stuff. But so yeah,
Speaker 3: the US Navy says, hey, Bud, no, you know, stop
Speaker 3: writing to these other countries trying to get them to
Speaker 3: recognize you. And he bought some land in the Carolinas.
Speaker 3: I believe you know, if you reach out to him,
Speaker 3: you can petition to become a citizen of this sort
Speaker 3: of like what's that place off the coast of the
Speaker 3: UK Sealand right, like you can it's an old fort
Speaker 3: that a guy made into a micronation and you can
Speaker 3: apply to be a member of the citizen of the
Speaker 3: Principality of Sealand.
Speaker 2: That sounds familiar. But I cannot confirm.
Speaker 3: Micro nor I micronations will get there one day. If
Speaker 3: this US citizens.
Speaker 4: Trigulous history about it, that's for sure. It's been quite
Speaker 4: a minute. Yeah, I know there was one. There was
Speaker 4: one story about a guy who established a micronation like
Speaker 4: on a raft. Yes, I do remember that one vaguely,
Speaker 4: but the details are escaping me.
Speaker 3: I think micronations might be big for us in Q four,
Speaker 3: as they say. But there is a happy ending with
Speaker 3: this one because mckenry he turned West Arctica into a
Speaker 3: nonprofit and they advocate for biodiversity and Antarctic wildlife in
Speaker 3: the face of climate change.
Speaker 4: So that there is a highly nerdy looking board game
Speaker 4: called Sealand and the tag is cleverly placed crops and
Speaker 4: windmills to become the wealthiest burger in the Netherlands. It
Speaker 4: is all about claiming new land. Though.
Speaker 2: It sounds like Settlers to me.
Speaker 4: But what it looks like Settlers, it looks exactly what.
Speaker 4: Everybody's not targonal.
Speaker 3: And everybody's not a board game nerd. We're talking about
Speaker 3: Settlers of Katak, which I have never.
Speaker 4: Played, but I've heard it's good. I am. I'm a
Speaker 4: wingspan man. I think I've mentioned.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I saw it on your table.
Speaker 4: Damn right, it was unopened though. I actually just purchased
Speaker 4: the actual board game. We play it with our friends
Speaker 4: and also the online additions. But I just got the
Speaker 4: actual physical board game versus I'm gonna bust that out
Speaker 4: this weekend, y'all.
Speaker 3: Maybe one day I'll be lucky enough to play with
Speaker 3: you guys.
Speaker 4: We still have we o Matta a game night with
Speaker 4: his fancy new gaming table. Yeah, so much room for activity,
Speaker 4: boatload of cash to dump out in the middle of
Speaker 4: that sucker, So much room for activities.
Speaker 3: Uh so, Okay, So there's another thing here that mckenry
Speaker 3: teaches us, which is a lot of people hear this
Speaker 3: idea of Tarinolius or some version of it, and they
Speaker 3: kind of take it as a challenge or an invitation,
Speaker 3: and it almost never works out. But here we get
Speaker 3: to this guy's is one of my favorite ones. Here
Speaker 3: we get to the most surreal and ridiculous and kind
Speaker 3: of funny, uh story of Taraanlius beer ta Will, which
Speaker 3: I am almost certainly mispronouncing because we are not native speakers.
Speaker 4: In my mind, I'm picturing a beer towel, you know,
Speaker 4: for that nice dabbing your mouth when you spill a
Speaker 4: little layer beer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's tiny. It's like less than eight hundred
Speaker 3: square miles. And if you pull up the map you'll
Speaker 3: see it looks like a postage stamp. It doesn't make
Speaker 3: sense it would be such a big deal. It's like
Speaker 3: a little quadrilateral area.
Speaker 4: Well, isn't that interesting, though, Ben, Because a lot of
Speaker 4: these things are almost more symbolic than they are actually
Speaker 4: like of significance, you know, in terms of like you know,
Speaker 4: commerce or whatever it might be. It's because that's the
Speaker 4: point that these borders, what they represent sometimes is more
Speaker 4: meaningful than where the actual borders are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's a good observation.
Speaker 2: So this thing, this tiny little thing, was a map mishap.
Speaker 2: I guess that's also disagreement.
Speaker 3: And for more than a century, Egypt and Saidan have
Speaker 3: both been constantly saying no, you you take that one.
Speaker 3: They're constantly trying to foist this eight hundred like they
Speaker 3: beef up over it. They're trying to force the other
Speaker 3: nation to say, okay, I'll take this eight hundred square
Speaker 3: miles because of the map discrepancy in like eighteen ninety
Speaker 3: nine and nineteen oh two or two maps that came out,
Speaker 3: and one said Beard ta Will is the land of Sudan,
Speaker 3: and this other piece of land called the Halib Triangle
Speaker 3: is Egypt's. And the Hallib Triangle is way cooler, it's
Speaker 3: much more attractive real estate, it's got access to the
Speaker 3: Red Sea, it's much bigger, it's more friendly if you
Speaker 3: want to live there. So each country, as like those
Speaker 3: in the second map, by the way, reversed it. So
Speaker 3: we have one map that says Egypt controls Beer ta
Speaker 3: Will but not the other triangle, and then the other
Speaker 3: map says Sudan controls Beard ta Will but not the
Speaker 3: other triangle. So if either nation takes ownership of this
Speaker 3: one little tiny piece of land, then they automatically lose
Speaker 3: the land they really want. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Well, then who controls the land they all really want
Speaker 2: right now, nobody, but the triangle is also the same.
Speaker 3: The triangle is well, if you ask them, they both
Speaker 3: they both will say they control it.
Speaker 2: Well, which army is in there? Somebody's got military officers somewhere.
Speaker 3: I think it's like the line of actual control in
Speaker 3: China and India and the Himalayas. I feel like they
Speaker 3: have uneasy standoffs and the people living in the area
Speaker 3: are just kind of hoping the shoe doesn't drop in
Speaker 3: their generation.
Speaker 4: And just to kind of like hammer home. What a
Speaker 4: big deal some of this stuff is, you know, for
Speaker 4: the countries that are kind of disputing them. Barbie. The
Speaker 4: movie was unceremoniously pulled from release in China because of
Speaker 4: a basically like crayon doodle of a map depicting a
Speaker 4: version of China in that part of the country that
Speaker 4: I believe was not to the liking of China these
Speaker 4: officials because of something to do with their claim on
Speaker 4: Vietnam or or part of like something that violates their sovereignty,
Speaker 4: something called the the nine dash line. Oh my mistake.
Speaker 4: It was Vietnam that had the issue because they believe
Speaker 4: this claim of China on parts of the South China
Speaker 4: Sea violates their size. See, so they were like, no, no,
Speaker 4: this is not cool, Barbie. We're not letting you release
Speaker 4: your movie here.
Speaker 2: Mm so, guys, are we gonna travel over there? Should
Speaker 2: we plant a flag and just say no? Hey, guys,
Speaker 2: we understand. We'll take it well because I know it's
Speaker 2: hard to live there, but we if you put a
Speaker 2: building on there that's got some hydroponics and I say, glue,
Speaker 2: we can come on, let's do this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh man, let's say we'll have to set up
Speaker 3: Wi Fi too so we can record.
Speaker 4: But uh, you see that show Murder at the End
Speaker 4: of the World.
Speaker 3: Yes, I think there's like.
Speaker 4: An Elon Musk type figure, like you know, like it's
Speaker 4: like a big tech mogul good gajillionaire, and that he
Speaker 4: has this hotel that he builds. It's basically like, you know,
Speaker 4: part of it is above ground level and I forget
Speaker 4: some really really frozen tundra part of the world, but
Speaker 4: the rest of it is underground, like so far down
Speaker 4: that would protect you from like nuclear blasts. Basically like
Speaker 4: a really really fancy fallout shelter. So we can get
Speaker 4: the funds together to build something like that count me in. Boys.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's ride to it county. Let's just let's just
Speaker 3: pitch it right, there's nothing wrong with brainstorming.
Speaker 4: Asking costs nothing, and then.
Speaker 3: You know, maybe we can be actually, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'll do it as long as we can call it
Speaker 3: the El Tovar Hotel.
Speaker 4: Oh like it also be Bentopia.
Speaker 3: Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, come on, that's got
Speaker 3: a rink in just because there are two bins in
Speaker 3: the in the founding fathers here. I don't think we
Speaker 3: should lean into that. We got to find a better name.
Speaker 4: It's just the pitheist name. It's fine. Okay, we can
Speaker 4: work shop. We can work shop.
Speaker 3: We could call it beer tell will plus there you go.
Speaker 3: So to this question, you're you're absolutely right, Matt. There
Speaker 3: are no permanent residents. There are kind of desperate prospectors
Speaker 3: who set up temporary mining camps to hunt for gold,
Speaker 3: and then there are nomadic communities that move through that
Speaker 3: area in their migration. But no, there's no static community
Speaker 3: living there because it's very hot. It's a desert. There's
Speaker 3: not any surface water. It's like ad max style.
Speaker 2: But no wait, wait, well it's the perfect location for
Speaker 2: where humanity sets up the first AI controlled sovereign area.
Speaker 3: There we go. Yeah, right, let the robots figure out
Speaker 3: the waters like that.
Speaker 2: It's Animatrix, Baby, it's going to happen. It's just like that.
Speaker 4: Oh man, I mean I did you just reference the Animatrix. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's goods just funny. It's just like that's a deep
Speaker 4: slightly deeper cut part one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also, uh, I'm I'm legitimately concerned about listening to
Speaker 3: this episode a few years from now and realizing how
Speaker 3: prescy that statement was, because that is good casting.
Speaker 4: As long as we don't accidentally turn on people's alexa.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, yeah god, thanks everybody wrote.
Speaker 2: In so god, No, you're right, it's gonna be. It's
Speaker 2: gonna be West Antarctica, isn't it because the cold temperatures
Speaker 2: are actually will be beneficial for the computing power they'll
Speaker 2: be Oh god, Okay.
Speaker 3: Well, also North Pole because a lot of islands are
Speaker 3: coming out from under the ice. It's a great one. Yeah.
Speaker 3: What we're saying is invest in the polls. Guys, forget
Speaker 3: we're playing small time. If we're trying to flip houses,
Speaker 3: let's start flipping poles.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pull shift.
Speaker 3: This is the whole thing, baby square God, oh man,
Speaker 3: I'm waiting in fear for an expert in magnet to
Speaker 3: write to us. But anyway, the thing about this is
Speaker 3: Berta will. Although it is not paradise on Earth, and
Speaker 3: it is very hot and somewhat in the hospitable, it's
Speaker 3: the most habitable quote unquote Terranolius around and multiple people
Speaker 3: have tried to create a micronation there, but the vast
Speaker 3: majority of never visited. They post online, they start a
Speaker 3: website and they're like the nation butte will with your
Speaker 3: buddy Johnny Bluejays.
Speaker 4: Yeah, keyboard warriors, go take a trip plant actual flag nerds.
Speaker 3: Right, oh man, I wonder what our flag would look
Speaker 3: like too.
Speaker 4: But okay.
Speaker 3: There are other examples of this, especially around the Danube
Speaker 3: post Serbia Croatian conflicts. There will probably be more examples
Speaker 3: in the future. Like you said, the idea of borders,
Speaker 3: although they seem permanent, they're quite ephemeral. But there's a
Speaker 3: darker side to the story, and I think it's one
Speaker 3: that we all really wanted to talk about. This is
Speaker 3: the most important aspect of Terranulius, past all the weird
Speaker 3: jokes and the Joseph Heller kind of stuff. I propose
Speaker 3: we pause for word from our sponsor and then get
Speaker 3: into the deep water. What do you say, Yes, we've returned,
Speaker 3: and you know we're fun. We're fun at parties. We
Speaker 3: like a good joke. We did the thing with beer
Speaker 3: to Will. That's kind of ridiculous. But the more important part,
Speaker 3: the frankly terrifying part, and the very real conspiracy is this.
Speaker 3: The idea of Terranulius in name and or in practice
Speaker 3: has often been used by very powerful expansionist forces to
Speaker 3: justify atrocities, occupation, colonization. You think gentrification in your city
Speaker 3: is bad, imagine that wide scale on a nation, right
Speaker 3: on a land somewhat, you know, one of the like
Speaker 3: Apocalypto right an amazing film and one of the most
Speaker 3: frightening parts of Apocalypto, despite all of the crazy graphic
Speaker 3: violence in action, one of the most frightening parts is
Speaker 3: the very very end. Spoilers, folks, three to one, the
Speaker 3: real monster comes at the end. It's the Spanish colquistadors.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I know I'm gonna sound like total like you know,
Speaker 4: woke white dude or whatever, but I'm just so happy
Speaker 4: to see how much representation indigenous people are getting in
Speaker 4: pop culture over the last handful of years. I just
Speaker 4: feel like I just didn't see that much of it.
Speaker 4: And now you've got like shows like Reservation Dogs and
Speaker 4: even like The Curse, which is, you know, a weird,
Speaker 4: cringe worthy kind of satire. It deals with some of
Speaker 4: this stuff of cultural appropriation. And then specifically, I just
Speaker 4: watched Killers of the Flower Moon, which is about what
Speaker 4: happened after it stopped being okay just to kill Native
Speaker 4: Americans outright and take their land. So they had to
Speaker 4: do it a little more low key and covertly, but
Speaker 4: nothing actually changed. It was just kind of everything went underground,
Speaker 4: you know, in terms of like the awful, despicable things
Speaker 4: that white people did in order to rob these folks
Speaker 4: of their livelihood and property and land.
Speaker 3: Absolutely right, I would say, because the methods may change,
Speaker 3: but the aim remains constant and the same. You know,
Speaker 3: it's still the days of rest nullius. Nobody's thing, And
Speaker 3: if you can convince yourself another powerful forces that something
Speaker 3: is nobody's thing, then you will you will get very
Speaker 3: quickly to an argument of might makes right, which is
Speaker 3: evil and unethical but happens all the time. And when
Speaker 3: we talk about this. Obviously, you know there are multiple examples.
Speaker 3: One of the most notorious of terra nullius as a
Speaker 3: conspiracy occurs in Australia, and Australian friends in the audience,
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realists, you are doubtlessly very well aware of
Speaker 3: this and know more about it than we do. But
Speaker 3: we're surprised to find that in the early days of
Speaker 3: what we call modern Australia, the governor Captain Arthur Philip
Speaker 3: proclaimed the creation of the Penal Colony right of New
Speaker 3: South Wales and really leaned on the concept of terranulius
Speaker 3: and said, look, we found this big empty continent. There
Speaker 3: are no real humans here, so we claim this. We're
Speaker 3: going to make it a prison camp for the British Empire.
Speaker 3: At the time, Aboriginal communities had lived on the continent
Speaker 3: for more than fifty thousand years. I can't even imagine
Speaker 3: how long of a time that is. That hundreds of
Speaker 3: different languages, they had a long, rich history. In what
Speaker 3: we call Sydney alone, there were like eight thousand people
Speaker 3: and the British said, well, they didn't call dibbs, so
Speaker 3: now we are doing that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they don't look like us. Yeah, As far
Speaker 4: as we're concerned that they don't deserve this land that
Speaker 4: they've you know, settled and and made their home for generations.
Speaker 2: Well, again, I think it goes back to that concept
Speaker 2: of we do not recognize anybody that could claim sovereignty
Speaker 2: over this land, so we therefore do claim it. And
Speaker 2: the human beings that we're encountering do not have the
Speaker 2: weapons that we have, so we can exert force and
Speaker 2: we can decide that it's ours. And it's really important
Speaker 2: to remember that they only legally claim sovereignty over the
Speaker 2: land right according to the laws recognized in the country
Speaker 2: that's claiming right. And then any and Ben, as you said, any,
Speaker 2: what is it the anyone who recognizes the authority of
Speaker 2: that authority is then buying into this fiction that they
Speaker 2: now own this land. It's just and it's so infuriating,
Speaker 2: and this is the definitely the best example of it.
Speaker 2: Then it comes to mind. But then when you start
Speaker 2: to peel back the onion and you look at the whole,
Speaker 2: but the whole of the world, and how this basic
Speaker 2: concept has created everything that we everything that I as
Speaker 2: a human being love, this horrible concept created it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the benefits that carry down you know, we often
Speaker 3: don't realize the origin of those things.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: The reason that you can live so far inland in
Speaker 3: the United States and get pretty much anything you want
Speaker 3: so long as you can afford it, that comes from that.
Speaker 3: The reason that the national parks are so awesome is
Speaker 3: because the indigenous communities that lived here thousands and thousands
Speaker 3: of years ago didn't wreck.
Speaker 4: It, to say, yeah, And it goes to show too
Speaker 4: with the westward expansion, like how the idea, idea of
Speaker 4: getting in on the ground floor like that and getting
Speaker 4: your piece of the pie when it was all being
Speaker 4: divvied up. You know, it was such an important thing,
Speaker 4: you know, because land is everything, you know, like, that's
Speaker 4: where you build your home, that's where you stake your claim,
Speaker 4: that's where you make your legacy.
Speaker 3: It's very interesting to read. You know, we are of
Speaker 3: a generation folks where the three of us I don't
Speaker 3: know about you, Benh, but we grew up playing a
Speaker 3: game called Oregon Trail in school and it was very
Speaker 3: much a romanticization of manifest destiny, right, and in different
Speaker 3: versions of this game, some things didn't age well, let's
Speaker 3: put it that way. It's also very interesting to read
Speaker 3: early advertisements for settlers or for pioneers, right that were saying,
Speaker 3: travel from the west coast. We'll have a lottery on
Speaker 3: this new territory, right and for peanuts. Hen he's on
Speaker 3: the dollar. You can get this massive homestead and all
Speaker 3: you have to do is get out there and live there.
Speaker 4: And I think I've mentioned this show from BBC the
Speaker 4: English It's it's it's a very very epic, sweeping kind
Speaker 4: of period piece. But there's a character who's who's a
Speaker 4: Native American and his whole deal is that he is
Speaker 4: he has been promised this land that he is owed.
Speaker 4: That was land that was taken away from his you know,
Speaker 4: his tribe. But it becomes abundantly clear that they are
Speaker 4: never going to pay him what he's owed because he
Speaker 4: is not in that club and they will never see
Speaker 4: him in that way. And he kind of finally has
Speaker 4: to make that realization, you know that like, no, I'm
Speaker 4: never going to be treated fairly. I have to make
Speaker 4: my own way and and and realize that what's been
Speaker 4: taken from me is never going to be given back
Speaker 4: to me because it is might makes right.
Speaker 3: And you know Kissinger would agree, right. So the again,
Speaker 3: the methods and the rationalisations may change, but the aim
Speaker 3: has always been the same. It also reminds me in
Speaker 3: the world of fiction of the excellent series Taboo. Do
Speaker 3: you guys remember that one came out of the years?
Speaker 4: I mentioned that recently too with Tom Hardy Boy. Is
Speaker 4: that good? Dark dark dark dark start?
Speaker 3: And there is a storyline there about trying to acquire
Speaker 3: land in the so called New World. We don't know
Speaker 3: how it'll work because it's been years and years since
Speaker 3: season two, but it's worth tuning in. And it's something
Speaker 3: it's a conspiracy that really, without high hyperbole, Ternalius affects everyone.
Speaker 3: Is a very successful set of conspiracies, intergenerational with ramifications
Speaker 3: that continue today. And one of the questions I have
Speaker 3: and this is something that kind of honestly keeps me
Speaker 3: awake at night. I mean I'm already awakened that, you
Speaker 3: know what I mean. I think about it a lot.
Speaker 3: What happens in the future. You know what happens is
Speaker 3: humanity expands into the moon. You know the first asteroid
Speaker 3: mind startup?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, dude. It's hard to plant a flag in
Speaker 2: space because there's really nothing to plant it on unless
Speaker 2: you've got something flying around up.
Speaker 3: We did it the USA.
Speaker 4: But isn't there sort of a gentleman's agreement that like
Speaker 4: nobody can own space? Sure, okay, yeah, we're good then, right,
Speaker 4: that's got teeth.
Speaker 3: Can I do it? Okay? Can I do one hot
Speaker 3: take on that one, because I don't want to sound
Speaker 3: like a negative Nelson or whatever, But that to me
Speaker 3: has always felt very well intentioned, and people worked very
Speaker 3: hard on the various treaties against the militarization of space
Speaker 3: or against owning land on the moon. But I am
Speaker 3: increasingly confident after several conversations, I'm increasingly confident that the powers,
Speaker 3: the world powers that agreed to that simply did it
Speaker 3: as a stop gap, as a wit baking in a
Speaker 3: waiting time, and the moment that it becomes possibology arrived
Speaker 3: at such a point that they act will.
Speaker 2: And then whoever has the biggest flag in mine now.
Speaker 2: We just did that project on the project for the
Speaker 2: New American Century episode where we talked about in the
Speaker 2: year two thousand that think tank was calling for the
Speaker 2: United States to create a space force so that we
Speaker 2: might exercise sovereignty over all of space. And then guess
Speaker 2: what we created, guys, Just a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: Have you seen the Badges?
Speaker 2: Yes, and I've also seen the TV show, which I
Speaker 2: very much enjoyed.
Speaker 3: Out I was runny.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think I got renewed, but I thought
Speaker 4: it was very good.
Speaker 3: It was too close to the truth. It got cut
Speaker 3: down like that K Street.
Speaker 2: But then, okay, so I'm going to quote somebody here,
Speaker 2: Robert J. Miller, who's writing in the Wyoming Law Review.
Speaker 2: This was from volume eleven, number two in the year
Speaker 2: twenty eleven, Total Banker.
Speaker 3: I haven't read it, I obviously read it.
Speaker 2: Well, he's just shouting out two very specific uses recent
Speaker 2: legal uses. We're talking international courts legal uses of Terra nolius.
Speaker 2: That is, in August of two thousand and seven, when
Speaker 2: Russia evoked well, they didn't invoke terrainulius. They involved the
Speaker 2: discovery doctrine, which is like directly tied to this contant
Speaker 2: they placed. According to Robert, they placed a titanium flag
Speaker 2: on the floor of the Arctic Ocean to claim the
Speaker 2: estimated ten billion tons of oil and gas that is
Speaker 2: right under the surface there. And then in twenty ten,
Speaker 2: China did the same thing essentially by claiming sovereign rights
Speaker 2: over the South China Sea by planting a flag at
Speaker 2: the bottom of the ocean in the center of the
Speaker 2: area that they are claiming.
Speaker 3: You got a real flag this, Yes they did. There's
Speaker 3: another there's an episode we did related to this where
Speaker 3: I think we mentioned it, which is who will control
Speaker 3: the North Pole as the as the northern passages become navigable? Right,
Speaker 3: A lot of countries, I don't know if we need
Speaker 3: to beat me here, ben, but a lot of countries
Speaker 3: are getting left ass out because they didn't invest in
Speaker 3: their ice breakers and they didn't put some teeth behind
Speaker 3: their territorial claims. And if you look at the map,
Speaker 3: just like you're describing with the South Pole, the North
Speaker 3: Pole has a bunch of very ambitious pie slices, I
Speaker 3: will say, because you know, the US is only real
Speaker 3: attempted a claim to sovereignity in the North Pole is Alaska,
Speaker 3: and they tried to They tried to slice that pizza
Speaker 3: slice bigger than it should be, just being honest. And
Speaker 3: then Russia was all about putting down some flags. You know,
Speaker 3: subs and icebreakers. They have the best ones, They have
Speaker 3: the best ice breakers.
Speaker 4: US has the best subs and sorry, sorry, this is
Speaker 4: maybe a silly question, but like, are their territorial claims
Speaker 4: on like deep parts of the ocean, like other than
Speaker 4: we're talking about here, like for resource extraction. But like,
Speaker 4: you know what, what if technology comes uh to light
Speaker 4: that will allow us to build some sort of giant
Speaker 4: under sea dome, you know, civilization? Like when do we
Speaker 4: start having those arguments and disputes?
Speaker 2: Man, we had those millions of years ago, back in
Speaker 2: the first civilization, when we had the domes underwater.
Speaker 3: People are flipping domes. That's how everything went wrong.
Speaker 4: Do you know, like the Gundam, the Gungam, the Gungan
Speaker 4: city in the bad Star Wars movies, Boss Nass.
Speaker 3: Oh, Sequest DSV Sequest was cool?
Speaker 4: Yeah, hell sea Lab.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think Also, I know we're sorry, Ben,
Speaker 3: because we're now we're cooking with guests. Like we mentioned
Speaker 3: we might, we do have to end. But I love
Speaker 3: this direction because I got to ask, how likely do
Speaker 3: you think it is that modern undersea cities or metropolis
Speaker 3: will exist? I think it's increasingly likely as the surface
Speaker 3: world gets more and more untenable, Like why wouldn't you
Speaker 3: if you could make.
Speaker 2: It work, just got to show up and say this mine,
Speaker 2: this my gun, I might have that.
Speaker 3: Everybody study vexillology. Clearly you need a flag. We have
Speaker 3: to have flag. If you want to send a flag
Speaker 3: to us, pitch a flag. Idea for conspiracy stuff, for
Speaker 3: stuff they don't want you to know. I'd be interesting.
Speaker 3: I'd be in to seeing that.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think it'd be the creepy, drippy
Speaker 4: six fingered hand. Oh no, we.
Speaker 3: Gave away the secret.
Speaker 2: Can I just get this out really fast?
Speaker 4: Guys? Okay, good?
Speaker 2: So the United States begins to form as a conspiracy
Speaker 2: against the British Crown.
Speaker 3: True.
Speaker 2: Yeah, with the colonists who all came over here with
Speaker 2: the doctrine of discovery at it like in their pocket
Speaker 2: from the Crown. The Crown in England said, go over there,
Speaker 2: here's our doctrine of discovery concept. Use it when you
Speaker 2: encounter anyone or anything. You claim this land and all
Speaker 2: the peoples who occupy that land it's yours. Now operate
Speaker 2: in this way. Right, The thirteen original colonies are formed
Speaker 2: through that doctrine of discovery. Then Thomas Jefferson, one of
Speaker 2: the guys that wrote the Constitution, that fought against the
Speaker 2: Crown and all those powers, looks in his pocket and goes, oh,
Speaker 2: here's this doctrine of discovery concept that the Crown, you know,
Speaker 2: sent us over here with let's go west and let's
Speaker 2: use this same idea and we'll do we'll do it
Speaker 2: all over and we're going to claim all of this
Speaker 2: for hours, just as they did. There's something so horrifying
Speaker 2: about that to me. I just look at some point
Speaker 2: when you get a chance look through the history, and
Speaker 2: again it's that you guys have talked about the Lewis
Speaker 2: and Clark expedition at length. I know you have on
Speaker 2: ridiculous history, right, and we've talked about it a little
Speaker 2: bit on this show and maybe for some other shows.
Speaker 2: I just remember having conversations with you guys off air
Speaker 2: about those expeditions. The Louisiana Territory a Storia, which is
Speaker 2: a whole insane story on its own, John Asters, isn't
Speaker 2: it John Aster? Maybe I'm wrong, the guy who founded Astoria,
Speaker 2: the first thing in the Pacific north northwest. It was
Speaker 2: like a settlement that became the reasoning behind oh, this
Speaker 2: is the United States territory now right right, Like the
Speaker 2: story behind all of that and the core of northwestern
Speaker 2: just discovery, It all just It really is horrifying, and
Speaker 2: I do not like looking at it or thinking about it.
Speaker 4: What can we devil's advocate?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: What is the alternative? Like?
Speaker 3: What what could have.
Speaker 4: Led us to have the civilization that we have today
Speaker 4: that involved playing nice and auditor conies?
Speaker 3: Okay, fair enough, which the US absolutely did, But then.
Speaker 4: We wouldn't I don't think we wouldn't be what we
Speaker 4: are today if we had just played nice, you know.
Speaker 4: I just think it's I think it would it would
Speaker 4: be it would be something completely different, not resembling, you know,
Speaker 4: the world that we see today, which I'm not saying
Speaker 4: is good or bad.
Speaker 3: It could be different, but being different doesn't mean it
Speaker 3: would be unequal to the current day, right, Like there's
Speaker 3: I I understand the allure of zero sum calculation, and
Speaker 3: it does occur pretty often, but maybe it's kind of Pollyanna,
Speaker 3: Like I hear you, man, and I think you're right.
Speaker 3: I just wish there was a better way, you know,
Speaker 3: And just like the stock market, just like the current
Speaker 3: geopolitical order, that kind of better way is another collective fiction,
Speaker 3: and it only works if the majority of civilization participates.
Speaker 4: That's right now, That's well said, Ben.
Speaker 2: I think to get what we have now, you need
Speaker 2: armies and or people with weapons to go into a
Speaker 2: territory to claim land that holds resources that some entity
Speaker 2: can then use to turn into goods, right, and services
Speaker 2: and all of that stuff to then build power to
Speaker 2: make more guns, do that in more places. Idea it
Speaker 2: is it feels like that has to happen.
Speaker 4: Well, a justification for the government saying your tax money
Speaker 4: has to be spent on all these tanks has to
Speaker 4: be spent and make our military the best military, because
Speaker 4: otherwise everything you have is you know, question.
Speaker 3: People hate when I say it, but there is a
Speaker 3: little bit of validity to that. The global economy works
Speaker 3: because the US Navy in particular ensures the passage of goods.
Speaker 3: It's not a good thing necess but it does work.
Speaker 3: And I would say one thing we're forgetting here too,
Speaker 3: is that you know how sometimes in a strategy game
Speaker 3: or a video game of any sort, you can find
Speaker 3: a loophole and you can sort of break your character
Speaker 3: or break a battle. The US has kind of done
Speaker 3: that with the feedback loop of armament, and combined with
Speaker 3: the enormous geographical barriers, it is incredibly difficult to get
Speaker 3: all the way over the Pacific, all the way over
Speaker 3: the Atlantic right, let alone get inside the interior of
Speaker 3: the US, or it has been for quite some time,
Speaker 3: which is part of why the US benefited so greatly
Speaker 3: from the post World War two economic boom. The game
Speaker 3: was broken for a minute, right, and it led to
Speaker 3: a superpower that was able to exercise a feedback loop
Speaker 3: in a way that was unparalleled since maybe the Mongol
Speaker 3: Empire when they figured out horses and cavalry attack. I mean,
Speaker 3: we can say the US made a lot of terrible missteps,
Speaker 3: and that's true. We can say the US had a
Speaker 3: lot of well intentioned things, that's also true. But the
Speaker 3: one thing we have to point out is that the
Speaker 3: US was very, very lucky, just like in game, like
Speaker 3: in the game Civilization, where you sometimes luck out and
Speaker 3: you get you know, your civilization starts on a continent
Speaker 3: by itself. But the US didn't, obviously, because they committed genocide.
Speaker 3: I don't know, wheels within.
Speaker 2: Wheels, oh exactly. Let's point out just one thing that
Speaker 2: this website rule of law dot org dot au points out. Ben,
Speaker 2: you shared this link, but there's a I don't know
Speaker 2: much about this, but according to that website, under European
Speaker 2: Settlement and Terranolius. In nineteen ninety two, the Australian High
Speaker 2: Court saw a case that basically legally overturned what that
Speaker 2: site calls the Tera Nolius fiction, right, which I think
Speaker 2: we've kind of pointed out it's all one big fiction.
Speaker 2: And they actually recognized in that year nineteen ninety two
Speaker 2: that indigenous peoples of Australia have a deep connection to
Speaker 2: the land and that led to this thing called the
Speaker 2: Native Title Act of nineteen ninety three that went through
Speaker 2: parliament there in Australia. So at least one good thing occurred, right,
Speaker 2: But you know, as we know, that's one happy little
Speaker 2: moment in a sea of tragedy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sort of like how we discovered new species because
Speaker 3: the ecology of the world is on fire. I don't know,
Speaker 3: you got to take the winds right and with this,
Speaker 3: you know, we went in a lot of directions, folks.
Speaker 3: I think we could argue we're also setting up some
Speaker 3: episodes in the future regarding borders, regarding hidden history for
Speaker 3: lack of a better term. We would love to hear
Speaker 3: from you, to hear your opinions on this. We'd love
Speaker 3: to hear your whether you think this is a zero
Speaker 3: sum world and somebody else's win is inherently someone else's loss,
Speaker 3: or whether there's a better way possible, perhaps most importantly,
Speaker 3: pitch us the flag. If this episode has proven anything,
Speaker 3: we are sorely in need of a flag.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Isn't that the term pitching a flag to raise a flag?
Speaker 3: It's both, it's both. I'm doing levels, we're doing on
Speaker 3: a love it and I think you know, personally, I
Speaker 3: think all you're right. I think we got a winner
Speaker 3: with the hand that just makes a big impression. Right,
Speaker 3: So we'll get to the moon, we'll get to the ocean.
Speaker 3: We can't wait to hear from you.
Speaker 4: That's right. And you can reach out to us in
Speaker 4: many different ways, innumerable ways, first and foremost via your
Speaker 4: social media platform of choice, where we exist in the
Speaker 4: handle conspiracy stuff, on Facebook, where we have our Facebook
Speaker 4: group Here's where it gets crazy. On YouTube, where we're
Speaker 4: chocol block with video content every single week, and also
Speaker 4: on x FKA Twitter.
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