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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from housetop works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to bloy to Mind.

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Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb, I'm John McCormick, and I'm

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Speaker 1: Christian Sager. Hey, so it is almost the new year. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This is our listener mail episode right before the Christmas holiday,

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Speaker 1: and we just want to remind you that we don't

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Speaker 1: just do the podcast, right guys, like we do a

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Speaker 1: lot throughout the week. We are on social media curating

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Speaker 1: all kinds of weird science e stuff. We're making videos,

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Speaker 1: we're writing articles for how stuff works. Sometimes the eating

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Speaker 1: thing I've been taking a little bit of a step

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Speaker 1: back from, but mainly so that I can post on Facebook,

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Speaker 1: Twitter and Tumbler and live blog Mascar events. Oh wait,

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Speaker 1: is that part of our contract? Yes, that's what we

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Speaker 1: do now, Okay, all right, I'll try to get on

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Speaker 1: top of that over the break. So, uh, if you

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Speaker 1: out there want to catch up on all this other

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Speaker 1: stuff that isn't the podcast, maybe you're just getting the

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Speaker 1: podcast feed right into your phone. That's what I do

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Speaker 1: with most of the podcasts I listened to. Don't forget

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Speaker 1: to hang out with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler

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Speaker 1: will blow the mind on all those channels, and be

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Speaker 1: sure to check out stuff to Blow your Mind dot

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Speaker 1: com because that is the mothership for this podcast. That's

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Speaker 1: where you'll find all the podcast episodes going all the

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Speaker 1: way back to the beginning of time. You'll find videos

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Speaker 1: who find a whole bunch of blog post cool listen

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Speaker 1: galleries that we put together. Uh, and the landing page

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Speaker 1: for each podcast episode is gonna have feature some links

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Speaker 1: out to related content both on and off the site.

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Speaker 1: And also if you're one of the wonderful little gang

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Speaker 1: who's been joining us every Friday at noon, you already

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Speaker 1: know this, but we also do Periscope. Periscope is a

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Speaker 1: how would you describe periscope, Christian It's a social media

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Speaker 1: platform that I believe Twitter owns that is live streaming video.

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Speaker 1: So literally we hang out here at the office, sit

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Speaker 1: in front of an iPad and we talked to I

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Speaker 1: think it's like we're up to like maybe about a

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Speaker 1: hundred people a session now, um, but it could always

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Speaker 1: be bigger. So yeah, if you want to ask us

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Speaker 1: questions live or or just come to chat heckle us

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Speaker 1: and have some fun, we tend to do that. Every

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Speaker 1: Friday at noon. We announced it on social media Eastern

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Speaker 1: Standard time, right, but we we may be erratic or

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Speaker 1: or absent the next couple of weeks over the holidays.

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Speaker 1: We're still trying to figure that out. You will let

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Speaker 1: you know through our social channels, because we're here in America.

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Speaker 1: We have a pretty crazy next couple of weeks with

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Speaker 1: Christmas coming up in the New Year holiday, and because

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Speaker 1: it is time, is there a time of stress and

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Speaker 1: it is a time of darkness and monsters. Yes, perfect segue, Robert. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know about you guys, but holiday

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Speaker 1: monsters there are something that I cling to more and more,

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Speaker 1: especially given here in America Christmas is in holidays. It's

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Speaker 1: just such a bombardment of of fake joy and enthusiasm

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Speaker 1: and high expectations of what your celebrations in family time

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Speaker 1: and in in situation and just emotional state are supposed

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Speaker 1: to amount to. And all of it is in rather

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Speaker 1: stark contrast to the reactable. First of all, just the

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Speaker 1: reality of living life in the real world, but even

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Speaker 1: traditional treatment of a season that is is typified by darkness,

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Speaker 1: the loss of light, the death of crops and and

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Speaker 1: frozen soil, I actually pitched a story here at work

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Speaker 1: the other day that I don't think we'll ever get

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Speaker 1: off the ground. That was, like, let's do a cost

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Speaker 1: benefit analysis as of the emotional well being of people

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Speaker 1: post Christmas, like like like, like, does all the stuff

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Speaker 1: that you put into it, right? Does that actually end

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Speaker 1: up as positive goodwill after all sudden done. I'm the

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Speaker 1: wrong person to ask. I'm kind of a grinch, but

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Speaker 1: I like, I'm not a grinch in the sense that like,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't want to give gifts to anybody,

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Speaker 1: but I just I have this sort of cynical viewpoint

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Speaker 1: of the holidays, but I love given gifts and I

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Speaker 1: love even more Christmas monsters. Yeah, that's well. My wife

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Speaker 1: and I watch Rare Exports every Christmas. That is a wonderful,

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Speaker 1: wonderful movie. It's got, it's got everything you could want. Yeah, Christmas,

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Speaker 1: and I'm really happy to see this sort of resurgence

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Speaker 1: of Christmas themed horror movies. It's not just Halloween time

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Speaker 1: where we get some really good some really good horror movies. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's an old tradition that you had Gremlins in the eighties,

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Speaker 1: that's right. I always forget that was essentially a Christmas movie,

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Speaker 1: Black Christmas, Silent Night, Deadly Night. Oh. I think those

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Speaker 1: were pretty horrible, weren't they. Those always traumatized me seeing

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Speaker 1: that the posters as a child, because I remember as

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Speaker 1: a as a child, I loved Christmas and I had

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Speaker 1: I would I would really have like a childhood like

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Speaker 1: a fence that I would take at seeing those posters

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Speaker 1: or are certainly seeing one particular episode of Tales from

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Speaker 1: the Dark Side about the Grither. I think that the

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Speaker 1: episode is called Seasons of Belief, and it's just it's

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Speaker 1: not even a very good episode, but this has something

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Speaker 1: monstrous ending where the Gritter, which is kind of this

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Speaker 1: Grinch esque creature like, reaches its arms through the windows

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Speaker 1: and crushes the skulls of the children's parents because they,

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Speaker 1: you know, they weren't believing in Christmas enough. Now, do

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Speaker 1: you remember the episode of Tales from the Crypt that

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Speaker 1: has an axe murderer addressed as Santa. Yes, that was

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Speaker 1: a big theme. In a season of American Horror Story,

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Speaker 1: Shane shows up for like two episodes as a serial

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Speaker 1: killer who dresses up like Santa Claus. Larry Drake, who

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Speaker 1: played the villain in dark Man played the deranged Santa

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Speaker 1: on the Tales from the Crypt TV show. But that

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Speaker 1: same story, if I remember correctly, was also featured in

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Speaker 1: the older Tales from the Crypt movie, and of course

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Speaker 1: it has its roots in the comic itself. Yeah. So okay,

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Speaker 1: all this is to say is that we before we

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Speaker 1: get into listener mail this episode, want to talk about

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Speaker 1: holiday monsters for a little bit. So we each picked

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Speaker 1: our favorites. Yeah, so of course we've got to start

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Speaker 1: off with the new patron saint of Christmas. He's everywhere

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Speaker 1: this Yeah, Crampus has suddenly become popular. Well there at

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Speaker 1: least an stream movie. Yeah, yeah, which looks fun. I

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Speaker 1: haven't seen it yet, but I'm looking forward to going to.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the guy who directed Tricker Treat, Yeah, he's been.

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Speaker 1: Crampus has been growing in global popularity, I feel each

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Speaker 1: year so just exponentially. Uh. And it's it's really fascinating

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Speaker 1: to look at that. I mean, on one hand, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of you get kind of like that that angst

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Speaker 1: about it, you know, like I was, I was a

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Speaker 1: fan when Crampas was Indie. I had dinner with a

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Speaker 1: with a mutual friend of the show. Uh. E c. Steiner,

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Speaker 1: who's designed some of the artwork for Stuff to Play

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Speaker 1: your mon for Monster Science, and we were talking about

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Speaker 1: the Crampus phenomenon. He's he had that kind of like

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Speaker 1: they're taking this thing away from us. Man. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: and then yeah, on one level, yeah, I get that.

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Speaker 1: But then on the other level, it is nice to

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Speaker 1: see the Christmas monster of the Crampus rising to such

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Speaker 1: such a position of holiday power. So we're all fans

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Speaker 1: of Crampus. But Robert, you've done deep dive research into

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Speaker 1: Crampus in the last week or so, because you wrote

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Speaker 1: how Crampus Works for How Stuff Works. Yeah, it was.

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Speaker 1: It was the just the other week, first week of

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Speaker 1: December actually, And Tracy Wilson, who in addition to being

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Speaker 1: a side directors also of course on us stuff you

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Speaker 1: missed in history class. She said, Hey, we need a

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Speaker 1: Crampus article this uh this uh this year. Do you

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Speaker 1: want to write it? And I said, and I said, well,

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Speaker 1: we were gonna have to get it out by December five,

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Speaker 1: because that's a Crampus knock. That's the the eve of

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Speaker 1: the Feast of St. Nicholas, when Crampus and his kin

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Speaker 1: come down from the mountains. To terrorize children and threatened

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Speaker 1: to take them back in a sack and or and

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Speaker 1: or beat them in the streets for their misdeeds. And

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Speaker 1: so it was. It was a very quick deep dive

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Speaker 1: where I had. Luckily, it's the topic I've I've looked

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Speaker 1: into a number of times in the past. But it

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Speaker 1: gave me a chance to reacquaint myself with what we

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Speaker 1: know about crampus history, his uh, his mythic folkloric origins

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Speaker 1: and uh and indeed this uh, this continuing timeline of

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Speaker 1: his his rise to power and uh and and the

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Speaker 1: the efforts of others to crush him back down and

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Speaker 1: keep Christmas happy. There's a really great uh novel that

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Speaker 1: actually ec Steiner gave me for Christmas a couple of

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Speaker 1: years ago, by that artist brom Yeah, Gerald Brown. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And it's called Crampus, And it's a really cool Christmas

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Speaker 1: time horror story about Crampus and about how like sort

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Speaker 1: of like he waxes and waynes over the years based

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Speaker 1: on his popularity and how many followers he has. Oh

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Speaker 1: that's see, that's perfect because one of the things that

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Speaker 1: that I discovered when I was researching his history was

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Speaker 1: that uh, if you go back. Of course, Crampus always

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Speaker 1: has his roots in um in German speaking Alpine uh cultures.

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Speaker 1: That's that's where he comes from. That's where Austria, Switzerland, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: a little bit of Italy and any any place where

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Speaker 1: you can find German speaking mountain people, then they will

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Speaker 1: likely have some version of Crampus. And of course there

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Speaker 1: are various versions of it his chan and it's in

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Speaker 1: the nature of folklore. Right. So before Nazi Germany's invasion

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Speaker 1: of Austria, Catholic Austro fascist briefly held power, and as

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Speaker 1: reported in a nineteen forty five New York Times article,

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Speaker 1: they saw Crampus as a demonic, unruly and also potentially

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Speaker 1: communist usurper of Christian tradition. Uh. And this was it's crazy.

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Speaker 1: I think this was a time to where Crampus was

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Speaker 1: really popular. So he's on all over the postcards and

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Speaker 1: we've I think we've all seen examples of of these

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Speaker 1: old cool creepy pick I guess, like if you're out

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Speaker 1: there and you have no idea what we're talking about,

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Speaker 1: like Google image search Crampus, but he basically looks kind

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Speaker 1: of like a giant sader feature with horns and kind

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Speaker 1: of like a fond coves and and chains sometimes chains

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Speaker 1: a basket for kid children to throw in the back,

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Speaker 1: a big alolling tongue that sometimes has serpentine qualities to it.

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Speaker 1: I'll be sure to link to the part of these

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Speaker 1: gallery Anti Santa Claus. Yeah, well, he's sort of he's

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Speaker 1: kind of the anti St. Nick and buy St. Nick.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the the traditional dour Catholic St. Nicholas. But

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Speaker 1: he's also kind of like they're kind of like good

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Speaker 1: cop bad cop. They both have the same mission and

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Speaker 1: they they're seen side by side. But when it comes

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Speaker 1: to dressing up as one of these characters at Christmas,

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Speaker 1: Crampus is always more fun. But at this point during

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Speaker 1: the Austro Fascist rule, um, he was mad popular that

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Speaker 1: you buy and not only would you buy all these

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Speaker 1: postcards and cramp As candies, but he was actually stealing

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Speaker 1: the role of prime gift giver from Santa. This is

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Speaker 1: not only coming to your house to scare you, he

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Speaker 1: was also bringing the gifts. He was completely pushing old St.

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Speaker 1: Nick out the door. So you'd go to the mall

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Speaker 1: and line up to sit on this like baffamet laugh

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Speaker 1: and say, oh please, Crampas I wanna, you know, Super

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Speaker 1: Nintendo any less creepy than the actual Santa's a mall

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Speaker 1: are I'm going down another path. My nephews just turned

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Speaker 1: two years is old, and I don't know. Maybe Bastion's

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Speaker 1: the same way Robert's son. Every time my sister brings

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Speaker 1: him to the mall to do the Christmas photos with Santa,

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Speaker 1: He's just screaming, trying and trying to get Don't blame it.

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Speaker 1: It was like that for a Bastion at two. At three,

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Speaker 1: he was more. He had a very you know, very

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Speaker 1: serious holy respect this entity. But but now I'll refer

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Speaker 1: everyone to the to the article and some other materials

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Speaker 1: for a more in depth look at Crampus. But I

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Speaker 1: will just leave you with that idea that there was

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Speaker 1: a time, uh prior to a crackdown. They ended up

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Speaker 1: outlining Crampus and then requiring that Santa Clauses even be

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Speaker 1: registered with the with the state. But there was this

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Speaker 1: time where Crampus was about to take over. He was

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Speaker 1: about to take over the holidays in Austria, but then

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Speaker 1: the man had to shut it down. The World War two,

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Speaker 1: we like we could live in a world right now

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Speaker 1: where everybody celebrates Christmas with Crampus. But are we heading

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Speaker 1: that way? That we might be heading that way? His

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Speaker 1: tide is rising again. Hey, Santa didn't have movie this year,

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Speaker 1: did he? I think that Santa has ever year that

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Speaker 1: you don't find out about because their direct to video

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Speaker 1: kids movies. Are they still making the Santa Claus movies?

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Speaker 1: Are they on the Santa Claus and nine, the one

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Speaker 1: with the guy from Home Improvement? Yes, I don't know. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: I've got my own Christmas monsters to talk about. When

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Speaker 1: you have personal experience with these monsters. Oh, it was

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Speaker 1: so wonderful when I found out about them. So last year,

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Speaker 1: my wife Rachel and I traveled to, uh, the what

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Speaker 1: I sort of think of as the moonland of Iceland. Like,

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Speaker 1: I know, it's actually a country on Earth, but for

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Speaker 1: some reason I started thinking about it. I guess because

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Speaker 1: of like the Arctic isolation and the geographical character of it.

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Speaker 1: I think of it as a moon of Europe. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean I've been Iceland as well, and the volcanic

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Speaker 1: uh structure of the land makes it feel very lunar. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that moon of Europe. It's wonderful. And as the

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Speaker 1: guy at the Icelandic rental car place told us Iceland

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Speaker 1: is full of surprise. One of them is their Christmas

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Speaker 1: creature folklore. So Icelandic Christmas time has big highlights in

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Speaker 1: the monster category, and the first one is Gorilla, the

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Speaker 1: child eater. Gorilla is a wonderful o griss who lives

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Speaker 1: in caves among the mountains, and her line is pretty

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Speaker 1: much that the most delicious and wonderful thing on earth

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Speaker 1: is the steaming flesh of naughty children. So there's a

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Speaker 1: description of Gorilla written by the Icelandic writer Yawn Arnisson,

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Speaker 1: and I got this from the Icelandic Museum website. But

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Speaker 1: it goes like this. Gorilla has three heads and three

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Speaker 1: eyes in each head, horribly long curved fingernails, icy blue

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Speaker 1: eyes at the back of the head, and horns like

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Speaker 1: a goat. Her ears dangled down to her shoulders and

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Speaker 1: are attached to the nose in front. Trying to picture

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Speaker 1: that's an interesting piercing. I'd like to see that she

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Speaker 1: has a beard on her chin is like knotted yarn

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Speaker 1: in a weave with tangles hanging from it, while her

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Speaker 1: teeth are like burnt rocks in a great Wow, that's

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Speaker 1: an awesome image. Brutal. So beginning sometime in the sevente

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century literature, the legend emerged that Gorilla shows up

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Speaker 1: in town just before Christmas is about to happen or

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Speaker 1: something well, and I think probably in smaller towns often,

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Speaker 1: so there there'd be towns all over, you know, the

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Speaker 1: farm communities where Grilla shows up before Christmas and it's

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Speaker 1: time to collect. She is there for the naughty children

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Speaker 1: and they need to watch out or they will get

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Speaker 1: dragged back to Gorilla's cave in a sack and boiled

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Speaker 1: in a big cauldron and then she can devour them.

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Speaker 1: So there's some some similarities with Crampus here, like the

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Speaker 1: you know, insertion into the basket or sack for transport

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Speaker 1: back to the cave or lair. But Grilla also, unlike

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Speaker 1: Crampus as far as I know, though maybe we can

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Speaker 1: find out different, Grilla has kids. So together with a

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Speaker 1: dude named Lepo Lute, she gives birth to a bunch

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Speaker 1: of children, thirteen of which become more Christmas creatures for Iceland,

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Speaker 1: the Yule Lads. Crampus that has occasionally he sometimes has siblings,

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Speaker 1: but I don't think he has any offspring. Now, now

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Speaker 1: are his siblings also evil or does he have good siblings? Well,

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Speaker 1: it depends how deep you go into sort of Germanic

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Speaker 1: pagan origins, because you get into this idea that they're

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Speaker 1: like the beautiful children and then the ugly children of

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Speaker 1: the dramatic goddess, and Cramps is definitely on the ugly

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Speaker 1: side of that equation. I think he's beautiful. Well, so,

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Speaker 1: the Yule Lads are a group of thirteen trolls who

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Speaker 1: are all grill as children, and they're they're sort of

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Speaker 1: a little bit closer to the Father Christmas Santa Claus

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Speaker 1: type figure, especially that I've seen them. They look like

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Speaker 1: little like Christmas elf in type things, but they're also

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Speaker 1: still pretty different. So for the thirteen days leading up

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Speaker 1: to and including Christmas Eve, one front Yule Lad visits

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Speaker 1: your house each night. Now, Joe, I have a request here.

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Speaker 1: Can you please name them as if you are as

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Speaker 1: if you're Santa Claus uh in the night before Christmas

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Speaker 1: calling on your reindeer. Oh, let's see if I can

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Speaker 1: do that. So here they are. They each have names

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Speaker 1: according to their proclivities on sheep coat, Claude on gully Gawk,

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Speaker 1: on Stubby, on spoon, liquor on pot scraper, bull liquor,

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Speaker 1: door slammer and skier, gobbler, on sausage swiper, window peeper,

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Speaker 1: door sniffer, and meat hook and on candle begger. Uh so,

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Speaker 1: wait a minute, you may have heard some things in there,

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Speaker 1: like meat hook. Yeah, that's one of the ones that

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Speaker 1: comes to your house. So they cause they cause eponymous

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Speaker 1: mischief in a way. Each one has a name that

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Speaker 1: lets you know the kind of trouble it gets into.

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Speaker 1: What kind of trouble is meat hooks? Well, funny you

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Speaker 1: should ask, because meat hook has a hook and it

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Speaker 1: reaches into your house with the hook to steal morsels

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Speaker 1: of meat. Disappointing, I thought he had a hook made

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Speaker 1: of meat. Yeah, he shows up on St. Thorlax Day,

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Speaker 1: by the way, a combination of Thor and snorrelax from Pokemon. No,

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Speaker 1: it's December Thorlak. Come on, you don't. You don't ask

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Speaker 1: for the patron inche of St. Thorlak. Only when I

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Speaker 1: need to, well, only when sausage swiper is at my door,

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Speaker 1: right or door sniffer. Big help then, But anyway, so

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Speaker 1: meat yeah, meat hook, he steals the meat. But then

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Speaker 1: there's also one like Skier Gobbler. So in Iceland they've

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Speaker 1: got this sheep's milky yogurt type stuff. This is a

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Speaker 1: dense dairy product called skier and uh, and people love it.

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Speaker 1: They really sing its praises. I didn't really eat much

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Speaker 1: skier in Icelands. I'm not a big yogurt guy. But

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Speaker 1: Skier Gobbler comes to empty out your skier tub and

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Speaker 1: he eats so much that he's about to pop and

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Speaker 1: he starts howling in pain. So basically he does the

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Speaker 1: Chinese buffet thing. All right, Hollywood producers listening right now,

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Speaker 1: we need a gorilla in the Yule Lads movie for Christmas.

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Speaker 1: Yet on it stat there there's a great source for this.

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Speaker 1: That was a poem called the Yola s ven Are

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Speaker 1: Near I hope I said that right by Johannas or

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Speaker 1: Colum and I read a translation of it into English

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Speaker 1: that was just delightful. It lets you know about all

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Speaker 1: the kinds of trouble that they get into. For example,

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Speaker 1: you remember sheep coat Claude. As far as I know,

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Speaker 1: what sheep coat Claude tries to do is he harasses sheep.

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Speaker 1: So he gets into your sheep and he causes trouble,

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Speaker 1: and he tries to suck their milk. He tries to

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Speaker 1: suck the milk from the sheep, but the kids are hungry,

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Speaker 1: Gorilla doesn't feed them. He has he has stiff knees,

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Speaker 1: and that sort of prevents him from sucking the milk

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Speaker 1: from the sheep. Correctly, that's a tragic tale. You know.

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Speaker 1: There was a story book I had as a kid,

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Speaker 1: and um and I picked up a copy for passion

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Speaker 1: as well. It's a book of trolls and ogres, and

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Speaker 1: it has of course the billy goats gruff in it,

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Speaker 1: and these wonderful illustrations that are reminiscent of of you know,

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Speaker 1: of Bosh and similar works. But one of the stories

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Speaker 1: that it involves his house and every Christmas a bunch

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Speaker 1: of little troll creatures come and just steal all their

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Speaker 1: food and wreck their feet. But then a traveler with

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Speaker 1: a with a polar bear. He stays there that night,

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Speaker 1: and the polar bear hides under the table and then

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Speaker 1: scares all the trolls away. It sounds like that might

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Speaker 1: be a derivative of the Ule Lads. I think I

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Speaker 1: know the name of this traveler. He's probably named Yukon Cornelius.

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Speaker 1: Oh we'll get to that in a second, but I

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Speaker 1: have to finish off one more thing about the icelandic tails.

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Speaker 1: So one last thing about the Eule lads is that

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Speaker 1: they're softer than they used to be. So I think

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Speaker 1: they used to also be trolls who would eat children.

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Speaker 1: But over time I don't know that. I guess the

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Speaker 1: Icelanders were like, that's a little rough for the kids

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Speaker 1: constantly be threatened with murder and death at Christmas. Uh,

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Speaker 1: So they changed it to where the Yule adds. Now

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Speaker 1: they bring the little gifts. So you put your shoe

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Speaker 1: up on the window sill and the ul lads will

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Speaker 1: leave small presents or candies in the shoe if you've

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Speaker 1: been good. If you've been bad, they used to eat you,

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Speaker 1: but they no longer eat you. Now they just bring

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Speaker 1: you rotting potatoes. Oh god, that's still unpleasant. And then

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Speaker 1: there's one more creature in Iceland. It's the Yule cat.

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Speaker 1: The old cat is the pet of Gorilla, the child

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Speaker 1: eater and Luti. So they have this Christmas cat and

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Speaker 1: it apparently there was, or maybe still is an expression

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Speaker 1: Iceland that if you don't get any new clothes for Christmas.

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Speaker 1: You are quote dressing the Yule Cat or quote ending

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Speaker 1: up in the Yule Cat. So it's possible that the

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Speaker 1: Yule Cat will pretty much eat you if you don't

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Speaker 1: have a nice new sweater for the Christmas season. So

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Speaker 1: this kind of ups the anti giving bad clothing that

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Speaker 1: you end up getting. Yeah, where was the Yule Cat

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Speaker 1: when we were growing up, Like that would have been

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to use that all those Cosby sweaters. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's literally a matter of life or death underwear variant

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Speaker 1: that only comes after you if you don't get underwear

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Speaker 1: for Christmas. Well, mine is pretty pop culture reference. It's

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Speaker 1: not from like another nation or culture. Uh is from

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Speaker 1: those Rootolph the Red Nose Reindeer stop motion movies that

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Speaker 1: I grew up with and loved so much as a kid.

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Speaker 1: Although I went back and rewatched them. My wife and

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Speaker 1: I actually bought it for a friend of ours kid

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Speaker 1: for Christmas a couple of years ago. And there's some

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Speaker 1: there's some dicey uh treatment of women in those movies

394
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Speaker 1: and raised as a little Yeah, but as many of

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Speaker 1: you probably remember from seeing those, uh, the Abominable snow

396
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Speaker 1: Monster of the North is my favorite Christmas Monster, also

397
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Speaker 1: known as the Bumble as he's so named by Yukon Cornelius,

398
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Speaker 1: who was an experts in all things. I want to

399
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Speaker 1: throw in that. Uh, my son Bastion has informed me

400
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Speaker 1: that the Abominable Snowman in this film is a real monster.

401
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:11,360
Speaker 1: Monster is a real monster. Okay, Well, I trust Bastion.

402
00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:15,520
Speaker 1: He's got some insight that he's raised being raised by

403
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Speaker 1: Dr Anton Jessop. Now, now where does does the Abominable

404
00:22:19,800 --> 00:22:22,720
Speaker 1: Snowman hold a candle to bad Cow? Like which one

405
00:22:22,720 --> 00:22:25,040
Speaker 1: would win in a fight? Um? I don't know, because

406
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:27,520
Speaker 1: there's not just bad cow anymore. Now there's India monster

407
00:22:28,040 --> 00:22:30,560
Speaker 1: that lives It's a blue monster that lives in India,

408
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Speaker 1: but a different India where there are no cows, people

409
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Speaker 1: or animals. And then likewise, there's an Africa monster that

410
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Speaker 1: lives in Africa and his purple and it's a different

411
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Speaker 1: Africa where there are no elephants, giraffes, animals or people.

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Speaker 1: I can't wait until Bastion is writing the stories of

413
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Speaker 1: tomorrow that they're going to be great. Uh. So you know,

414
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Speaker 1: Abominable snow Monster, the Bumble he hates Christmas? Uh can't

415
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Speaker 1: float in water. These are all things we learn from

416
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Speaker 1: mukon Cornelius because the Mumble doesn't really talk. He can't flow. Yeah,

417
00:23:00,680 --> 00:23:01,920
Speaker 1: that's like one of the things that one of the

418
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 1: ways they get away from him is like by breaking

419
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Speaker 1: off a chip of ice and and floating away on

420
00:23:06,200 --> 00:23:09,560
Speaker 1: it because he can't swim, so he can't float. He

421
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:12,400
Speaker 1: prefers pork to deer meat. So there's like a scene

422
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Speaker 1: where he's like theoretically about to eat the reindeer, but

423
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 1: they u can. Cornelius makes noises like a pig to

424
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:24,119
Speaker 1: attract the Bumble because the Bumble wants to have some pork. Uh,

425
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:27,400
Speaker 1: And then of course bumbles bounce. Oh I know though,

426
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: Uh the spoilers for Rudolph restring Deer. Yeah, ukn Cornelius

427
00:23:33,359 --> 00:23:35,040
Speaker 1: in the Bumble to take a tumble off a cliff,

428
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:37,520
Speaker 1: but they miraculously show up alive, and the Bumble is

429
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:41,280
Speaker 1: now a nice guy. He's he's on the good side

430
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:43,400
Speaker 1: of Christmas. But but go into detail on that, because

431
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:45,919
Speaker 1: this is this disturbed me in recent years. How do

432
00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 1: they tame the Bumble? Okay, I believe the way that

433
00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:50,600
Speaker 1: they tame him is that the elf who wants to

434
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 1: grow up to be a dentist, takes all the bumble's

435
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:56,520
Speaker 1: teeth out right, so he can't like chop on them anymore.

436
00:23:56,600 --> 00:23:59,040
Speaker 1: So he basically just gives up on hating Christmas and

437
00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: being a carnivore. It turns into a hostile movie. Oh yeah,

438
00:24:03,080 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 1: the seriously go back and watch those. They're weird and scary.

439
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:11,560
Speaker 1: I have to say it's particularly disturbing to me because

440
00:24:11,560 --> 00:24:15,399
Speaker 1: I've been watching the nick Fabulous Cinemax show, probably my

441
00:24:15,400 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: favorite television show right now, dealing with you know, medicine

442
00:24:19,280 --> 00:24:22,520
Speaker 1: at the turn of the century, and you know, all

443
00:24:22,520 --> 00:24:27,160
Speaker 1: these fantastic, flawed characters. But there's a character that shows

444
00:24:27,240 --> 00:24:32,200
Speaker 1: up based based on a very real individual named Dr

445
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: Henry Cotton, an early twentieth century psychiatrist who treated psychiatric

446
00:24:36,880 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: patients by removing all of their teeth, saved them from

447
00:24:40,560 --> 00:24:42,320
Speaker 1: their madnest and he even did this to his own

448
00:24:42,400 --> 00:24:47,200
Speaker 1: children to save them from from madness. And on the show,

449
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:54,399
Speaker 1: he's played by John Hodgman in his Friends, yeah, in

450
00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:58,120
Speaker 1: his and it's John Hodgman in his least like likable performance,

451
00:24:58,119 --> 00:24:59,800
Speaker 1: and therefore I would say his best performance because he

452
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 1: really want to drown him in a mud puddle. The

453
00:25:01,520 --> 00:25:06,960
Speaker 1: whole time, so so crazy and reckless with his pseudoscience.

454
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, I can't help but think of that he

455
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:12,879
Speaker 1: influenced that story. Yeah, I don't know. All maybe we

456
00:25:12,880 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 1: should do an Abominable Snowman episode at one point, But

457
00:25:17,760 --> 00:25:20,720
Speaker 1: all I could find real brief research was that the

458
00:25:20,760 --> 00:25:23,000
Speaker 1: origin for that term. I mean, of course it's referencing

459
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: the yeti um, but the origin for that specific term

460
00:25:26,480 --> 00:25:28,200
Speaker 1: came from some men at the turn of the century

461
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:32,240
Speaker 1: twentieth century writing about Mount Everest. But I don't quite

462
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,679
Speaker 1: know the specifics. But maybe this dentist played into it

463
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 1: in some way. Yeah, I just don't like that they

464
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 1: essentially tormented the uh this wild noble beast into submission inship.

465
00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:47,080
Speaker 1: Yeah no, seriously, Like there's you can never enjoy pork again. Well,

466
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess they could make a pork slurry

467
00:25:49,400 --> 00:25:51,000
Speaker 1: for it, and they could drink it like a shake

468
00:25:51,119 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 1: or something. But yeah, that's what it takes. See, that's

469
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,360
Speaker 1: what it takes to get somebody into Christmas. You think

470
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:58,080
Speaker 1: you guys are gonna have to rip all of my

471
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:02,159
Speaker 1: teeth out in order to to make me happy on

472
00:26:02,200 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 1: the holiday. You can't see the sad face I'm making.

473
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:09,520
Speaker 1: So what better segue? Let's hit some listener mail. Guys.

474
00:26:09,760 --> 00:26:13,800
Speaker 1: Is Arnie the robot here? Here is he is? He

475
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 1: works on Christmas? Oh, he works all the time, robot.

476
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: He has no beliefs. He can't complain. All he really

477
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: fears is a loss of power supply. Oh interesting, Well,

478
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: what does he got for us? All right? This first

479
00:26:27,280 --> 00:26:29,720
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Facebook. We heard just the

480
00:26:29,720 --> 00:26:33,359
Speaker 1: other day from listener Nick responding. Uh, I believed to

481
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: a couple of episodes. Are M d M A series

482
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: as well as our episode on psychopathic children? Uh? He

483
00:26:41,080 --> 00:26:43,560
Speaker 1: writes in and says, would M d M A help

484
00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,399
Speaker 1: psychopaths or sociopaths with their condition? I can't really find

485
00:26:47,440 --> 00:26:52,680
Speaker 1: anything on this. Huh. Well, all right, we're not experts

486
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,199
Speaker 1: in these things. We just read about them and then

487
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:57,439
Speaker 1: talked about them for the podcast. But let's let's kind

488
00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 1: of back up here and see where next coming from

489
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:03,520
Speaker 1: on this. So theoretically M d M A helps those

490
00:27:03,840 --> 00:27:09,000
Speaker 1: in therapy, like people with PTSD, with reducing their fear

491
00:27:09,119 --> 00:27:12,000
Speaker 1: and developing their trust. Right. And then on the other hand,

492
00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 1: one of the principles of psychopathic and sociopathic individuals is

493
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:21,879
Speaker 1: that they're Essentially, they're there. Empathy mechanisms are present, but

494
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,240
Speaker 1: are in a default off position, so you have to

495
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:28,040
Speaker 1: you can. Research has shown that you can engage them

496
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 1: in certain uh UM therapies and thought experiments to force

497
00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: those empathetic systems to come online. And their brains are

498
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,200
Speaker 1: as we know from our Killer Children episode, their brains

499
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:43,560
Speaker 1: are actually physically different. Yeah um had they have less

500
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 1: gray matter in some scenarios. I don't know that I

501
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:49,399
Speaker 1: necessarily see a correlation just right off the bat that

502
00:27:49,480 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: doing M D M A therapy would help with psychopathy.

503
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't be surprised if that's a line of

504
00:27:55,320 --> 00:27:58,240
Speaker 1: research that somebody would pursue. I I haven't seen. I

505
00:27:58,240 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: did a brief search to see if any you know,

506
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:04,360
Speaker 1: research materials would come up, and I was not finding anything.

507
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:07,000
Speaker 1: But I guess, on one hand, it would be a

508
00:28:07,000 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: really hard sell, especially since a lot of the psychopathy

509
00:28:10,880 --> 00:28:14,520
Speaker 1: experiments that we've seen are conducted on criminals, because that

510
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 1: is a great place to to find of psychopaths when

511
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,720
Speaker 1: it comes to, you know, population comparisons, and it would

512
00:28:21,720 --> 00:28:23,480
Speaker 1: be hard to sell people on that, Hey, we're gonna

513
00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,920
Speaker 1: get some prisoners and we're gonna put fullam up where

514
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:31,880
Speaker 1: we're much more comfortable with doing our experiments on college students. Yeah. Yeah,

515
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,439
Speaker 1: I don't know, Nick, I'm not quite sure that I

516
00:28:34,480 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: can see like a direct connection there, But maybe there's

517
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: somebody out there who knows a little bit more about

518
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,600
Speaker 1: the sort of neurochemistry going on. Yeah, because I think

519
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: that's the thing is you're dealing with a slightly different neurochemistry,

520
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:48,520
Speaker 1: so the m d m A might not affect them

521
00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: in the same way. And plus we're still we're still

522
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: figuring out exactly how m d m A assisted therapy

523
00:28:53,520 --> 00:28:57,200
Speaker 1: works with just the average individual's brain. Yeah. Yeah, Well,

524
00:28:57,240 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see if stuff like that comes

525
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:00,440
Speaker 1: up down the line. I mean, as we said in

526
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:02,800
Speaker 1: the m dum A episode, I believe that they're looking

527
00:29:02,800 --> 00:29:05,960
Speaker 1: at like a five to ten year a period of

528
00:29:06,000 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: time before it becomes more publicly available. Yeah. I wasn't

529
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: involved in the m d m A episode, but I

530
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: can certainly see just based on the kind of anecdotal

531
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: phenomenology reports about m d MY people often say things

532
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:24,680
Speaker 1: about it increasing empathy, and if empathy lack is exactly

533
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: what right that may be Where Nick is getting the

534
00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: idea that it could be potentially helpful. Yeah, I'm not sure.

535
00:29:30,840 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: I guess if it Yeah, if it decreases fear, which

536
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: a psychopath doesn't have necessarily, then it would be difficult

537
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,640
Speaker 1: for it to increase trust as well. Yeah, Like their

538
00:29:43,720 --> 00:29:47,040
Speaker 1: issue isn't that they're afraid or bundled up? Yeah, and

539
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,880
Speaker 1: therefore less willing to engage in open discussion about their

540
00:29:49,920 --> 00:29:52,800
Speaker 1: feelings and other people's feelings. Yeah. Yeah, it's the actual

541
00:29:52,800 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: feelings themselves. Well, i'd be curious there to it. All, Right,

542
00:29:57,800 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: what do we got? What else do we got? Well,

543
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:04,640
Speaker 1: I decided that we we got so much listener mail

544
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 1: that was so great about the episodes Robert and I

545
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: did on Tetris. I'm going to have to confine my

546
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 1: readings on this episode entirely to stuff we got about

547
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,240
Speaker 1: the Tetris episodes. But they're they're all worth it because

548
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:19,440
Speaker 1: people had some really great feats and come in they

549
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: were really good ones. Yeah. People people love those episodes.

550
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: You guys, everybody can relate to Tetris. So here's the

551
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: first one of these Tetris emails, and this is from

552
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:33,240
Speaker 1: our listener Luan, and Luan says, hey, guys, in your

553
00:30:33,240 --> 00:30:36,920
Speaker 1: recent episode, on Tetris Syndrome, you briefly mused over the

554
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:41,080
Speaker 1: idea of a video game designed by Timothy Leary. Amazingly enough,

555
00:30:41,320 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: such a game exists. Many years ago, I went down

556
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 1: an abandonedware wormhole and discovered the gym Mind Mirror. I

557
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: remember only playing it a couple of times and found

558
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 1: it incredibly depressing. It was an utterly incomprehensible life simulator

559
00:30:56,480 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: that begins in the womb. The game progresses as you

560
00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: make moral and life decisions from a number of options

561
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:08,600
Speaker 1: based on scenarios presented to you. There were other aspects

562
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 1: to the program that I never explored. They appeared to

563
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 1: be a number of psychological tools the user could utilize

564
00:31:14,760 --> 00:31:18,160
Speaker 1: on a journey of self discovery. Anyway, I thought you

565
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:20,800
Speaker 1: would want to know because it's weird and awesome. Yeah,

566
00:31:20,840 --> 00:31:23,240
Speaker 1: it sounds right up our alley. Thanks for the podcast.

567
00:31:23,280 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 1: And then Luan also adds a PS saying pretty please

568
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: do a show on either or both of my heroes,

569
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: Robert Anton Wilson and Sir Richard Francis Burton. Neither are

570
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 1: as well known as they deserve to be. Yeah, Captain

571
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:40,719
Speaker 1: Sir Richard Francis Burton is indeed a phenomenal individual, and

572
00:31:40,760 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 1: I could definitely see us doing an Illuminati Robert Anton

573
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: Wilson type thing down the road. That would be very interesting.

574
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:49,160
Speaker 1: In fact, and this ties into what else I was

575
00:31:49,200 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: going to say about Lunn's email. He might be one

576
00:31:52,080 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: of our Psychedelic Avengers. So we've been talking about how

577
00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,080
Speaker 1: over the last you know, a couple episodes that we

578
00:31:59,160 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: keep mentioning the sort of psychedelic Luminaries, Timothy Leary being

579
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: among them. I think we're putting together a team psycondelic Avengers,

580
00:32:07,320 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 1: Robert Anton Wilson might be. Now, would Timothy Leary be

581
00:32:10,440 --> 00:32:14,280
Speaker 1: one of the Avengers or would he be the Samuel

582
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:17,680
Speaker 1: Jackson character. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. What's

583
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: that guy's name, Nick Fury? Nick Fury, Yeah, Yeah, I'm

584
00:32:22,360 --> 00:32:25,440
Speaker 1: not as big a Yeah, I know, superhero and I'm

585
00:32:25,480 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 1: a huge nerd uh. So you're saying the Timothy Leary

586
00:32:28,680 --> 00:32:30,520
Speaker 1: is the one who gathers them up all together and

587
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:32,680
Speaker 1: and he's sort of the glue that keeps them together. No,

588
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 1: he's the he's the guy who's unnecessarily propounding rules for

589
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:41,479
Speaker 1: everybody else. So okay, well, who do we have so far?

590
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:47,680
Speaker 1: We've got Timothy Leary, We've got yeah, Alexander Shulgin, Terrence McKenna,

591
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 1: Terrence McKenna, I think particularly, but possibly throwing Alan Watts, Yeah, yeah,

592
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:57,120
Speaker 1: and maybe Grant Morrison. Grant Morrison would maybe be like

593
00:32:57,160 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: a second year member. Yeah, I think you would have

594
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,680
Speaker 1: a different generation and the psychedelic of injuries you'd have

595
00:33:01,720 --> 00:33:04,360
Speaker 1: to roll out. Yeah. And so this also brought to

596
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:06,560
Speaker 1: mind that Joe and I just recently watched a movie

597
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: together that had Timothy Leary in it, Wes Craven's Shocker

598
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:16,560
Speaker 1: Timothy Leary TV Preacher. He's he's on TV talking about

599
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: how the Lord wants more more cash for Christ, and

600
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:22,240
Speaker 1: then Shocker and the protagonist of the movie jump into

601
00:33:22,280 --> 00:33:27,080
Speaker 1: the TV and are actually interacting with the Timothy Leary evangelist.

602
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:30,479
Speaker 1: Like as in some of our format I had no

603
00:33:30,560 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: idea what the movie is worth watching that should go

604
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:39,040
Speaker 1: in the canons of the great bad movies. He's in

605
00:33:39,160 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: nineties there. I don't know. I don't know why it's

606
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: not up there with like a Highlander two and the

607
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:47,400
Speaker 1: other ones. Everybody knows Mitch Poleggy is the bad guy.

608
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 1: Mitch POLEGGI could have been like the next Freddy Krueger

609
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: of the nineties. What should I know him from? He's

610
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:55,080
Speaker 1: from X Files. He plays Skinner on the X Files.

611
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:57,720
Speaker 1: Oh he was. This is the guy that was later

612
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: on the Motorcyle Show. Oh yeah, yeah, he was on

613
00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:03,600
Speaker 1: Sons of Anarchy, and then he was on Supernatural for

614
00:34:03,680 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 1: a little Yeah. Yeah. He plays the prisoner who gets

615
00:34:07,880 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: electrocuted and somehow makes a deal with electric voodoo gods

616
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:16,840
Speaker 1: to become electricity. Yeah, what way, he's an electricity ghosts.

617
00:34:16,880 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 1: What's so weird about that? It's it's amazing. Okay. This

618
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Elizabeth and she says, Hi,

619
00:34:22,800 --> 00:34:25,400
Speaker 1: I just listened to your podcast about detectives and overall

620
00:34:25,400 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: it was really interesting. So this was actually before I

621
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 1: had officially joined the show. We did uh an episode

622
00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:34,160
Speaker 1: together where I guest hosted. We talked about detective stories.

623
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:37,120
Speaker 1: So she says, part of it focused on a fascination

624
00:34:37,200 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: we seem to have with the incredibly fantastically grotesque scenes

625
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: in our modern detective style horror, like in the TV

626
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: show Hannibal. And while that's true, it also reminded me

627
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:50,280
Speaker 1: of the author. I might be pronouncing this wrong. Ido

628
00:34:50,440 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: go Wa Rampo, who is really known for those kinds

629
00:34:54,239 --> 00:34:58,400
Speaker 1: of mystery stories. Iowa Rampo, though, is the pseudonym of

630
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:02,200
Speaker 1: the author here I Taro, who was greatly influenced by

631
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 1: Western authors like Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle.

632
00:35:06,560 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: Uh And, as we discussed in that episode, Edgar Allan

633
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:10,600
Speaker 1: Poe is kind of like the father of the detective

634
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 1: story with murders of the room work, right, Okay, His

635
00:35:15,760 --> 00:35:20,000
Speaker 1: pseudonym sounds similar in Japanese celebrity to Edgar Allan Poe's name,

636
00:35:20,080 --> 00:35:24,320
Speaker 1: as in Japanese phonetics, Poe's name would be Edo Ga

637
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:27,080
Speaker 1: Aaron Poe, and when you say it that way, it

638
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:31,200
Speaker 1: sounds really similar to Edo Gawa ron Po. Anyway, his

639
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:34,160
Speaker 1: body of work started out as more of a detective procedural,

640
00:35:34,440 --> 00:35:37,360
Speaker 1: but after some time evolved into a literary genre called

641
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:42,680
Speaker 1: ero guru nonsensus, which stands for erotic, grotesque and nonsensical,

642
00:35:43,120 --> 00:35:45,960
Speaker 1: which runs rather strongly and similar to scenes like in

643
00:35:46,080 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: Hannibal that can be a complete trip or are psychologically haunting,

644
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: and that it brings into question what we think of

645
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: as personal space for humans. This sounds right up our alley, guys,

646
00:35:56,200 --> 00:35:58,160
Speaker 1: now I want to read some of this stuff. He's

647
00:35:58,160 --> 00:36:00,839
Speaker 1: a fairly modern writer, but he is active since pre

648
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:02,920
Speaker 1: World War Two and has some notable works which have

649
00:36:03,040 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: been translated into English. I just thought this would be

650
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to share since it seemed like you

651
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,080
Speaker 1: guys cited some more modern examples of this. But Ito

652
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 1: Gowa Gawa Rampo is I keep wanting to just say,

653
00:36:15,800 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 1: Edgar Allan Poe is more of an early twenty century

654
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:22,040
Speaker 1: author in an international writer who is inspired by Western

655
00:36:22,040 --> 00:36:25,200
Speaker 1: detective stories. Uh and then they Although not a mystery

656
00:36:25,239 --> 00:36:29,280
Speaker 1: writer technically, Tycho Kono has also done some short stories

657
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: that tend to diverge into pathology that runs along similar lines.

658
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,680
Speaker 1: Her stories in particular were really interesting, to say the

659
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:38,520
Speaker 1: least to myself and my classmates at the time, because

660
00:36:38,520 --> 00:36:40,600
Speaker 1: they would start out completely normal and then they would

661
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:43,360
Speaker 1: take a turn that no one expected. They left quite

662
00:36:43,400 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: an impression on us. And that's from Elizabeth. Yeah, that

663
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: sounds awesome. I want to check that out. Yeah, so

664
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,040
Speaker 1: I'm adding that to my my my wish list of

665
00:36:52,040 --> 00:36:55,959
Speaker 1: of books that's growing by the minute, especially since after

666
00:36:56,080 --> 00:36:59,880
Speaker 1: hearing that, I'm instantly thinking of various examples of particularly

667
00:37:00,200 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: in a Japanese horror and some some of the Japanese

668
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:08,080
Speaker 1: comic material and wondering it does it have its roots

669
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,919
Speaker 1: and yeah, or if the same cultural influences on those

670
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 1: things influence this, then it also sounds like would be

671
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:16,759
Speaker 1: perfect for me. Okay. Going back to a lot of

672
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 1: the response we got on our Tetris episodes, a good

673
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,000
Speaker 1: bit of this came to in the episode we asked

674
00:37:22,120 --> 00:37:25,279
Speaker 1: question about the subject of E M d R, which

675
00:37:25,320 --> 00:37:29,239
Speaker 1: is a type of therapy that is uh. They has

676
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 1: a lot of support um and a lot of people

677
00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: are are very into it and say that it really works,

678
00:37:33,600 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: but I think it's also controversial, and so we asked

679
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 1: if anybody has practiced this in their own in their

680
00:37:40,560 --> 00:37:43,719
Speaker 1: own therapy sessions and what they had to say about it,

681
00:37:43,800 --> 00:37:46,960
Speaker 1: and we got a lot of feedback on us, mostly positive.

682
00:37:46,960 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 1: We heard from a couple of people saying they thought

683
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:50,919
Speaker 1: it didn't work, or at least it didn't work for them,

684
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:52,839
Speaker 1: and then we also heard from a lot of people

685
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:54,640
Speaker 1: saying that it was a big it made a big

686
00:37:54,640 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: difference in their lives. And I'm going to read one

687
00:37:56,600 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: of these and this is from our listener Kristen Kristen says, Hey,

688
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,200
Speaker 1: stuff to blow your mind. Loved your Ignobel Prize episode.

689
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:06,120
Speaker 1: But to get to the real reason I'm sending this

690
00:38:06,200 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 1: email is because I've received am about to begin another

691
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:12,680
Speaker 1: set session of e M d R. I served in

692
00:38:12,719 --> 00:38:15,920
Speaker 1: Afghanistan in two thousand eleven and two thousand twelve with

693
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:19,520
Speaker 1: the U. S. Army psy OPS, which is Psychological Operations

694
00:38:19,520 --> 00:38:24,600
Speaker 1: SCORE working with detainees in prisons overseas. After coming home

695
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: from Afghanistan and getting out of the Army, it was

696
00:38:26,920 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 1: difficult to deal with the memories and experiences doing what

697
00:38:30,239 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: I did. I went to traditional therapy for a few years,

698
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,959
Speaker 1: but that wasn't really working with addressing the crippling flashbacks.

699
00:38:37,320 --> 00:38:40,359
Speaker 1: My therapist and I had built a great rapport very

700
00:38:40,400 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: needed in this type of intensive therapy and decided to

701
00:38:43,560 --> 00:38:46,839
Speaker 1: try it with a smaller, less intrusive negative memory that

702
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: wasn't combat related. The goal is to find the right

703
00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:53,760
Speaker 1: since driven outlet to the e M d R. Before

704
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 1: getting started. You can do audio visual or tactile, or

705
00:38:58,320 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: as I did, a combination three out of three. You

706
00:39:01,760 --> 00:39:05,520
Speaker 1: talk through whatever memory or experience you're hung up on

707
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:10,040
Speaker 1: while audio hearing clicks or beeps or chimes and headphones,

708
00:39:10,520 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: visual studying light patterns on an l e ED type screen,

709
00:39:14,640 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 1: or tactile hand buzzers held in the hands that either

710
00:39:18,360 --> 00:39:22,879
Speaker 1: very in intensity, speed, flipped from hand to hand, etcetera.

711
00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: I've heard of the retinal version of this before. Okay, yeah,

712
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:28,799
Speaker 1: the main ones we knew about going in. We're just

713
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:31,280
Speaker 1: mentioning that that it had to do with eye movements.

714
00:39:31,320 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 1: But what we heard from multiple listeners is that it's

715
00:39:33,560 --> 00:39:37,840
Speaker 1: not just eye movements but multiple types of physical, physical

716
00:39:37,880 --> 00:39:42,520
Speaker 1: spatial interactions. Uh So, Kristen continues, I'm going to be

717
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: very honest and open about this as I am with

718
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:47,640
Speaker 1: all my experiences with therapy, because this is something important.

719
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: Soldiers are hurting. E m d R is extremely difficult

720
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 1: to get through. After my first session, and this memory

721
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:58,040
Speaker 1: wasn't even combat related, I cried for true story hours.

722
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:03,319
Speaker 1: Your brain pathways are being redirected through magic kidding, and

723
00:40:03,400 --> 00:40:06,279
Speaker 1: this will impact how you really view your world and

724
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:08,839
Speaker 1: who you believe you are. But if you stick with it,

725
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: whatever negative way, the brain prints this memory, E m

726
00:40:12,080 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: d R will rewrite it, help you deal with it,

727
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 1: and my favorite part of it, forgive you for it

728
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 1: and change your view of it. Any other questions, I

729
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:22,360
Speaker 1: have no problems answering. Thank you so much for bringing

730
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:26,240
Speaker 1: this up. And then Kristen also says in a PS,

731
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 1: I should have put this before, but my therapist is

732
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,080
Speaker 1: with the vet center, separate from the v A, and

733
00:40:31,160 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: she as uh and the rest of the staff she

734
00:40:33,600 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: would get a very huge shout out. They do more

735
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 1: work than the v A and get none of the credit.

736
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:40,840
Speaker 1: The staff at vet centers across the country is literally

737
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 1: saved my life, and I'm sure they saved countless others.

738
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 1: Thank you, and she thanks her doctor. Yeah, that is

739
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: really heartwarming to hear, first of all, like a firsthand

740
00:40:50,120 --> 00:40:53,720
Speaker 1: account of this. Uh. The other thing that particularly struck

741
00:40:53,760 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 1: me was we received this right as Robert and I

742
00:40:56,920 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 1: were doing the research for the m d m A

743
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:00,880
Speaker 1: episode on how m d m A is used to

744
00:41:00,920 --> 00:41:04,040
Speaker 1: treat PTSD. Yeah. We didn't plan to do those back

745
00:41:04,040 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: to back like that, but yeah, just sort of accidental

746
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 1: synchronicity there, Yeah, which we often find between episodes. Mm. Yeah,

747
00:41:12,040 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: So you know, I'd be curious if Kristen, Uh, it

748
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:17,600
Speaker 1: sounds like she probably doesn't have an experience with this,

749
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:20,440
Speaker 1: but if she knows other soldiers who have potentially uh

750
00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,920
Speaker 1: experimented with the M d M a treatment for PTSD.

751
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:26,520
Speaker 1: It sounded like from the research that we had read

752
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: that there had been great strides with it, specifically with vets.

753
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:31,759
Speaker 1: Yeah when you look at the Yeah, that the the

754
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,000
Speaker 1: success of percentiles for sure. Yeah. So I wanted to

755
00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:36,840
Speaker 1: give a big thanks to Kristen and to all the

756
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:39,359
Speaker 1: other people who got in touch with us about their

757
00:41:39,400 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 1: stories using E M d R and and how it

758
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 1: has affected their lives. All right, we have another one here.

759
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:47,880
Speaker 1: This one comes to us, So this is a less

760
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,400
Speaker 1: happy with your mail. This one comes to us from Maria,

761
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 1: and I do want to go ahead mention that Maria

762
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:58,080
Speaker 1: is a special education teacher and she entitled this one

763
00:41:58,120 --> 00:42:01,080
Speaker 1: babysitting a psychopathic kid. So we just got this man

764
00:42:01,080 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: in response to the episode of Christian and I did

765
00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 1: about that just published yesterday. See how fast we get these.

766
00:42:06,680 --> 00:42:09,319
Speaker 1: I haven't even read this one yet. Well here we

767
00:42:09,320 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: got back. Here it goes and this is kind of

768
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 1: a linked email, so I'm just gonna read selections from it,

769
00:42:13,640 --> 00:42:16,040
Speaker 1: uh four time. But but again I want to thank

770
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: her for for writing in and giving us a little

771
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:21,359
Speaker 1: more personal insight into this topic. She says, Hey, guys,

772
00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:23,960
Speaker 1: wanted to write in about my own experience with babysitting

773
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: a psychopathic child. There's some anecdotal stuff coming, but at

774
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:29,319
Speaker 1: the end I have an interesting thought for you. As

775
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:31,799
Speaker 1: a teenager, I got a babysitting gig for a very

776
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,080
Speaker 1: special family. Of their five children, the oldest is autistic

777
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:37,400
Speaker 1: and the youngest has down syndrome, but they were the

778
00:42:37,440 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 1: easy ones to take care of the second oldest child.

779
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:42,440
Speaker 1: We will call her Molly, not her real name, was

780
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: outwardly normal, but turned out to be the real trouble.

781
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:47,920
Speaker 1: After listening to your podcast, you confirmed at the suspicions

782
00:42:47,920 --> 00:42:50,200
Speaker 1: I had formed all those years ago about Molly. She

783
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: made me uncomfortable as no other kid ever had. She

784
00:42:53,800 --> 00:42:57,319
Speaker 1: was precocious, but oddly heartless, discarding the feelings of her

785
00:42:57,360 --> 00:42:59,880
Speaker 1: siblings just a little too easily. I thought that she

786
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:02,640
Speaker 1: was a psychopath. I wish I had been wrong. The

787
00:43:02,680 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: first sign that something was off was that Molly threw

788
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,360
Speaker 1: tantrums well after her sixth birthday. Have you ever tried

789
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:10,200
Speaker 1: to pull a six year old off her younger brother

790
00:43:10,239 --> 00:43:12,879
Speaker 1: after he ate the last marshmallow? She was big enough

791
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:14,879
Speaker 1: to hurt me while I attempted to carry her off

792
00:43:14,920 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 1: to her room, leaving me with a bloody nose and

793
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 1: a black eye. At least once. She wasn't trying to

794
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 1: hurt me, but she certainly didn't care that she had.

795
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:24,399
Speaker 1: Once she hid in the house after I had scolded her,

796
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: I looked for for over an hour, my panic growing.

797
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:29,400
Speaker 1: When I found the front door unlocked, I knew she

798
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: was capable of running away. As I braced myself to

799
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:35,240
Speaker 1: call her parents and the police, and after stirring myself

800
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,880
Speaker 1: up into hysterics, she came downstairs and laughed at me.

801
00:43:38,280 --> 00:43:40,719
Speaker 1: She was constantly manipulating me and her parents. Between the

802
00:43:40,719 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 1: three of us, we never knew what to believe. Finally,

803
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: we just wouldn't let her do anything without verifying it

804
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,880
Speaker 1: with another adult. That made her angry, cue another tantrum.

805
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: I also remember her trying to convince me that she

806
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:54,080
Speaker 1: was allowed to do something. She crawled into my lap

807
00:43:54,120 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: and stared deep, deep into my eyes while she tried

808
00:43:56,480 --> 00:43:59,480
Speaker 1: to convince me, almost like she was trying to hypnotize me.

809
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 1: Very ep Sometimes we thought it was just jealousy. After

810
00:44:02,680 --> 00:44:04,880
Speaker 1: her mom gave birth to twins, and she and the

811
00:44:04,880 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: babies had to spend a few weeks in the hospital.

812
00:44:06,680 --> 00:44:09,400
Speaker 1: Maybe she just needed a little extra attention, so we

813
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: made sure she got it. But once she had you

814
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:14,840
Speaker 1: in her control, you couldn't walk away. No matter what

815
00:44:14,880 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 1: was going on outside her bedroom, whether dinner needed to

816
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:19,399
Speaker 1: be cooked or if another kid was crying. She would

817
00:44:19,480 --> 00:44:21,440
Speaker 1: put herself between me and the doorway and say I

818
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:23,879
Speaker 1: couldn't leave. When I had to insist and physically push

819
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:26,200
Speaker 1: my way past her, that would start a tantrum too

820
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:29,520
Speaker 1: fast forward a few years, I met her family at

821
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:32,360
Speaker 1: a down syndrome benefit and nearly fainted when I saw Molly.

822
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:35,640
Speaker 1: Her hair was gone, cheered off into uneven, stubbly mess.

823
00:44:36,000 --> 00:44:39,760
Speaker 1: Noticing my shock, her mother explained, by age nine, Molly

824
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:46,120
Speaker 1: had developed Trictottlemania, where she compulsively pulled out her own hair, eyebrows, eyelashes.

825
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:48,880
Speaker 1: But it didn't stop there. The family cats were suddenly

826
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:53,320
Speaker 1: missing whiskers and for two. On a brighter note, Maria

827
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 1: relates that Molly has been receiving therapy since she was

828
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,319
Speaker 1: about five, and she happens to live in an area

829
00:44:58,360 --> 00:45:00,319
Speaker 1: where there's a There are a lot of opportunity these

830
00:45:00,440 --> 00:45:04,040
Speaker 1: for for care and therapy for children like this with

831
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:07,840
Speaker 1: special needs. She closes out here by saying, but speaking

832
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:10,719
Speaker 1: of the stigma of psycho psychopathy, I can't help but

833
00:45:10,760 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 1: remain cautious about Molly. She's a teenager now and comes

834
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:15,400
Speaker 1: across it is very sweet when you meet her, but

835
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:18,440
Speaker 1: somewhere deep down I will always wonder if that shrieking

836
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:21,360
Speaker 1: banshee of a child is just waiting to emerge. Anyway,

837
00:45:21,440 --> 00:45:23,879
Speaker 1: have a lovely, lovely evening, gentleman. I wish I could

838
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 1: have written on a happier topic. Keep up the good work. Well,

839
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 1: I can see now why she responded so quickly. Uh

840
00:45:31,040 --> 00:45:32,960
Speaker 1: that it sounds like she had a very personal experience

841
00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:35,759
Speaker 1: and what we mentioned in the episode definitely struck her

842
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:39,720
Speaker 1: as potentially being what she was experiencing here. So okay,

843
00:45:39,840 --> 00:45:43,920
Speaker 1: from the research we did for the episode. I mean again,

844
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor, but yeah, the the level of

845
00:45:46,560 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 1: violence and manipulation sounds like the psychopathy. Um. There's something

846
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:56,520
Speaker 1: about seeing this kind of condition in a child that

847
00:45:56,920 --> 00:46:01,440
Speaker 1: emphasizes the unfairness of it. Like we're so used to

848
00:46:01,480 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: being able to um to assign blame to people when

849
00:46:05,640 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: they're awful as adults. You know, people just if somebody

850
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:11,840
Speaker 1: manipulates people and is violent and all that. You know,

851
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,799
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty easy to condemn them, and certainly we

852
00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:18,359
Speaker 1: do have to take defensive measures against people who who

853
00:46:18,360 --> 00:46:22,400
Speaker 1: have destructive behaviors. But I don't know that there's another

854
00:46:22,480 --> 00:46:25,120
Speaker 1: side to it that's sad when when you imagine that,

855
00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 1: you know, to a certain extent, people can be born

856
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,160
Speaker 1: with conditions that they didn't pick. You know, they didn't

857
00:46:32,200 --> 00:46:34,480
Speaker 1: ask to be born with a with a brain condition

858
00:46:34,520 --> 00:46:37,840
Speaker 1: that makes them violent and manipulative. And our culture certainly

859
00:46:37,880 --> 00:46:42,520
Speaker 1: doesn't UM at the moment, really understand how to cope

860
00:46:42,560 --> 00:46:45,320
Speaker 1: with this kind of condition. And so I don't know anyway,

861
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: especially when you see it in a child, just the

862
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:52,640
Speaker 1: the stark unfairness of the situation emerges, at least to me.

863
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: And the thing that I think is important to keep

864
00:46:55,280 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 1: in mind is one of one of the points that

865
00:46:57,160 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 1: we kept, you know, kind of the main theme of

866
00:46:58,920 --> 00:47:00,920
Speaker 1: that episode we kept coming back to, which is that

867
00:47:01,239 --> 00:47:04,759
Speaker 1: it's a combination of nature and nurture, right that UM

868
00:47:04,920 --> 00:47:08,400
Speaker 1: children with psychopathy in the case that we were talking

869
00:47:08,440 --> 00:47:13,920
Speaker 1: mainly about where juvenile homicidal offenders, they do have different brains.

870
00:47:13,960 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 1: There's definite evidence that shows that their brains have different

871
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,760
Speaker 1: structures in them, they have less gray matter, but there's

872
00:47:20,800 --> 00:47:24,720
Speaker 1: also evidence that through treatment you can help these things.

873
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:27,719
Speaker 1: You can help add back in gray matter or help

874
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:31,399
Speaker 1: their brains sort of you know, become quote unquote more normal, right,

875
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:36,439
Speaker 1: But you know that requires a very specific type of

876
00:47:36,520 --> 00:47:40,839
Speaker 1: caring for these children. And Maria's letter reminded me of

877
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,359
Speaker 1: this New York Times piece that was a very well

878
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 1: written feature about a family that had a child like

879
00:47:48,080 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: this and all of the measures that they went through

880
00:47:50,880 --> 00:47:53,719
Speaker 1: and the um treatment that they were going through with

881
00:47:53,800 --> 00:47:56,239
Speaker 1: their child as well. It just kind of reminded me

882
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,680
Speaker 1: of that. So I hope that that, you know, um,

883
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:02,080
Speaker 1: the child that she's referring to is getting that same

884
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 1: kind of care, and it sounds like she is. But

885
00:48:04,719 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things is you just know

886
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:08,120
Speaker 1: that there are also children out there. They are not

887
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:12,000
Speaker 1: receiving this level of treatment, this level of care, and

888
00:48:12,040 --> 00:48:14,319
Speaker 1: their their condition is not being approached with this level

889
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:18,000
Speaker 1: of understanding, and yeah, they're just gonna fall through the crap. Luckily,

890
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: it sounds like her parents are engaged with her, whereas

891
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:25,960
Speaker 1: like some psychopathic children who have these natural brain uh

892
00:48:26,320 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 1: malformations I guess are also neglected and abused by their parents,

893
00:48:31,560 --> 00:48:35,680
Speaker 1: which only makes the problem worse. Okay, moving on to

894
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:39,040
Speaker 1: the next email. We got some great correspondence from our listener,

895
00:48:39,160 --> 00:48:42,160
Speaker 1: Jim also about the Tetris episode. He sent us several

896
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:45,040
Speaker 1: really great emails and I don't have time to read

897
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,359
Speaker 1: the whole correspondence, but here's some selections from it. Jim

898
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:51,840
Speaker 1: opened on the question that we started our first Tetris

899
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 1: episode with about about math, whether math is a human

900
00:48:56,080 --> 00:48:59,959
Speaker 1: invention or a human discovery, and Jim says, you start

901
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,320
Speaker 1: with the old philosophical question of mathematics being an invention

902
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: or discovery. I had written to you several years ago

903
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,279
Speaker 1: in this when you brought it up in a previous podcast.

904
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: I won't repeat that, but the best description I've heard

905
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 1: was from Steven Strogats book The Joy of X. I

906
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,440
Speaker 1: am paraphrasing, but he said that the axioms of a

907
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:23,839
Speaker 1: mathematical system are the invention, then the conclusions from those

908
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 1: axioms would be a discovery. I thought this was an

909
00:49:27,400 --> 00:49:30,279
Speaker 1: interesting distinction. I liked it. He goes on. He says,

910
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 1: I like to use a chess analogy for this. The

911
00:49:34,040 --> 00:49:37,200
Speaker 1: game of chess is an invention. That is, the board,

912
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:41,520
Speaker 1: the pieces, their movements capture. A description of this invention

913
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:44,560
Speaker 1: fits on a single sheet of paper. However, there are

914
00:49:44,640 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: shelves of books that go into the extensive discovery of chess,

915
00:49:49,080 --> 00:49:52,760
Speaker 1: that is, how to play the game well, forks, pins,

916
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:57,080
Speaker 1: pawn strategy, book upon book, catalog the discovery of chess

917
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,239
Speaker 1: that comes from the simple one sheet invention. The same

918
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: is true of mathematics. Most mathematical inventions are fairly small,

919
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: but the discovery conclusions are endless. So I think the

920
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: adaptation of that would be that the mathematical sort of

921
00:50:13,280 --> 00:50:16,759
Speaker 1: symbols and concepts we come up with our human inventions,

922
00:50:16,800 --> 00:50:19,320
Speaker 1: they don't, at least on this point of view, exist

923
00:50:19,440 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: anywhere in the universe. You know, three and the and

924
00:50:22,719 --> 00:50:26,120
Speaker 1: the plus and the equals don't. But three plus three

925
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:29,759
Speaker 1: equal six is not an invention. That's a discovery. It's

926
00:50:29,760 --> 00:50:33,520
Speaker 1: a fact that existed about the universe before we invented

927
00:50:33,560 --> 00:50:36,640
Speaker 1: these tools to discover it. Um And then also he

928
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:40,920
Speaker 1: has some great thoughts about whether Tetris is solvable. So

929
00:50:41,080 --> 00:50:42,719
Speaker 1: this is the thing we talked about in the first

930
00:50:42,760 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: Tetris episode. He says, I'd like to clarify something about

931
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 1: tetris being unsolvable. It is solvable, but the solution is

932
00:50:50,719 --> 00:50:54,920
Speaker 1: for all practical purposes too inefficient to be useful. Since

933
00:50:54,960 --> 00:50:58,480
Speaker 1: tetris is part of the MP complete problem set, no

934
00:50:58,680 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 1: known efficient solution exists. These type of problems are called intractable.

935
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:06,840
Speaker 1: In essence, the known solution is to try every possible

936
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:09,880
Speaker 1: combination of moves, then pick the best out of the

937
00:51:10,120 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: entire set. It's a solution, but it's brute force, and

938
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: except for the smallest scenarios, there isn't enough computing power

939
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:21,520
Speaker 1: to run all of the combinations efficiently. MP complete problems

940
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:25,320
Speaker 1: are very interesting. There are a subset of MP problems.

941
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 1: I won't go into the formal definition of P n

942
00:51:28,520 --> 00:51:33,000
Speaker 1: P or MP complete, but like tetris, NP problems are

943
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:38,120
Speaker 1: solvable only by brute forcing through every possible combination. What

944
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 1: makes MP complete problems interesting is that any MP problem

945
00:51:42,239 --> 00:51:45,600
Speaker 1: can be reduced or transformed to an instance of an

946
00:51:45,680 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 1: MP complete problem in an efficient amount of time. Therefore,

947
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,439
Speaker 1: if we find an efficient solution to just one MP

948
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:55,759
Speaker 1: complete problem, then we would have an efficient solution for

949
00:51:55,840 --> 00:52:00,719
Speaker 1: all MP problems. Efficient solutions are identified as P the

950
00:52:00,760 --> 00:52:04,600
Speaker 1: biggest question in computer theory and possibly mathematics as a whole,

951
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:08,520
Speaker 1: is whether P and n P are two different sets

952
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:12,280
Speaker 1: or really the same set. The problem has been around

953
00:52:12,280 --> 00:52:14,600
Speaker 1: for forty or more years and no one has proved

954
00:52:14,640 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 1: the equality or inequality, and a lot of brilliant minds

955
00:52:18,120 --> 00:52:21,320
Speaker 1: have tried. This is actually a subject that I'm speaking

956
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:24,040
Speaker 1: for myself now. I've wanted to do this for a while,

957
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:26,920
Speaker 1: but it's been really difficult. Whenever I get into the

958
00:52:26,960 --> 00:52:30,400
Speaker 1: preliminary research for it is just like dealing with the

959
00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:36,879
Speaker 1: abstract problems and it's it's just difficult to concretize. But yeah,

960
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:42,919
Speaker 1: it is this huge fascinating question in computation theory. Are

961
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:47,960
Speaker 1: all problems that can be checked for a solution inherently

962
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,759
Speaker 1: solvable efficiently? It sounds like a real Kobashuma road to me.

963
00:52:53,800 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 1: And Jim has some other great comments about the the

964
00:52:56,120 --> 00:52:59,480
Speaker 1: p NP issue. But um, but yeah, that is something

965
00:52:59,520 --> 00:53:01,439
Speaker 1: that if I can never figure out a way to

966
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:04,960
Speaker 1: concretize it, I'd like to come back and deal with

967
00:53:05,000 --> 00:53:07,320
Speaker 1: on the show someday. Reminds me of that David Foster

968
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:12,799
Speaker 1: Wallace book about infinity that like, it's such an incredibly

969
00:53:12,840 --> 00:53:15,800
Speaker 1: dense difficult topic, but he's somehow everything and more. Yeah,

970
00:53:16,000 --> 00:53:19,160
Speaker 1: he somehow tried to make it sexy. Yeah, Infinity is

971
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:23,840
Speaker 1: a wonderful, wonderful topic we covered in a previous podcast episode.

972
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: But it's it's the kind of thing I would love

973
00:53:26,040 --> 00:53:29,319
Speaker 1: to explore it again. I love to revisit Alright, So

974
00:53:29,360 --> 00:53:31,080
Speaker 1: there you have it. You know, the robot is giving

975
00:53:31,120 --> 00:53:34,680
Speaker 1: us some signals here, uh and uh, it means that

976
00:53:34,719 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 1: we are out of time for listener Mail. We weren't

977
00:53:37,719 --> 00:53:39,840
Speaker 1: able to fit in as mini on this episode, but

978
00:53:39,960 --> 00:53:43,800
Speaker 1: that's because we uh, we include some monsters fair holiday,

979
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:46,839
Speaker 1: and you know what we're gonna be back in. We'll

980
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:50,200
Speaker 1: have lots of episodes and lots of ways to read

981
00:53:50,239 --> 00:53:52,360
Speaker 1: listener Mail. I already got some ideas for new episodes

982
00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:57,000
Speaker 1: just from uh this this episode. Al Right. Well, in

983
00:53:57,040 --> 00:53:59,040
Speaker 1: the meantime, head on over to stuff about your Mind

984
00:53:59,080 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: dot com. That's the mothership. That's where we'll find all

985
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: the blog posts the podcast. You'll find videos, you'll find

986
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:07,439
Speaker 1: links out to our our many wonderful social media accounts. Yeah,

987
00:54:07,480 --> 00:54:11,880
Speaker 1: that includes Facebook, Twitter, and Tumbler and Periscope. Right, guys,

988
00:54:11,960 --> 00:54:15,720
Speaker 1: We'll be on Periscope on Friday's noon Eastern Standard time,

989
00:54:16,160 --> 00:54:20,440
Speaker 1: except for maybe the next week or two just because

990
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:24,520
Speaker 1: of the holidays and weirdness with traveling schedules, and during Christmas,

991
00:54:24,520 --> 00:54:27,839
Speaker 1: you're just gonna find ad. Yeah, we've got the el

992
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:31,120
Speaker 1: ads on duty. But I'll try to keep everybody updated

993
00:54:31,160 --> 00:54:33,120
Speaker 1: on our social media accounts and when we will be

994
00:54:33,160 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 1: on Periscope and when we'll be back on our regular schedule.

995
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:37,759
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with us

996
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:39,719
Speaker 1: with a message that may one day end up on

997
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:42,240
Speaker 1: a listener mail episode of its own, you can email

998
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:54,279
Speaker 1: us and blow the minded. How stuff works dot com

999
00:54:54,320 --> 00:54:56,759
Speaker 1: for more on this and bathrooms of other topics. Is

1000
00:54:56,800 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com. The T five five

1001
00:55:13,760 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 1: five po