Speaker 1: Hey, fellow conspiracy realists, have you ever thought about this?
Speaker 1: Have things ever seemed a little too purposeful, a little
Speaker 1: too organized in your day to day life. What if
Speaker 1: everything you encounter, all your interactions are somehow part of
Speaker 1: a larger orchestrated scheme or plan.
Speaker 2: We're all inside episodes of The Simpsons.
Speaker 1: More stuff that I want you to know. Which is
Speaker 1: more terrifying. I'll let you be the judge. From UFOs
Speaker 1: to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with
Speaker 1: unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 1: They called me Ben. We were joining with our super producer,
Speaker 1: Paul the Paul the Predictor Decand okay, we got a shrug.
Speaker 1: We're joining with Paul the Predictor Decand most importantly, you
Speaker 1: are you, and you are here, and that makes this
Speaker 1: stuff they don't want you to know. We predict you
Speaker 1: will find this episode fascinating.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we can already tell this is going to
Speaker 2: be your favorite episode that's come out in a long time.
Speaker 2: We've already read some of your emails. Thank you for those.
Speaker 2: It's really kind what you said about this episode. You know,
Speaker 2: we look forward to your next ones.
Speaker 1: Right, both represented in fiction and in real life. I
Speaker 1: don't know if we can continue this this trope for
Speaker 1: the whole show man, What do you think. No, we're
Speaker 1: just being silly, We're just we're just having a goof.
Speaker 1: Do people still say that having a goof?
Speaker 2: Of course?
Speaker 1: Great, because if not, we're bringing it back. This episode
Speaker 1: is about somewhat of a meta conspiracy, a conspiracy about conspiracies,
Speaker 1: for lack of a better term, or a technique that
Speaker 1: is attributed to a lot of specific theories. And oddly enough,
Speaker 1: there's a very strong basis in truth in this, which
Speaker 1: I think surprised both of us.
Speaker 2: There is a little bit of truth in a way,
Speaker 2: but it's Yeah, it's one of those things where it's
Speaker 2: so prevalent. This what we're speaking about today, and let's
Speaker 2: just say what it.
Speaker 1: Is a predictive programming.
Speaker 2: And it's so prevalent on the Internet when anything occurs.
Speaker 2: There is so much media that exists and so many
Speaker 2: things happening that when you find the little connective tissues,
Speaker 2: there's always that eureka moment and it just happens all
Speaker 2: the time.
Speaker 1: Now maybe yeah, maybe we get into this too with
Speaker 1: an anecdote. Several years ago, you and I made a
Speaker 1: video about the Illuminati card game. Yes, yes, And in
Speaker 1: the Illuminati Card Game there are certain cards that people
Speaker 1: who believe in predictive programming have pointed to as evidence
Speaker 1: of this practice. I think specifically the Twin Towers is correct.
Speaker 2: The Twin Towers was one about a terrorist attack. There
Speaker 2: were so many though, Deepwater Horizon from twenty ten was one,
Speaker 2: and again in that video, I guess do we want
Speaker 2: to spoil any of that right now? About kind of
Speaker 2: what we found out about the card game?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, go ahead, laid up.
Speaker 2: Okay. So there have been so many versions of that
Speaker 2: card game over the years. The cards have shifted and
Speaker 2: changed a little bit, the artwork has been altered. Exactly
Speaker 2: what stated on the cards has been altered. And then
Speaker 2: when you're online and you have people posting images about
Speaker 2: you know, here, look at this card from this game
Speaker 2: that came out in ninety something. You know it predicted
Speaker 2: the World Trade Center because of this card, when in actuality,
Speaker 2: that card was referring to the original World Trade Center bombing,
Speaker 2: which occurred in the nineties, right, and then, and or
Speaker 2: it was changed now because of other you know, circumstances,
Speaker 2: things that actually occurred in the real world after it
Speaker 2: was put out. It's just interesting how things shift over time,
Speaker 2: and when it's posted on the internet, it could be
Speaker 2: from any time throughout the span of the card's history.
Speaker 1: Oh, we should also point out that it's a fun game.
Speaker 2: It is a really fun game.
Speaker 1: I was so happy because you introduced me to it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to owe you for that one. Also, I
Speaker 1: was thinking, should we play that game with with with
Speaker 1: you friends and neighbors if we ever run into each
Speaker 1: other in real life, or Matt, should you and Paul
Speaker 1: and Nola and I make a game of our own?
Speaker 2: We could. We should make a game of our own.
Speaker 2: We could live stream it.
Speaker 1: Stuff they don't want you to play. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll put a pin in that, okay,
Speaker 1: But but yeah, So that's a great example of an
Speaker 1: allegation of predictive programming. Here's what we mean specifically when
Speaker 1: we say there's a basis in truth. In decades past,
Speaker 1: the US government would assemble groups of people to help
Speaker 1: them predict the direction of future technological breakthroughs, and they
Speaker 1: consulted scientists and technocrats, but they also asked science fiction
Speaker 1: writers to join in this think tankery, and several of
Speaker 1: these writers, it turns out, had already successfully predicted the
Speaker 1: broad strokes of a certain aspect of technological progress or
Speaker 1: social changes, and they had depicted these events in works
Speaker 1: of fiction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and for a lot of people, this is just
Speaker 2: it speaks to the human imagination. What can what images
Speaker 2: and ideas can we conjure in our heads before it
Speaker 2: becomes reality? And it's really, honestly, it's inspiring and our
Speaker 2: species ability to dream beyond the limits of this moment
Speaker 2: of what's occurring right now, things that I can possibly
Speaker 2: do today to what I could do in the future
Speaker 2: because of X. I mean, that's incredible. That's what separates us. Well,
Speaker 2: there are a lot of things that separate us, but
Speaker 2: that's one of the major things that separates us from
Speaker 2: other mammals.
Speaker 1: You're giving me chills. That is inspiring, especially the way
Speaker 1: you put it there. It is it is one of
Speaker 1: the primary separations. But it's not all like angel farts
Speaker 1: and trumpets in the sky. You know, there's a dark
Speaker 1: side that people see here because for others, this story
Speaker 1: of sci fi collaboration is only scratching the surface. It's
Speaker 1: a relatively benign example of a much more widespread and,
Speaker 1: according to them, sinister practice. Fringe researchers across the US
Speaker 1: and the globe believe that nefarious, hidden groups are guiding
Speaker 1: the public through the use of this predictive programming. So
Speaker 1: let's look at the facts. When you look at the
Speaker 1: idea of fiction, whether an Illuminati game or a film
Speaker 1: depicting actual events in the future, we see two fundamental
Speaker 1: factors at play immediately.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The first is what the creators are trying to do.
Speaker 2: It's not a secret that people who write screenplays and
Speaker 2: write books, directors of television and movie, they often are
Speaker 2: attempting to depict what they think the future is going
Speaker 2: to look like, what might happen in the future. If
Speaker 2: you think about nineteen eighty four the novel or Brave
Speaker 2: New World, these are two cautionary tales, very different from
Speaker 2: each other and also quite similar. They're meant to educate
Speaker 2: as much as they're meant to warn and entertain. They
Speaker 2: function on a whole lot of levels.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, nineteen eighty four is one of those books that,
Speaker 1: even after having read it multiple times. I still don't
Speaker 1: know if I would say I'm entertained by it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. Sure, it definitely airs more on
Speaker 1: the cautionary tale side, but you're absolutely right. I think
Speaker 1: that's such a great point. These authors and these creators
Speaker 1: are not working in a vacuum. They are attempting to
Speaker 1: enact some sort of change in the world, whether it's
Speaker 1: just making the world one story better or one story richer,
Speaker 1: or whatever we want to say about it.
Speaker 2: Or as in the case of a Brave New World,
Speaker 2: it's the question of dothtaw entertain too much?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, And these authors could also depict something more aspirational,
Speaker 1: like what the future of humanity could be if we
Speaker 1: ever get our collective business together.
Speaker 2: You're talking about Star Trek.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Star Trek, Matt Man.
Speaker 2: Star Trek tng was the thing they like made me go, okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna be okay. The future is going to be
Speaker 2: an amazing place. I can't wait to get there.
Speaker 1: Right. It's a post scarcity economy, right, there's not income inequality,
Speaker 1: and the species spends its time exploring strange new worlds
Speaker 1: and attempting to enrich their knowledge of the galaxy and
Speaker 1: the beautiful universe in which we live. Also having more
Speaker 1: or less constant war or uneasy truces with various alien empires.
Speaker 1: Probably a story for a different episode, but yeah, Star
Speaker 1: Trek aspirational. Imagine what we could be.
Speaker 2: Exactly, and then you could even have a Holid Deck.
Speaker 2: I mean, come on, that's what it was for your
Speaker 2: No it it was the big picture stuff.
Speaker 1: I hated the Holid Deck episodes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always felt like I was getting tricked.
Speaker 1: I felt, you know, this is just my opinion, one
Speaker 1: person's opinion, and I would love to hear everybody else's
Speaker 1: opinion on this. I thought I felt as if the
Speaker 1: actors were pushing this on the writers and the producers
Speaker 1: and saying, well, you know, I've I've done some Shakespeare before.
Speaker 2: You're talking specifically about El Capitan.
Speaker 1: Right, I don't know, I don't you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know who it was. I feel like I have suspicions,
Speaker 1: but I can't pin it on any single actor. Okay,
Speaker 1: And maybe it was just maybe it just felt like
Speaker 1: a bait and switch.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's a I think it's a writing device
Speaker 2: that the people in the writer's room can go, Wow,
Speaker 2: we've been stuck on this enterprise for a long time
Speaker 2: in all these episodes. Let's let's do a Western.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could be that. It could also be something,
Speaker 1: As you know, these are big machines. Every television show
Speaker 1: is a huge machine of its own. So it could
Speaker 1: have been something behind the scenes where they said, Okay,
Speaker 1: look we have this leftover set for a show that
Speaker 1: didn't get used. We have to use it. And sorry,
Speaker 1: Star trek TNG, you drew the short straw this time.
Speaker 1: So writer's room, chop chop something something with the hollow deck.
Speaker 2: Or maybe this set's about to get torn down. Hey, writers,
Speaker 2: let's find a way to use it quick.
Speaker 1: We have We have spent a lot of time thinking
Speaker 1: about thinking about this. You know, I bet someone out
Speaker 1: there has a has the real scoop, the straight poop,
Speaker 1: as we might say, on the origin of those hollow
Speaker 1: Deck episodes. But there is another thing that comes into
Speaker 1: play when we consider this idea of fiction purposefully predicting
Speaker 1: actual events in the future, usually bad ones, and that
Speaker 1: is the dangerous deceptive traits of the human mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not just the people creating the fiction and
Speaker 2: the entertainment. It's the people who are consuming it, actively,
Speaker 2: watching and hearing it right.
Speaker 1: And there's this assumption that is so prevalent in the
Speaker 1: past and today that goes like this. Someone watching a
Speaker 1: film or reading a book, even to a lesser degree,
Speaker 1: is passively experiencing the vision or the creation that the
Speaker 1: author made, or the director made, or whomever. But in actuality,
Speaker 1: all audience members are collaborators. Whether it's a piece of
Speaker 1: art like a sculpture, whether it's a television show, whether
Speaker 1: it's a book, we are helping to create the story
Speaker 1: by the mere act of observing and interpreting it. What
Speaker 1: this all means is that people are really self obsessed pathologically.
Speaker 1: And don't beat yourself up if you feel like this
Speaker 1: is an unfair characterization, or if you feel bad and
Speaker 1: you think, oh, I'm a little bit narcissistic, because everybody is.
Speaker 1: Everybody is, and we're all the main characters of our
Speaker 1: own stories, the center of our individual universes, the protagonist
Speaker 1: around which this great world swings. In addition to this,
Speaker 1: we're also fantastically talented analyzers and pattern recognizers. It's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons our species runs so much of the
Speaker 1: planet rather than say an octopus race or a super
Speaker 1: intelligent empire of corvids.
Speaker 2: You know, I want to see those.
Speaker 1: I would be super in the crows that run the world.
Speaker 1: I don't know why that's supposed to be a caca
Speaker 1: in the distance.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, it worked, I heard it.
Speaker 1: Are we predictively programming the cor the corvids?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: So this is this is dangerous because with this perspective
Speaker 1: right as a starting point, we can make two assumptions.
Speaker 1: We will say a pattern exists because we perceive it
Speaker 1: to exist, and because we are the most important thing
Speaker 1: in our experience, every pattern we perceive inherently in some
Speaker 1: way applies to us. One thing that people don't like
Speaker 1: to hear in general is that there's something big going
Speaker 1: on and it has nothing to.
Speaker 2: Do with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean. I mean that's why
Speaker 1: so much scientific literature became so controversial. Charles Darwin when
Speaker 1: he releases The Origin on the Origin Species in eighteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, he's saying, Oh, no, humans, you're not special,
Speaker 1: You're just you're part of a thing. We're part of
Speaker 1: a pattern, part of a pattern that has existed long
Speaker 1: before you and will continue long after you are dust.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you're like Yeah, whatever, Darwin, get out
Speaker 2: of here, right, go back to looking at islands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, get back on the beagle. But that's the problem.
Speaker 1: And without delving too far into the weeds on this,
Speaker 1: it essentially means that you and I and Paul and
Speaker 1: everyone we are neither neutral creators nor are we a
Speaker 1: neutral audience, and we're at an impasse because if no
Speaker 1: one's objective, then where's the truth? Ooh.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, oh man, this sounds like an even bigger episode.
Speaker 1: So all right, yeah, I'll buy what's going on.
Speaker 2: Just talking about the nature of truth. We touch on
Speaker 2: it every once in a while when we get into
Speaker 2: discussing sources of news, but when you really think about
Speaker 2: it this way from that deep of a psychological perspective, Oh,
Speaker 2: makes the mind wander a bit.
Speaker 1: Yes, And we know that this pattern recognition can also
Speaker 1: be used to make the mind wander because we're in
Speaker 1: addition to being endearingly self obsessed, we're all also big
Speaker 1: fans of following rituals and cues and social mores. They
Speaker 1: are more patterns to recognize, and we're easily swayed by
Speaker 1: subtle changes and routine of form. There's a great there's
Speaker 1: a great book called the Illuminatus trilogy, which I think
Speaker 1: we've talked about before, and I just want to put
Speaker 1: this in because it's one reference to this kind of
Speaker 1: social hacking.
Speaker 2: That's where the Illuminati game finds its origins.
Speaker 1: By the way, Oh yeah, no way, really, that's cool.
Speaker 1: So this novel, which is incredibly incredibly long, presented as
Speaker 1: a trilogy of smaller works. It depicts a number of
Speaker 1: things in a rather convoluted plot. And we don't want
Speaker 1: to spoil it for you, but there is one scene
Speaker 1: in there where someone changes or adds to the signs
Speaker 1: at this department store, a relatively high end department store
Speaker 1: that has something like, you know, the kind of thing
Speaker 1: you would read outside of a fitting room, like wait
Speaker 1: for an intendant to help you or something. The addition
Speaker 1: they make is they just put no spitting.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so well, I mean, nobody wants to do
Speaker 2: that anyway, we only spit.
Speaker 1: No one should be But the hack about it, the
Speaker 1: subtle change in that form, makes people think this is
Speaker 1: a place of a much lower socioeconomic class. This is
Speaker 1: a place where people are just spitting on the floor,
Speaker 1: you know, like a roadhouse in a movie. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: this was a work of fiction. But this kind of
Speaker 1: stuff can work, and can work really well. This also
Speaker 1: goes into the nature of propaganda. But the question is
Speaker 1: how far does this sort of stuff go. Could some
Speaker 1: groups or groups really be normalizing future events through the
Speaker 1: lens of mass media and fiction, And if so.
Speaker 2: Why, Yeah, why We're going to talk about that right
Speaker 2: after a quick word from our sponsor.
Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. Alan Watt described predictive programming
Speaker 1: as a subtle form of psychological conditioning provided by the
Speaker 1: media to acquaint the public with planned societal changes to
Speaker 1: be implemented by our leaders. If and when these changes
Speaker 1: are put through, the public will already be familiarized with
Speaker 1: them and will accept them as natural progressions, thus lessening
Speaker 1: possible public resistance and commotion.
Speaker 2: When I hear the words of Alan Wad, I always
Speaker 2: feel that there is truth there. It just sounds like
Speaker 2: there is Again, it's about how he writes and how
Speaker 2: he how he spoke. But what I'm hearing here is
Speaker 2: something that I've heard for a long time about the
Speaker 2: concept of aliens and the concept that movies and television
Speaker 2: and novels for decades and decades have been prepping humans
Speaker 2: to accept that aliens have invaded or to accept alien
Speaker 2: races from other planets, extraterrestrials to being a part of
Speaker 2: our world. And again, when you put it in that way,
Speaker 2: our leaders subtly psychologically conditioning us. I don't know. It
Speaker 2: almost sounds like it could be real.
Speaker 1: Yeah you think so.
Speaker 2: I love it sounds like it because of the way
Speaker 2: he writes, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: I think you're bringing up a really crucial point here,
Speaker 1: one of the primary examples of predicted programming that the
Speaker 1: advocates of this belief point out is almost always going
Speaker 1: to be extraterrestrials, right, like a slow, decade long preparation
Speaker 1: for disclosure. Hey, guys, Spielberg was right, aliens are around.
Speaker 1: We thought the best way to tell you instead of
Speaker 1: just ripping the band aid off, we thought we would
Speaker 1: tell you over over like sixty years, get used to it,
Speaker 1: get you know, settle in, settle in to this tub
Speaker 1: of weirdness slowly.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that way the reaction is, you know, less
Speaker 2: oh my god, ah, and it's more like, oh wow, cool.
Speaker 2: I think that's the whole point. If you believe this
Speaker 2: to be here.
Speaker 1: And there are millions of people waiting to go I
Speaker 1: knew it, Yes, I knew it the whole time. So
Speaker 1: what are some other examples of this?
Speaker 2: Oh? There are so stink in many of these. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's start with the top one of this one. Ben,
Speaker 2: you put in the outline first. But this is the
Speaker 2: one that I thought about when we even said the
Speaker 2: phrase predictive programming. And it's the pilot episode of The
Speaker 2: Lone Gunman, which you know, if you were an ext
Speaker 2: Files fan, you know who the Loan Gunmen are. You
Speaker 2: watched The Loan Gunman when it came out as a
Speaker 2: spin off and it was awesome. But in the pilot episode,
Speaker 2: it features as part of the plot and an attempted
Speaker 2: bombing or destruction at least of the World Trade Center,
Speaker 2: the Twin Towers, and specifically, it was a hijacked commercial
Speaker 2: airliner that would be flown into the World Trade Center,
Speaker 2: and it was a false flag attack by this rogue
Speaker 2: group of government officials. And you know, since that came
Speaker 2: out before the September eleventh, two thousand and one attacks,
Speaker 2: this is looked at as WHOA, these guys knew something, right,
Speaker 2: they put it out there. They're trying to warn us
Speaker 2: that this was going to happen, and a lot of
Speaker 2: the speaking about it early early on when it occurred
Speaker 2: was it was a warning rather than a predict programming
Speaker 2: getting you used to it. It was like somebody's trying
Speaker 2: to tell us that this is going to happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And this is, as you said, an
Speaker 1: incredibly prevalent example. It gets brought up continually, but it's
Speaker 1: not the only example, right. Oh No, there was one
Speaker 1: that we found referencing the film The Dark Knight Rises
Speaker 1: by Christopher Nolan. There's a map in The Dark Knight
Speaker 1: Rises that has a location marked Sandy Hook.
Speaker 2: Yes, Commissioner Gordon's going over the attack plan for you know,
Speaker 2: going in. It's the scene right before they actually go
Speaker 2: into the stadium for one of the big climactic scenes.
Speaker 2: There spoiler alert for The Dark Knight Rises. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there's a map and it does say Sandy Hook.
Speaker 1: On it, so that one's not near his persuasive though,
Speaker 1: because Sandy Hook is a place.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, And why it's weird because it says strike
Speaker 2: zone one and it came you know usually what this
Speaker 2: has to do with our release dates. We have proximity
Speaker 2: of release dates being before you know, and let's say
Speaker 2: some given time frame year or two or even months. Sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, again that's the nature of the perception. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: we found the pattern. And another example would be Family Guy,
Speaker 1: and a Family Guy is replete with cutaway jokes and
Speaker 1: tangents that don't really go anywhere. It's just a it's
Speaker 1: a quick bit. But there's an episode or a gag
Speaker 1: in a Family Guy episode rather that concerns the Boston Marathon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an episode called Turban Cowboy that came out
Speaker 2: and there's a scene in it, or let's let's say
Speaker 2: a scene a breakaway, a cutaway sure to a quick
Speaker 2: thing where Peter Griffin wins the b Boston Marathon by
Speaker 2: driving his car through all of the other competitors and
Speaker 2: kills a whole bunch of people. And then later on
Speaker 2: in the episode. You might know this just from the
Speaker 2: or you might glean it from the title Turbine Cowboy,
Speaker 2: Peter accidentally joins up with a terrorist cell and he
Speaker 2: uses a cell phone to call his buddy Mahmoud and
Speaker 2: ends up setting off two bombs because he's using the
Speaker 2: cell phone or whatever.
Speaker 1: You can also tell that Family Guy has an ongoing
Speaker 1: tendency to be pretty.
Speaker 2: Racist, racist and you know, yeah, they at least push
Speaker 2: the boundaries. Let's say they push the boundaries creatively there.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And this example, of course makes people believe
Speaker 1: in predictive programming, think they were somehow depicting the later
Speaker 1: disasters that would happen at the Boston Marathon. Yes, there's
Speaker 1: another example with the movie Knowing, right that you had
Speaker 1: mentioned the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe at the top of the episode.
Speaker 1: Knowing has something to do with this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So if you have not seen Knowing, it's a
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine Nick Cage movie, and it's all
Speaker 2: based on predictive programming essentially, or a different version of
Speaker 2: predictive programming. Numbers and codes hidden amongst things that mean
Speaker 2: other things and predict the future. In that movie, right
Speaker 2: in the opening scene, Nicholas Cage is watching television and
Speaker 2: on the news comes this image and a news story
Speaker 2: about an oil rig that's on fire in the Gulf
Speaker 2: of Mexico. And again, this is a two thousand and
Speaker 2: nine movie. A year later, the Deepwater Horizon disaster occurs,
Speaker 2: where an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico explodes
Speaker 2: and I think eleven people were missing. Immediately when it occurred,
Speaker 2: and if you were watching television at the time immediately
Speaker 2: when the news footage came out, it looks crazy similar
Speaker 2: to the footage that's shown in the movie, knowing that
Speaker 2: you might have seen.
Speaker 1: Okay, so this footage is just is it a crucial
Speaker 1: part of the film or is it something that just
Speaker 1: happens in the film.
Speaker 2: It's something that happens within the first few moments, and
Speaker 2: it's literally a television that's being shown. You know, the
Speaker 2: camera is shooting a television showing the news. So it's
Speaker 2: not a massive thing. It's just giving you kind of
Speaker 2: current events setting up the story.
Speaker 1: Because all it is you could understand. I could totally
Speaker 1: understand though, how somebody would be I would see that
Speaker 1: in theaters and then see the evening news later if
Speaker 1: they caught a matinee or something like that, that's disturbing.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, your your perspective is now Nicholas Cage is
Speaker 2: sitting on the couch or whatever watching the television that
Speaker 2: you watch Nick Cage watch in the movie.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could you know, I could see where
Speaker 1: that would be at least creepy to people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, Oh, but the the you know, we talked
Speaker 2: about Family Guy, but the granddaddy of Family Guy, the Simpsons.
Speaker 2: They have an incredible track record of predicting various future
Speaker 2: events and trends and things like this, And honestly, it
Speaker 2: could be a whole episode of just hey, what did
Speaker 2: the how did the Simpsons know that?
Speaker 1: Oh boy? Yeah, and there's one that you had brought
Speaker 1: up off air before too, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: This is this is a great one. You'll find this
Speaker 2: all over the internet, mostly on Facebook is where I've
Speaker 2: seen it, and a couple other blog sites have reposted it.
Speaker 2: But it's the Donald Trump presidency. There's so okay. On
Speaker 2: June sixteenth, twenty fifteen, Donald Trump announced that he was
Speaker 2: going to run for president, and you remember the whole deal,
Speaker 2: coming down the escalator, waving to people. There are people
Speaker 2: on the balcony with signs. Well, according to numerous posts
Speaker 2: in the year two thousand, the Simpsons made this episode,
Speaker 2: which is true. They made an episode called bart Bart
Speaker 2: to the Future, and according to these posts, not only
Speaker 2: did they predict the Trump presidency, they also predicted the
Speaker 2: exact way in which his campaign would be announced. Again,
Speaker 2: everything from the people standing on the balconies with signs
Speaker 2: to Donald Trump going down the escalator. It's uncanny, it's insane,
Speaker 2: it's the exact same sequence. Here's the problem, and you'll
Speaker 2: notice this if you actually watch a clip from the
Speaker 2: supposed Simpson's video. The animation quality is very high, and
Speaker 2: you imagine the animation quality, you know, let's say fifteen
Speaker 2: years later at least so like to twenty fifteen compared
Speaker 2: to two thousand. Sure it changed a lot. And then
Speaker 2: you do a little digging and then you realize all
Speaker 2: of these posts are actually being taken from a July
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen promotion of the next Simpsons season, which specifically,
Speaker 2: it's a video that was posted to the YouTube channel
Speaker 2: Animation on Fox. It was July seventh, twenty fifteen when
Speaker 2: it was posted, and it's called Trump Tastic Voyage Season
Speaker 2: twenty five The Simpsons, and what it is is a
Speaker 2: perfect recreation of the event rather than a prediction of
Speaker 2: the announcement of what was going to happen. But the
Speaker 2: really interesting thing is if you go back to the
Speaker 2: two thousand episode The Bart to the Future, they do
Speaker 2: speak directly to Trump being president, but it's just an aside.
Speaker 2: I think it's Maggie who says this, Oh God, there's
Speaker 2: so much to explain here. But it's in the future.
Speaker 2: It's like a vision of the future within the world
Speaker 2: of The Simpsons. And in this vision of the future,
Speaker 2: I want to say, it's Maggie the baby but now
Speaker 2: grown up, who mentions something about something about how horrible
Speaker 2: the Trump legacy was, so they're trying to fix like
Speaker 2: all the budget or something. It's like I throw away
Speaker 2: line essentially, but as a joke of Trump was president.
Speaker 1: So this actual this actually happened before the Trump presidency.
Speaker 1: But people have been conflating this with the later recreation
Speaker 1: of the campaign announcement.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because it would be much more compelling if
Speaker 2: this was actually what happened. And this is just naming
Speaker 2: a few of these Oh my god. Yeah, there's so many.
Speaker 2: There's so so many, And our first immediate questions are
Speaker 2: pretty easy, Right, how is this different from a single
Speaker 2: creative team proposing or depicting a social change they think
Speaker 2: should happen. You know, if like the Star Trek example,
Speaker 2: or let's say that the creators of The Simpsons really thought,
Speaker 2: you know, the world will be a better place and
Speaker 2: the best way to get it there is for us
Speaker 2: to push the the greatness of a Donald Trump presidency.
Speaker 2: Right that, Like, how is it different in this case,
Speaker 2: in the Simpson's case, they're implying that it was a
Speaker 2: bad thing for it.
Speaker 1: To happen, Right, Yeah, it was a joke, it was,
Speaker 1: And it was a joke.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's kind of a throwaway joke.
Speaker 2: It's what it you know, sort of felt like.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and then the other question is, how are
Speaker 1: these events different from you know, an accident. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I know. As pattern seekers and master analyst all where,
Speaker 1: we're not big fans of the idea of something being
Speaker 1: an accident or a coincidence or just happening without a
Speaker 1: real purpose behind it. First things first, from a psychological angle,
Speaker 1: there's a problem with this idea of predictive programming because
Speaker 1: we tend to model our behavior based less on an
Speaker 1: object or an event and more on a character's reaction
Speaker 1: to that object or event. There's a great experiment called
Speaker 1: Bobo Doll. The Bobo Doll experiments in this is Bobo
Speaker 1: is a clown. It's an inflatable clown, like punching bad clown.
Speaker 2: All right, I can't hear this?
Speaker 1: Do what me a wave? When when it passed this
Speaker 1: part you come back and no stay stay this. Psychologist
Speaker 1: Albert ben Dura conducted an experiment a series of studies
Speaker 1: using an inflatable punching bad clown called the Bobo Doll,
Speaker 1: and they got two groups of children. In one group,
Speaker 1: each kid was shown a short film of an adult
Speaker 1: hitting the doll, just smacking the grease paint off it.
Speaker 1: In the other group, the adult in the film ignored
Speaker 1: the doll, and after watching whichever film they were assigned to,
Speaker 1: each kid was put in a room with a variety
Speaker 1: of toys, including a Bobo doll. The children who have
Speaker 1: been shown the aggressive video overwhelmingly mimic the adult and
Speaker 1: beat the snot out of the doll, while the other
Speaker 1: kids just ignored it because that's what you're supposed to do.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: So this means that if we see, if we see
Speaker 1: something depicting a future event, allegedly, what we're really paying
Speaker 1: attention to psychologically is going to be how the characters
Speaker 1: with whom we identify react to it. It's not going
Speaker 1: to be a World Traits Center attack, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be the Boston Marathon. It's going to be how
Speaker 1: did the lone gunmen react to this? How did Peter
Speaker 1: Griffin react to this? You know what I mean? Hmm,
Speaker 1: And it sounds like a small difference, But it becomes
Speaker 1: increasingly clear this is straight because the primary plank of
Speaker 1: predictive programming as a theory is the idea that if
Speaker 1: we see something in real life that we saw depicted
Speaker 1: in fiction, we're going to have less of a reaction, right,
Speaker 1: We're going to have resigned in difference or one quote,
Speaker 1: a half hearted protest.
Speaker 2: If we see something in real life that was predicted.
Speaker 1: Okay, so if we say, oh, the CDC in Atlanta
Speaker 1: blew up, but we saw several movies about that earlier,
Speaker 1: so you know what evs Okay, that's the idea. But
Speaker 1: what we see from the science behind this is that
Speaker 1: the idea that just portraying something will elicit the same
Speaker 1: reaction regardless of context is incorrect. There has to be
Speaker 1: a context to the pattern to the action that observing.
Speaker 1: So the doll itself, the object or the event is
Speaker 1: not inherently it can be one thing or the other.
Speaker 1: It's going to be how people react to it. Someone
Speaker 1: hitting the doll, someone ignoring the doll. That's what people
Speaker 1: are modeling.
Speaker 2: Okay, now I'm going back and applying this to all
Speaker 2: this stuff, including the Trump presidency. Oh man, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: going to reevaluate all that now. Thank you, Ben. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: So there's another thing we haven't even we haven't even
Speaker 2: discussed yet, which is that this type of prediction in
Speaker 2: some form of mass media does really occur. It can occur,
Speaker 2: and it's an accident, completely in accident. Consider the eerily
Speaker 2: prescient story that you had mentioned before we've talked about
Speaker 2: on the show before that, Edgar Allan Poe had this
Speaker 2: vision of survival cannibalism on a boat.
Speaker 1: Yes, the only novel he published, The Narrative of Arthur
Speaker 1: Gordon Pim of Nantucket in eighteen thirty eight. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: this is a baffling coincidence. And even if you consider
Speaker 1: yourself a very, very skeptical person, you have to admit
Speaker 1: it boggles the mind.
Speaker 2: I think this might be the best example that I've
Speaker 2: ever heard.
Speaker 1: So part way through the book the Narrative of Arthur
Speaker 1: Gordon Pim of Nantucket, the crew of a ship called
Speaker 1: Grampus like Crampis, but with a g finds themselves on
Speaker 1: a damaged boat and they have no food and they
Speaker 1: have no water. They manage to catch a tortoise and
Speaker 1: eat that, but eventually to survive they resort to cannibalism.
Speaker 1: They draw straws to figure out which one of them
Speaker 1: will be sacrificed to feed everyone else. The death straw
Speaker 1: goes to a guy named Richard Parker, who's promptly stabbed
Speaker 1: his head. His hands, and his feet are thrown overboard,
Speaker 1: and this keeps the rest of the crew alive a
Speaker 1: little longer, but the last two members are still on
Speaker 1: the brink of death when they're finally rescued. Poe himself
Speaker 1: thought it was a really silly story. Quote very silly,
Speaker 1: if we're being accurate, very silly, those are his words.
Speaker 1: Until that is in eighteen eighty four in real life,
Speaker 1: when a yacht named the Minonette left England headed toward Australia.
Speaker 1: The four man crew barely escaped in a lifeboat, but
Speaker 1: they didn't have enough food eat, they didn't have enough
Speaker 1: water to drink. They did catch a turtle and they
Speaker 1: ate it, but just like the people in the story
Speaker 1: by Poe, which is forty five years old, at that point,
Speaker 1: they resorted to cannibalism. Specifically of a seventeen year old
Speaker 1: named Richard Parker.
Speaker 2: Isn't that insane? That is that is the crew. Honestly
Speaker 2: the craziest version of something like this that I think
Speaker 2: has ever occurred.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm at a loss for words still thinking about it,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's it's so crazy and it really does
Speaker 2: make you reevaluate the life of Pie movie with Richard Parker.
Speaker 1: The Yeah, the name of the tiger. So this this
Speaker 1: is a really weird thing too, because it's not spot on.
Speaker 1: And are we also just seeing what we want to see?
Speaker 2: You know? That is the question?
Speaker 1: And there's an elephant in the room.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, there's a big elephant in the room, and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about it right after a quick word from
Speaker 2: our sponsor.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go finally, and kudos to us, Matt.
Speaker 1: We got so far without acknowledging this.
Speaker 2: We did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we played the reindeer games. We said if this is,
Speaker 1: if this is so, this is what would happen. These
Speaker 1: are things we consider from pull different angles. But the big,
Speaker 1: the big concern here, the as you said, the elephants,
Speaker 1: is that this seems in every single case like a
Speaker 1: very very very very complicated plan.
Speaker 2: Yes, and the the motivations for the machinations aren't there
Speaker 2: for me. And how much work you'd have to put
Speaker 2: in to get the Simpsons to predict something so that
Speaker 2: you would be as the public, that we would be
Speaker 2: okay with something in the future baffles my mind. That
Speaker 2: some screenwriter who wrote the pilot for this TV show,
Speaker 2: the spinoff of The X Files, knew that there was
Speaker 2: this plan that was going to be enacted several years
Speaker 2: or a year from then, two years whatever?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 2: Why? How much planning would have to go into that.
Speaker 1: Right? How much plan would have to go into it
Speaker 1: publicly much less how much plan would have to go
Speaker 1: into it for it to occur in secret? Yeah? Somehow? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's easily hundreds of people.
Speaker 2: Because you're talking about getting people to approve a script.
Speaker 2: I mean, just just that alone, that process is not
Speaker 2: an easy one. And uh, I don't know, man.
Speaker 1: Well it it takes almost double think on the part
Speaker 1: of us to believe in this, because if we walk
Speaker 1: through it, it requires us to believe that not only
Speaker 1: is a work of fiction being made with knowledge of
Speaker 1: future events, certain knowledge that they have certitude about this,
Speaker 1: but also that the creators of the work are either
Speaker 1: in cooperation with some shadowy cabal or they're members of
Speaker 1: some shadowy cabal that has vast, near omniscient control over
Speaker 1: events in the real world. But as still saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, guys, we shall make movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and all of these people are also okay with
Speaker 2: these terrible tragedies that occur.
Speaker 1: Right. This would mean that, if it were true someone
Speaker 1: new catastrophes like nine to eleven were going to happen.
Speaker 1: And additionally, rather than preventing the disaster, they had enough
Speaker 1: time to make a high production level story about something
Speaker 1: completely different, ultimately for the sole purpose of including a
Speaker 1: passing reference to a real life event in the story
Speaker 1: that seems like a massive amount of work for a
Speaker 1: relatively small return.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I I don't get it, man, I don't. I
Speaker 2: think in order to believe this fully you have to
Speaker 2: really have gone down the rabbit hole of believing that
Speaker 2: every person that's an elite of any sort is working
Speaker 2: together for some bigger mass conspiracy.
Speaker 1: And you know, we have found, over the course of
Speaker 1: our time digging into all sorts of strange stuff on
Speaker 1: this show, we have found that it's a lot less
Speaker 1: likely that one group actually rules the world. It's a
Speaker 1: lot more likely that there are several groups who are
Speaker 1: all vastly entitled and above the law who feel like
Speaker 1: they should run the world. Yeah, and they don't get
Speaker 1: along well.
Speaker 2: And I wonder if you do subscribe to this theory,
Speaker 2: you maybe, even as a conspiracy realist as we all
Speaker 2: are in this, who can hear this voice right now?
Speaker 2: Maybe you imagine that these are groups working, you know,
Speaker 2: against each other with their predictive programming efforts. Ah.
Speaker 1: I like that spin there. I like that angle because
Speaker 1: it would also help at least to float the inevitable
Speaker 1: problem of different predictions occurring. Right. That's really smart. There's
Speaker 1: also there's another wrinkle in here, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a con Propaganda works best when it's simplified. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no denying that fiction is incredible powerful, and even
Speaker 1: today books and films are banned by governments around the world.
Speaker 1: And also propaganda is produced by governments around the world
Speaker 1: or by think tanks or agencies. People with some sort
Speaker 1: of agenda, whether they're a fervent nationalists, whether they are
Speaker 1: racial supremacists of some sort, they're out there and they
Speaker 1: want to have a story where their agenda or their
Speaker 1: goal is presented as the right thing, the best thing.
Speaker 1: And I know I'm mentioning. I know I'm mentioning groups
Speaker 1: like nationalists and supremacists, but that's barely the surface. It's
Speaker 1: like everybody. Yeah, so people who you know, it's cause agnostic.
Speaker 1: It's a technique that does not fall under the purview
Speaker 1: of any one particular group of people that you might
Speaker 1: think of as evil or they might think of as good.
Speaker 1: The people who want to save coral reefs are absolutely
Speaker 1: capable of doing the same kind of things that you
Speaker 1: would see from another propaganda entity.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I happen to believe that they have truth on their side.
Speaker 1: That that's just me.
Speaker 2: You believe in the coral reefs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they're real. I think it churns out.
Speaker 2: Well, some of them are not real. I was just
Speaker 2: learning about some of I think it's the Georgia Coast.
Speaker 2: NPR was talking about this where there are fake coral reefs,
Speaker 2: artificial reefs. Yeah, really fascinating stuff made out of rubble.
Speaker 2: But they're still real, Like they're not coral. Though they're reefs,
Speaker 2: they're not coral. That's all.
Speaker 1: That's very good point. Matt. You thank you for bringing that,
Speaker 1: bringing that to light. Finally, it's what Big Coral doesn't
Speaker 1: want you to know.
Speaker 2: Seriously, Oh man, rebar and concrete, it will do just
Speaker 2: wonders for fish.
Speaker 1: It needed to be said, Thank you, no problem, dude.
Speaker 2: Just while we're still in oceanic been. My father called
Speaker 2: me panicked the other day about the Great Pacific garbage Patch,
Speaker 2: and I think he honestly hadn't ever heard of it before.
Speaker 2: And you know, this is something that maybe you listening
Speaker 2: to this have heard about it before. It is a
Speaker 2: massively troubling thing that is happening, a huge amount of
Speaker 2: plastic and other garbage that's just there. I feel like
Speaker 2: we need to do some kind of episode on it
Speaker 2: because my dad was genuinely terrified and felt like the
Speaker 2: world was ending because of this.
Speaker 1: Well, it's certainly not a good thing.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, absolutely, but I think imagining it and seeing
Speaker 2: some of the imagery that the news was putting out
Speaker 2: about it was fear inducing, and I think it's worth
Speaker 2: us discussing maybe in the future about what could happen.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, we can also talk about whether recycling actually helps.
Speaker 1: That's great because a lot of people in the West
Speaker 1: at least are I don't know, are doing a ritual
Speaker 1: where you put some trash in a blue box and
Speaker 1: you tell yourself that you're making a difference, And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that's a sincere thing. We recycle here at
Speaker 1: the office, but in a lot of places when people
Speaker 1: come around to collect the garbage, the things from those
Speaker 1: two boxes go in the same dumpster. Yep. So I
Speaker 1: don't know. Sometimes I don't want to make a huge
Speaker 1: sweeping statement about it, but it's true that does happen.
Speaker 1: So yeah, let us know what we should examine when
Speaker 1: it comes to recycling, when it comes to the Great
Speaker 1: garbage Patch. We did do an episode on ocean acidification
Speaker 1: and we did Yeah, and you know that's scary.
Speaker 2: That's really scary. And why aren't we using the whole
Speaker 2: the plasma methods of breaking down trash, turning it into
Speaker 2: slag and usable gases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you told me about that years ago. They had
Speaker 1: the technology in Japan, right, dude.
Speaker 2: They've been doing this for decades in Japan and a
Speaker 2: couple other places, just turning their trash into energy and
Speaker 2: usable building materials. Why aren't we doing this? Guys? Wow,
Speaker 2: that's a massive tangent. Okay, let's get back to this
Speaker 2: really fast.
Speaker 1: Oh are we predictively programming the audience? Oh?
Speaker 2: Is that what this is?
Speaker 1: Is that what this whole thing was?
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Paul, were you in on this? Oh
Speaker 2: my god, Matt.
Speaker 1: I figured the best way for you to learn this
Speaker 1: would be on the air with no prep.
Speaker 2: You made me a part of this.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's too late now. Pretty soon we're
Speaker 1: gonna have George Soros, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and I
Speaker 1: don't know who else, Oprah, Alice Cooper. They're all gonna
Speaker 1: walk in and do a slow clap.
Speaker 2: The Bezos.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe he's a fearsome beast though, Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. We don't have any celebrity illuminati that that
Speaker 1: are coming by. Although today as we recorded this, Davey
Speaker 1: Diggs did drop by to appear on a show our
Speaker 1: pal Chuck does called Movie Crush, So do check that out.
Speaker 2: It was awesome.
Speaker 1: Did you like that organic segue and perfect?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 1: Thanks? You know they sometimes call me the Matt Frederick
Speaker 1: of a Smooth Plugs. It's it's a tremendous compliment one
Speaker 1: I don't deserve.
Speaker 2: But you know, if you're if you're thinking to yourself,
Speaker 2: what did I miss and you want to, you know,
Speaker 2: send us something. If you have any questions or comments
Speaker 2: about anything we've talked about today. Have you noticed a
Speaker 2: different version of predictive programming? Or do you have a
Speaker 2: really good example, or you know what, do you think
Speaker 2: it's hogwash? You should write to us. You can find
Speaker 2: us on social media where we are conspiracy stuff on
Speaker 2: most of them, sometimes conspiracy stuff show. You'll find us.
Speaker 2: You can do it. You can go to Stuff they
Speaker 2: Don't Want you to Know dot com. You can check
Speaker 2: out every podcast we've ever recorded, some videos, all kinds
Speaker 2: of good stuff there you can and that's the end
Speaker 2: of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
Speaker 2: questions about this episode, you can get into contact with
Speaker 2: us in a number of different ways. One of the
Speaker 2: best is to give us a call. Our number is
Speaker 2: one eight three three STDWYTK. If you don't want to
Speaker 2: do that, you can send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1: We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
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