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Speaker 1: Welcome Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, you, welcome to Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick, and we're coming at you with listener

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Speaker 1: mail today. Now our loyal mail bought. Carney has been

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Speaker 1: through some changes. That's right. He's been uh, he's been

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Speaker 1: off in Fatburg City. He's been helping uh Officer Fatburg

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Speaker 1: battle the city's Fatburg problem. That's right. And in the

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Speaker 1: course of fighting a Fatburg, which of course turned out

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Speaker 1: to be sentient and alive. I guess that goes without

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Speaker 1: saying you can't be sentient without being alive, but not

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Speaker 1: for long um or maybe you can. Yeah, that's subject

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Speaker 1: for another day. Anyway, like the black Ooze in Prometheus,

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Speaker 1: part of that Fatburg just got right on into Carney.

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Speaker 1: It took over part of his processor. Now he's Fatberg

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Speaker 1: inside Fatberg power, uh Fatburg logic, and he's part fat

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Speaker 1: Burg bought forever. Little flies come out of his nooks

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Speaker 1: and crannies. I think that's just temporary. I think this

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Speaker 1: is going to be an equilibrium that has reached and

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Speaker 1: to whatever extent Carney can be fueled by fat birds. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I think that's exciting. I think that's the future. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That's actually gonna be the topic of another episode we're

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Speaker 1: going to be recording. Have an episode of Invention coming up.

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Speaker 1: What happens when robots can eat fat birds? We'll find out.

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Speaker 1: But this episode is about listener mail, and we did

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Speaker 1: receive a lot of really cool listener mail regarding our

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Speaker 1: episode on fat birds. Now, just just to refresh, uh,

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Speaker 1: to remove some of the you know, the sci fi

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Speaker 1: fun here that we've been throwing out for a second.

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Speaker 1: A fat berg is this large mass that accumulates in

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Speaker 1: a modern sewer system or even kind of I guess

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Speaker 1: an archaic sewer system, but due to modern sewage problems

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Speaker 1: mostly caused by the flushing or the or the the

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Speaker 1: dumping of of grease and the flush of sanitary wipes,

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Speaker 1: wet wipes primarily. Yeah, like the problem with the with

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Speaker 1: the wipe things or these things that are wet wipes.

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Speaker 1: And apparently we heard from a lot of listeners, even

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Speaker 1: people who worked in uh, you know, sewer maintenance, sewer workers,

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Speaker 1: who said that these things that are so called flushable

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Speaker 1: wet wipes are not flushable. Don't flush them even if

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Speaker 1: they say you can. Yeah. And you know, I I

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Speaker 1: have a kid. I've have used wet wipes plenty of times.

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Speaker 1: And after you use them, you want to be rid

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Speaker 1: of them, being able to throw them into a magical

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Speaker 1: um uh you know, vat of water and then pushing

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Speaker 1: a button and watching it disappear. That that's an attractive

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Speaker 1: idea when you have a poop smeared. Uh what why?

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Speaker 1: But but it doesn't really disappear, It goes somewhere and

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Speaker 1: then it it makes friends. It becomes the bones of

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Speaker 1: the soap dragon. That's right. Uh, So maybe we should

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Speaker 1: get right to our first email. This one comes from Ray. Robert,

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Speaker 1: you want to read this one? Hello Robert and Joe.

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Speaker 1: My name is Ray, and I could not believe how

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Speaker 1: close to home the episode of fat Bergs landed. I

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Speaker 1: am currently a sewer utility worker in Faydeville, North Carolina,

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Speaker 1: and prior to serving in the army for several years,

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Speaker 1: I was a sewer utility worker in Jersey City, New Jersey.

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Speaker 1: The issue of grease infiltrating our country sewers seems to

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Speaker 1: be almost a universal problem with no real end in sight.

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Speaker 1: Although there are significant differences in the capacity and complexity

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Speaker 1: between the two sewer systems. I have personal experience with

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Speaker 1: the effects of grease and non biodegradable solids such as

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Speaker 1: wet wipes and feminine hygiene products. Seems to be universal

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Speaker 1: in my experience. I have seen and worked on many

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Speaker 1: Greef related issues, and though I have seen some large blockages,

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Speaker 1: the issues I have come to find most common or

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Speaker 1: more are more like grease tubes. The initial blockage creates

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Speaker 1: a type of grease dam, which in turn leads to

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Speaker 1: the sewer pipe becoming completely impacted with grease. Picture this

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Speaker 1: is a tube of toothpaste. These issues can run for

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Speaker 1: hundreds of feet underground and can require days of work.

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Speaker 1: A clear the comparison made in the articles you read

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Speaker 1: about it and concrete cannot be more accurate when trying

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Speaker 1: to relieve a fat Burg induced blockage quote. Chipping away

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Speaker 1: at the grease gestalt monstrosity with mason tools is surprisingly

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Speaker 1: effective and brings to mind archaeologists using picks and hammers

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Speaker 1: trying to reveal the hidden past and secrets the fat

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Speaker 1: Birds hold in its subterranean lipid vaults. One point that

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Speaker 1: I noticed was not mentioned that absolutely needs mentioning was

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Speaker 1: the surprisingly distinct smell that grease blockages have, which, if

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Speaker 1: one enjoys fried foods, could actually be appetite inducing. Each

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Speaker 1: of the several grease blockages I have dealt with had

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Speaker 1: a small had a smell scape that one could use

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Speaker 1: to easily identify the main contributor to its unholy birth,

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Speaker 1: whether it be Pizzeria's Chinese food takeout or even a

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Speaker 1: rather famous diner located in downtown Jersey City. Nothing makes

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Speaker 1: you look forward to lunch like the smell of comfort

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Speaker 1: food wafting up from the depths of the sup Oh God,

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Speaker 1: thank you again guys for never failing to surprise me

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Speaker 1: with your awesome topics. This one, in particular, fat Burgs,

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Speaker 1: made me realize that even something as mundane sounding as

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Speaker 1: sewer utility work, it can be interesting. As a final

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Speaker 1: side note, I would often try and tell people how

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Speaker 1: serious grease problems can be in sewers and how large

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Speaker 1: and lengthy they could be. It reminded me of another

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Speaker 1: episode of Yours Great Wave, in which stories would be

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Speaker 1: told by wayward sailors, often describing waves whose proportions seemed

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Speaker 1: a drastically exaggerated I feel a shared kindred with these sailors,

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Speaker 1: knowing that grease abominations lurk below the streets, and those

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Speaker 1: who I tell my tales to disregard them as exaggerated fantasy.

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Speaker 1: L O L. Thanks again, Right, Well, we don't disregard them, Ray,

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Speaker 1: We believe every word, except I am a little skeptical

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Speaker 1: about the the appetite inducing qualities of the sewer smell. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think I think we have some other listener mail

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Speaker 1: that that speaks to the odor, But I don't know

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Speaker 1: I can and that I mean, I trust Ray on

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Speaker 1: the matter. I mean, he he has experience that I

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Speaker 1: do not have regarding uh fat bergs in their unholy kin.

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Speaker 1: So if he says there's an appetizing odor, then I

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Speaker 1: I believe it. I guess what I mean is the

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Speaker 1: only thing I doubt is whether it would be appetizing

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Speaker 1: to lots of people or to everyone. That seems like

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Speaker 1: it would probably very person to person, especially depending on

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Speaker 1: how maybe you're disgust reflexes and how sensitive they are,

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Speaker 1: oh you need to fast food, or to just in general, No,

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Speaker 1: I mean to general, like the association. I mean, we

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Speaker 1: we know a lot about how smell is in some

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Speaker 1: ways cognitive. You know, we've talked on the show before

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Speaker 1: about how the exact same smell if you're told it's

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Speaker 1: a cheese, it smells good. But if you're told you're

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Speaker 1: smelling socks and it's the exact same chemical stimulant, uh,

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Speaker 1: it's disgusting. It makes you you know, you find it revolting.

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Speaker 1: And I think the same thing would probably be true.

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Speaker 1: You know, they're different levels of sensitivity. But like, you

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Speaker 1: can smell a smell that would maybe smell good if

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Speaker 1: it's coming out of a restaurant kitchen, but if you

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Speaker 1: smell it in a sewer, might give you the gag reflex, right,

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Speaker 1: But then if you're working in a sewer, like I

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Speaker 1: don't know, it might turn things around, Like you're you're

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Speaker 1: in there so long exposed to this different smellscape, and

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Speaker 1: if there's a hint of something even that is uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, from beyond the sewer, then perhaps you know,

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Speaker 1: the human mind can latch onto that I don't know. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's also if I remember correctly, in our past episodes

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Speaker 1: about smell, we've discussed how you know how about good

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Speaker 1: smells and bad smells, and about how bad smells can

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Speaker 1: sort of fade into the background a bit, while good

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Speaker 1: smells remain in the forefront. I believe I have that right.

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Speaker 1: Um In any right, there's there's a lot going on

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Speaker 1: when we perceive odors, like even very strong odors. You know,

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Speaker 1: some maybe destressed and others remain stressed. Uh in at

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Speaker 1: least as you know, as far as our perceptions go,

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Speaker 1: because there might be different adaptive reasons for the brain

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Speaker 1: to remain aware of certain kinds of odors but not

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Speaker 1: of others once you've initially smelled them, right, So maybe

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Speaker 1: that would allow room for like the pleasing odor that

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Speaker 1: is mixed in amongst the foul older odors to sort

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Speaker 1: of resonate more after a while. This is just me guessing.

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Speaker 1: Does the Yankee Candle Company make a fat burg candle?

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Speaker 1: I don't know, but uh that we did discuss in

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Speaker 1: that episode some of the possibilities of of using fatburgs

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Speaker 1: for fuel. Yeah. Well, we actually have a great piece

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Speaker 1: of listener mail about this, do it. Let's see here

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Speaker 1: this one. This is a short one. This comes from Damian.

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Speaker 1: Damian subject line, fat bergs are real. Hello from Little

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Speaker 1: Rock fat Burgs. Sweet Jesus. Those things can ruin your life.

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Speaker 1: My wife's grandparents had no qualms with pouring bacon grease

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Speaker 1: down the sink. They had apparently been doing so for

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Speaker 1: the last seventy years. A Router company worker that we

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Speaker 1: hired told us that our pipes were worse off than

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Speaker 1: a waffle house. I dug up ancient clay pipes and

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Speaker 1: they were packed with the same stuff that's clocking sewers worldwide.

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Speaker 1: It's a soap like material that is fairly stinky and

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Speaker 1: very light weight. Actually lit it on fire while it

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Speaker 1: was still wet. I'll include the fire video and offer

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Speaker 1: to send you a sample of the burg itself. If

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Speaker 1: you want some, let me know. I love your shows.

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Speaker 1: Keep it up, Damien. Okay, Damien, I don't think we

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Speaker 1: need a sample of the burg, but I did watch

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Speaker 1: the video and dude, yeah, it's like it's like a

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Speaker 1: tiny grease fire in puck form. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: I glanced at this video as well, and it is.

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Speaker 1: It's it's really flaming up there. It's kind of it's

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Speaker 1: kind of making spitting sounds that might have to do

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Speaker 1: with water content or the fact that it's wet. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say don't send us a piece of fatburg.

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Speaker 1: Let's leave that up to the stochastic gods of fat

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Speaker 1: berg face. I think I'm gonna do this next one

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Speaker 1: here from our listener Joe. In fact, hi Robert and Joe.

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Speaker 1: My name is also Joe, and I'm a plumber that

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Speaker 1: listens to your podcast. No, not that plumber. I live

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Speaker 1: in the state of Alabama. I routinely listen to your

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Speaker 1: podcast on my way to job sites, having been a

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Speaker 1: service lumber in the past. I have to tell you

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Speaker 1: that Donnie Don't made me twitch a little. I think

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Speaker 1: we started off the Fatberg episode with some don't do

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Speaker 1: what Donnie Don't does, pouring pouring duck fat down the

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Speaker 1: bathtub and stuff. Joe continues, Donna Don't, who also flushes

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Speaker 1: sanitary products and plants shrubs over the residential sewer line,

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Speaker 1: would have made me twitch a lot more. I don't

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Speaker 1: care if the packaging says flushable or not. Anything small

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Speaker 1: enough to fit down a toilet is flushable. That doesn't

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Speaker 1: mean you should flush it. I could flush one Leader

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Speaker 1: water bottles down some toilets, or even a bucket full

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Speaker 1: of golf balls. There are even some that I wholly

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Speaker 1: believe could flush small children, but that does not mean

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Speaker 1: it's a good idea. That being said, my city doesn't

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Speaker 1: have a sewer system that you can walk around in

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Speaker 1: as it's more modern. However, I do have some grease

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Speaker 1: stories that may interest you. Oh and old Greece is

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Speaker 1: the single worst thing to smell in plumbing, narrowly beating

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Speaker 1: out old urine. You would think that it's the pooh,

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Speaker 1: but it's not. Of course, I haven't had the displeasure

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Speaker 1: of cleaning the lines at a more refuneral home. I

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Speaker 1: know some who have, and I will not regale you

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Speaker 1: with those stories. I'm sure you can imagine. To preface

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Speaker 1: these stories, restaurants are required to have a grease interceptor

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Speaker 1: in their line going out, and they do just what

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Speaker 1: the name implies. They intercept and hold the grease. However,

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Speaker 1: in one case that was overlooked by the city when

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Speaker 1: I was an apprentice, we received a service call to

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Speaker 1: a dentist's office that was backing up with raw sewage.

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Speaker 1: The building was roughly ten feet above the city sewer,

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Speaker 1: and it was also the lowest of the surrounding buildings.

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Speaker 1: After confirming that the lines to the city sewer were clear,

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Speaker 1: we decided to pop a manhole cover the roads dirt

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Speaker 1: and grime had sealed it down. This heavy cast iron

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Speaker 1: manhole cover then proceeded to float, albeit briefly, on the

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Speaker 1: flood of water among other things that rose from the manhole,

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Speaker 1: and then had to direct traffic away from this open

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Speaker 1: manhole as we waited for the city's jet truck to

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Speaker 1: come clear the line. I think the jet truck is

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Speaker 1: like a high pressure water. This was a very busy

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Speaker 1: four lane road in the downtown of my city. I

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Speaker 1: almost got run over several times as people swerved into

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Speaker 1: the other lane within feet of me. I digress. When

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Speaker 1: the truck arrived, the twelve inch City Maine was blocked

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Speaker 1: for two hundred feet by you guessed it, fat and

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Speaker 1: grease where this restaurant's line joined the cities. They had

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Speaker 1: been pouring all of their oil down the drains. On

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Speaker 1: another note, as an apprentice, again, I have personally stood

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Speaker 1: on one foot on top of hardened grease and an

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Speaker 1: intercept or at another restaurant. The grease was about a

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Speaker 1: foot thick and weighed about two hundred pounds at the time,

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Speaker 1: and it did not give. We had to take a

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Speaker 1: steel bar to it to break it up so that

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Speaker 1: it could be pumped out. I wouldn't say that it's

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Speaker 1: as hard as concrete, but still rock like. I'm looking

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Speaker 1: forward to more awesome episodes from you guys. Joe all right,

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Speaker 1: another field report from the war against the fat Bergs.

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Speaker 1: That is an epic tale of a heroic struggle. I

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Speaker 1: wish I only had the you know, the mind of

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Speaker 1: a Homer to translated into poetry. But hey, you know

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Speaker 1: one thing we did in that Fatburg episode is we

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Speaker 1: proposed a movie crossover, which should be Fatburg copy and

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Speaker 1: Officer Fatberg. So we asked if anybody out there is,

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Speaker 1: you know, developer in Hollywood or anything, get Fatburg cop going.

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Speaker 1: We did hear back from a couple of people, a

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Speaker 1: couple of creative types who engage with fat Bergs one

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Speaker 1: way or another. Weird from one listener named Tom, who

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Speaker 1: shared with us a story he had written about a

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Speaker 1: fat Burg that becomes sentient. This was independent of our episode.

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Speaker 1: He had already written it in the past. But we

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Speaker 1: also heard from our listener L Robert do you want

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Speaker 1: to read this one? Yes? L Rights quote. I recently

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Speaker 1: listened to your episode on Fatberg's. You had mentioned how

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Speaker 1: it would be cool to create an artist rendition of

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Speaker 1: an anthropomorphic, murderous and justice seeking Fatburg. Well, being an

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Speaker 1: artist myself, I could think of nothing more than to

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Speaker 1: do just this. I wanted to make the creature humanoid,

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Speaker 1: but also not too human. I ended up with some

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Speaker 1: sort of a lizard man cotton made of congealed grease,

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Speaker 1: and it turned out more saying than I would have liked.

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Speaker 1: Make of that what you will. Maybe Fatburg really is

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Speaker 1: the hero. Nevertheless, I enjoyed making this a ight style

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Speaker 1: poster art. Robert had mentioned never visiting Philly, Well, come

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Speaker 1: on by, I can't recommend it enough. Also, I recently

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Speaker 1: visited the Mooder Museum uh the week before the episode. This,

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Speaker 1: of course, the museum with all sorts of cool um

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Speaker 1: medical oddities. I guess you'd say, men in medical uh um,

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Speaker 1: anomalous medical history, graham artifacts of medical history, etcetera. I've

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Speaker 1: long wanted to visit there and just never have had

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Speaker 1: the chance. It came up in the episode because we

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Speaker 1: were talking about the process of supponification, where like lipid

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Speaker 1: and fatty acids can turn into soap like substances, and

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Speaker 1: one example is a thing that's within the Mooder Museum's collection,

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Speaker 1: the soap Lady, and I think also a male uh corpse,

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Speaker 1: the soapman, which are covered in this soap like material

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Speaker 1: called adapas or that's formed out of the lipids and

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Speaker 1: flesh as it decays in certain types of environments I

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Speaker 1: think like alkaline environments. All right, l continues, I was

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Speaker 1: looking for something to do with friends while nearby, though

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Speaker 1: sadly not knowing what I was getting myself into. Listening

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Speaker 1: to your description of the soap Lady instantly brought a

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Speaker 1: haunting image to my head of the corps that visited

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Speaker 1: visitors are greeted with as they entered the main room. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This the main room of the Commuter Museum, at least

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Speaker 1: I think it was it. I wasn't going to stick

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Speaker 1: around to read the description. As soon as I realized

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Speaker 1: what I got myself into, I tried to leave as

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Speaker 1: soon as I could. Although I can see it's importance

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Speaker 1: as medical history and uh and it's importance for research,

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Speaker 1: the idea of dead body and fetuses on display just

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Speaker 1: didn't settle well with me. Not to say others would.

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Speaker 1: It would have a different experience at the very least

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Speaker 1: it was a unique experience I attached to the work

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Speaker 1: of Officer Fatburgh below. I loved listening to your episode

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Speaker 1: as I always do, and I loved listening to your

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Speaker 1: show every time I drive or commute. Keep it up

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Speaker 1: L from Philly. Okay, So for starters, this art that

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Speaker 1: L gave us is tremendous and as of this record thing,

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Speaker 1: I've requested that we be allowed to share this with

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Speaker 1: the world. On the landing page for this episode is

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Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, So hopefully that

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Speaker 1: will be the case and you all can go check

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Speaker 1: it out for yourself. It's pretty fun. It's reminiscent of

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Speaker 1: things like Maniac Cop and so forth. And then secondly,

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Speaker 1: uh yeah, I have to admit that I can as

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Speaker 1: interested as I am, and in visiting the Neuter Museum,

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Speaker 1: I can imagine it's not everybody's cup of tea, and

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Speaker 1: not necessarily everybody's cup of tea every day. Like I,

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Speaker 1: you know, some of my interests run uh or have

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Speaker 1: run darker or more morbid at times. But in the

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Speaker 1: air days where I don't do not want to see

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Speaker 1: a soap person or or some sort of pickled remains.

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Speaker 1: I mean, for instance, I just watched this is completely

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Speaker 1: off topic, but I just watched The Deathly Hallows Part one,

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Speaker 1: uh last night Harry Potter and How Its Part one

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Speaker 1: last night with my family, and the film was a

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Speaker 1: lot darker than I remember it being, uh to the

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Speaker 1: point where it really I felt kind of bummed out

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Speaker 1: into after finishing it. Yeah. I don't know if my

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Speaker 1: my tastes have just changed a lot recently, but it's

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Speaker 1: like like that was just it was that was too

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Speaker 1: dark of a film for me. Yesterday is definitely how

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Speaker 1: is the Last One? It's well, it's the first part

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Speaker 1: of the last one, it's the so it's the penultimate

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Speaker 1: movie and the Harry Potter sequence of films, so it is.

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Speaker 1: It does have kind of ultimately an Empire strikes Back

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Speaker 1: kind of ending, because it's like all these terrible things

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Speaker 1: that are happening and all these trials of the characters

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Speaker 1: have put through. And it's a great movie, Don't get

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Speaker 1: me wrong. I think it's a tremendously impressive what they

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Speaker 1: did with it. And I love Harry Potter uh and

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Speaker 1: as much as anybody, but who that one, I felt

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Speaker 1: like it really put me through the ringers, so their

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Speaker 1: days when I am not in the mood for the

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Speaker 1: darkness of a Harry Potter film Their days when I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm definitely not in the mood to see a human

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Speaker 1: cadaver that has been partially turned into soap. Fair enough, Robert,

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Speaker 1: I will never try to force you to go look

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Speaker 1: at the soap lady if you're not feeling it right.

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Speaker 1: And if somebody sends us a fat bird chunk, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe it'll be a day day when I'm totally up

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Speaker 1: for looking at it. Maybe It'll be a day when

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Speaker 1: I just need a um, you know, ask you to

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Speaker 1: keep the bag closed. Okay, I think we need to

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we will be right back.

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Speaker 1: Thank Alright, we're back. So Carney has given us the

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Speaker 1: sign that we need to move on from fat Burgska

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Speaker 1: is full of fat birds. He's currently processing and digesting it,

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Speaker 1: turning it into energy. So we're gonna move on to

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Speaker 1: some other episodes that we did some listener feedback on them,

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Speaker 1: particularly our episode concerning the fundamental attribution error. Right now.

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Speaker 1: This was a while back, so we did some messages

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Speaker 1: about this on the last listener mail episode, but I

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Speaker 1: think this one came in since then. This is from

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Speaker 1: our listener, Matthew. Matthew says, greetings, So I am eagerly

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Speaker 1: awaiting tonight's finale episode of Game of Thrones. It is

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Speaker 1: one of the few shows or movies that I value

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Speaker 1: experiencing along with the rest of the world. This last

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Speaker 1: season has been taking a lot of flak from online critics,

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Speaker 1: and I myself have felt the declining quality. While thinking

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Speaker 1: through the seasons and talking to my wife, I came

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Speaker 1: to the conclusion that it was mainly because of characters

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Speaker 1: acting out of their expected behaviors as established over the

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Speaker 1: past seven seasons. Having listened to your recent cast on

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Speaker 1: fundamental attribution error, I began to think about the stories

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Speaker 1: players on a grander scale, about the society and why

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Speaker 1: the characters within that society are acting the way they are,

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Speaker 1: as opposed to out of solely personal motivations. It made

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Speaker 1: me feel so intelligent when I came across this article

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Speaker 1: by an actual smart person discussing this very subject with

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Speaker 1: direct references to fundamental attribution error. Basically, the show's focus

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Speaker 1: switched from a broad society based story where something like

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Speaker 1: the death of a main character progressed the narrative for

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Speaker 1: everyone else and he says that that's more in line

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Speaker 1: with George R. Martin's novels, and it switched to an

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Speaker 1: individual focus narrative where each character's own psychology is being explored,

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Speaker 1: which is the Hollywood's green writers more common approach. Thank

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Speaker 1: you for equipping me to think about even mundane things

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Speaker 1: like TV shows about dragons on a deep, almost academic level.

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Speaker 1: Keep up the good work. Invention is awesome. You guys

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Speaker 1: have long been the first thing I look for in

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Speaker 1: my new releases list each week Matthew, and Matthew links

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Speaker 1: to this article he's talking about, and this is what

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Speaker 1: I had seen shared around a while, but I actually

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Speaker 1: didn't read it until just today. It's an article in

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Speaker 1: Scientific American by zep two fact she is, who's a

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Speaker 1: really good writer. I'd seen it going around, but I'm

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Speaker 1: glad I read it because I think I pretty much

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Speaker 1: agree with it about a hundred percent. It's very spot

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Speaker 1: on in analyzing how the show's storytelling mode changed over time,

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Speaker 1: especially after the show ran out of book material to

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Speaker 1: work with. Um And And the essential idea is that

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Speaker 1: in the in the books, characters are hugely driven by

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Speaker 1: circumstances by you know, the sort of like social pressures

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Speaker 1: on them and the norms they face and by you know,

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Speaker 1: events outside their control, and we we we constantly see

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Speaker 1: characters having to deal with all of these circumstantial pressures,

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Speaker 1: and we understand the influence of circumstantial pressures. And after

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Speaker 1: the book material ran out and the show runners were

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Speaker 1: more out on their own, it started to feel more

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Speaker 1: like a typical Hollywood screenplay, where like characters have like

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Speaker 1: a main defining personality attribute and everything they do is

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Speaker 1: pretty much in line with that main personality attribute. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is interest, especially you know, coming from HBO. And

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Speaker 1: granted these were different show runners, but I feel like, um,

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Speaker 1: I feel it feel like The Wire, um for instance,

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Speaker 1: did a great job of really I think throughout the series,

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Speaker 1: like focusing on the societal pressures that are making people

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Speaker 1: what they are. Yeah. I mean David Simon in interviews

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Speaker 1: has talked about, you know, like in the in his work,

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Speaker 1: especially in The Wire, like the gods of this Greek

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Speaker 1: tragedy are instead of being like Zeus and Poseidon and

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Speaker 1: so forth, their institutions uh there, you know, it's it's government.

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Speaker 1: It's uh, it's law enforcement, it's a you know whatever.

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Speaker 1: The particular institution is that is applying this pressure to

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Speaker 1: populations to individuals. And yeah, I feel like that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing is is more evident in the earlier seasons

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Speaker 1: of Game of Thrones and then almost completely gone in

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Speaker 1: the later seasons. The last couple of seasons particularly yeah

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Speaker 1: and uh and actually zanat affect, she makes exactly that

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Speaker 1: comparison to the Wire, so she does, okay, so yeah, uh, yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think The Wire is a great example of that.

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Speaker 1: A lot of the great shows are like that in

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Speaker 1: in a way, even though it's it's more focused on

428
00:22:38,320 --> 00:22:41,520
Speaker 1: individual psychology, but even The Sopranos is kind of like this.

429
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:44,400
Speaker 1: It has a it has a sociological kind of feel.

430
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:48,240
Speaker 1: They're like there are large movements and pressures and trends

431
00:22:48,359 --> 00:22:52,639
Speaker 1: at play and characters. You constantly see characters struggling with

432
00:22:52,680 --> 00:22:56,200
Speaker 1: their circumstances and being moved by them and not just

433
00:22:56,320 --> 00:23:01,080
Speaker 1: like acting out their dominant personality traits, right, you know,

434
00:23:01,160 --> 00:23:03,639
Speaker 1: I I do not want to make it sound like

435
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:07,800
Speaker 1: I am attributing Hollywood with all of society's woes or

436
00:23:07,880 --> 00:23:11,720
Speaker 1: blaming superhero movies in particular, but I think it is

437
00:23:11,760 --> 00:23:15,920
Speaker 1: worth noting that, you know, um, certainly Matthew here mentions

438
00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:20,040
Speaker 1: the Hollywood screenwriter approach and that being focused on individuals,

439
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 1: and of course Hollywood is epicenter for our our our

440
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 1: focus on celebrities. To focus on these key individuals that

441
00:23:26,400 --> 00:23:31,480
Speaker 1: we've sent singled out for deification and vilification, um to um,

442
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: to lift up into sacrifice. This need be to satiate

443
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: our our, our our need for some sort of vicarious experience.

444
00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 1: And um, it's I wonder you know what the dangers

445
00:23:44,760 --> 00:23:48,000
Speaker 1: are and been putting that much. Um, you know, cultural

446
00:23:48,080 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 1: power within a single you know, a single system, well,

447
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:55,440
Speaker 1: especially one that, as we talked about in the episode,

448
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: is is very often given to the fundamental attribution error.

449
00:23:59,800 --> 00:24:02,920
Speaker 1: I and like, I think a lot of especially the weaker,

450
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 1: shallower kinds of you know, popular Hollywood storytelling, very much

451
00:24:07,320 --> 00:24:11,200
Speaker 1: fall into the FA kind of category where characters behaviors

452
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 1: are almost entirely explained by their like innate qualities and predispositions,

453
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:19,840
Speaker 1: and there's really not much attention paid to like broader

454
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: trends and sidal pressures and circumstances that change the way

455
00:24:23,640 --> 00:24:27,639
Speaker 1: people are right and and with superheroes, and and I

456
00:24:27,680 --> 00:24:30,359
Speaker 1: do again I want to stress that I enjoy superhero movies,

457
00:24:30,760 --> 00:24:33,560
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not meaning to criticize them just

458
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:38,320
Speaker 1: across the board, but superhero movies are movies about individuals

459
00:24:38,320 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 1: that are essentially God's uh that they may have you know,

460
00:24:42,200 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 1: flawed characteristics and even very human characteristics in some uh

461
00:24:46,920 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: some ways, which can of course be very much in

462
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: keeping with with you know, classical treatments of gods, but

463
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 1: they are they are individuals that that that apply pressure

464
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:00,000
Speaker 1: more to society or seem to be you know, complete

465
00:25:00,080 --> 00:25:04,879
Speaker 1: the remove from societal pressure in some cases. And um,

466
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:09,320
Speaker 1: if when those are the dominant stories that we're telling,

467
00:25:09,359 --> 00:25:10,960
Speaker 1: those are the ones that seem to have the most

468
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: cultural impact, and certainly have them, you know, the most

469
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,920
Speaker 1: box office impact. Does that uh? Does that just serve

470
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: to to help reinforce the fundamental attribution error in our

471
00:25:21,840 --> 00:25:25,080
Speaker 1: popular storytelling. I think that's that you could very well

472
00:25:25,119 --> 00:25:28,120
Speaker 1: make that case. I think that's likely true. That being said,

473
00:25:28,119 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 1: I may be missing some really key examples of of films,

474
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:35,720
Speaker 1: you know, particularly in non Hollywood films, but maybe some

475
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:39,639
Speaker 1: big tent pictures as well that that run counter to this.

476
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:41,679
Speaker 1: So I would love to hear from listeners who have

477
00:25:41,720 --> 00:25:46,800
Speaker 1: some really good examples of of films that avoid the

478
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:50,640
Speaker 1: fundamental attribution eraor I think there's one reason you more

479
00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:54,520
Speaker 1: often see uh like non f A storytelling and more

480
00:25:54,560 --> 00:26:00,880
Speaker 1: like sociological or circumstance based storytelling in longer television series these. Uh.

481
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,160
Speaker 1: And that's just like having to do with the efficiency

482
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: of storytelling and run time. It's hard to tell a

483
00:26:06,160 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: story that's not a little bit given to the f

484
00:26:08,720 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: A E in a short run time, you know, because

485
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: you need to identify themes really quickly and and identify

486
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 1: who characters are in a memorable way really quickly. You

487
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: don't have whole seasons to figure out who people are

488
00:26:20,840 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: and get a sense of them. Oh yeah, Well, like

489
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 1: with The Wire, for instance, they had the time to

490
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:30,840
Speaker 1: provide characters and secondary character, primary and secondary characters at

491
00:26:30,840 --> 00:26:33,560
Speaker 1: all levels of society. So you had, you know, you

492
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,320
Speaker 1: had you had people on law enforcement side, people that

493
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,000
Speaker 1: were in the criminal element in the sale and the

494
00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: trafficking of drugs, but then also the political spectrum, the

495
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:46,919
Speaker 1: educational spectrum, you know, and they were able to layer

496
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: on more from season to season to provide this overall

497
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: ultimately holistic picture of how the world worked. Yeah, and

498
00:26:54,480 --> 00:26:56,919
Speaker 1: doing something doing that kind of thing. You need time

499
00:26:56,920 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 1: to do that, and it's really hard to tell a story,

500
00:27:00,480 --> 00:27:04,520
Speaker 1: uh that you know, that appropriately treats the influence of

501
00:27:04,560 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: circumstances and all that without doing something like that. So yeah,

502
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:10,919
Speaker 1: I can see why this kind of storytelling shows up

503
00:27:10,960 --> 00:27:13,120
Speaker 1: more often on like the you know, the gold standard

504
00:27:13,119 --> 00:27:16,400
Speaker 1: TV series than it does in movies. Yeah, yeah, because ultimately,

505
00:27:16,400 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 1: of you know, if a movie can basically cover the

506
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:21,080
Speaker 1: ground of a short story, a short story is going

507
00:27:21,119 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 1: to be limited generally to like one p O V. Like,

508
00:27:24,119 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: there's not a lot generally not much room for anything

509
00:27:26,760 --> 00:27:31,240
Speaker 1: beyond that. Alright, Well, speaking of created worlds, we have

510
00:27:31,280 --> 00:27:34,120
Speaker 1: a correction here. This one comes to us from Steve Um.

511
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:36,639
Speaker 1: I can't even was this a previous Listener mail episode

512
00:27:36,680 --> 00:27:38,800
Speaker 1: we were talking about. I think it was on the

513
00:27:38,880 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: last Listener Mail episode we did. Somebody wrote in, uh,

514
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: wrote in with an email that incorrectly attributed the author

515
00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: of a story, and we did not catch that right.

516
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: So anyway, Steve writes in and says, in your recent

517
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: listener email, uh, it was slated that John Scalz wrote

518
00:27:56,240 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: the Forever War. That is incorrect. Joe Halderman wrote the

519
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:04,679
Speaker 1: Forever War, which yes, this is correct. Yes, the author

520
00:28:04,680 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 1: of The Forever War is Joe Halderman. Okay, we stand corrected. Yes, yeah,

521
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: I mean and I've read The Forever War, so I

522
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,080
Speaker 1: should have remembered that one. But at any rate, stuff

523
00:28:14,119 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: goes by really fast while we're sitting here talking. All right,

524
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:19,679
Speaker 1: here's another one. This one comes to us from Chris

525
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: regarding our Almost Cannibals episode, which was, you know, a

526
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 1: contemplation of well, you know, how do we classify things

527
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:29,520
Speaker 1: that are not quite cannibalism in the animal world and

528
00:28:29,520 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 1: occasionally in the human world. Uh, they're not quite cannibalism,

529
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:35,520
Speaker 1: but they're almost cannibalism. It's all almost close in one

530
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 1: way or another pre cannibalism. Right, So Chris writes in

531
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 1: and says, hey, checking in on a couple of recent

532
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:43,920
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your mind and invention, and boy,

533
00:28:43,960 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: do I have a crossover story for you. In your

534
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: recent episode on Almost Cannibals, you mentioned a story about

535
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,840
Speaker 1: an army roasting meat and eating in close proximity to

536
00:28:51,920 --> 00:28:56,320
Speaker 1: fallen soldiers from an opposing force. Uh. And this, by

537
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:59,720
Speaker 1: the way, this was like an older you know, a

538
00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:03,280
Speaker 1: true you did detail from history that you know was

539
00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 1: probably rolled out as a way to criticize the enemy

540
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:08,959
Speaker 1: and make them seem more barbaric. Uh. You know, as

541
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:10,800
Speaker 1: if to say, let's look at these people. They're not

542
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: cannibals yet, but they're just like just one stumble away

543
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:16,920
Speaker 1: from it. Anyway, it continues, and that there were rumors

544
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 1: that the army were cannibals because of this. Well, my

545
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:22,120
Speaker 1: story is about my grandfather who was in the ninety

546
00:29:22,120 --> 00:29:25,040
Speaker 1: five Infantry Division during World War two. Uh. And he

547
00:29:25,080 --> 00:29:28,160
Speaker 1: includes a short link to a video about them this.

548
00:29:28,560 --> 00:29:31,880
Speaker 1: He earned his nickname during the war as the Buzzard

549
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:34,240
Speaker 1: as an unfortunate part of his job was to remove

550
00:29:34,280 --> 00:29:37,479
Speaker 1: bodies from the field and take them off the trucks

551
00:29:37,520 --> 00:29:40,040
Speaker 1: when they returned to the base the moniker. The buzzard

552
00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: was applied because he was known to pull bodies from

553
00:29:42,000 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 1: the truck with one hand and have a ham sandwich

554
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: and the other WHOA, It's amazing what the human mind

555
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:50,440
Speaker 1: can normalize during the horrors of war. I am by

556
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: no means in insinuating that he was a cannibal, but

557
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: the bit about eating too close to dead bodies sparked

558
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: a memory. The second tie in comes Once he returned home.

559
00:29:59,440 --> 00:30:01,600
Speaker 1: My grandp and it's house was three blocks from our

560
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:06,360
Speaker 1: small town two thousand people funeral home. Um, here is

561
00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: where the camera comes in. We recently did a whole

562
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:13,880
Speaker 1: slew of episodes of Invention about the camera. Once he

563
00:30:13,920 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: came back from the war, he would go to every

564
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 1: week where the person was laid out at the funeral

565
00:30:19,040 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: home and take a picture of them in the casket.

566
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 1: You mentioned in the episode on the Camera about how

567
00:30:23,520 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: early photo photography was used to document deceased relatives. He

568
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,920
Speaker 1: would then develop the film and annotate the back of

569
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,800
Speaker 1: the photograph with named date of birth, death, etcetera, and

570
00:30:32,840 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 1: all the photos would be out in albums. When he died,

571
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:39,800
Speaker 1: he had dozens and dozens of albums filled with these photos.

572
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:43,040
Speaker 1: He never talked about the war or really anything much,

573
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 1: but I have to imagine that what he saw on

574
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:47,680
Speaker 1: serving changed the way he viewed life and death, and

575
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: his photographs of those who had died were his own

576
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: way of remembering them. Cheers Chris. Wow, Well that's an

577
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:56,719
Speaker 1: interesting story. I don't know what to make about that,

578
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,200
Speaker 1: but thank you for sharing. Chris. Yeah, I mean it's

579
00:30:59,240 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 1: I think it's a very point about the horrors of war.

580
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: I mean, a lot of us, maybe most of those

581
00:31:05,920 --> 00:31:08,239
Speaker 1: listening to us, you know, we were far removed from

582
00:31:08,320 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: those horrors. Um. You know, certainly we we do hear

583
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: from time to time from individuals who have served in

584
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:19,080
Speaker 1: combat situations or law enforcements to environments, or or you know,

585
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 1: in some way or another, have have had you know,

586
00:31:23,440 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: this level of violence impact their lives. But for a

587
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,240
Speaker 1: lot of us, we are removed from it. So, you know,

588
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:31,560
Speaker 1: we we don't know what it's like to have to

589
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:34,440
Speaker 1: haul dead bodies around and at the same time deal

590
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,040
Speaker 1: with the fact that you have to eat, you have

591
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,480
Speaker 1: to have sandwich, and maybe you do have a sandwich

592
00:31:38,520 --> 00:31:40,560
Speaker 1: in one hand, and then likewise when it comes to

593
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:44,840
Speaker 1: just dealing with with with death. I mean, I'm wondering

594
00:31:44,880 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: about this case with the grandfather to like being a

595
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: you know, an older individual, like perhaps they had memories

596
00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: of of you know, of of a time when there

597
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:57,240
Speaker 1: were more there was more photography to a funeral photography

598
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:00,200
Speaker 1: taking place, and you know there therefore they're just kind

599
00:32:00,240 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 1: of you know, returning to those memories and um and

600
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 1: doing it themselves. I don't know, but but yeah, this

601
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: was certainly all food for thoughts, So it looks like

602
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: we need to move on to the next group of

603
00:32:11,480 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 1: listener mail. This was in response to our episode against

604
00:32:14,840 --> 00:32:18,160
Speaker 1: the phrase survival of the Fittest in the context of

605
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: explaining how evolution works. And so we got some responses

606
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: just to the episode in general, and we've got a

607
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: number of responses, some mega responses to Pokemon, which Robert,

608
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: I think you brought up at the end of the episode, right, yeah,

609
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: I mean part of it just is because I'm I'm

610
00:32:33,960 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: too old for Pokemon, was I id or at least

611
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: I didn't. I never did anything with Pokemon, so I

612
00:32:38,480 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: don't have an appreciation for it. But I realize, you know,

613
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 1: just from being online, that it is really important to

614
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 1: many people, and and that Pokemon becomes like a metaphor

615
00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: for understanding various things in life. And so they made

616
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:53,720
Speaker 1: me curious about, well, how does that play into understandings

617
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,160
Speaker 1: of evolution. Is it helpful, is it a hindrance, etcetera.

618
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:58,080
Speaker 1: And so we put that out the listeners to chime in.

619
00:32:58,440 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: We heard from a lot. Well, I think maybe should

620
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,560
Speaker 1: do a general email about the episode first and then

621
00:33:02,600 --> 00:33:05,440
Speaker 1: we'll do the Pokemon one. Okay, So this first one

622
00:33:05,520 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: comes from our listener Lloyd. Lloyd says, Hi, guys, love

623
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,440
Speaker 1: your podcast. I listened with interest to your episode on

624
00:33:11,560 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: natural selection and Survival of the Fittest. I agree with

625
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:17,360
Speaker 1: your point that the latter phrase is not linguistically apt

626
00:33:17,440 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 1: when a modern sembilance of the phrase is applied. However,

627
00:33:20,240 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: I wondered if this overlooks the fact that fittest may

628
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: have had a slightly different meaning at the time when

629
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: Spencer Wallace and Darwin We're discussing it. You considered fittest

630
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: to mean the biggest and the strongest, as in the

631
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 1: bigger batterism you talked about. However, the word fittest literally

632
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: means the best fit, most fit, or most suitable. Fit

633
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,200
Speaker 1: has only recently come to mean physically fit, and has

634
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 1: in the past meant something more akin too suitable, as

635
00:33:46,160 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: in the phrase this man is a fit and proper person.

636
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:53,320
Speaker 1: In your podcast, you also considered survival to mean survival

637
00:33:53,360 --> 00:33:56,600
Speaker 1: of the individual. However, it also means survival of the

638
00:33:56,600 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: species considered this way, survival of the fittest, survival of

639
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: the species best fitted, or you might say, most suitable

640
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:07,520
Speaker 1: to its environment. I therefore find myself agreeing with Wallace

641
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 1: to some extent that it is a good and in

642
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:13,279
Speaker 1: some sense is better descriptor of the evolutionary process than

643
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: the phrase natural selection. I would suggest that the better

644
00:34:16,800 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 1: argument for use of the term natural selection is that

645
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:23,319
Speaker 1: it suggests a kind of positive advancement or natural refinement.

646
00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: By contrast, survival of the most suitable or the fittest

647
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: draws on the more nihilistic side of evolution that those

648
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 1: who are not the most suitable are destined to decline.

649
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,800
Speaker 1: That is, of course true, but it's pretty depressing. Yours faithfully, Lloyd.

650
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,080
Speaker 1: Um Well, Lloyd, I mean I think I accepted a

651
00:34:40,080 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 1: lot of the sense of what you're saying. I mean,

652
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: what you're describing is I think how Darwin and Wallace,

653
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:47,280
Speaker 1: since Spencer meant it as we discussed in the episode.

654
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think they were they were saying

655
00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 1: anything incorrect when they use the phrase. We were talking

656
00:34:54,080 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: more about the the modern implications that people get from

657
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:01,240
Speaker 1: the baggage of these words. It's not that like Darwin

658
00:35:01,320 --> 00:35:04,279
Speaker 1: and Wallace were incorrect and how they used it. Yeah,

659
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly the words uh, words can change over time,

660
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,879
Speaker 1: or at least the they can. They can skew different directions. Uh,

661
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: and then we have to, um, we have to you know,

662
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 1: account for that. Also, words tend to I mean, when

663
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 1: there's a phrase like natural selection or survival of the fittest,

664
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:25,760
Speaker 1: we have to deal with the fact that, in Darwin's context,

665
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:28,600
Speaker 1: this is a phrase that's appearing within a book, you know,

666
00:35:28,640 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: so he's got a whole book to explain what he means.

667
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:34,840
Speaker 1: But these phrases now are just sort of floating free

668
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 1: within the culture and there you know, people invoke these

669
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:40,799
Speaker 1: phrases to explain how evolution works, but they might not

670
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 1: necessarily bring with them all of the explanation that comes,

671
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: like say, in on the Origin of species. So you

672
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:48,960
Speaker 1: don't have a book in front of you all the time.

673
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:52,239
Speaker 1: You have to think about how phrases are just received

674
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,759
Speaker 1: in in a vacuum. All right, Well here's one. Here's

675
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 1: one of the Pokemon of spots. This this comes to

676
00:35:57,520 --> 00:36:00,440
Speaker 1: us from Taylor. Hey, Robert and Joe Taylor here, another

677
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: long time fan and email writer. When Robert asked the

678
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,120
Speaker 1: audience to reach out with their Pokemon experiences at the

679
00:36:06,200 --> 00:36:08,680
Speaker 1: end of against Survival of the Fittest, it was a

680
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:11,880
Speaker 1: bespoke question for me, as a student of evolutionary biology

681
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 1: and one of the biggest Pokemon nerds you'll ever meet.

682
00:36:14,600 --> 00:36:17,759
Speaker 1: I couldn't resist saying everything I could, so let's get

683
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:20,759
Speaker 1: right to it. When a Pokemon quote unquote evolves within

684
00:36:20,760 --> 00:36:22,920
Speaker 1: the context of the game, it matures into a larger,

685
00:36:22,960 --> 00:36:27,359
Speaker 1: more powerful form and benefits from increased combat stats. Well,

686
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 1: this might look like a terrible case of bigger batterism

687
00:36:29,880 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 1: on the surface, the Pokemon franchise approaches adaptation and biodiversity

688
00:36:34,120 --> 00:36:36,840
Speaker 1: with much more nuanced than you might expect. While the

689
00:36:36,880 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: game uses the term evolution to describe this growth, it's

690
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:42,240
Speaker 1: clear within the context of the game the Pokemon evolution

691
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: is a descriptive is a is a is descriptive of

692
00:36:45,239 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: a Pokemon species maturation and natural life cycle, and not

693
00:36:49,680 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: of natural selection. This distinction is especially clear when Pokemon

694
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: evolution represents the metamorphosis of a species. For example, when

695
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 1: the larval Pokemon wheel evolved into the pup eight Kakuna

696
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: before emerging as the wasp like be Drill at the

697
00:37:06,000 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 1: end of its life cycle, or when the tadpole like

698
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:13,760
Speaker 1: uh Dratini matures into the dopey amphibian dragon Pokemon called

699
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:17,560
Speaker 1: dragon Eyed, but Wait, there's more. The Pokemon games also

700
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: do a great job of describing symbiotic relationships, sexual dimorphism,

701
00:37:21,520 --> 00:37:25,840
Speaker 1: and yes, even natural selection. Many Pokemon species exhibit important

702
00:37:25,920 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: symbiotic relationships. For example, the seafaring mantle like Pokemon manteen,

703
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:36,440
Speaker 1: is rarely depicted without a remorade. I like that. It's

704
00:37:36,480 --> 00:37:38,920
Speaker 1: like the gatorade of remoras. Yeah, that would be I

705
00:37:38,920 --> 00:37:42,440
Speaker 1: guess it's the genesis there clinging to its underside as

706
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,080
Speaker 1: you might have guessed. Their relationship is illustrative of the

707
00:37:45,080 --> 00:37:48,360
Speaker 1: real life symbiosis of ramorras and open ocean predators like

708
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,400
Speaker 1: blue sharks. A lot of Pokemon also exhibits sexual dimorphism.

709
00:37:52,400 --> 00:37:56,280
Speaker 1: One of my favorite examples is Burmy, a Pokemon based

710
00:37:56,320 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: on real life bagwarm moths. Like their real world world

711
00:38:00,000 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 1: on our parts, Burmi build protective cloaks around themselves out

712
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 1: of whatever detritus is available to them. If you encounter

713
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:10,640
Speaker 1: Burmy with a forest within a forest, it is covered

714
00:38:10,640 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 1: in leaves, whereas a desert dwelling Burmi would be covered

715
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:17,880
Speaker 1: in sand and pebbles. But it gets more interesting. Female

716
00:38:17,960 --> 00:38:22,720
Speaker 1: burmi exhibit neatany they evolve into werma dam, a larger

717
00:38:22,760 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 1: bagworm Pokemon that remains sessile but male burmy evolve into

718
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:31,759
Speaker 1: moth motham, a flying insect that can flit from one

719
00:38:31,840 --> 00:38:35,720
Speaker 1: from female to female. Another great example is the grouse

720
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: like Pokemon un Phasant, whose males boast resplendent plumage that

721
00:38:41,680 --> 00:38:45,719
Speaker 1: the drab females lack and Pokemon doesn't have. Doesn't leave

722
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:50,279
Speaker 1: other examples of adaptation untouched. Several species illustrate coevolution, as

723
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:53,399
Speaker 1: is the case with heat More and Durant. Heat More

724
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: as an ant eater Pokemon whose lava hot tongue allows

725
00:38:56,440 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 1: it to bore through the metal exoskeleton of the insect Durant.

726
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: The franchise is explicit in describing this predatory relationship's role

727
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: in the evolution of both heat morse tongue and Durance

728
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 1: metal shell. Finally, the most recent generation of the game's Pokemon,

729
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 1: Sun and Moon, introduced regional variants. Sun and Moon take

730
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 1: place on the Polynesian themed islands of Aloa. Regional variants

731
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,759
Speaker 1: represent Pokemon species that have been introduced to Alloa from

732
00:39:22,760 --> 00:39:25,640
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the Pokemon world and have adapted to life

733
00:39:25,640 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: on the islands. For example, the armadillo like sand shrew

734
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 1: and its mature form sand slash are usually encountered in

735
00:39:33,239 --> 00:39:36,680
Speaker 1: desert biomas, but in Aloa their regional variants have adapted

736
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 1: to frigid mountain caves and both thicker bodies. Ultimately, Pokemon

737
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,279
Speaker 1: is a fantastical king. While I've put forth plenty of

738
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: fascinating biology on display in the Pokemon world, there are

739
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 1: still other Pokemon based on ghosts, dolemns, and inanimate objects,

740
00:39:51,040 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: which may be unsurprising because of its Japanese origins. Nevertheless,

741
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 1: I think it does a fantastic job of illustrating biodiversity

742
00:39:57,600 --> 00:40:00,200
Speaker 1: and the mechanisms that relate to it the Pokemon games.

743
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: It shouldn't be a child's textbook revolution, but for this

744
00:40:03,280 --> 00:40:07,479
Speaker 1: childhood Pokemon fan become biologists, they played an extraordinary role

745
00:40:07,800 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: in following in love with the natural world. Cheers Taylor. Ps.

746
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: I highly recommend looking up images of the Pokemon I've

747
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 1: described here because their designs are simply delightful. Let me

748
00:40:17,719 --> 00:40:22,040
Speaker 1: show you my Pokemon's. Thank you so much, Taylor, you

749
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 1: know what you've brought me around. Yeah, I am not.

750
00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:27,399
Speaker 1: I am not a Pokemon nerd like you. I did

751
00:40:27,440 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: not ever really get deep into Pokemon I think the

752
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:32,879
Speaker 1: deepest ever got was when that original game Boy game

753
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: Play came out. I played it, but I never finished it.

754
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the most I think I played when that

755
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: uh that that that phone game came out recently. That

756
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:43,280
Speaker 1: was all the craze where you find Pokemon on the street,

757
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:46,440
Speaker 1: that had people wandering around waving their phones at stuff. Yeah.

758
00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:49,319
Speaker 1: I checked that out of out, out of curiosity, and

759
00:40:49,360 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: I think I like, I encountered a Pokemon in my

760
00:40:52,040 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 1: house and then like I saw one down the street,

761
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 1: and then um, but that was it. But I I

762
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: appreciated what seemed possible with that game. Would did that

763
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,239
Speaker 1: game not turn out to be a massive data mining operation?

764
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 1: I don't know. I haven't. I I have friends who

765
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:08,719
Speaker 1: I think still play it, still really into it, and

766
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: they enjoy going on like walks and even trips and

767
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,799
Speaker 1: searching for Pokemon while they're out there. So I don't know.

768
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,400
Speaker 1: I gotta look into that more. But anyway, you've brought

769
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:20,920
Speaker 1: me around on the basic Pokemon concept. I love the

770
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,919
Speaker 1: Pokemon's now and you know what, some of the illustrations

771
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:27,120
Speaker 1: are really great. You got me there, alright. One that note,

772
00:41:27,160 --> 00:41:29,320
Speaker 1: We're gonna take one more break, But when we come back,

773
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 1: we will leave the realm of Pokemon behind and we

774
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: will venture to the Holy Mountain. Thank thank Alright, we're back.

775
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: So this is a straggler email that came in I

776
00:41:41,120 --> 00:41:44,240
Speaker 1: think after the last batch that we read about sacred mountains,

777
00:41:44,280 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: and this is from our listener, Dave. Dave writes, Hi,

778
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe Medium the longtime listener, first time writer.

779
00:41:51,239 --> 00:41:53,359
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of your podcast and your new

780
00:41:53,360 --> 00:41:56,280
Speaker 1: one invention. I'm writing in regard to the two episodes

781
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,440
Speaker 1: focused on Sacred Mountains. I live in the Pacific Northwest

782
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:02,000
Speaker 1: and I'm an amateure mountaineer. I wanted to share a

783
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: couple of things with you that you were curious about

784
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 1: from your listeners. First, I've experienced altitude sickness a few times,

785
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:11,279
Speaker 1: but the worst of it was when I summitted Mount

786
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 1: Whitney in California, the tallest peak in the country within

787
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:17,839
Speaker 1: the contiguous United States at fourteen thousand, five hundred and

788
00:42:17,880 --> 00:42:20,920
Speaker 1: five feet. My partner and I were hiking the Pacific

789
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:24,480
Speaker 1: Crest Trail in SI from Mexico to Canada. We had

790
00:42:24,520 --> 00:42:27,280
Speaker 1: stopped off to meet my mom and toured around Las Vegas,

791
00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:30,640
Speaker 1: the Eastern Sierra and Death Valley National Park. So we

792
00:42:30,680 --> 00:42:33,040
Speaker 1: went to Death Valley, which has the lowest point in

793
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 1: the US at two hundred and seventy nine ft below

794
00:42:35,600 --> 00:42:38,319
Speaker 1: sea level. Three or four days later we were back

795
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:40,759
Speaker 1: on the trail in the heart of the Sierra and

796
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: summitted Mount Whitney. We had we we had lost all

797
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:47,120
Speaker 1: of our altitude acclimatization since we took a break, and

798
00:42:47,160 --> 00:42:49,720
Speaker 1: it was certainly felt. I made it up the summit

799
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:53,640
Speaker 1: relatively fine, slowly moving to some degree. Then on the

800
00:42:53,640 --> 00:42:55,720
Speaker 1: way down it hit me like a ton of bricks.

801
00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 1: I could barely move, had the worst migraine I had

802
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 1: ever had, and was completely disoriented. I felt like I

803
00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:05,239
Speaker 1: was going to explode at both ends constantly. Eventually I

804
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:07,520
Speaker 1: made it to camp at about eight thousand feet and

805
00:43:07,560 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: recovered over the next twelve hours. I drank plenty of

806
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:12,960
Speaker 1: water eight and slept. After that, I was more or

807
00:43:13,040 --> 00:43:16,000
Speaker 1: less back to normal. Secondly, you had both mentioned when

808
00:43:16,040 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 1: researching the episode, you didn't come across any evil mountains. Really,

809
00:43:20,200 --> 00:43:22,279
Speaker 1: When I was listening, one popped into my head that

810
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 1: I find fascinating. According to the Native American tribe the Klamath,

811
00:43:26,560 --> 00:43:29,840
Speaker 1: the Good God is Mount Shasta, in northern California, and

812
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: the evil god was Mountain Massama in central Oregon. Apparently

813
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:36,280
Speaker 1: eight thousand years ago. The two gods had an awesome

814
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:39,920
Speaker 1: battle and ultimately the good prevailed. This resulted in Mountain

815
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:43,600
Speaker 1: Azama exploding and collapsing in on itself and then creating

816
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: the clearest and cleanest lake in the world, Crater Lake,

817
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: which is an amazing place to go to. If you've

818
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: never been, Crater Lake is definitely worth the trip. David says,

819
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:55,279
Speaker 1: keep doing what you're doing. Love your stuff, and he

820
00:43:55,320 --> 00:43:58,719
Speaker 1: also attaches a photo of himself on Mount Whitney. He says,

821
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:02,760
Speaker 1: quote before my world crashed in on me. Well, thanks David.

822
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 1: All right, here's another one that comes into us, and

823
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 1: this one um. You know, you know, no one ever

824
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:11,600
Speaker 1: has to use the real name when they're right in um,

825
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:15,719
Speaker 1: and this particular individual wrote in as Daddy. So at

826
00:44:15,719 --> 00:44:18,879
Speaker 1: any rate, this is what Datty had to say. Dear

827
00:44:18,960 --> 00:44:21,040
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, I've been listening to your show for

828
00:44:21,040 --> 00:44:22,759
Speaker 1: the last few months, and I would like to say

829
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 1: thank you. You have provided me with such nutritious brain food.

830
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:28,880
Speaker 1: I have been bingeing on episodes while working out in

831
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,800
Speaker 1: the fields, mostly I sit a cross legged planting vegetables.

832
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 1: While the setting is quite peaceful, the labor is quite monotonous.

833
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:37,680
Speaker 1: Listening to your podcast has prevented my mind from turning

834
00:44:37,680 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 1: into mud. I have so many compliments and comments about

835
00:44:40,560 --> 00:44:43,239
Speaker 1: various topics you discussed, but it would make for quite

836
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:45,160
Speaker 1: the read. To save time, I have neared it down

837
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 1: to a list of three. Number one, you both have

838
00:44:47,560 --> 00:44:51,600
Speaker 1: such great taste in film. Well many would disagree. Arguable,

839
00:44:51,760 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 1: I guess, but but you know I'm glad we see I.

840
00:44:55,760 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: He continues, I was so excited when I started listening

841
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: and discovered that many of the tapes you discussed I

842
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:05,360
Speaker 1: own on VHS because it's the only way to go. Also,

843
00:45:05,520 --> 00:45:08,000
Speaker 1: films you have mentioned that I haven't seen. I now

844
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:11,359
Speaker 1: have to thank you you also for the recommendations. Uh.

845
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:15,680
Speaker 1: Then number two, the Cube film would make for a

846
00:45:15,760 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 1: killer episode. Not only could you explore the science behind

847
00:45:18,560 --> 00:45:21,280
Speaker 1: such a structure, I was reminded of the Library of Babel,

848
00:45:21,560 --> 00:45:23,880
Speaker 1: but the themes submerged in the film would also provide

849
00:45:23,960 --> 00:45:27,480
Speaker 1: quite the thought adventure. Have you seen Cube Horring of

850
00:45:27,480 --> 00:45:31,920
Speaker 1: its sequels? Joe, Yes, it's been a while. I remember it. Uh,

851
00:45:32,000 --> 00:45:34,279
Speaker 1: I remember it? Was a movie that definitely held my

852
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:38,000
Speaker 1: attention but was also kind of bad. Yeah, I remember,

853
00:45:38,200 --> 00:45:40,480
Speaker 1: I think I watched it like on the Sci Fi

854
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 1: channel on a Sunday afternoon, Uh, sort of a thing,

855
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:46,000
Speaker 1: and I remember being intrigued by it because it does

856
00:45:46,040 --> 00:45:49,600
Speaker 1: have an intriguing concept like it. It has certain Kafka

857
00:45:49,719 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: esque elements to it, you know, where people were trapped

858
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: in this machine that is lethal and full of lethal traps,

859
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 1: but they don't know why they're in it or what

860
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,319
Speaker 1: purposes it serve ing. And I think it's also you know,

861
00:46:02,120 --> 00:46:05,160
Speaker 1: it stated or implied that, like the people who made it,

862
00:46:05,200 --> 00:46:07,360
Speaker 1: we're working on different parts of it and had no

863
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:09,759
Speaker 1: idea what the complete hole was. I think one of

864
00:46:09,800 --> 00:46:12,000
Speaker 1: the guys in the Cube, it turns out like, helped

865
00:46:12,080 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 1: build it, but he didn't know what it was going

866
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 1: to be. Yeah, And I think like those some of

867
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: those ideas are very thought provoking. It gets into you know,

868
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:25,240
Speaker 1: ideas of the Panopticon and uh, you know, modern modern

869
00:46:25,280 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 1: society itself and uh, in in a way like the

870
00:46:29,400 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: Cube movies, or at least the first one. You know,

871
00:46:31,080 --> 00:46:34,840
Speaker 1: it's kind of a predecessor to the Song movies, but

872
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,080
Speaker 1: kind of like elaborate traps, but I feel like the

873
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:42,759
Speaker 1: elaborate traps were more the cube set up for the

874
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: elaborate traps. I think I far prefer than just like

875
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 1: crazy serial killer with way too much time on their hands.

876
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 1: We got another exquisite movie recommendation coming next though. Oh yes,

877
00:46:53,200 --> 00:46:56,760
Speaker 1: number three Zar does. It was somewhat off handedly suggested

878
00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,359
Speaker 1: by Joe in an episode I cannot remember which, but yes,

879
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:02,359
Speaker 1: please for apps you can break the tavernac. What did

880
00:47:02,440 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: I say about Zardas? I don't. I don't remember because

881
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,680
Speaker 1: I suggest science of Zardas. Maybe you did, because we're

882
00:47:08,719 --> 00:47:12,200
Speaker 1: probably talking about Highlander or Highlander too. I've actually never

883
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:16,160
Speaker 1: seen Zardas. It's a I've never checked it out. WHOA,

884
00:47:17,160 --> 00:47:20,160
Speaker 1: this is a game changer, Robert. Would you like to

885
00:47:20,200 --> 00:47:23,440
Speaker 1: see Sean Connery with a long braided ponytail and a

886
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 1: red diaper and a mustache? Well, I absolutely I would,

887
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:31,640
Speaker 1: especially if there's some sort of weird flying heads. Yeah,

888
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:34,040
Speaker 1: there's weird flying heads. That's all I know about it.

889
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:36,520
Speaker 1: But those two elements are alone are enough to get me. There.

890
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:39,879
Speaker 1: Didn't somebody interesting to the music? Is there something about

891
00:47:39,880 --> 00:47:42,200
Speaker 1: the music? But I should be aware music because I

892
00:47:42,239 --> 00:47:47,439
Speaker 1: think it was directed by the same guy who made Deliverance. Uh,

893
00:47:47,960 --> 00:47:52,600
Speaker 1: very very strange movie. Anyway, I think both of those

894
00:47:52,600 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 1: sound like solid suggestions. We I think we have yet

895
00:47:55,800 --> 00:47:57,920
Speaker 1: to do them. So we basically we've been doing these

896
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:01,440
Speaker 1: movie episodes where once a month, generally will will pick

897
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 1: a movie and we'll use it as an excuse to

898
00:48:04,320 --> 00:48:06,640
Speaker 1: you know, talk about topics we've discussed before, but in

899
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 1: light of the film, or as a way to talk

900
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 1: about topics that might not otherwise come up on the

901
00:48:11,080 --> 00:48:13,879
Speaker 1: show in their own episode. And generally there's some sort

902
00:48:13,880 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: of you know, approach to be made there. And we've

903
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 1: talked about stuff like two thousand one of Space Odyssey,

904
00:48:18,280 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 1: the Dark Crystal. We've talked about Highlander too. Um, we've

905
00:48:21,200 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: talked about Silent Running. Um am I missing one in there.

906
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:29,640
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe maybe yeah. At any rate, it's

907
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:32,239
Speaker 1: a fun exercise and we're hoping to continue doing it

908
00:48:32,280 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 1: and it's and we enjoy hearing recommendations from folks. Maybe

909
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:37,879
Speaker 1: one day we'll even come up we'll cover a movie

910
00:48:37,920 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: that came out in the last couple of decades. You

911
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:43,440
Speaker 1: seem to be you know, uh narrowing in on like

912
00:48:43,480 --> 00:48:46,719
Speaker 1: what the sixties, seventies, and eighties thus far. Why would

913
00:48:46,760 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: we change that? Yeah, as as a golden age, right,

914
00:48:49,760 --> 00:48:52,080
Speaker 1: But it's not just old media that we talked about

915
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:54,160
Speaker 1: on this show. We also talk about new media. We

916
00:48:54,200 --> 00:48:58,799
Speaker 1: also talk about social media, um and and that can

917
00:48:58,840 --> 00:49:02,000
Speaker 1: sometimes be quite a duze. Social media is certainly it

918
00:49:02,120 --> 00:49:07,279
Speaker 1: is the cube and the czar DAWs of our world. Um. So, yeah,

919
00:49:07,280 --> 00:49:10,480
Speaker 1: it's the tabernacle, it's the cube maze, it's all those things.

920
00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:13,239
Speaker 1: The cube cube. Actually, that whole scenario we just talked

921
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:17,520
Speaker 1: about about people creating this thing, working on their individual

922
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,759
Speaker 1: um corners of it. It's a giant murderous weapon field traps, yeah,

923
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:26,200
Speaker 1: and ultimately making a giant murder machine. Um. I think

924
00:49:26,239 --> 00:49:28,320
Speaker 1: there are a lot of comparisons to be made between

925
00:49:28,400 --> 00:49:33,840
Speaker 1: that and various big name social media platforms um, which

926
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 1: I think will be exploring in greater detail and subsequent

927
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,240
Speaker 1: episodes of the show. But we have been discussing aspects

928
00:49:39,239 --> 00:49:41,320
Speaker 1: of it already. Yeah. Well, let's talk about some listener

929
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 1: feedback to the episode we did about the Doppelganger Network,

930
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 1: where we discussed the idea, of course of doppelgangers and

931
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:50,279
Speaker 1: all that. But then also we discussed an article by

932
00:49:50,480 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 1: Robert Zapolski, the neuro indo Chronologist, where he made a

933
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: connection between the psychological syndrome known as Capgras delusion, where

934
00:49:59,400 --> 00:50:02,040
Speaker 1: people and to believe that the people they know have

935
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:06,640
Speaker 1: been replaced by impostors or doubles or doublegangers, that and

936
00:50:06,680 --> 00:50:09,839
Speaker 1: the kinds of psychological effects that are brought about by

937
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,399
Speaker 1: social media, and he in the main comparison he makes

938
00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:15,560
Speaker 1: is that, uh, social media may be causing a similar

939
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:20,560
Speaker 1: kind of situation of recognition without familiarity uh and its inverse.

940
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 1: So one of the things we talked about in that episode,

941
00:50:24,040 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 1: of course, is you know, often Robert and I, especially

942
00:50:27,160 --> 00:50:29,840
Speaker 1: lately or or we will tend to gripe about the

943
00:50:29,880 --> 00:50:32,319
Speaker 1: evils of social media, and we talked about the possibility

944
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:35,200
Speaker 1: of could anything be improved if you just took the

945
00:50:35,239 --> 00:50:37,960
Speaker 1: corporate influence out of it and just had like nonprofit,

946
00:50:38,000 --> 00:50:41,320
Speaker 1: open source social media platforms. I do want to reiterate

947
00:50:41,360 --> 00:50:44,719
Speaker 1: my feeling that even if we took the corrupting influence

948
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:47,399
Speaker 1: of the profit motive out of these platforms, I'm still

949
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:49,960
Speaker 1: not sure they'd be a good thing. I think it's

950
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:53,920
Speaker 1: highly possible they could still overall like even a nonprofit

951
00:50:54,239 --> 00:50:57,320
Speaker 1: open source Facebook might be a bad thing for the world.

952
00:50:58,080 --> 00:50:59,719
Speaker 1: And I also want to drive home to come back

953
00:50:59,719 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 1: to the you scenario, is that a lot of the

954
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:07,240
Speaker 1: people that we've been reading on this topic, like they're

955
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 1: not saying that there is UM. I think Jarren Lantier,

956
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:13,640
Speaker 1: uh is the exact phrase, and he says that there's not.

957
00:51:13,760 --> 00:51:16,400
Speaker 1: He doesn't believe that say it Facebook, that there is.

958
00:51:16,880 --> 00:51:19,719
Speaker 1: There's a room. There's like an evil room in which

959
00:51:19,719 --> 00:51:23,320
Speaker 1: an evil person plots out evil things for this particular

960
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 1: company that that it emerges more like the death machine

961
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:31,440
Speaker 1: in Cube, where where a company is trying to do

962
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:34,360
Speaker 1: various things, and some of those things may be quite

963
00:51:34,400 --> 00:51:38,160
Speaker 1: noble or at least have noble ambitions to them. Other

964
00:51:38,239 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 1: things have far more corporate leanings, and all of these

965
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:45,560
Speaker 1: things like come together in the just bake and the

966
00:51:45,560 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: the alchemy of of a major corporation, and then the

967
00:51:49,120 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: results uh may not be the best for us. Yeah,

968
00:51:53,600 --> 00:51:56,560
Speaker 1: And so so it's there's no guarantee all of these

969
00:51:56,600 --> 00:52:00,000
Speaker 1: negative effects that we associate with social media platforms would

970
00:52:00,040 --> 00:52:03,200
Speaker 1: go away if you say, like distributed the creation of

971
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:05,560
Speaker 1: that platform and took away the profit motive. But it

972
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:07,960
Speaker 1: still might possibly be a step in the right direction.

973
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:10,719
Speaker 1: So we're asking about this, and several listeners got in

974
00:52:10,760 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: touch to name a few things. One is Keith who's

975
00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:16,560
Speaker 1: a data scientist and software developer. He mentions a few

976
00:52:16,600 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 1: platforms that are open source or nonprofit social media platforms. Quote.

977
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:23,879
Speaker 1: The main one I'd like to point out is mastadon.

978
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:26,719
Speaker 1: This one has been gaining interraction, and it's pretty much

979
00:52:26,719 --> 00:52:29,719
Speaker 1: a clone of Twitter. Some major differences are that it's

980
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:32,760
Speaker 1: open source, and they also encourage users to self host,

981
00:52:33,160 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: so you can use the code to have your own

982
00:52:35,200 --> 00:52:37,759
Speaker 1: social media. The main site says that there are three

983
00:52:38,000 --> 00:52:40,680
Speaker 1: d and twenty thousand users, which is not a large amount,

984
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 1: but it is growing. I'd also like to note some

985
00:52:43,080 --> 00:52:46,200
Speaker 1: more obscure social media. There are chat room social media

986
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:49,840
Speaker 1: platforms like discord and Slack where communities form too. Open

987
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 1: source alternatives are getter and rocket chat. So I hadn't

988
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:56,680
Speaker 1: heard it of those. I think maybe i'd heard of Mastodon,

989
00:52:56,760 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 1: but I didn't really know what it was. Mainly, I'm

990
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:01,439
Speaker 1: just familiar with the band end Right, which I don't

991
00:53:01,440 --> 00:53:03,759
Speaker 1: think have any involvement in this, uh this at all.

992
00:53:04,160 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 1: We're a thrash metal platform. Yeah, I massad On of

993
00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: course local local band. Occasionally I will I'll run into

994
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:14,279
Speaker 1: folks from Mastadon at various events. It's great seeing him.

995
00:53:15,160 --> 00:53:18,719
Speaker 1: There was one band member in particular that UM and

996
00:53:18,760 --> 00:53:21,960
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not like, I'm not super familiar familiar with Mastadon,

997
00:53:22,040 --> 00:53:23,719
Speaker 1: but one of the members of Mastodon has like really

998
00:53:23,719 --> 00:53:26,279
Speaker 1: cool sideburns, or has in the past, and I would

999
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:29,239
Speaker 1: occasionally see him at different events and I would like

1000
00:53:29,320 --> 00:53:31,040
Speaker 1: kind of look at him and be like, hey, guy's

1001
00:53:31,040 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 1: got some pretty good sideburns, you know, And I'm kind

1002
00:53:32,640 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: of like admiring his sideburns from afar and then he'll

1003
00:53:35,120 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 1: kind of look back at me and they'll be like

1004
00:53:37,200 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 1: kind of a not a look of fear, but a

1005
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:41,560
Speaker 1: look of like like you know, like I'm staring at him,

1006
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:44,000
Speaker 1: you know. And but and I didn't. I didn't put

1007
00:53:44,000 --> 00:53:46,360
Speaker 1: it together till later. Then I'm like, oh, he's in

1008
00:53:46,360 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 1: a famous band, and he thought that I was maybe like,

1009
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:51,879
Speaker 1: you know, you know, fan boying out and that might

1010
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:54,840
Speaker 1: like I might approach him and uh, you know, disruptive,

1011
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:57,160
Speaker 1: you know, whatever he's doing. And really I was just

1012
00:53:57,280 --> 00:54:04,120
Speaker 1: admiring his sideburns. UM. Anyway, for whatever that's but I

1013
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:07,839
Speaker 1: also admire their music that. Oh yeah, I think they're

1014
00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:12,239
Speaker 1: they're top tier modern metal. Okay, so I think let's

1015
00:54:12,239 --> 00:54:15,839
Speaker 1: look at this next email from Sammy. This one came

1016
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:19,360
Speaker 1: in after the Doppelganger Network episode. Sammy says, hey, guys,

1017
00:54:19,719 --> 00:54:22,120
Speaker 1: I just started listening to your new episode the Doppelganger

1018
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:25,120
Speaker 1: Network and you brought up cap cross syndrome. I've never

1019
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:27,240
Speaker 1: heard of it. Uh. And at first, when you guys

1020
00:54:27,280 --> 00:54:30,719
Speaker 1: said that this famous frenchwoman thought her loved ones were

1021
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:34,120
Speaker 1: replaced by doppelgangers, I thought, how is this even possible?

1022
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:37,040
Speaker 1: But as you started explaining it more as when the

1023
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: face recognition part of our brain knows it's someone we know,

1024
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:44,280
Speaker 1: but the feeling of familiarity does not arise, I started

1025
00:54:44,320 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 1: thinking this is what I have. I was diagnosed with

1026
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:49,719
Speaker 1: depression about eight years ago and put it on an

1027
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:52,360
Speaker 1: s s R I. But as I started my treatment

1028
00:54:52,400 --> 00:54:54,640
Speaker 1: and doing research, my dad and I came across a

1029
00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:58,920
Speaker 1: term called de personalization. This is exactly what you described

1030
00:54:58,960 --> 00:55:01,400
Speaker 1: when you know you know the person you see, but

1031
00:55:01,480 --> 00:55:04,759
Speaker 1: you don't feel the warmth of familiarity. In the first

1032
00:55:04,840 --> 00:55:06,960
Speaker 1: two years of my illness, I dealt with this probably

1033
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:10,320
Speaker 1: about nine percent of the time. It was horrifying seeing

1034
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 1: my parents, my friends, my boyfriend, and knowing I'm supposed

1035
00:55:13,640 --> 00:55:16,399
Speaker 1: to feel something but I don't. Quite a few times

1036
00:55:16,480 --> 00:55:18,799
Speaker 1: I almost broke up with my boyfriend because I felt

1037
00:55:18,800 --> 00:55:21,480
Speaker 1: guilty that I didn't love him. At the peak of this,

1038
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 1: when I was with my therapist, I told her, if

1039
00:55:24,440 --> 00:55:26,680
Speaker 1: you brought another man into this room and told me

1040
00:55:26,719 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: he was my dad, I'd believe you. Fortunately, now several

1041
00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:34,400
Speaker 1: years later, I rarely experienced episodes like this. My last

1042
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:38,240
Speaker 1: full on depersonalization episode was about two years ago. However,

1043
00:55:38,360 --> 00:55:41,399
Speaker 1: to this day, I hold myself back from certain situations

1044
00:55:41,440 --> 00:55:43,120
Speaker 1: because I know that they have caused me to have

1045
00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 1: these episodes in the past. Anyways, I felt immense gratitude

1046
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:48,600
Speaker 1: when you guys mentioned this in the first part of

1047
00:55:48,600 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 1: the episode, because this issue is something I find so

1048
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:54,080
Speaker 1: hard to explain to people, but you guys and Sepolski

1049
00:55:54,160 --> 00:55:56,879
Speaker 1: put it into the perfect words. I don't know if

1050
00:55:56,920 --> 00:55:59,160
Speaker 1: what I have dealt with is related to this syndrome,

1051
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:02,200
Speaker 1: as I don't think people have been replaced, but I

1052
00:56:02,239 --> 00:56:06,240
Speaker 1: thought it was interesting. My official diagnosis now is panic disorder.

1053
00:56:06,680 --> 00:56:08,799
Speaker 1: Thank you for everything you guys, do you're one of

1054
00:56:08,800 --> 00:56:12,640
Speaker 1: the three podcasts I always listened to Sammy. Uh Well,

1055
00:56:12,680 --> 00:56:14,400
Speaker 1: first of all, thank you for sharing with us, but

1056
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:17,920
Speaker 1: also I'm really glad to hear you're doing better these days. Yeah. Absolutely,

1057
00:56:18,080 --> 00:56:20,080
Speaker 1: And you know, I think as we try and stress

1058
00:56:20,120 --> 00:56:22,920
Speaker 1: on the podcast, you know, anybody out there if you're

1059
00:56:22,960 --> 00:56:27,279
Speaker 1: experiencing if you ever find yourself experiencing symptoms that were

1060
00:56:27,280 --> 00:56:30,440
Speaker 1: discussing on the show, Um, I mean, certainly they are

1061
00:56:30,520 --> 00:56:35,120
Speaker 1: dangers and self self evaluation, but don't hesitate to to

1062
00:56:35,160 --> 00:56:38,560
Speaker 1: ask a professional about what you're feeling and to bring

1063
00:56:38,600 --> 00:56:41,200
Speaker 1: it to their attention. Yeah, I think that is always

1064
00:56:41,239 --> 00:56:43,840
Speaker 1: a it's always a wise move, that's what that's what

1065
00:56:43,880 --> 00:56:46,359
Speaker 1: they're there for, and they're the ones that can can

1066
00:56:46,440 --> 00:56:50,160
Speaker 1: ultimately help you, uh or or tell you that you're

1067
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:51,960
Speaker 1: if you're if you are worrying about nothing, if you

1068
00:56:52,000 --> 00:56:55,080
Speaker 1: are you know, self diagnosing based on a podcast and

1069
00:56:55,160 --> 00:56:58,239
Speaker 1: jump into conclusions like they're they're the ones to rein

1070
00:56:58,280 --> 00:57:00,000
Speaker 1: you in on that as well. Yeah, exactly. I mean,

1071
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:02,319
Speaker 1: nothing nothing good ever comes out of keeping stuff like

1072
00:57:02,360 --> 00:57:05,759
Speaker 1: this hidden. If you are experiencing symptoms like this, it's

1073
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:08,160
Speaker 1: important to talk to your loved ones about it to

1074
00:57:08,200 --> 00:57:11,239
Speaker 1: seek professional help. These are not the kind of things

1075
00:57:11,280 --> 00:57:12,759
Speaker 1: that it is best to deal with on your own

1076
00:57:13,040 --> 00:57:16,880
Speaker 1: right now. As But again though, as for social media

1077
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:21,200
Speaker 1: inducing symptoms like this in a and a more widespread scale,

1078
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:25,040
Speaker 1: I mean, that's kind of new territory in some regards.

1079
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:30,320
Speaker 1: I wonder, I wonder how the therapeutic world is is currently,

1080
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: you know, adapting to all of this, and how they

1081
00:57:33,160 --> 00:57:36,360
Speaker 1: will be adapting in the near future, because I mean,

1082
00:57:36,360 --> 00:57:38,880
Speaker 1: I look at my own experience with say Facebook, and

1083
00:57:38,920 --> 00:57:41,640
Speaker 1: I go on there, and I think what I experienced

1084
00:57:41,680 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 1: some like level of just large scale depersonalization with everybody

1085
00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:48,280
Speaker 1: on there. These days, I feel like I am not

1086
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:52,080
Speaker 1: encountering real versions of the people that I know or new,

1087
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:55,160
Speaker 1: and that I am not presenting a real version of

1088
00:57:55,160 --> 00:57:58,520
Speaker 1: the person I am. And it's it's it's weird and

1089
00:57:58,520 --> 00:58:01,200
Speaker 1: and off putting and and granted, some of this may

1090
00:58:01,200 --> 00:58:03,680
Speaker 1: be due to some of the research we've been doing,

1091
00:58:03,720 --> 00:58:06,880
Speaker 1: I mean, it's certainly is a possibility, but I also

1092
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 1: think a large part of it is the platforms. Again

1093
00:58:09,320 --> 00:58:11,680
Speaker 1: will hopefully be discussing more of this in future episodes

1094
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,640
Speaker 1: of the show. Yeah, totally. But also I just want

1095
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:17,120
Speaker 1: to say again. We're really glad to hear you're doing better, Sammy,

1096
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:19,840
Speaker 1: and best of luck in the future. All right, here's

1097
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:22,120
Speaker 1: another one. This one comes to us from Kate high

1098
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:24,760
Speaker 1: Stuff to blow your mind. Recently, listen to your episode

1099
00:58:24,760 --> 00:58:28,160
Speaker 1: about Doppelgangers. At one point you were talking about para

1100
00:58:28,240 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 1: social relationships and start listening some examples, but you completely

1101
00:58:31,120 --> 00:58:35,480
Speaker 1: forgot to mention the very medium you're using, podcasts. Sometimes

1102
00:58:35,480 --> 00:58:38,520
Speaker 1: I listen to podcasts more than I communicate with my friends, family,

1103
00:58:38,600 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 1: or even boyfriends. There was a time when I used

1104
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:44,000
Speaker 1: to us to consider Ira Glass from This American Life

1105
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:47,800
Speaker 1: like a brother, Stephen Dubner from Freakonomics like a father figure,

1106
00:58:48,120 --> 00:58:50,560
Speaker 1: and still to this day, you guys are like my friends.

1107
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:54,360
Speaker 1: Interesting that this is based purely on personality and nothing

1108
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:58,000
Speaker 1: to do with age. Stephen Dubner, five years old, is

1109
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:01,400
Speaker 1: younger than Ira Glass sixty years old. I have mentioned

1110
00:59:01,400 --> 00:59:04,320
Speaker 1: this to friends, and they have also revealed that they

1111
00:59:04,320 --> 00:59:06,720
Speaker 1: consider some of the podcast hosts they listen to like

1112
00:59:06,800 --> 00:59:10,720
Speaker 1: their friends. I would never consider these paras social relationships

1113
00:59:10,720 --> 00:59:13,720
Speaker 1: as a negative because it genuinely enriches many of my

1114
00:59:13,760 --> 00:59:17,480
Speaker 1: face to face relationships. Thank you anyway, f Y, I

1115
00:59:17,520 --> 00:59:20,240
Speaker 1: The Myths and Legends podcasted an amazing episode about people

1116
00:59:20,280 --> 00:59:23,600
Speaker 1: in real life who have experiences seeing their doppelgangers. Definitely

1117
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:25,920
Speaker 1: worth a listen. And she includes a link but the

1118
00:59:26,080 --> 00:59:28,280
Speaker 1: uh and I won't read the whole link, But basically

1119
00:59:28,280 --> 00:59:31,320
Speaker 1: the website is myth podcast dot com. So that sounds

1120
00:59:31,320 --> 00:59:33,600
Speaker 1: like a phone we to check out. Always always happy

1121
00:59:33,640 --> 00:59:36,520
Speaker 1: to check out new podcasts, especially if they concerned something

1122
00:59:36,560 --> 00:59:39,480
Speaker 1: like mythology. Yeah, so I will try to give that

1123
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:41,800
Speaker 1: a look if I find some time. But also I

1124
00:59:41,880 --> 00:59:45,240
Speaker 1: have to report, Yeah, I sometimes have a feeling like this.

1125
00:59:45,320 --> 00:59:48,880
Speaker 1: I mean, you can definitely, when listening to a podcast,

1126
00:59:49,280 --> 00:59:51,440
Speaker 1: start to feel like the people you're listening to are

1127
00:59:51,480 --> 00:59:56,200
Speaker 1: just your buddies, especially if it's a conversational podcast. I

1128
00:59:56,280 --> 00:59:59,200
Speaker 1: have had this experience plenty of times. I think, um,

1129
00:59:59,440 --> 01:00:01,560
Speaker 1: and yeah, I guess the question about whether you know

1130
01:00:01,560 --> 01:00:04,200
Speaker 1: whether these counts para social relationships and whether or not

1131
01:00:04,240 --> 01:00:07,280
Speaker 1: they're destructive, I think is a question of what role

1132
01:00:07,360 --> 01:00:09,480
Speaker 1: they play in in your life, because yeah, I've also

1133
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:13,120
Speaker 1: had the experience of listening to podcasts and sort of

1134
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:16,040
Speaker 1: feeling when I'm listening to these people talk like they're

1135
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:19,959
Speaker 1: my buddies. But I think it's okay because I don't

1136
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: find them like preventing me from spending time with my

1137
01:00:23,360 --> 01:00:27,040
Speaker 1: real friends or my real loved ones. Um, if if

1138
01:00:27,080 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 1: I did find that that it was like interfering with

1139
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:34,040
Speaker 1: my relationships, I think I would be concerned then yeah, yeah,

1140
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 1: or you know, certainly I would be concerned if if

1141
01:00:36,400 --> 01:00:38,560
Speaker 1: a listener showed you sor at my doorstep and wanted

1142
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:41,640
Speaker 1: to borrow my xbox or something, right, yeah, that would

1143
01:00:41,640 --> 01:00:44,120
Speaker 1: probably right. I mean, also, yeah, it's important to have

1144
01:00:44,200 --> 01:00:46,680
Speaker 1: like realistic perspective and know that, you know, while it

1145
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:49,080
Speaker 1: can feel like you're being social with people when you

1146
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:51,600
Speaker 1: listen to a podcast, of course you know they're not

1147
01:00:51,680 --> 01:00:54,400
Speaker 1: actually you're you know, you don't actually know each other. Well,

1148
01:00:54,400 --> 01:00:58,600
Speaker 1: like let's say, take um Paul Kennedy, the hosts of Ideas,

1149
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:01,560
Speaker 1: the CBC radio show I've spoken on spoken about it

1150
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:03,440
Speaker 1: on the show before because it's one of my favorites,

1151
01:01:03,840 --> 01:01:06,200
Speaker 1: and like I can I can catch myself kind of

1152
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:09,200
Speaker 1: looking at Paul Kennedy kind of like a father or

1153
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:13,600
Speaker 1: grandfather figure. Um, And you know, especially since you know

1154
01:01:13,640 --> 01:01:16,320
Speaker 1: I don't I don't really have any of I don't

1155
01:01:16,320 --> 01:01:19,080
Speaker 1: have a real father or grandfather figure, in my life anymore.

1156
01:01:19,520 --> 01:01:22,440
Speaker 1: So maybe I'm more inclined to to find that in

1157
01:01:22,680 --> 01:01:25,560
Speaker 1: uh an individual from the uh you know, from the

1158
01:01:26,520 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 1: podcast world. But I think it's ultimately, like this particular example,

1159
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:33,640
Speaker 1: like it's it's a healthy attachment, like like you don't

1160
01:01:33,640 --> 01:01:37,720
Speaker 1: think you're actually gonna go like meet Paul Kennedy, right I.

1161
01:01:36,760 --> 01:01:40,360
Speaker 1: I I know Paul Kennedy does not know me. And

1162
01:01:40,280 --> 01:01:43,680
Speaker 1: the ultimately is just this this friendly voice that shares

1163
01:01:44,200 --> 01:01:47,000
Speaker 1: uh you know, wonderful topics with me via this medium

1164
01:01:47,000 --> 01:01:49,720
Speaker 1: of podcast and uh and yeah, I think it's that

1165
01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:53,400
Speaker 1: that is a beneficial para social relationship, if that is

1166
01:01:53,440 --> 01:01:56,360
Speaker 1: indeed what it is. It sounds like it to me,

1167
01:01:56,440 --> 01:01:58,920
Speaker 1: and I I hope we can only be if we

1168
01:01:58,960 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 1: are a par of social or relationship for anybody, I

1169
01:02:01,120 --> 01:02:03,840
Speaker 1: hope we can only be a beneficial one. Don't don't

1170
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:06,720
Speaker 1: don't let our voices replace your real relationships with your

1171
01:02:06,760 --> 01:02:09,320
Speaker 1: friends and family. They're more important. Go talk to them

1172
01:02:09,320 --> 01:02:13,680
Speaker 1: about fat bergs. Well that's you know, that's all. That's

1173
01:02:13,840 --> 01:02:17,200
Speaker 1: ultimately what what I I love to hear from listeners

1174
01:02:17,240 --> 01:02:19,240
Speaker 1: is when we've been able to turn you onto a

1175
01:02:19,320 --> 01:02:21,960
Speaker 1: topic and then you know you can, then you pick

1176
01:02:22,000 --> 01:02:23,720
Speaker 1: it up and you run with it, or you take

1177
01:02:23,760 --> 01:02:25,080
Speaker 1: it out and you share it with people and you

1178
01:02:25,080 --> 01:02:27,400
Speaker 1: should and it becomes a you know, conversation. It becomes

1179
01:02:28,080 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 1: at least a catalyst for you to then go out

1180
01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:33,840
Speaker 1: and interact with the world, interact with with with friends

1181
01:02:33,840 --> 01:02:36,360
Speaker 1: and family members and make new friends, make new family

1182
01:02:36,360 --> 01:02:39,360
Speaker 1: members for that matter. Um, if if such as possible

1183
01:02:39,400 --> 01:02:41,560
Speaker 1: with some of our topics, uh, you know, I think

1184
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:45,439
Speaker 1: that's that that's ultimately the best case scenario for any

1185
01:02:45,560 --> 01:02:47,800
Speaker 1: any episode that we put out there. Not that I

1186
01:02:47,960 --> 01:02:50,960
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever heard of anybody like actually acquiring

1187
01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 1: a new family member through the show, but I would

1188
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:55,479
Speaker 1: love to hear if if anybody out there has ever

1189
01:02:55,720 --> 01:03:00,439
Speaker 1: met a significant other U through listening to our show,

1190
01:03:00,480 --> 01:03:03,240
Speaker 1: I would absolutely love to hear about. Oh my god, yes,

1191
01:03:03,400 --> 01:03:06,560
Speaker 1: please send us your stories if that happened. Maybe Fatbirg

1192
01:03:06,680 --> 01:03:09,560
Speaker 1: is doing it right now. Somewhere out there. A love

1193
01:03:09,640 --> 01:03:13,800
Speaker 1: story is brewing through um just strangers meeting and talking

1194
01:03:13,800 --> 01:03:16,000
Speaker 1: about the fat Burg episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind.

1195
01:03:16,360 --> 01:03:20,560
Speaker 1: It's a romance between so Plady and Fatbird Cop. Yeah,

1196
01:03:20,560 --> 01:03:23,000
Speaker 1: that would be the sequel, right, Fat Bird too, Fat

1197
01:03:23,000 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 1: Birds in Love La who's upontificating? Now there you go.

1198
01:03:29,160 --> 01:03:31,840
Speaker 1: All right, Well, hey, we we have a whole stack

1199
01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:34,720
Speaker 1: of emails here that Carney the mail bot brought us.

1200
01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:37,040
Speaker 1: We were not able to read them all at all,

1201
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:39,560
Speaker 1: but we we we did what we could. We read

1202
01:03:39,560 --> 01:03:41,560
Speaker 1: some of them. There are plenty that we read to

1203
01:03:41,600 --> 01:03:44,360
Speaker 1: ourselves and you know, and we didn't read on the show.

1204
01:03:45,200 --> 01:03:46,960
Speaker 1: But hey, some of them will say for next time.

1205
01:03:47,000 --> 01:03:49,240
Speaker 1: And we encourage everyone to keep writing in. You have

1206
01:03:49,280 --> 01:03:52,760
Speaker 1: thoughts about episodes, you have corrections about episodes. Uh, you

1207
01:03:52,800 --> 01:03:55,840
Speaker 1: have criticisms, you have little tidbits to share. Uh. We

1208
01:03:55,920 --> 01:03:59,000
Speaker 1: love to hear from everybody. We'll share the email address

1209
01:03:59,000 --> 01:04:01,200
Speaker 1: here at the end of the show. You can also

1210
01:04:01,240 --> 01:04:04,200
Speaker 1: reach out to us. The main way really is if

1211
01:04:04,240 --> 01:04:06,960
Speaker 1: you go to the Facebook group associated with the show,

1212
01:04:07,040 --> 01:04:10,080
Speaker 1: which is the Stuff to Blew your Mind discussion module. UH.

1213
01:04:10,120 --> 01:04:12,200
Speaker 1: That's probably one of the better ways to interact with

1214
01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:14,720
Speaker 1: us these days. And of course Stuff to Bow your

1215
01:04:14,720 --> 01:04:16,840
Speaker 1: Mind dot Com is the mothership. That's our O n

1216
01:04:16,880 --> 01:04:19,240
Speaker 1: O website, as they say, that's where you'll find all

1217
01:04:19,280 --> 01:04:22,240
Speaker 1: the episodes of the show, uh, and the various other

1218
01:04:22,280 --> 01:04:25,160
Speaker 1: bits of information that you might need. Huge thanks as

1219
01:04:25,160 --> 01:04:28,680
Speaker 1: always to our excellent audio producer Tory Harrison, and to

1220
01:04:28,920 --> 01:04:32,440
Speaker 1: our guest producer today my Cole. If you would like

1221
01:04:32,520 --> 01:04:34,600
Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

1222
01:04:34,640 --> 01:04:37,280
Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1223
01:04:37,440 --> 01:04:40,680
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1224
01:04:40,760 --> 01:04:52,600
Speaker 1: dot stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1225
01:04:52,600 --> 01:04:54,600
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeart Radio's How

1226
01:04:54,600 --> 01:04:57,080
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit

1227
01:04:57,120 --> 01:04:59,640
Speaker 1: the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

1228
01:04:59,680 --> 01:05:03,160
Speaker 1: listen your favorite shows. The