Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 2: Our colleague Noel is still on an adventure, but will
Speaker 2: be returning shortly.
Speaker 3: They call me Bed. We're joined as always with our
Speaker 3: super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
Speaker 3: are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
Speaker 3: they don't want you to know. Friends and neighbors, fellow
Speaker 3: conspiracy realists, if you are tuning in the evening this publishes,
Speaker 3: let us be the first to welcome you to Monday,
Speaker 3: May nineteenth. Now, our friends over at Daily Zeitgeist, the
Speaker 3: legendary Miles and Jack often like to begin their show
Speaker 3: by naming off a number of national days. Right, Remember
Speaker 3: we Matt, You and I talked about this over the years.
Speaker 3: I think we're both befuddled by how ambiguous the process
Speaker 3: of creating a national day is in the United States. Right,
Speaker 3: you just have to like catch Congress at the end
Speaker 3: of a session and say, everybody, you guys like sandwiches?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, it is a little weird because there are
Speaker 2: levels of official holiday in this country.
Speaker 3: Right, right, right, We have very few holidays where the
Speaker 3: American worker actually gets the day off. And I do
Speaker 3: want to give respect to reluctant but objective respect to
Speaker 3: the United Kingdom, where they straight up have holidays that
Speaker 3: are just called bank holidays. There's no religious implication, there's
Speaker 3: no you know, nationalistic implication. It's simply that the bank
Speaker 3: is closed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty cool. And we have tax holidays.
Speaker 3: We have tax holidays. And in the spirit of our pal,
Speaker 3: the legendary Miles Gray, who taught us this. If you're
Speaker 3: hearing this, the day it publishes, this is get this
Speaker 3: Matt May nineteenth. In the United States, it's frog Jumping
Speaker 3: Jubilee Day, It's Malcolm X Day, It's Hepatitis testing Day,
Speaker 3: and it celebrate your elected officials Day. Why which one?
Speaker 2: All of them? But Malcolm X, all of those the
Speaker 2: malcam X.
Speaker 3: I'm tempted to agree with you. We also we had
Speaker 3: a brief conversation off Mike if we whether or not
Speaker 3: we wanted to talk about one of the largest most
Speaker 3: expensive gifts ever given to a US president, an airplane.
Speaker 3: You've seen the news as our as a brother. Dylan
Speaker 3: pointed out, John Stewart has a hot twenty minutes on it,
Speaker 3: so check out that story. We wanted to start this
Speaker 3: conversation by asking ourselves if we play chess. Matt Dylan,
Speaker 3: do you guys play chess?
Speaker 2: Sometimes?
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to sound like me talking
Speaker 3: about tech and I don't play.
Speaker 2: Hey, no, I'm not amazing at chess. I do enjoy
Speaker 2: the game, though, but my son is getting better and
Speaker 2: better every time we play.
Speaker 3: Nice Dylan says, he's never learned chess, so this may
Speaker 3: be a chance for you and me and your son
Speaker 3: to you know, have a big win. I'm laughing because
Speaker 3: Dylan follows up and says he's a huge fan of
Speaker 3: checkers at Cracker Barrel. I love it too.
Speaker 2: I just bought one of the giant ones that they
Speaker 2: call him the carpet Chess.
Speaker 3: Yeah you got one.
Speaker 2: I just got one so the kids over here can
Speaker 2: play checkers.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, it's the same board, right.
Speaker 2: It's from I got it from Cracker Barrel.
Speaker 3: Amazing, amazing, and I believe you can still play checkers
Speaker 3: in Afghanistan. However, fellow chess nerds, we have some news
Speaker 3: for you. You cannot play chess in Afghanistan anymore. It
Speaker 3: has been officially banned in the country and this is
Speaker 3: due to not criminal concerns so much as religious considerations.
Speaker 3: So yeah, this is up there with more I think
Speaker 3: activity or behavior policing on the part of the interim
Speaker 3: government will go to Comma dot com by an article
Speaker 3: by fidel Or Ahamati which reads the following. Officials from
Speaker 3: the Ministry of Sports confirmed chess activities are suspended as
Speaker 3: of Sunday, May eleventh. They had to find suitable answers
Speaker 3: regarding religious concerns. Right.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing images of law enforcement officers there in Afghanistan
Speaker 2: going around like listening really closely for the sound of
Speaker 2: the click, right, other people taking turns, yeah, or like
Speaker 2: back rooms that you open up at some restaurant. You
Speaker 2: creak open a door and there's just a couple of
Speaker 2: guys huddled around.
Speaker 3: Chess speak easy, yeah, exactly right in whispers. It seems that,
Speaker 3: at least according to conversations with Western analysts who definitely
Speaker 3: have their own bag of badgers, it seems that maybe
Speaker 3: the concerns are regarding some of the names of the pieces.
Speaker 3: I would imagine particularly the bishop. So maybe that in
Speaker 3: some ways has spreaffed the dander of these religious authorities.
Speaker 3: We'd love to hear more from you, folks. We're moving quickly.
Speaker 3: Matt and I have many, many tales to tell today,
Speaker 3: things to share. We're going to talk a lot about
Speaker 3: resource extraction. We're going to talk about some legal conspiracies,
Speaker 3: some strange arrest. We may end by talking about the
Speaker 3: future of a non human civilization. But before we do
Speaker 3: any of that, it is no secret that we here
Speaker 3: on stuff they don't want you to know. Travel often,
Speaker 3: which means we need airports to work. So we need
Speaker 3: airports to new work. So we're going to pause for
Speaker 3: a word from our sponsors, and then what do you say.
Speaker 3: I want to dive into that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take a fight or not and we've returned.
Speaker 2: Let's take a little flight over to Newark, New Jersey
Speaker 2: if anybody remembers that from SNL. But really we're going
Speaker 2: to Philadelphia. We're going to the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach
Speaker 2: Control or track on this they call it. We're heading
Speaker 2: over there because that is the Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control.
Speaker 2: That is the outfit that handles air traffic control for
Speaker 2: the Newark Airport, the very very large airport there in Newark,
Speaker 2: New Jersey. There are a lot of flights that come
Speaker 2: in and out of that Newark Liberty International Airport, and
Speaker 2: when there are problems there, it's a big deal because
Speaker 2: these are people flying in and out of New York City,
Speaker 2: one of the most populous areas in the United States,
Speaker 2: and also where lots of really important business gets to.
Speaker 3: You know, sure, we've all been there.
Speaker 2: We've all been to New York, have not lived there yet.
Speaker 2: But Newark Airport is interesting because you've got what You've
Speaker 2: got three airports in that immediate area. You've got JFK, LaGuardia,
Speaker 2: and Newark. When something goes down there at one of
Speaker 2: those three big airports, it's gonna have a knock on
Speaker 2: effect for all of the other airports where those flights
Speaker 2: fly out to. And we're talking hundreds and hundreds of
Speaker 2: flights per day. So again, Domino's here, what happened at
Speaker 2: Trackon is pretty scary. The air traffic controllers on April
Speaker 2: twenty eighth lost communications with the systems that they used
Speaker 2: to see all of the planes in the sky for
Speaker 2: only ninety seconds, but ninety seconds of not being able
Speaker 2: to know where any flight is. And what do those
Speaker 2: air traffic controllers do, Ben.
Speaker 3: Oh, they control air traffic for one hundred alex.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, they they set They work with the pilots
Speaker 2: to set for flight plans and make sure all of
Speaker 2: the flights don't hit each other, to make sure that
Speaker 2: the each landing strip is only being used by one
Speaker 2: plane at one time, and then each of the planes
Speaker 2: then taxiing are not going to be running into each other.
Speaker 2: It's it's huge.
Speaker 3: They also actively now this is not AI run as
Speaker 3: an industry. They also actively contextualize changes that will affect
Speaker 3: the future of their airport and pass things like delays
Speaker 3: for weather or mechanical concerns that will affect things in
Speaker 3: terms of like look, air traffic controller professionals are, in
Speaker 3: my opinion, kind of stressed out. And you and I
Speaker 3: and maybe Dylan we both know a few, and they're
Speaker 3: consummate professionals. They're often in an uphill situation because circumstances
Speaker 3: change so quickly. You can't really if you're atc you
Speaker 3: do not have a day where you kick your feet
Speaker 3: up and just have a nice like macha or something
Speaker 3: no like. You have to be on on for a while,
Speaker 3: and especially if you're working with antiquated equipment, you have
Speaker 3: to be the eyes in and for the skies. So
Speaker 3: that ninety seconds you mentioned, Matt, I think this is
Speaker 3: something all of our aviator friends in the audience are
Speaker 3: going to be nodding their heads to that ninety seconds
Speaker 3: could be ninety seconds of disaster quickly.
Speaker 2: And you are the human beings at the wheel in
Speaker 2: that case, and you are blind because the technology has
Speaker 2: decided to crap out, or it didn't decide to you.
Speaker 2: It crapped out for one reason or another. And that
Speaker 2: wasn't the only problem happening at the airport that day.
Speaker 2: Let's just get into this because we've been talking about
Speaker 2: the FAA and changes within the federal government and you know,
Speaker 2: all kinds of issues. Let's jump over to NPR. I'll
Speaker 2: give you the title here, how archaic tech, staff shortages
Speaker 2: and construction made a meltdown at Newark Airport. And just
Speaker 2: to read from that first paragraph, by the way, this
Speaker 2: is heard on morning edition there at NPR and written
Speaker 2: by A. Martinez and Nia Dumas. So here we go.
Speaker 2: The Newark Airport was dealing with bad weather, staffing shortages,
Speaker 2: outdated infrastructure, and the airport's busiest runway was closed for
Speaker 2: renovations until June. So all of that stuff happening together
Speaker 2: caused such an insane situation for everybody at the airport,
Speaker 2: not just the air traffic controllers, because their jobs then
Speaker 2: end up impacting the pilots and the crews. Then those,
Speaker 2: you know, their jobs end up impacting all the passengers
Speaker 2: and everybody who's working out on the tarmac, and it's
Speaker 2: just it's just becomes a mess.
Speaker 3: And that poor guy in like seat thirty eight, e
Speaker 3: go eight, I have a connecting flight? Do I have
Speaker 3: a connecting flight? Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because people are in that situation, and when you're
Speaker 2: in that moment, it is the most important thing in
Speaker 2: the world in that moment is to get on the
Speaker 2: next flight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sorry, child slavery, there are other priorities.
Speaker 2: Well, it's true. Unfortunately, I think that's maybe just how
Speaker 2: humans function when we're in that moment. It's just that's
Speaker 2: all that matters. So this all occurred, a bunch of
Speaker 2: the human beings, the air traffic controllers that were there
Speaker 2: at track on ended up taking time off after that
Speaker 2: day on April twenty eighth, and they took because they're
Speaker 2: allowed to take time off when there's something like crazy traumatic,
Speaker 2: something big happens.
Speaker 3: Ever, like a mental wellness day.
Speaker 2: Yes exactly, because you cannot be on the job if
Speaker 2: you're not feeling good to go, as you were talking,
Speaker 2: as you alluded to earlier. Ben So then that all happened.
Speaker 2: It was all in the news everybody's writing about, including
Speaker 2: NPR there on May seventh. Then it happens again on Friday,
Speaker 2: May ninth, another ninety seconds that they have no access
Speaker 2: to radar in the systems. That thankfully occurred at three
Speaker 2: point fifty five am, which is a very low traffic time, right,
Speaker 2: so not as bad, but still something's going wrong with
Speaker 2: the radar systems there over at Philadelphia Terminal Radar Approach Control.
Speaker 3: Which means that if authorities are not able to isolate
Speaker 3: and identify wherever this hiccup is occurried, it will inevitably
Speaker 3: sinan again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there you go, and guess what it did in again,
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, on May eleventh. Yeah, again, it was
Speaker 2: a radar outage. So it's just a it's a scary
Speaker 2: thing considering what we read about This was a story
Speaker 2: where a helicopter, a Blackhawk helicopter, accidentally intercepted an incoming flight. Yes,
Speaker 2: everybody died. Other issues that you know, the industry is
Speaker 2: having with Boeing planes with other planes.
Speaker 3: A lot of close calls with small private aircraft like
Speaker 3: picture your assessments as well, that's happening. We know that there.
Speaker 3: You know, there was chaos at Heathrow not too long ago.
Speaker 3: One thing I think we need to we need to
Speaker 3: establish on the air right now, on the air and
Speaker 3: in the air right now, is the following. At this
Speaker 3: point in the investigation, there is no hard suspicion of
Speaker 3: bad faith actors. This does appear to be a consequence
Speaker 3: of legacy technology, a consequence of lack of maintenance and
Speaker 3: updates and improvements, and our a consequence of I don't know,
Speaker 3: not looking out for the ATC.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and you can read all of the official
Speaker 2: statements from the FAA over on the FAA dot gov website.
Speaker 2: Check it out. They've got statements on every one of
Speaker 2: these moments that occurred, and you know, most it's going
Speaker 2: over basically exactly what happened here, and it has a
Speaker 2: lot to do with staffing, but again. Their last statement
Speaker 2: that they put out on May thirteenth is all about, hey,
Speaker 2: we've got twenty two fully certified controllers, we've got five
Speaker 2: fully certified supervisors, and twenty one controllers and supervisors in training.
Speaker 2: So they are doing their best, as you know, a company,
Speaker 2: as a group an organization, to bring up more people
Speaker 2: to be in that position to fill in when something
Speaker 2: goes wrong on the human side. But when it comes
Speaker 2: to the test system, yeah, they need huge updates and
Speaker 2: they need funding to make those huge updates. So we'll
Speaker 2: see how all of that plays out politically over the
Speaker 2: next year.
Speaker 3: Or so, which is a bummer because tech has no
Speaker 3: religion nor ideology just yet, depending on how agi goes
Speaker 3: and how it feels about itself, I imagine. But I
Speaker 3: appreciate that point, and I think it's I think it's
Speaker 3: crucial that we make that point now. US Transportation Secretary
Speaker 3: Sean Duffy was talking on May twelfth to reporters and said, look,
Speaker 3: we know what went wrong to the earlier point. He said,
Speaker 3: there's a relay system feeding data from New York to Philly,
Speaker 3: and that relay system failed and that is part of
Speaker 3: this domino effect, this chain of suss tech. Right, SUSTech
Speaker 3: sounds like it should be a word, but anyway, it's
Speaker 3: the new SPI kids. So right now, as I'm catching
Speaker 3: up with all this to actually delaying a flight to
Speaker 3: the northeast Newark Airport is under a ground delay now
Speaker 3: as we record on Wednesday, May fourteenth, but it's due
Speaker 3: this time to weather. They're low cloud ceilings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, whether they're a low cloud seating is
Speaker 2: what I heard too. But I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it. This is why we hang out, all right, dude.
Speaker 2: Last thing, Ben, I just want to put in here.
Speaker 2: This is more stuff from who is this? This is
Speaker 2: from the FAA specifically, but Secretary Duffy. Transportation Secretary Duffy
Speaker 2: has stated there's all kinds of things that need to happen.
Speaker 2: They're going to add new high bandwidth telecommunications connections being
Speaker 2: these things called the STARS system. I don't understand exactly
Speaker 2: what the STARS system is at this moment. I'm sure
Speaker 2: we can look that up. They're going to replace copper
Speaker 2: telecommunications connections with updated fiber optic tech. Hey, that's a
Speaker 2: good idea, sure, And they're putting in a temporary backup system,
Speaker 2: which is kind of cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's also one of those things where you
Speaker 3: know it's announced is good news, but the implication is
Speaker 3: a little bit spoopy. Doup rights. It's like hearing local
Speaker 3: fire department to have hoses installed on trucks and you're like, great, guys,
Speaker 3: that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Also, what we just had a bunch of straws before, right.
Speaker 3: Right, we have no backup system. We do also know,
Speaker 3: of course, that current civilization depends upon safe air travel.
Speaker 3: It depends upon safe air transit. If people don't care
Speaker 3: for the travel aspect of it, I imagine that we are
Speaker 3: going to see more more work in this case. And
Speaker 3: I'm going to be cynical about why I believe these
Speaker 3: problems will be fixed. Would you like to hear it?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Because wealthy people use planes.
Speaker 2: Ah, you're right. But do they fly out of Newark?
Speaker 2: Is the question?
Speaker 4: I mean, right, do they fly? Do they do they
Speaker 4: fly commercial?
Speaker 3: Uh? Maybe not? But the truly wealthy own a big
Speaker 3: interest in the function of commercial airlines. And from a
Speaker 3: defense perspective, which we don't really talk about, the United
Speaker 3: States will never abandon its own ability to manufacture aircraft,
Speaker 3: you know, I mean and to and to hold that
Speaker 3: infrastructure sacroo sainct.
Speaker 2: Well, less we just start ordering them all from Qatar.
Speaker 3: Oh boy, they'll still be though they'll still be they'll
Speaker 3: be about thirteen years old if I'm if I'm read
Speaker 3: up on that. But then you have to you have
Speaker 3: to consider, we're gonna move on. We're gonna hear. We're
Speaker 3: gonna hear later from a couple fellow conspiracy realists in
Speaker 3: the aviation field who have their own thoughts on UH
Speaker 3: air traffic control in particular. So please tune in later
Speaker 3: this week. In the meantime, Matt Dylan, before we uh
Speaker 3: head off to catch a flight to Newark, should we
Speaker 3: do an ad? Yeah, we have returned and we are
Speaker 3: going to stay in Newark for the moment. We're going
Speaker 3: to run through several stories quickly.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: But while we're While we're doing this, we're gonna follow
Speaker 3: kind of a thematic thread that is very important to
Speaker 3: Matt Dylan and your truly. Our first story is the following.
Speaker 3: This happened pretty recently. Earlier this month, the mayor of Newark,
Speaker 3: a town we just mentioned, was arrested at an immigration
Speaker 3: detention facility where he was According to various perspectives, he
Speaker 3: was protesting. So the idea is that the mayor ros
Speaker 3: Baraka was arrested Friday and he had been protesting the
Speaker 3: opening of this immigration detention center. We'll give you more
Speaker 3: details in a second, but we need to understand that
Speaker 3: the narrative diverges very quickly because this ice detention facility,
Speaker 3: immigration detention facility was It's not its first rodeo. It
Speaker 3: was reopened. It's Delaney Hall if you want to look
Speaker 3: it up. D E. L. An Ey and and supporters
Speaker 3: of investigating this facility. Notice the diplomatic language there are
Speaker 3: saying that the mayor was not protesting, that the mayor
Speaker 3: was legally investigating this structure, this compound. And right now
Speaker 3: Braka is running to succeed Governor Phil Murphy, so he
Speaker 3: has higher political ambitions. He has been involved with the
Speaker 3: great state by state contention, I would say, over the
Speaker 3: immigration issue. And he aggressively pushed back on the idea
Speaker 3: of opening or reopening this center. He said it doesn't
Speaker 3: square with building permits, which is kind of a matrix
Speaker 3: dodge of larger moral contentions. He he was literally arrested.
Speaker 3: Officials blocked his entry when he went in with three
Speaker 3: other members of a congressional delegation from New Jersey. That
Speaker 3: would be representatives, respectfully, Robert Menendez, Lamonica mc iver, and
Speaker 3: Bonnie Watson Coleman. So the fads say you can't come
Speaker 3: in here. There is what corporate America would call a
Speaker 3: healthy conversation and what everyone else would call people shouting
Speaker 3: at each other and yelling and pushing. And then this
Speaker 3: is reported by Very Martinez, who is an activist associated
Speaker 3: with New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice. Martinez says, there
Speaker 3: was yelling and pushing quote. Then the officers swarmed Baraka.
Speaker 3: They threw one of the organizers to the ground. They
Speaker 3: put Baraka again the mayor of Newark, in handcuffs and
Speaker 3: put them in an unmarked car. Look, this is his Historically,
Speaker 3: nobody wants to hear this, but this is historically not
Speaker 3: the first time a mayor in a city in the
Speaker 3: United States has been arrested. However, I want to throw
Speaker 3: to you here, Matt for your thoughts. However, we can
Speaker 3: see why this might give some people the jimmies. You
Speaker 3: know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh, you don't go after the mayor, you say,
Speaker 2: mister mayor, Please, we need you to stop doing this. Please,
Speaker 2: mister mayor, as in you're talking to an authority figure.
Speaker 2: But if when you've got federal agents or people working
Speaker 2: at a federal level who come out and arrest a city's,
Speaker 2: a major city's mayor, it just the picture it paints
Speaker 2: is that I don't know what. Ah.
Speaker 4: So that's that's that's the issue, because okay, let's a
Speaker 4: politically just with the with some critical thought.
Speaker 3: Let's walk through this. As we said earlier, there are
Speaker 3: four what you say, authority figures, right, a mayor, three reps.
Speaker 3: So why is only the mayor arrested? Why did the
Speaker 3: narratives differ? If we look toward a statement by Department
Speaker 3: of Homeland Security, they said the lawmakers had not asked
Speaker 3: in advance for a tour of the facility. They also
Speaker 3: did not respond to that question about why only the
Speaker 3: mayor was arrested. They did, however, say the following quote
Speaker 3: or through a spokesperson quote, Members of Congress are not
Speaker 3: above the law. We can agree with that and cannot
Speaker 3: illegally break into detention facilities. Okay, sure, fine, no one can.
Speaker 3: Had these members requested a tour, we would have facilitated
Speaker 3: a tour. So it's kind of like I guess in
Speaker 3: their logic, it's like a fancy restaurant that doesn't take walkins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it is kind of true, right, if you
Speaker 2: have a detention center, you don't want people just anybody
Speaker 2: coming in and out of it, like if it's on
Speaker 2: a if it's a federal detention center, I can imagine
Speaker 2: you want to lock that place down because of the
Speaker 2: very nature of the place that it is. Right.
Speaker 3: But but.
Speaker 2: These are important individuals, you know, who operate the city
Speaker 2: and this, you know, the state that this facility is
Speaker 2: operating within. So it does feel like you wouldn't I
Speaker 2: don't know, man, it makes me think of I think
Speaker 2: it was listener mail the other day. We were talking
Speaker 2: about one of the one of the executive orders that
Speaker 2: was put out about strengthening and unleashing the law enforcement
Speaker 2: in America, Right, and there's that one little piece in
Speaker 2: there about local leaders and when local leaders demonizes or
Speaker 2: cast dispersions or prevent law enforcement from being able to
Speaker 2: operate the way we want them to on a federal level,
Speaker 2: they will be prosecuted essentially.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It makes me think of that, like maybe the very
Speaker 2: protest or the very yeah, the very concept of protesting.
Speaker 2: It and ice facility like that. You know, doesn't matter
Speaker 2: who's operating it, what private company is like in charge there,
Speaker 2: It's going to be seen as an act of aggression
Speaker 2: against probably the administration.
Speaker 3: Sure. Yes. Also the logical conundrum, right the bag of
Speaker 3: badgers here is what is what counts as a protest
Speaker 3: versus what counts as not only the legal rights but
Speaker 3: the legal duties of representatives of the people. Right, all
Speaker 3: of these folks, the mayor and the reps, they were
Speaker 3: elected by their constituents, which means that they have beat
Speaker 3: me here, and they have certain they are required to do. Theoretically,
Speaker 3: it's no secret that politicians often fall short of doing
Speaker 3: what they are supposed to be doing. But this I
Speaker 3: think exists to your point, Matt, your beautiful point earlier.
Speaker 3: This exists in a larger context because at the same time,
Speaker 3: the United States has seeing signals that are kind of
Speaker 3: anti habeas corpus. Remember habeas corpus.
Speaker 2: Huh sounds familiar, something about a body.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you have the body. Right, So, the idea
Speaker 3: is that if you are locked up, you are imprisoned,
Speaker 3: you are able to I guess the diplomatic way to
Speaker 3: put it, we are not lawyers. The diplomatic way to
Speaker 3: put it is, in this country, you have a right
Speaker 3: to appear in a court. You have a right to
Speaker 3: go to a judge because they have your body. In
Speaker 3: every sense, you have a right to go like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, why why am I here?
Speaker 2: Why me? What I do?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: Did I like spit out chewing gum in Singapore because
Speaker 3: I thought this was America? And then the judge is like,
Speaker 3: oh awesome, sick line, Yes this is America. Right. So
Speaker 3: people are also this is the next story. People are
Speaker 3: also worried by what they see as signals that the
Speaker 3: current administration is going to suspend the writ of habeas corpus,
Speaker 3: the protection against unlawful detention or imprisonment, which is enshrined
Speaker 3: in the Constitution.
Speaker 2: This is new to me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a guy from earlier named Stephen Miller who
Speaker 3: got into the news with some of this stuff and
Speaker 3: their idea. Here will give you a quote from Miller
Speaker 3: when he's talking to reporters outside of the White House
Speaker 3: quite recently. He says, quote, the Constitution is clear the
Speaker 3: privilege right, the privilege of the rid of habeas corpus,
Speaker 3: can be suspended in a time of get this mat invasion,
Speaker 3: So to say it's an option we're actively looking at.
Speaker 3: A lot of it depends on whether the courts do
Speaker 3: the right thing or not.
Speaker 4: Oh god, it's a nice constitution you have there.
Speaker 3: It'd be a shamed something happened to it.
Speaker 2: It's what it feels like the language in there. You
Speaker 2: don't have to have a character, you don't have anything,
Speaker 2: just the language.
Speaker 3: Yeah, privilege option.
Speaker 4: We're actively looking at whether the courts do the right
Speaker 4: thing or not.
Speaker 2: A time of invasion. You clocked to that man that
Speaker 2: is who Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And of course you know Steven Miller is
Speaker 3: not himself the president of the United States, so that
Speaker 3: that is a high level political official saying something on
Speaker 3: behalf of the administration. But it's not the same thing
Speaker 3: as you know, the current president saying, what's all this
Speaker 3: complicated language?
Speaker 2: Dude?
Speaker 3: I just it's got the Yeah, we're both kind of
Speaker 3: doing the stink face and not the cool stink face
Speaker 3: that you do when you hear.
Speaker 2: Good rap no, no, no, as a distinct stink face.
Speaker 2: This is this feeling gross. Well, we should we connect this?
Speaker 2: I know there's more to talk about there, but should
Speaker 2: we connect it to the recent Department of Agriculture thing.
Speaker 3: We absolutely should you mind, reader, We've got to talk
Speaker 3: about Department of ag and I think that'll get us
Speaker 3: into some resource conversations that you and I are very
Speaker 3: much looking forward to.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, yes, all right, well let's jump into
Speaker 2: it again, jumping to NPR, who is actively losing their
Speaker 2: federal funding as we speak, which is an interesting that's
Speaker 2: a whole other discussion to have just that concept that
Speaker 2: their state sponsored media in some way, even though there
Speaker 2: are mostly donations, but it is a potential conflict of
Speaker 2: interest and always has been with NPR. And however they
Speaker 2: always have PBS and PBS yes exactly. They do always
Speaker 2: seem to be i don't know, independent dish with a
Speaker 2: little bit of slant anyway.
Speaker 5: Okay, so wait, wait, wait wait, also, folks behind the curtain,
Speaker 5: cut to several years earlier when Matt and I used
Speaker 5: to party and we're like three beers deep and one
Speaker 5: of us is going.
Speaker 3: Big bird is propaganda.
Speaker 2: Yes, but then also quoting stuff that's on morning Edition,
Speaker 2: you know, and we're just like, eh, we're just trying
Speaker 2: to we're trying to do our best, just like everybody else,
Speaker 2: just to figure out what the heck is happening at
Speaker 2: any time? So what is happening now? At least according
Speaker 2: to NPR and some some let's say, some internal stuff
Speaker 2: that keeps getting leaked. I don't know if we've all
Speaker 2: noticed this, but internal machinations that are occurring within the
Speaker 2: administration get leaked all the time, internal emails. According to
Speaker 2: a person who can't be named, it's all happening right now.
Speaker 2: There's a ton of leaked information.
Speaker 3: An anonymous source familiar with the conversation.
Speaker 2: Yes, the record said, talking about the Department of Agriculture,
Speaker 2: quote demanding states handover personal data of food assistance recipients,
Speaker 2: including social Security numbers, addresses, and an at least one
Speaker 2: state citizenship status. These are according to emails shared with
Speaker 2: NPR by an official who quote was not allowed to
Speaker 2: speak publicly.
Speaker 3: Cool but was clearly allowed to speak to a reporter.
Speaker 3: This is such a leaky boat man right now, just
Speaker 3: on the op SEC. This is wild. It's also you know,
Speaker 3: it's an interesting contradiction, is it not, Because the the
Speaker 3: existing ideology would argue that every citizen has a degree
Speaker 3: of privacy and liberty right, the art of small government
Speaker 3: and so on. You know, your jurisdiction stops where my
Speaker 3: nose begins. That kind of thing. However, we can understand
Speaker 3: why people would see this as counterintuitive to request a new,
Speaker 3: more invasive wave of personal information from people who did
Speaker 3: not have to provide that in the beginning. Or I
Speaker 3: guess you know what. No, let's be fair, let's be objective.
Speaker 3: If you receive food assistance like EBT or whatever the
Speaker 3: program may be, Wick vouchers and so on, snap and
Speaker 3: all that, Yeah, you already have to jump through many
Speaker 3: hoops to get there, you know what I mean. You
Speaker 3: can't just walk into the snapshack and say I want
Speaker 3: SNAP and they're like, oh cool, thanks for coming. No,
Speaker 3: they want to know stuff about you already. You have
Speaker 3: to prove that you need it. And sometimes those standards
Speaker 3: state by state are already extremely rigorous. Right, some would
Speaker 3: say unfairly so based on inflation data. So what what
Speaker 3: is the what is the concern here? And oh, also, Matt,
Speaker 3: we have to mention it's not just the USDA. There's
Speaker 3: a there's another hand to play, right, one of the
Speaker 3: newest initiatives agency wise.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, which one? I know? USDA? What's the other one?
Speaker 3: Oh, it's the it's the Department of Governmental Efficiency. The
Speaker 3: Government Efficiency can't we can't dodge it. We can't dog it. Man.
Speaker 2: Oh jeez, okay, yeah, that would make sense why they're
Speaker 2: looking for so uh, let's talk about why it's a
Speaker 2: big deal. The SNAP program or Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program
Speaker 2: is administered on a state by state basis, which means
Speaker 2: Georgia here where we are, controls all of all of
Speaker 2: the SNAP money that goes out to people who qualify
Speaker 2: in Georgia, and it goes the same all the way
Speaker 2: across all the states. For a federal program to come in,
Speaker 2: federal organization to come in, specifically DOGE, to be asking
Speaker 2: questions about citizenship status feels off considering all of the
Speaker 2: other stuff that is happening right now with immigration with
Speaker 2: citizenship status, with deporting people to places like Libya and
Speaker 2: or that may have been shut down who knows just
Speaker 2: all with all of the stuff happening, having that specific
Speaker 2: organization DOGE looking at that stuff feels like a red
Speaker 2: flag like look out. They're looking for people, for more
Speaker 2: people to just launch out of the United States. It
Speaker 2: is one thing that that should be known here is
Speaker 2: that someone who does not have official citizenship status within
Speaker 2: the US cannot qualify for SNAP in any of the states,
Speaker 2: but if you are a non citizen parent of a
Speaker 2: child who is a US citizen, you can qualify, which
Speaker 2: makes me think that that is specifically what the organization
Speaker 2: is looking for.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's sort of the chain of operation is
Speaker 3: to identify those people.
Speaker 2: I mean, And that's my that's my take on looking
Speaker 2: at it in the wider picture.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's I don't think it's a bridge
Speaker 3: too far, And I can see the the argument there
Speaker 3: and without sounding you know, reductive, and without at the
Speaker 3: same time sounding high faluting. The hard reality of the
Speaker 3: situation here is that every human being is reliant upon
Speaker 3: nutrition and sustenance such that it should, in a better world,
Speaker 3: be considered a human right. And from what I understand,
Speaker 3: the argument against guaranteeing those rights for people in these
Speaker 3: United States is saying that they are not a part
Speaker 3: of the United States, which I find similarly weird. I
Speaker 3: would just you know what, Checkers had it right. The
Speaker 3: guys who wrote you Gotta Eat an amazing tagline that's
Speaker 3: quite honest about the quality of Checkers as a fast
Speaker 3: food institution. Maybe they should have had a hand in
Speaker 3: writing some of the Constitution. You know what I mean,
Speaker 3: it's an inescapable fact that if a population starves, then
Speaker 3: instability spikes, and we see that again and again. So
Speaker 3: the question is this a good thing long term? Is
Speaker 3: this a shortsighted look at us we're doing something getting
Speaker 3: a headline kind of thing? You know?
Speaker 2: Maybe I want to point to one thing the MPR
Speaker 2: points to as well, and that is an executive order
Speaker 2: that was put forward on March twentieth titled Stopping waste,
Speaker 2: fraud and Abuse by Eliminating Information Silos. And you know,
Speaker 2: we've talked about siling of information on the show before,
Speaker 2: a lot of it in the context of the black
Speaker 2: budget programs, the programs that you know are special access
Speaker 2: those things where only only a few people actually know
Speaker 2: what's happening in that area. But there's still a bunch
Speaker 2: of money that gets allocated to that area. Nobody gets
Speaker 2: to see what happens to that money, but a.
Speaker 3: Few unless you're on the list for the admission into
Speaker 3: those underground cities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, and undersea basis. I'm joking a little bit
Speaker 2: about that maybe, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know you well, but in this case, it would.
Speaker 2: It could be seen as the SNAP programs, on a
Speaker 2: state by state basis receive federal funding to the tune
Speaker 2: of around one hundred billion dollars a year. So that's
Speaker 2: not every state, that's all states combined. It could be
Speaker 2: seen that the federal government wants to see where that
Speaker 2: money goes and how it is spent.
Speaker 3: Sure, And I think that's I think that's quite objective
Speaker 3: to say there is nothing wrong with accountability here. We also,
Speaker 3: at the same time acknowledge fairly valid concerns that this
Speaker 3: would have an ulterior motive. It's already the language is
Speaker 3: already what we call dog whistley. And you know, the
Speaker 3: funny thing about this is at Dylan Friends and neighbors.
Speaker 3: The funny thing about this is that if we're so
Speaker 3: worried about spending money in one place, and we're so
Speaker 3: profligate right spending money on foolish errands in other parts
Speaker 3: of expenditure or the federal budget, the good news is
Speaker 3: that the US might come into a lot of money
Speaker 3: that has just been sitting in the ground. So why
Speaker 3: are we so worried right about about buying some poor kid?
Speaker 3: You know, I'll say it not not great cheese and milk,
Speaker 3: and you know not Look, it's not the top tier groceries,
Speaker 3: is all I'm saying. These kids aren't eating crab legs,
Speaker 3: but the like. If we are so worried about money,
Speaker 3: then shouldn't we as a nation be excited about the
Speaker 3: one point five trillion estimated dollars worth of lithium recently discovered.
Speaker 2: Oh, we should be so excited. Were so that we
Speaker 2: probably should take an ad break to celebrate, Yeah.
Speaker 3: A celeb break. And we're in fact, there are some
Speaker 3: things that we have been tracking over a series of years.
Speaker 3: You may have heard us mention it recently we were
Speaker 3: talking off air. We couldn't remember if this was one
Speaker 3: of our on air conversations or just us hanging out,
Speaker 3: but we are both over the moon, over the mountain,
Speaker 3: over the moon, to again explore the one point five
Speaker 3: trillion US dollars estimated of lithium discovered right here in
Speaker 3: these United States, occurring at a time when China and
Speaker 3: the US are super beefed up and conspiring against each other,
Speaker 3: clearly to figure out who helms the wheel of power.
Speaker 3: Right now, just you know, if you're talking about resources
Speaker 3: and you're talking about rare earth minerals and other things
Speaker 3: that make your electronics go elect Then you are going
Speaker 3: to see that China is the clear winner, not just
Speaker 3: for resource access but for processing. So, Matt, can we
Speaker 3: talk a little bit more about I love the line
Speaker 3: you had there. Volcanic white Gold used to be used
Speaker 3: to be Dylan's street name back in Knoxville.
Speaker 2: Volcanic white Gold.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a different genre.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, okay, So let's talk about it. There are
Speaker 2: we talked about the value of these deposits or this
Speaker 2: deposit The volume is thought to be somewhere between twenty
Speaker 2: and forty million metric tons. That's a lot of lithium,
Speaker 2: and that can make a lot of electronics, or at
Speaker 2: least it can be helpful in making a lot of electronics,
Speaker 2: specifically batteries. How many pounds of lithium are in a
Speaker 2: Tesla model S? Ooh?
Speaker 3: How many? How many?
Speaker 2: Around one hundred and thirty eight? Yes, and that's a
Speaker 2: model S that is not the most common one you're
Speaker 2: going to see on the roads. That that is the
Speaker 2: amount you will find in Dan's car. So you know,
Speaker 2: if he's listening still probably not, but if he is,
Speaker 2: that's how many pounds of lithium are in your car, Dan.
Speaker 3: Now I remember because that's the first thing he said
Speaker 3: about that car. You guys like lithium. Check this out.
Speaker 2: Oh but you know, all electric vehicles, anything that uses
Speaker 2: a lithium ion battery has a certain amount of lithium
Speaker 2: in it. And nowadays that's a lot of things in
Speaker 2: our lives.
Speaker 3: Sure, yes, that is why this is as mission critical
Speaker 3: as a petroleum or fossile fuel supply or a uranium supply.
Speaker 3: The issue is the pickle the back of Badger's a
Speaker 3: plate that we mentioned earlier. This will be familiar to
Speaker 3: anybody in oil or nuclear processing industries. It is important
Speaker 3: to have access to the raw material right and wars
Speaker 3: have been launched and probably will launch in the future
Speaker 3: for access to any raw resource. However, the more important
Speaker 3: step is processing, or the equally important step. So the
Speaker 3: reason that China is by all metrics the world leader
Speaker 3: in rare earth minerals, it's about fifty percent because of
Speaker 3: access to raw materials through various agreements with other countries,
Speaker 3: but it is the other fifty percent is the lack
Speaker 3: of environmental regulation here in the US. Hard environmental regulation
Speaker 3: and conservation policies prevent the cheap processing of these materials, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, right now, if you dig into this, because
Speaker 3: we're fun at parties, right, we know that the US
Speaker 3: is fast tracking permits for new uranium mining operations in Utah.
Speaker 3: Mining the uranium is not the same thing as processing
Speaker 3: or enriching. It's just getting that stuff out of the ground.
Speaker 3: And the United States has some surprising blind spots when
Speaker 3: it comes to processing rare earth minerals nuclear materials. Right,
Speaker 3: they often are going to be functioning in concert with
Speaker 3: foreign owned consortiums. We've got like off few maybe deals
Speaker 3: with the mission critical need to process uranium. We also
Speaker 3: know that there is a hidden history to the United
Speaker 3: States regarding how best to access and control resources in
Speaker 3: this huge country. I mean, if you haven't been here,
Speaker 3: no offense. I hate when people say this, but if
Speaker 3: you haven't been here, if you haven't taken a road
Speaker 3: trip to the US, you don't get it. This place
Speaker 3: is spooky, huge, and it's arguably a haunted house. There's
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff here. And for the indigenous peoples
Speaker 3: who were living happily for thousands and thousands of years
Speaker 3: before the US became a thing, the presence of precious
Speaker 3: materials like fossil fuels or uranium has long been seen
Speaker 3: as the impetus toward evil actions on behalf of the government.
Speaker 3: We talked about this in our conversations with Leonard Peltier.
Speaker 2: We did, we did.
Speaker 4: Sorry, I ted talked there. I just feel like we
Speaker 4: have to establish that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was great. I am thinking about what happens
Speaker 2: to this area. I just looked up McDermott, Nevada, uh
Speaker 2: and uh Malua County, Oregon and like where this is,
Speaker 2: so it's in. Yeah, we're sorry. I'm still on lithium.
Speaker 2: I'm like kind of focused in on this because the
Speaker 2: concept of this rather open area where there's not a
Speaker 2: lot of civilization going on out there. There aren't even
Speaker 2: many roads at all. So in order to set up
Speaker 2: the stuff that we're talking about, to get the lithium
Speaker 2: out to then go into the processing, to then you know,
Speaker 2: going into specific lands and all of these things, there's
Speaker 2: going to be so much development that has to occur
Speaker 2: before anything else can occur. And it's gonna change. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's going to change everything, and it's going to impact everyone,
Speaker 2: and it's just it's that tough thing, right, you need
Speaker 2: the resources that you're talking about. But then it affects
Speaker 2: so many things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it affects biodiversity, which you know, some people care
Speaker 3: about more than others. But it also affects things like
Speaker 3: access to clean water, yes, which becomes very dangerous very quickly.
Speaker 3: And we see precedent for this both in uranium processing
Speaker 3: and indeed in lithium processing earlier in Nevada, Nevada, Nevada.
Speaker 3: You say Nevada if you're in Nevada.
Speaker 2: Now, I always say Nevada.
Speaker 3: I don't know why, We're just gonna say envy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you guys know what it is, Vegas rules, baby. But yeah,
Speaker 3: this is this is a game changer, and it seems
Speaker 3: that the economic and security advantages on the table make
Speaker 3: it easy to say yes to conditions that would ordinarily
Speaker 3: be a deal breaker for pretty much any presidential administration.
Speaker 3: It's easy to dismiss folks you might not agree with
Speaker 3: and call them entirely villainous. But we have to understand
Speaker 3: the principal axiom of game theory and resource extraction is
Speaker 3: that everyone in involved, whether you like them or not,
Speaker 3: is a rational actor. So the best way to approach this,
Speaker 3: especially if anybody's got some political ideology or preconceptions in
Speaker 3: the conversation, we get it, We respect you. The best
Speaker 3: way to approach this is to consider the counter factual.
Speaker 3: What if this is not extracted? What if these resources
Speaker 3: are not exploited? What happens when you can't get your
Speaker 3: new phone?
Speaker 2: Bro?
Speaker 3: What happens when the jets don't fly?
Speaker 2: We get all we all get super cranky. Is what happened.
Speaker 4: Which is going to be funny because in a future
Speaker 4: Lister Bail conversation we're going to introduce something called the
Speaker 4: hungry judge effect. Oh yeah, it's a good it's a
Speaker 4: good teaser.
Speaker 3: Right. We we do need to I think, not to
Speaker 3: do too much Black Monday murder stuff, but we we do.
Speaker 3: You have an episode ahead maybe about the new wave
Speaker 3: of resource extraction.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: It carved out the insidious boundaries of colonial North Africa
Speaker 3: and the Middle East. It carved out a great deal
Speaker 3: Southeast Asia and indeed Latin America. So this is a conspiracy,
Speaker 3: a nest of conspiracies, a rat king of conspiracies that
Speaker 3: continues in the modern day. And it's crazy how it's
Speaker 3: not more widely reported.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. Before we get out of here, Ben,
Speaker 2: let's just touch on the other two that we found.
Speaker 2: I think it was two other specific mineral deposits that
Speaker 2: were located recently or that are in the news. The
Speaker 2: uranium one. The uranium one freaks me out a little
Speaker 2: bit because, as we all know, radioactive materials when they're
Speaker 2: in the earth pretty safe. Deep in the earth. We're
Speaker 2: not going to harm anybody. They've already kind of got
Speaker 2: their own thing going on. Water moves around in different ways,
Speaker 2: not a big deal. But as soon as you start
Speaker 2: drilling a bunch of uranium out of the earth, humans,
Speaker 2: then wildlife, we all got problems. We all got problems.
Speaker 2: Why do we need all that uranium?
Speaker 3: I'd like to quote a good friend of ours. They
Speaker 3: delved too greedily and too deep and disturbed that from
Speaker 3: which they fled, Duran Spade. So shout out to our
Speaker 3: buddy Gandolf. But there's truth in that parable, even though
Speaker 3: again it's Lord of the Rings. Is not about nuclear power.
Speaker 3: You're absolutely right, Matt, what a pickle, because is the
Speaker 3: worst possible outcome not having uranium? I mean, what happens
Speaker 3: to the people on the ground, right, Like the same
Speaker 3: question with indigenous people who had their rights promised and
Speaker 3: then betrayed all all for resource access by the way,
Speaker 3: like not like political ideology was the what was the
Speaker 3: cape and the cap that they put over resource extraction?
Speaker 3: I don't know, man, We also we have to talk
Speaker 3: about it, dude before we go. We promise we're going
Speaker 3: to end on one good or interesting thing we need
Speaker 3: your thoughts on. But before we get to that light
Speaker 3: at the end of the tunnel, man, have you looked
Speaker 3: up the Wiki travel or the CIA World Factbook entry
Speaker 3: for Somalia.
Speaker 2: I have a fact book. I need to go look
Speaker 2: it up. But I heard a thing, a little rumor
Speaker 2: that maybe somebody else found a bunch of something in Somalia.
Speaker 3: I like how we're setting it up like the beginning
Speaker 3: of a board game of clue.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, so okay, all right, yeah, man, give us
Speaker 4: the quick skinny.
Speaker 3: As we're heading now. Our friends at Turkey A have
Speaker 3: that they've always had, honestly a little bit of interest
Speaker 3: in Somalia, as have you know, the US, Russia, and
Speaker 3: to a lesser degree, China. But could you tell us
Speaker 3: a little bit about what Turkyer found as they started digging.
Speaker 2: Yep, they found twenty billion with a b billion barrels
Speaker 2: of crude oil there in Somalia. We have seen and
Speaker 2: discussed for about oil drilling and oil extraction in many
Speaker 2: parts of Africa and what that actually looks like, the
Speaker 2: human labor and the sites, and you know, the devastation
Speaker 2: to surrounding areas that occur. And again not not specifically
Speaker 2: in Somalia, but in many parts of Africa where a
Speaker 2: third party comes in, let's say, with a little less
Speaker 2: regard for the humanity and life that's there, and just
Speaker 2: pulls oil out of the ground as quickly and kind
Speaker 2: of as roughly as possible, it is pretty worrisome. It
Speaker 2: is also strange to think about what other powers might
Speaker 2: be thinking when they see twenty billion barrels of oil
Speaker 2: just sitting there in the ground that anybody could take
Speaker 2: if they were in control.
Speaker 3: Uh huh yeah, yeah, just make the deal with the
Speaker 3: right pirates and warlords. Right. And also what role does
Speaker 3: Somaliland play, which is yet to be is more stable
Speaker 3: and is yet to be acknowledged by the United Nations,
Speaker 3: arguably because it is more convenient to Western powers for
Speaker 3: chaos to rain. You know, this also happens on the
Speaker 3: heels of an earlier agreement in twenty twenty four. We're
Speaker 3: going to do some red string theory here. Turkey signed
Speaker 3: two major deals with Somalia. They have also been they
Speaker 3: have also been putting their hands in the cookie jar
Speaker 3: with the resource conflict in Rwanda and the DRC Democratic
Speaker 3: Republic of Congo. As a matter of fact, we just
Speaker 3: learned two weeks ago, but I think it I think
Speaker 3: it got publicly announced after that that Turkey wanted to
Speaker 3: meet mediate quote unquote between those two countries, and both
Speaker 3: of those countries said, heck no, you know, for whatever
Speaker 3: reasons they may have. But the the reason we're bringing
Speaker 3: up without getting to into the weeds here, the reason
Speaker 3: we're bringing this stuff up is because it's important to
Speaker 3: realize when we're talking about this level of resource, this
Speaker 3: threshold of economic potential, the news is announced far after
Speaker 3: those conversations begin, like way far after. Yep, maybe that's
Speaker 3: what we should do. What if the next headline is
Speaker 3: something like stuff they don't want you to know. The
Speaker 3: podcast discovers three trillion dollars worth of what's an obscure
Speaker 3: but valuable element.
Speaker 2: I don't know, vanadium, vanadium, that is one. I think
Speaker 2: it's obscure for sure, used in battery production, a bunch
Speaker 2: of other stuff.
Speaker 3: Okay, so that's what we're gonna do if this show
Speaker 3: doesn't work out, and while civilization is falling, we promised
Speaker 3: you we'll have more on this. I do think it's
Speaker 3: an episode. I think we're on board with that. We
Speaker 3: wanted to tell you one cool thing, one future thing
Speaker 3: as we end Tonight's Strange News program. We talked about
Speaker 3: it over low these many years, and we always talked
Speaker 3: about it kind of as a thought experiment. But Matt,
Speaker 3: great news, Dylan, great news, you playing along at home news.
Speaker 3: Some actual scientists have also started asking whether octopuses could
Speaker 3: create the next iteration of civilization. So now it's not
Speaker 3: just us now, it's like an actual biologist, Tim Coulson, PhD,
Speaker 3: University of Oxford. We don't know if he listens to
Speaker 3: the show, but he was thinking about this too. Well.
Speaker 2: I love it the idea that they can live in
Speaker 2: a range of different environments. They come in so many varieties.
Speaker 2: They live in deep ocean, they live in coastal shallows.
Speaker 3: They use tools. Yeah, oh, there's that really fascinating. Okay,
Speaker 3: So the big problem with this and longtime listeners. You
Speaker 3: know this. The big problem with the octopus replacing humans
Speaker 3: in a civilization, like in a post human world is
Speaker 3: going to go down to two primary things. The first
Speaker 3: thing is they have very short lifespans, quite attenuay, and
Speaker 3: that's partially due to a kill switch that occurs when
Speaker 3: they reproduce. There was very interesting research in the nineteen
Speaker 3: seventies that found you can extend the lifespan of an
Speaker 3: octopus with the following caveats. It has to be a
Speaker 3: female octopus, and you have to conduct essentially a kind
Speaker 3: of lobotomy, a kind of brain surgery. You have to
Speaker 3: remove the part of the organism that induces that kill switch.
Speaker 3: But if you do that, you can allow the octopus
Speaker 3: to live longer, apparently without too many terrible effects on
Speaker 3: this cognition. The second issue that has always bedeviled water
Speaker 3: born organisms is that chemistry, chemical discoveries, you know, all
Speaker 3: the hits like fire and acid and all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Fire in particular is a very difficult proposition for an
Speaker 3: underwater society to discover. All to say, I think it
Speaker 3: would be cool, But you know, those are the two
Speaker 3: big issues that our octopus friends need to figure out.
Speaker 2: They need to figure out how to work together too, right,
Speaker 2: that was a big deal. That's a big deal, pretty
Speaker 2: solitary and believe and cannibalize each other every once in
Speaker 2: a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But they also they have been found using tools
Speaker 3: and creating little octopus suburbs.
Speaker 2: That's pretty different parts.
Speaker 3: But again to your excellent point about the environment, surviving
Speaker 3: in an environment is not the same as thriving in
Speaker 3: an environment. I'm all for more octopus brain surgery, and
Speaker 3: I think I'm going to go ahead on record. I
Speaker 3: think everybody else should be on board with this too.
Speaker 3: I am making a greater good argument. I am aware
Speaker 3: of how dangerous those arguments become, and I'm kind of kidding,
Speaker 3: because you know there are are ethical boundaries against that
Speaker 3: kind of experimentation.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't think we're gonna have to. I think
Speaker 2: we're talking about timescale stuff here, Ben. I think nuclear
Speaker 2: winter sets in I don't know, twenty thirty ish, something
Speaker 2: like that. Then you know, humanity slowly dwindles out, and
Speaker 2: then those octopuses they got millions and millions and millions
Speaker 2: of years to get where they need to get, build
Speaker 2: those underwater metropolises that then get discovered by some other
Speaker 2: species that has USO technology.
Speaker 3: There we go, There we go. There's so much more
Speaker 3: to get to. We are running at times. So before
Speaker 3: Dylan the Tennessee pal goes full volcanic white gold on us,
Speaker 3: we are going to call it an evening. We can't
Speaker 3: wait to hear from you. Please tune in later this week.
Speaker 3: We're following up in some of these conversations with your
Speaker 3: fellow conspiracy realist on our listener mail program in the meantime.
Speaker 3: If you'd like to be part of the show, if
Speaker 3: you happen to be an octopus listening to podcasts, we
Speaker 3: would love to hear from you. You can find us
Speaker 3: online on Instagram, YouTube, etc. All the social medis. People
Speaker 3: sip we are conspiracy Stuff, conspiracy Stuff show, or some
Speaker 3: derivation thereof. You can also give us a line at
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