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Speaker 1: Welcome back, fellow conspiracy realist. We returned to you once

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Speaker 1: again with a classic episode as we wild through the holidays.

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Speaker 1: Remember the Island of Doctor Moreau. Do you guys ever

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Speaker 1: read that or did you see the awesome adaptation with

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Speaker 1: With My Man?

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Speaker 2: Awesome awful depending on where you stand.

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Speaker 1: Awesome in the sense of awesome in the old sense

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Speaker 1: of the word, just extraordinary and somehow inspiring of all.

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Speaker 2: There is a documentary about that film, the production, how

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Speaker 2: it completely went off the rails and they fired the

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Speaker 2: original director, and how he just kind of lurked around

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Speaker 2: like sort of peeking in.

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Speaker 1: Like an escaped monster on the island.

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Speaker 2: And apparently Marlon Brando just decided to paint himself white

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Speaker 2: with lars onscreen ice bucket and wear the ice bucket

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Speaker 2: on his head and have the little fellow on his

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Speaker 2: shoulder whispering to him. And he was getting all his

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Speaker 2: lines fed to him through an earpiece anyway, which.

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Speaker 1: Was not Uncommon's amazing.

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Speaker 3: What is that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it is about the idea of human animal hybrids, Yes, exactly.

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Speaker 1: And when we were recording this in twenty nineteen, there

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Speaker 1: were already some very i would say ethically challenging but

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Speaker 1: medically fascinating innovations in the world of chimeras and human

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Speaker 1: animal hybrids. Right, you can have pig grown organs that

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Speaker 1: are replacing human organs for people in need. This episode

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Speaker 1: is about how modern technology may finally allow us to

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Speaker 1: create real life chimeras, but the problem is due to

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Speaker 1: humanity's troubling track record with human experimentation and secrecy. We

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Speaker 1: don't really know how far it's gone, and we don't

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Speaker 1: know how far we look. What we can tell you spoiler,

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Speaker 1: is that embryos have been created with the understanding that

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Speaker 1: at a certain time they're going to eradicate those embryos.

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Speaker 1: To just get past the question of what happens in

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Speaker 1: a real life Doctor Moreau situation.

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Speaker 3: I just want to be a cat boy.

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Speaker 1: Guys, I want to be like a catboy, but a

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Speaker 1: large cat. I've always you know, like be cool to

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Speaker 1: be partially tiger.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, like I mean you know this is not to

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Speaker 2: be confused with the furry phenomenon.

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Speaker 1: No, yeah, we're not talking about jiffing necessarily.

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Speaker 3: Well, this one just goes out to a certain sandwich

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Speaker 3: that we know. But I just want to be a Johnny.

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Speaker 1: There we go if I'm partially Tiger, I still want

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Speaker 1: to keep my regular penis. That's just a medical fact

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Speaker 1: about cats, you guys, fair enough.

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Speaker 3: That's throw all the tape.

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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.

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Speaker 3: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt

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Speaker 3: Noel will not be joining us today. Buddy is here

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Speaker 3: in spirit.

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Speaker 1: They call me Ben and your joint as always with

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Speaker 1: our super producer Paul, Mission control decon. Most importantly, you

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Speaker 1: are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff

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Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. Before we do our

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Speaker 1: usual check in, we have a special announcement. Happy birthday, Mike.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, mister Mike Wolfe.

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Speaker 1: We're belated. I believe your birthday was Tuesday.

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Speaker 3: Is yesterday, Uh huh yeah, but hey, Mike is twenty

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Speaker 3: four today. Everybody, it's pretty awesome, Kelly says, Hi, and

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Speaker 3: uh hey, let's get on with the show. But happy

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Speaker 3: birthday Mike.

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Speaker 1: And nice cooler. Good to be back, man, long time.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, it's been an entire week and some

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Speaker 3: since I've seen you, especially since we've been in the

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Speaker 3: studio together, and you know, I cherished these times likewise,

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Speaker 3: and we're coming to the end of the big birthday

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Speaker 3: month here at how Stuff Works Slash. iHeart podcast Network

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Speaker 3: where so many of us were born around this time,

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Speaker 3: And just as a check in, just want to let

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Speaker 3: you know that I got to karaoke for the first

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Speaker 3: time in a long time. Yeah, because it was Annie's birthday,

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Speaker 3: and I did this thing that I thought you would

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Speaker 3: have been proud of, but since you were away on

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Speaker 3: an adventure, you didn't get to witness it. I attempted

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Speaker 3: to do Hip to B Square, you know, by Huey

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Speaker 3: Lewis in the News, and then there's an instrumental section

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Speaker 3: that occurs in that song, and I had prepared essentially

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Speaker 3: it's not fully a monologue, but the dialogue from one

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Speaker 3: of the characters in American Psycho where he's discussing Huey

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Speaker 3: Lewis in the News, and I was going to perform

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Speaker 3: it during the instrumental section.

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Speaker 1: Oh cool.

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Speaker 3: Now, let me just also say this because Mission Control

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Speaker 3: was there too, and Mission Control was rocking out to

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Speaker 3: some Britney spears to some classic new metal, all kinds

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Speaker 3: of really great songs. Everybody was feeling it is a

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Speaker 3: packed room. M hmm. And I got up to start

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Speaker 3: doing mine, and it felt like not a single person

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Speaker 3: in the room even knew what the song was, or

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Speaker 3: at least didn't care. So I turn around at one

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Speaker 3: point just to be like, all right, guys, we do it.

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Speaker 3: Does anybody understand what this song is or where it

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Speaker 3: comes from? Crickets? So it's real embarrassing.

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Speaker 1: Now you're talking about, I believe the moment in the

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Speaker 1: film adaptation of American Psycho where Christian Bale's character begins

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Speaker 1: at an increasingly manic clip. Yeah, sort of describing his

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Speaker 1: criticism of Huey Lewis in the news.

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Speaker 3: Well, and also about how they've evolved, about how this album,

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Speaker 3: in particular with this song on it, it's showing this

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Speaker 3: consummate professionalism and all of these things, and about critiques

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Speaker 3: of the song itself and the meaning behind it.

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Speaker 1: And this is as he's amping himself up to commit

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Speaker 1: a murderess. Correct. Yes, I think that's brilliant. I'm well done.

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Speaker 3: Thanks man, thought you would have liked it. It's okay,

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Speaker 3: but I hey, you weren't there because you were on

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Speaker 3: an adventure and also late. Happy anniversary to you, my friend.

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Speaker 1: No thank you, thank you very much, Matt. And likewise,

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Speaker 1: because you and Annie and Noel and our own casey Pegram,

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Speaker 1: Tyler and Tyler Klang and more, we're missing someone. Chandler

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Speaker 1: is like almost in the club Chandler's debate. Yeah, but

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Speaker 1: we do have quite a few August birthdays. Circumstances found me.

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Speaker 1: You know, I hate to miss any recording of this show,

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Speaker 1: but circumstances found me in Japan, a place where that

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Speaker 1: Mission Control is very familiar with. So what do you

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Speaker 1: think about meandering intros? Sorry about that, let us know

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Speaker 1: you can read just directly. We are one eight three.

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Speaker 3: Three std WYTK leave us a message, tell us about

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Speaker 3: specifically that intro and ask us about Ben's crow story

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Speaker 3: when he was in a different place. Oh wow, because

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Speaker 3: hopefully he'll tell that one too. It's a great story.

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Speaker 1: That's very kind, Matt. Yeah, I'm coming in hot. My

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Speaker 1: body doesn't know what time it is. I have a

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Speaker 1: vague awareness that it is probably a Monday here.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, your body is just a cage, my friend, for

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Speaker 3: the words you're about to say, that's true.

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Speaker 1: Kimara's right, not not camaros kimaras c h I M

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Speaker 1: E r A. This this is an interesting, fascinating, and

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Speaker 1: as we will learn today, disturbing concept. Really the best

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Speaker 1: way to approach this is to ask ourselves, what's the

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Speaker 1: line between humans and other animals? Right? Because technically, if

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Speaker 1: we cast, if we put all the metaphysical stuff and

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Speaker 1: the spirituality and the religious stuff aside, biologically speaking, human

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Speaker 1: beings are defined as animals, So what makes us different?

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Speaker 1: For a long long time we thought humans have sults,

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Speaker 1: and that's still what people will say. But again that's

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Speaker 1: more of a spiritual religious reasoning.

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Speaker 3: Not really provable yet.

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Speaker 1: Not really provable yet true. When we looked at something

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Speaker 1: more secular, for centuries and centuries, we said, while the

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Speaker 1: big difference between humans and all other animals would be intelligence.

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Speaker 1: The problem is even now, our species has a real

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Speaker 1: difficult time defining intelligence. And the more we examine this

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Speaker 1: line between humans and other animals, the more we see

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Speaker 1: that this line fuzzes. Right. The demarcation is not as

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Speaker 1: stark as we would wish.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, because there are plenty of non human animals

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Speaker 3: that display all sorts of intelligence. Crows, Yeah, absolutely, crow

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Speaker 3: cetaceans to be some of the most prominent ones.

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Speaker 1: Elephants.

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Speaker 3: Elephants, what are octopus in cephalopods?

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Speaker 1: Cephalopods yeaheah.

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Speaker 3: All kinds of different animals show some form of at

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Speaker 3: least and an awareness beyond what we would usually contribute

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Speaker 3: to an animal.

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Speaker 1: Right, right sapiens sentience wisdom. For years, you remember this matter.

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Speaker 1: For years, various organizations around the world have said, you

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Speaker 1: know what, some of these animals, the ones we just named,

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Speaker 1: are in fact so intelligent that they meet the legal

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Speaker 1: threshold of personhood, meaning that their cognitive abilities are high

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Speaker 1: enough that they should be guaranteed some of the same

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Speaker 1: rights that we our species in theory gives to every

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Speaker 1: other human being. And today's episode approaches that that same

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Speaker 1: weird border. What is the line between human and animal?

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Speaker 3: And what happens when those lines even get even further blurred?

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Speaker 1: Mm hmm, And where does it take us? Here are

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Speaker 1: the facts. You've probably heard the word kamara before. The

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Speaker 1: definition of kimara is pretty cool in folklore. It's a

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Speaker 1: very strange flex in mythology, specifically Greek mythology. The kimara

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Speaker 1: is this fire breathing monster. It's female, and it's this

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Speaker 1: strange anatomical mixtape. It's mostly a lion, right at least

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Speaker 1: in the front. It is a goat in the middle,

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Speaker 1: and it has a goat head coming out of the

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Speaker 1: back to the mid spine, and then it's a dragon

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Speaker 1: in the rear.

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Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, right, I know. Most of my camera is

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Speaker 3: from Magic the Gathering, huh. I mean as well as

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Speaker 3: Greek mythology. MTG has some pretty great ones.

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Speaker 1: And they have some divergent takes, right.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, definitely. I mean if you take the Spellheart camera,

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Speaker 3: that was a big one for me back in the day.

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Speaker 3: I'm just kidding. We're not going to talk about this.

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Speaker 1: I want to hear what please.

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Speaker 3: There are a lot of them, at least the card

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Speaker 3: art and the way they're described in the flavor text

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Speaker 3: is very similar to the traditional Greek mythology versions.

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Speaker 1: So like three or more usually distinct animals melded into

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Speaker 1: a single creature.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes it gets down into you know, two fully separate heads.

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Speaker 3: Sometimes it's just one head with a body that's a

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Speaker 3: little different, but it's always a melding of creatures.

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Speaker 1: Right right, And interestingly enough, in Greek mythology, the Chimera

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Speaker 1: is the child of Typhon and Echidna, and it is

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Speaker 1: also a sibling of other multi headed creatures such as Cerebus,

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Speaker 1: the three headed canine that guards the underworld, and the hydra.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's I didn't realize that. It makes it.

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Speaker 3: It doesn't make perfect sense, but it makes better sense

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Speaker 3: to have that be the mythological order of what is it, child, monsters,

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Speaker 3: baby birth, the monster birth. For those to actually have.

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Speaker 1: This and this, it's strange because again we see the

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Speaker 1: intersection between folklore, mythology and modern facts. You know, a

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Speaker 1: lot of our nomenclature and terminology comes from these ancient stories,

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Speaker 1: and that's why the word chimera still exist here in

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Speaker 1: these our modern days. We have a scientific definition of chimera.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So if you look to science, it's gonna

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Speaker 3: say a chimera is a single organism, one distinct thing

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Speaker 3: that's composed of two or more distinct different populations. And

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Speaker 3: this is important of cells that originated from different zygotes

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Speaker 3: involved in sexual reproduction. So this is this is highly

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Speaker 3: important for today's episode, two very specific sets of cells

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Speaker 3: from from two different zygotes.

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Speaker 1: Right, yeah, this is huge. This is crucial. So far

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Speaker 1: from the lion goat dragon street hit of ancient mythology,

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Speaker 1: actual chimeras are more subtle, at least the ones that

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Speaker 1: you may have met sometime in your life. Not only

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Speaker 1: have you may have met them, but you may have

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Speaker 1: never noticed anything different about them. Chimera can occur naturally

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Speaker 1: in humans. So let's say that you or your loved

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Speaker 1: one are carrying a child, and there are two kids

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Speaker 1: in the womb fetuses right, not quite you know, kids,

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Speaker 1: but fetuses that will become human beings. And one of

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Speaker 1: the fetuses dies or is absorbed by its twin, leaving

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Speaker 1: the surviving fetus with two distinct sets of cells. Wo. So,

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Speaker 1: like identical twins, maybe doesn't matter as much, But fraternal

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Speaker 1: twins this does matter. Genetically, they are different.

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Speaker 3: And it's hard to really comprehend what that means unless

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Speaker 3: you apply it to a story or an example exactly exactly.

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Speaker 1: So, usually not only would you not know the person

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Speaker 1: you met is a kamara, they probably don't know either,

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Speaker 1: And typically people find out about this by accident. In

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Speaker 1: two thousand and two, I was a woman named Karen Keegan.

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Speaker 1: Karen Keegan needed a kidney transplant, and so she underwent

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Speaker 1: genetic testing to see whether one of her family members

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Speaker 1: could be a potential donor. This is clear standard operating procedure.

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Speaker 1: You check with the family first, right in this situation,

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Speaker 1: they did conduct the test, and what they found they

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Speaker 1: found something that completely caught them off guard, something they

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Speaker 1: were not looking for.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes you'll hear no, you're not the father, but

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Speaker 3: you know what you never here.

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Speaker 1: No you are not the mother. See, the genetic testing

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Speaker 1: that Karen and her family underwent indicated that technically speaking,

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Speaker 1: she could not be the mother of her children that

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Speaker 1: she birthed, that she birthed, yes, her biological children. This

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Speaker 1: threw everyone for a loop. It was like the end

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Speaker 1: of usual suspects. What's going on here? The doctors eventually

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Speaker 1: learned that Karen, in fact was a human chimera. This

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Speaker 1: is just one example, and they probably would never have

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Speaker 1: caught this unless that kidney transplant need came up. Bone

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Speaker 1: marrow transplants can also create chimera. Bone marrow transplants, by

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Speaker 1: the way, really interesting. There are a couple of unidentified

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Speaker 1: people who were more or less cured of HIV by

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Speaker 1: bone marrow transplants. In this case, you don't need to

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Speaker 1: have something freakish happen. Bone marrow contains the cells that

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Speaker 1: later develop into red blood cells, the old stem cells,

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Speaker 1: the old stem cells, the old stem cell. So what

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Speaker 1: happens when someone has a bone marrow transplant is that

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Speaker 1: their own bone marrow is destroyed somehow and it's replaced

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Speaker 1: with marrow from this donor, and this marrow, this stranger's

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Speaker 1: marrow creates these new blood cells. They continually are created.

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Speaker 1: And that means that if you receive a successful bone

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Speaker 1: marrow transplant, for the rest of your natural life, you

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Speaker 1: will carry genetically distinct cells within your body that reproduce.

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Speaker 1: You will become a chimera.

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Speaker 3: Wow, I've never thought of it that way. I didn't,

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Speaker 3: I had no idea.

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Speaker 1: I haven't thought about it that way because I guess

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Speaker 1: you and I have been fortunate enough in our lives

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Speaker 1: to not have to delve into own marrow transplant.

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Speaker 3: True, so, very true, very true. We've been very fortunate.

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Speaker 3: But you know, when you're thinking about in this way,

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Speaker 3: it's in that particular example, it's a very good thing.

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Speaker 3: Like being a chimera is great. You've got the blood

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Speaker 3: of someone else's essentially in your body because they helped

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Speaker 3: you survive or they have to helped you continue on. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 3: a camera in this way, in a scientific way, just

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Speaker 3: isn't scary at least, it's not nearly as creepy as

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Speaker 3: the Greek mythology monsters that existed because of this word

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Speaker 3: or this word was used to describe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's much, it's it's much. It's a much more inspirational.

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Speaker 3: Yes, really it really is.

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Speaker 1: Look at us humans, go medicine, go science. They Yeah,

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Speaker 1: these chimera don't seem you're as frightening. You wouldn't notice it.

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Speaker 1: And here's another thing. While we're talking about pregnancy for

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Speaker 1: a time, there's a study from I want to say,

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Speaker 1: twenty fifteen ors so that indicates women during pregnancy may

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Speaker 1: function as kamara for a limited amount of time.

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Speaker 3: Because the fetus is creating, it's it's developing its own

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Speaker 3: cells and blood and everything is being shared in that

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Speaker 3: one symbiotic system. Oh wow, but oh you know what

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Speaker 3: that makes do? That makes total sense? Uh, My wife

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Speaker 3: and I had had all these discussions. She was learning

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Speaker 3: a lot during our pregnancy, but how the hormones in

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Speaker 3: her body as well as having this you know, this

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Speaker 3: being existing inside of her that she's sharing fluids with

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Speaker 3: with all these stem cells and young blood and all

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Speaker 3: this her. She was so ridiculously healthy during her pregnancy,

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Speaker 3: so much more so than before or after. Not to

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Speaker 3: say she's unhealthy, it's just there was like it was

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Speaker 3: like she was had superpowers or something.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of evolutions. Get out of j free pass,

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Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, we've we've seen we've seen different indicators

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Speaker 1: of that. Wow, we could do it an entire series

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Speaker 1: of episodes on the stuff that we as a species

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Speaker 1: don't yet fully understand about pregnancy. Oh yeah, but what

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Speaker 1: if the idea of being a camara? What if cameraicism

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Speaker 1: doesn't stop their cameraicism is a word that I just

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Speaker 1: made up.

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Speaker 3: I accept it, thank you.

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Speaker 1: What if breakthroughs in medical technology can enable us to

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Speaker 1: create real life creatures closer and closer and closer to

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Speaker 1: the monsters described in Greek mythology. What if we could

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Speaker 1: create a melding of various animals or even some sort

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Speaker 1: of human animal hybrid. Could this be possible and if so,

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Speaker 1: what would we do? We'll explore this after a word

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Speaker 1: from our sponsors. Here's where it gets crazy. The answer

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Speaker 1: to the first part of the question is emphatically. Yes.

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Speaker 1: Not only can we as a species do this, we

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Speaker 1: are already doing this. This is already happening. Pandora's jar

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Speaker 1: is twisted open and there is no twisting it back.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, we're heading towards the land of the centaurs. Everybody.

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Speaker 3: Just if we take it back to mythology, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 3: because I mean, really think about it. Humans in our storytelling,

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Speaker 3: in our legends, we've been pretty obsessed with humans and

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Speaker 3: animals becoming one thing. If you think about think about werewolves,

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Speaker 3: think about the skin Walker's like the version of skin Walker,

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Speaker 3: though it's a little different thing.

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Speaker 1: Or Selki oh yeah, you know. Or Mermaids Mermaids perfect

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Speaker 1: where Jaguar. There's so many stories of people, through one

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Speaker 1: means or another. Weirdly enough, it wasn't evil for a

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Speaker 1: long time. It just became evil later, but through one

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Speaker 1: means or another, people acquiring the attributes of different animals,

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Speaker 1: if not the ability to completely become those animals.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, for either advantageous means or perhaps because they were

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Speaker 3: cursed in some.

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Speaker 1: Way, right, some sort of divine interventions. Usually how it starts.

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Speaker 1: This obsession carried on for thousands and thousands of years.

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Speaker 1: In fact, and an earlier episode, I don't know how

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Speaker 1: long ago now, Matt, you and I explored the strange

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Speaker 1: true story of the so called human z Do you

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Speaker 1: remember that, I do.

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Speaker 3: Was this a Soviet experiment back in the day, Yes,

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Speaker 3: but it was. I can't remember if we decided it

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Speaker 3: was proven or not. I know for sure that there

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Speaker 3: were a ton of rumors. I think the big question

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Speaker 3: back in the day was was this propaganda of some

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Speaker 3: sort from either side? But there appeared, at least on

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Speaker 3: the surface, to be experiments in the Soviet Union to

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Speaker 3: create a human chimpanzee hybrid.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was Iliya Ivanovich Ivanov in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. The idea was that one could combine the intelligence,

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Speaker 1: or at least the potential for intelligence, of the human

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Speaker 1: being with the physical prowess of a primate. And they said, well,

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Speaker 1: out of all the great apes, the chimp is the

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Speaker 1: closest that we can find to the human. So let's

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Speaker 1: get them together. Play some R and B, you know, lights,

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Speaker 1: some candles, put on some shot. A see what happens.

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Speaker 3: No no, no.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no. Solely because A was not around in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen twenty.

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Speaker 3: Oh, Shade was the only part of that.

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Speaker 1: Okay, all right, yeah, they they just didn't have the

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Speaker 1: music right and you got it.

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Speaker 3: I have the least a huge role put on that

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Speaker 3: New Swift album. You know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: So, so, as far as we know, officially, these experiments

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Speaker 1: during this time did not reach success. There was not

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Speaker 1: a viable offspring, and there will be. You know, there

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Speaker 1: are other reports of there was the one ape that

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Speaker 1: had lost some of its hair and its head that

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Speaker 1: exhibited human characteristics according to its observers m. But none

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Speaker 1: of those, none of none of those experiments, none of

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Speaker 1: those creatures so far as we know, created a viable

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Speaker 1: A viable example. Oh that's right. It was a chimp

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Speaker 1: called Oliver. A chimpanzee, Oliver Bells, Yeah, brought to brought

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Speaker 1: to the US who people said he had a human

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Speaker 1: like appearance, ability to walk upright, and would rather hang

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Speaker 1: out with humans versus chimps. But genetic testing confirmed you

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Speaker 1: was a chimpanzee. And look, chimpanzees are incredibly intelligent, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: very very smart. Don't mess with them, don't try it

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Speaker 1: out smart them, don't definitely don't piss them off. In

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Speaker 1: Oliver's case, this chimpanzee was probably just very highly acclimated

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Speaker 1: to humans right had been raised with them, and this,

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Speaker 1: you know, this is its own unethical, sad thing. But

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Speaker 1: long story short, unless there is a huge secret in

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Speaker 1: terms of Soviet hybridization experiments, we as a species haven't

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Speaker 1: seen a successful version of this. However, that doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: we stopped trying. You see, as it turns out, fellow

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Speaker 1: conspiracy realists across the planet have not only continued these experiments,

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Speaker 1: they have made striking, breath taking forays into this world

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Speaker 1: of human animal hybridization. We found several strange and again

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Speaker 1: we cannot emphasize this enough. Real genuine, actual examples of

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Speaker 1: chimera being created today.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, So let's just jump through some of these.

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Speaker 3: The first one, it's an attempt to make an increasingly

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Speaker 3: intelligent ape or monkey in this case of some sort.

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Speaker 3: So there are some researchers in both China and the

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Speaker 3: United States that have attempted to create a version of

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Speaker 3: a monkey that also carries a human gene, and this

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Speaker 3: particular gene plays a role in the development of the brain.

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Speaker 3: And if there's a study, as according to study that

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Speaker 3: was published in Beijing's National Science review. This all occurred

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Speaker 3: when researchers from the Kunming Institute of Zoology this is

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Speaker 3: a Chinese academy of sciences, and they were working along

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Speaker 3: with the University of North Carolina and some other institutions.

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Speaker 3: They reported that there were eleven transgenic this is what

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Speaker 3: they're called transgenic reesis monkeys that were created through the

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Speaker 3: studies here. And that's pretty that's pretty intense that we

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Speaker 3: were already creating something like this before working on this episode. Personally,

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Speaker 3: I had no idea that there was already some kind

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Speaker 3: of chimeric testing done to create an intelligent animal.

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Speaker 1: That had been allowed to survive, yees to be born,

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Speaker 1: because a lot of the experimentation that we have read

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Speaker 1: about or we have encountered occurs at the embryo stage,

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Speaker 1: embriotic stage.

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Speaker 3: And it's mostly to see if it would be possible

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Speaker 3: to then take that, you know, creature to term, Like

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Speaker 3: if we were going to we could, this would be

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Speaker 3: a viable specimen, right right.

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Speaker 1: But then for insert ethical conscers iteration A through Z here,

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Speaker 1: we are going to terminate the growth of this this

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Speaker 1: bundle of cells and do it before you know, before

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Speaker 1: organ's form and like a brainstem and a nervous system

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Speaker 1: forms and so on. And that's the attempt to circumvent

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Speaker 1: the ethical quandaries that might occur if it's allowed to

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Speaker 1: reach a later stage of development. Yes, specifically, what they

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Speaker 1: did with these eleven Recis monkeys is they they gave

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Speaker 1: them human copies of a gene called mcph one. Mcph one,

433
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:39,640
Speaker 1: as you said, Matt plays it plays a big role

434
00:27:40,000 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: in brain development. Two startling things happened here. According to

435
00:27:45,080 --> 00:27:48,920
Speaker 1: this study, this small change, this little bit of extra

436
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 1: cognitive gas, did make a discernible difference. The monkeys that

437
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,120
Speaker 1: carried the human copy of this gene exhibited better short

438
00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: term memory. They also had faster reaction time and when

439
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: compared with a control group of wild Recis monkeys who

440
00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: had not had their skullhoods tampered with.

441
00:28:07,440 --> 00:28:11,000
Speaker 3: Right, wow, Well it's interesting to if you delve deep

442
00:28:11,000 --> 00:28:14,280
Speaker 3: into the research and all the documentation and that kind

443
00:28:14,320 --> 00:28:16,919
Speaker 3: of thing, it makes you wonder how much just keeping

444
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:21,800
Speaker 3: them as not wild Recis monkeys, if that had any effect.

445
00:28:22,000 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 1: That's a great point. Yeah, is at the Oliver effect. Right,

446
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 1: we'll just call it that. Here's the startling thing. Though

447
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,160
Speaker 1: you said there were eleven monkeys right, Yes, who had

448
00:28:33,200 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: this gene transferred to them? These eleven monkeys were not

449
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 1: created all in one go. Eight of these monkeys were

450
00:28:42,080 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: first generation, the other three were second generation. Whoa, meaning

451
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:53,840
Speaker 1: that this trait transferred. Yeah, which of course is how

452
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: genes are supposed to work.

453
00:28:55,400 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 3: But still knowing that that's even possible. You really have

454
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 3: to do is create one came era and then you

455
00:29:03,200 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 3: could have you could have endless offspring, depending on which

456
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:10,480
Speaker 3: species are using and how long. All you need is

457
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:11,400
Speaker 3: time and a mate.

458
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:16,560
Speaker 1: You are entering another dimension. Yeah. So there you have it,

459
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 1: real life super monkeys with some strong air quotes around there.

460
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: But the story doesn't stop there. We had this in

461
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:32,280
Speaker 1: our notes as Piggy people question mark. Yeah, I know

462
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: that a lot of us listening today are huge fans

463
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:39,680
Speaker 1: of Animal Farm, right in the work of George Orwell,

464
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:45,960
Speaker 1: and there is a incredibly bleak, incredibly well written part

465
00:29:46,000 --> 00:29:50,160
Speaker 1: of that book where the animals. That's well, quick spoiler

466
00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: Animal Farm. If you are not familiar with the plot

467
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:55,520
Speaker 1: and you don't want it spoiled for you, and you've

468
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 1: been waiting for a chance to read it or watch

469
00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,760
Speaker 1: one of the mini adaptations, please can consider this your

470
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: spoiler warning three to one spoilers. All right, so an

471
00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: animal farm, the human owners of the farm or the

472
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:15,320
Speaker 1: human authority figures of the farm are are kicked out

473
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:19,800
Speaker 1: of power, right, and the animals in the farm attempt

474
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:26,640
Speaker 1: to create a utopian society wherein individuals contribute according to

475
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: their ability and are supported according to their need. Right. Yeah,

476
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:34,120
Speaker 1: sounds great on paper. Anyway, it turns out that the

477
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: pigs on the farm supplant the former role of the humans,

478
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: and they are real pills. They're bad, and they betray

479
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 1: all their ideals.

480
00:30:46,600 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 3: Well, and as it turns out, genetically, it's an interesting

481
00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 3: story too, because humans and pigs are close enough on

482
00:30:52,920 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 3: that mammalian scale where you know, the the what is

483
00:30:59,040 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 3: the term pig yes to describe a human in certain

484
00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:09,240
Speaker 3: ways when consumed, when consumed. Yeah, we really aren't that different.

485
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 1: No, no, no, And pigs themselves, outside of orwell, are

486
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 1: quite intelligent. There's this very bleak moving segment of animal farm.

487
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of us already know what I'm

488
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:24,120
Speaker 1: going to say, where the surviving animals on the farm

489
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:28,520
Speaker 1: are looking from the humans to the pigs and back

490
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: and forth, and they cannot tell the difference so this

491
00:31:31,920 --> 00:31:35,200
Speaker 1: is a comment of course, orwell means it to be

492
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 1: a comment on the cycles of supplanting and replacing power structures.

493
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 3: And you know how the dangers of gaining power really.

494
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's also to what you say, man, it's

495
00:31:50,080 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 1: a very interesting comment on the biological similarities. So some

496
00:31:56,120 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: people maybe not inspired by, orwell maybe very much inspired

497
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 1: by orwell.

498
00:32:01,640 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 3: They probably read it. Almost certainly they read it.

499
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:08,280
Speaker 1: In school, almost certainly they had to. They decided to

500
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 1: see whether it was possible to leverage the biological similarities

501
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:18,080
Speaker 1: between the pig and the human to create chimera for

502
00:32:18,200 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 1: a very specific purpose. Based on multiple interviews, the MIT

503
00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: Technology Review estimated that in twenty fifteen there were about

504
00:32:28,840 --> 00:32:34,320
Speaker 1: twenty pregnancies of pig human or sheep human chimera. And again,

505
00:32:34,480 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 1: they're not These aren't being born out right. As far

506
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:42,479
Speaker 1: as we know, we know that these come with a

507
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 1: very specific goal attached to them. A chimera of pig

508
00:32:47,160 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: and human, a poresine human camera or the same product

509
00:32:51,440 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 1: with cheap and humans are attractive because pigs and sheep

510
00:32:55,680 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: both have organs that are about the right size for

511
00:33:00,360 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: a human ballpark, right size for transplantation into a human being.

512
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:07,280
Speaker 3: And if you can get the human cells in there

513
00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:10,400
Speaker 3: to grow a human liver in particular inside one of

514
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 3: these creatures, then well, there you go. You've got an

515
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 3: organ factory, my friend.

516
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:18,200
Speaker 1: You do you do not a perfect organ factory for

517
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: number of reasons. Yeah, but this is again just the beginning.

518
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 1: Immediate questions, right, skirt, immediate questions. Why have we not

519
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: seen grown up hybrids yet? Well, first, the ratio of

520
00:33:33,200 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: human to animal cells and this sort of creature is very,

521
00:33:37,160 --> 00:33:41,480
Speaker 1: very low. We're not at the point of poresine people yet,

522
00:33:42,880 --> 00:33:47,040
Speaker 1: we're not reaching peak pig people, peak pig people. There

523
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 1: we go. We are instead seeing things that would look

524
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: exactly like a pig or a monkey or a sheep,

525
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:03,240
Speaker 1: but they're internal re show is what changes. So there's

526
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 1: a and.

527
00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 3: It's really just a few genes.

528
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 1: It's just a fu greven alters, just a tweak, just

529
00:34:07,920 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: the tweak. Matt and I are both like holding our

530
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:15,560
Speaker 1: pointer fingers and our thumbs mere centimeters from each other

531
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:17,880
Speaker 1: and then just sort of twisting in the air just

532
00:34:17,920 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 1: a little the genetic screw drivity. Yeah, there we go.

533
00:34:21,760 --> 00:34:27,919
Speaker 1: What could go wrong? Seconds? As I think you said earlier, Matt,

534
00:34:28,160 --> 00:34:31,360
Speaker 1: In most cases, these hybrids have never been allowed to

535
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:35,480
Speaker 1: develop for more than a few weeks. They've been terminated

536
00:34:35,840 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: before actual organs, nervous systems, and so on have been

537
00:34:41,040 --> 00:34:46,320
Speaker 1: given the chance to form. So one expert put it thusly.

538
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: They said, you know, we're essentially just creating groups of

539
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: cells to see whether they can work together, coexist, and

540
00:34:54,480 --> 00:35:00,920
Speaker 1: then we're ending them before anything gets into that murky

541
00:35:00,960 --> 00:35:02,120
Speaker 1: ethical quagmire.

542
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not. It's only in approaching the dark gray area.

543
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 3: If you know, you only get them a couple like

544
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 3: a week or.

545
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:14,879
Speaker 1: Two further, I say, further into the darkness. You may

546
00:35:15,040 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: have had your ears pricked up a bit when you

547
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:22,480
Speaker 1: heard the concept of organ production. What are we talking about?

548
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 1: We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor, and.

549
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,720
Speaker 3: We're back in. One of the big things we're gonna

550
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:40,040
Speaker 3: be really postulating or having thought experiments about a little

551
00:35:40,120 --> 00:35:41,879
Speaker 3: later in the show, just to give you a heads up,

552
00:35:42,040 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 3: is why do these things? Why continue down these pathways?

553
00:35:46,200 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 3: And as before the ad break we talked about the

554
00:35:49,719 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 3: organs are important. Human organs are important. There are not

555
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,239
Speaker 3: enough human organs to be transplanted for the needs of

556
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:58,200
Speaker 3: the humans on the Earth. Right now, and if we

557
00:35:58,200 --> 00:36:02,240
Speaker 3: can make more, let's do it. Let's find a way.

558
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:05,120
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, man, I was just I'm smirking like that

559
00:36:05,239 --> 00:36:09,480
Speaker 1: because halfway through I got this this very vivid image

560
00:36:09,600 --> 00:36:12,319
Speaker 1: of church organs, and some would say they're not enough

561
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:13,280
Speaker 1: church organs.

562
00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 3: Well, absolutely not.

563
00:36:14,840 --> 00:36:18,839
Speaker 1: But to be clear, you're taught you're making an incredibly,

564
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:25,760
Speaker 1: incredibly important point about things like hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys, eyes.

565
00:36:26,040 --> 00:36:28,080
Speaker 3: There are people all over this planet right now that

566
00:36:28,239 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 3: need a transplant, that cannot get one, or they're on

567
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 3: a list, and they have to just wait and hopefully

568
00:36:33,920 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 3: they will live long enough to see that. You know,

569
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,800
Speaker 3: organ transplantation is a miracle of sorts of modern science,

570
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:44,120
Speaker 3: and I don't think we can downplay that, just like

571
00:36:44,160 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 3: we spoke about with the bone marrow transplants that I

572
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 3: who imagine that that could happen a couple hundred years ago,

573
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 3: There's no way. But now we are at a place

574
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 3: where we can do that. We just need the organs.

575
00:36:56,640 --> 00:37:03,200
Speaker 3: So let's jump to two nineteen July. In particular, according

576
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:06,600
Speaker 3: to two places that we looked at, both the academic

577
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 3: journal Nature as well as the Ontario Canada paper National Post, apparently.

578
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:15,799
Speaker 3: In July this year, a professor working with the Institute

579
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:18,839
Speaker 3: of Medical Science with the University of Tokyo and the

580
00:37:18,880 --> 00:37:23,560
Speaker 3: Department of Genetics at Stanford University. This professor received approval

581
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 3: to begin inserting quote human stem cells into rodents in

582
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 3: an attempt to grow a human pancreas in the animal.

583
00:37:32,040 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 1: Finally, okay, great.

584
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 3: We're moving forward to do this. Right though, it is

585
00:37:38,600 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 3: not as easy both in practice to make it happen,

586
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:46,160
Speaker 3: and it's also not as easy to get approval for

587
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 3: something like this.

588
00:37:47,400 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: Right. However, there is precedent because earlier experiments have shown

589
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:58,840
Speaker 1: the ability to grow to grow rat mouse came era. Yes,

590
00:37:59,080 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 1: so we know that, and those some of those have

591
00:38:00,760 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: been allowed to live.

592
00:38:02,520 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So you may think, Okay, well, why is

593
00:38:05,080 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 3: this news. It's July twenty nineteen. This stuff's already been happening.

594
00:38:08,800 --> 00:38:12,440
Speaker 3: We've probably you may have seen something in one of

595
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 3: these magazines like Scientific, American Popular Science, or exactly where

596
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:20,399
Speaker 3: where over the past ten years or so, these things

597
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,560
Speaker 3: have been discussed. Well, here's where we get into all

598
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:27,520
Speaker 3: this stuff. Because approval for this experiment. It's headed by

599
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 3: a man named Hirometsu Nakauchi. Approval for the experiment came

600
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 3: from a group of scientists who were working directly with

601
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:39,760
Speaker 3: the Japanese government. Okay, and in years past, the Japanese

602
00:38:39,800 --> 00:38:43,920
Speaker 3: government had limited the quote creation and experimentation of animal

603
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 3: embryos imbued with human cells to be only fourteen days,

604
00:38:49,520 --> 00:38:52,800
Speaker 3: So they're only allowed to live for fourteen days before

605
00:38:53,120 --> 00:38:57,280
Speaker 3: I guess you have to terminate them. Now, in March

606
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 3: of this year, the Japanese government announced that that fourteen

607
00:39:01,280 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 3: day window for testing is actually going to get expanded,

608
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:07,920
Speaker 3: and they're going to allow for within certain approved studies

609
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 3: for human animal hybrids to be permitted to be brought

610
00:39:11,200 --> 00:39:15,920
Speaker 3: to full term. Now here's where it gets exciting for science,

611
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:20,000
Speaker 3: I guess, right, Because if you can create a hybrid

612
00:39:20,320 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 3: human rat being that can grow a full pancreas, then

613
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 3: that's great, right, that's amazing. But you would have to

614
00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:32,600
Speaker 3: go to full term and then live and continue to

615
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:35,719
Speaker 3: live for that pancreas to develop big enough or long

616
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:40,719
Speaker 3: enough or large enough to be usable. But that's actually

617
00:39:40,880 --> 00:39:45,120
Speaker 3: not the endgame of the study. This is just a

618
00:39:45,160 --> 00:39:46,200
Speaker 3: first step.

619
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:47,880
Speaker 1: Toward what.

620
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 3: Well, first it's going to be mice. He's and we're

621
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,760
Speaker 3: talking about rats. He got approved to do rats, right, right,

622
00:39:54,880 --> 00:39:59,080
Speaker 3: that are quite a bit larger than rats, especially laboratory mice.

623
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 3: So so he's starting with mice just to make sure

624
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 3: that it'll work. Then his group is moving on to rats,

625
00:40:05,760 --> 00:40:09,040
Speaker 3: and then eventually they're moving on up to pigs. And

626
00:40:09,120 --> 00:40:11,760
Speaker 3: pigs is kind of the endgame for this experiment, because

627
00:40:11,880 --> 00:40:14,720
Speaker 3: that is how they're going to be able to successfully

628
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:18,520
Speaker 3: grow you know, a pancreas or whatever other organ at

629
00:40:18,520 --> 00:40:19,920
Speaker 3: the correct size.

630
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:24,040
Speaker 1: Right, Okay, yeah, this makes sense because previously they've been

631
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:27,680
Speaker 1: able to grow the pancreas for a mouse inside of

632
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: a rat, and they used islet cells to cure diabetes

633
00:40:33,000 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: and mice. This then becomes a series of steps, right,

634
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:44,320
Speaker 1: they're progressively building up and hopefully learning mistakes, making errors

635
00:40:44,719 --> 00:40:49,800
Speaker 1: at the less damaging stages of the process.

636
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:53,359
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, exactly. But eventually the man pig is what

637
00:40:53,480 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 3: they're going for. Pig person, the big person. I'm sorry,

638
00:40:57,480 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, sorry, gosh.

639
00:40:59,480 --> 00:41:01,440
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. Man pig has a ring to it.

640
00:41:02,120 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: Surely that's is that a superhero yet? No?

641
00:41:04,680 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 3: You just throw a bear in there and then you've

642
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:06,839
Speaker 3: really got something.

643
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking. Of that's what I'm thinking of

644
00:41:09,719 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 1: man bear pig from South South Park.

645
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:14,400
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm so surreal man pig.

646
00:41:16,040 --> 00:41:18,719
Speaker 1: Ah, Sorry, I get all these weird images of like,

647
00:41:19,080 --> 00:41:21,080
Speaker 1: what's the difference between man pig and a pig?

648
00:41:21,120 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 3: Man?

649
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: Is it? Like man bat and batman? Is one of

650
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:30,799
Speaker 1: them a very wealthy dude in a strange costume and

651
00:41:30,880 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 1: the other one.

652
00:41:31,360 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 3: Was just yelling to kill me girl?

653
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:34,920
Speaker 1: Men?

654
00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 3: God? Yeah, I feel highly insensitive to a lot of

655
00:41:41,520 --> 00:41:44,320
Speaker 3: this stuff. I apologize to you, Ben, apologized to everyone,

656
00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 3: especially you. Paul.

657
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:50,919
Speaker 1: Uh. Yeah. I think Paul back in twenty seventeen said

658
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: he would never forgive us, and I think he's holding

659
00:41:53,960 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 1: to that. Paul, Are you holding to.

660
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:57,520
Speaker 3: That, never forgive, always forget?

661
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, he nodded solemnly. We're still in the dog of

662
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: that guy, still in the big man, big dog house.

663
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:07,600
Speaker 1: This is getting complicated, But the science here is important

664
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 1: because one of the huge factors holding this sort of

665
00:42:14,440 --> 00:42:18,480
Speaker 1: experimentation back is not a matter of technical expertise, nor

666
00:42:18,600 --> 00:42:23,800
Speaker 1: is it a matter of possessing the correct technology. Instead,

667
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:27,160
Speaker 1: it is a matter of ethics exactly.

668
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,480
Speaker 3: And one of the biggest issues here is, let's say

669
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 3: you're manipulating the genes in eventually a pig within this

670
00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:36,839
Speaker 3: study we've been referencing, sure, or a sheep or whatever. Yeah, yeah,

671
00:42:36,880 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 3: but in another animal, and you're generally manipulating genes that

672
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:45,600
Speaker 3: are going to allow to create organs that are human, right,

673
00:42:47,239 --> 00:42:51,120
Speaker 3: how do you prevent it from affecting the genes that

674
00:42:51,160 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 3: are gonna affect brain development or intelligence? Because these animals,

675
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 3: whether you want to believe it or like it or not,

676
00:42:59,239 --> 00:43:03,720
Speaker 3: they are experiments. They are subjects of an experiment, and

677
00:43:03,800 --> 00:43:07,280
Speaker 3: they will be terminated most likely at some point. Even

678
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:11,120
Speaker 3: if even if it's completely successful and they do grow

679
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 3: a pancreous, that animal will be terminated most likely in

680
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 3: order to get that pancreas right exactly. And if it's intelligent,

681
00:43:20,800 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 3: if it can understand what's occurring because it's been imbued

682
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:27,480
Speaker 3: with human genes that have allowed for different brain growth,

683
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:33,759
Speaker 3: that's where that's where things get really just complicated.

684
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 1: Right, father, What is my purpose? Yeah? Why? Why you

685
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: big child? Your my replacement liver? Because I'll be damned

686
00:43:44,200 --> 00:43:45,360
Speaker 1: if I stop drinking.

687
00:43:45,880 --> 00:43:48,319
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, then you get into the ethical issues of

688
00:43:49,719 --> 00:43:54,319
Speaker 3: does this creature deserve rights of some sort or are

689
00:43:54,320 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 3: we dealing with human experimentation. That point, how what percentage

690
00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,600
Speaker 3: of human experimentation is occurring.

691
00:43:59,280 --> 00:44:03,359
Speaker 1: Right now, right, right, right? Whereas the tipping point genetically

692
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:07,360
Speaker 1: does it need to be defined? Is an animal still

693
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: for legal purposes an animal not deserving of rights if

694
00:44:11,800 --> 00:44:15,000
Speaker 1: it is only forty eight percent human? Right, And then

695
00:44:15,040 --> 00:44:17,640
Speaker 1: it hits fifty one, and it's like, oh, now you

696
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:21,920
Speaker 1: can vote for your conscience. Yeah, I mean this is

697
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:28,000
Speaker 1: clearly that's a made up experiment there, but it is

698
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: intensely problematic and it does lead into stuff they don't

699
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:36,880
Speaker 1: want you to know. They being private institutions funding this research,

700
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: they being state actors that are playing fast and loose

701
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: with international conventions on how to conduct experiments. Right. There's

702
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:49,839
Speaker 1: a very interesting point that you raised off airmat that

703
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:55,080
Speaker 1: we should explore before we continue here, and that is,

704
00:44:56,600 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 1: let's say these things do happen, more creatures drawn into

705
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 1: these experiments, what will they be used for? First? Obviously organs?

706
00:45:08,880 --> 00:45:11,640
Speaker 3: Right, Oh, yeah, that's what we keep talking about. It's

707
00:45:11,680 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 3: just it's the thing we've been attempting to do as

708
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 3: humans for quite a while now.

709
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a huge business that is on both sides

710
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:25,799
Speaker 1: of the law. Imagine how many people if we want

711
00:45:25,840 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: to assume the utopian vision of the future, if we

712
00:45:30,520 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 1: want to be super optimistic about this, just imagine how

713
00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:39,040
Speaker 1: many millions of people could have their lives saved if

714
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:44,520
Speaker 1: medical researchers are able to grow bespoke or custom replacement organs.

715
00:45:44,719 --> 00:45:48,440
Speaker 1: Why would you languish for years on a recipient waiting

716
00:45:48,520 --> 00:45:53,479
Speaker 1: list when a creature with the perfect liver for you

717
00:45:53,880 --> 00:45:57,400
Speaker 1: could be grown and mature and then harvested and have

718
00:45:57,480 --> 00:46:00,320
Speaker 1: that liver transplant within a matter of months.

719
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:07,800
Speaker 3: It seems pretty compelling, but you you get into the

720
00:46:09,280 --> 00:46:12,280
Speaker 3: questions that arise when you're talking about cloning, right.

721
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:17,839
Speaker 1: Right, because technically speaking, in theory, it is possible for

722
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,319
Speaker 1: you and for Paul and I and all of us

723
00:46:20,360 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 1: listening to have a clone of ourselves grown. Right, Do

724
00:46:24,760 --> 00:46:30,719
Speaker 1: some do some sort very doctor Frankenstein asks stuff to

725
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 1: prevent a brain from forming or coming into the equation

726
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:38,600
Speaker 1: and then just have your spare seto organs? Right? YEA

727
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:45,239
Speaker 1: expensive to maintain, but at what price? At what price immortality?

728
00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:48,800
Speaker 3: You know? Yeah? And what you know? Does that clone

729
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:50,320
Speaker 3: deserve any kind of rights?

730
00:46:51,719 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: So the aim here would ultimately be the ability to

731
00:46:55,280 --> 00:47:00,279
Speaker 1: grow replacement organs for almost every single original organ in

732
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: a human body, minus, of course one would assume the brain. Maybe,

733
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: I don't, you know, I don't know. I was thinking

734
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: about this too, like if if it were possible, or

735
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 1: if it would ever be possible for certain parts of

736
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 1: the brain to be replaced, which gets us into that

737
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:24,040
Speaker 1: ship of thesis, experiment and problem very quickly. I mean,

738
00:47:24,520 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 1: you know, obviously, and our pal Damian Williams love this. Obviously,

739
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:34,920
Speaker 1: we're already reaching a point where we have to redefine

740
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: what is considered consciousness in general. But I wondered when

741
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:43,799
Speaker 1: we were looking at this math, I wondered if there

742
00:47:44,920 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 1: would ever be someone who just to be edgy, you know,

743
00:47:49,320 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 1: fifty years in the future or something, says, my body's fine,

744
00:47:52,880 --> 00:47:56,160
Speaker 1: but I want a brain transplant. Just grow a new

745
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:58,799
Speaker 1: brain and put it in this thing, and then, you know,

746
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:02,319
Speaker 1: just make sure that's me. That's insane. I don't think

747
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 1: it would. I don't. I don't see it working unless

748
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: we had some way to sounds insane, just to see it,

749
00:48:10,440 --> 00:48:17,480
Speaker 1: unless we had some way to replicate the synaptic actions

750
00:48:17,520 --> 00:48:22,640
Speaker 1: in the neurochemical processes that function as the fingerprint of consciousness.

751
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:27,400
Speaker 3: If I mean, if that is truly what then.

752
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, you're right, you're absolutely right.

753
00:48:31,160 --> 00:48:32,839
Speaker 3: But I do think at some point we'll be able

754
00:48:32,880 --> 00:48:36,400
Speaker 3: to have some kind of technology that maps a brain

755
00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:42,040
Speaker 3: so fully at such a such a minute level that

756
00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:45,319
Speaker 3: we can at least print physically what what that thing

757
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:50,360
Speaker 3: looks like. But whether or not it contains memories and

758
00:48:50,960 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 3: experience and knowledge I will find out.

759
00:48:54,040 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's one thing that's fascinating, right because now

760
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:00,440
Speaker 1: we we at the top of the show said we

761
00:49:00,480 --> 00:49:03,680
Speaker 1: would bracket the conversation about the soul, but it inevitably

762
00:49:04,280 --> 00:49:09,160
Speaker 1: creeps in, doesn't it, Because now we're saying that if

763
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 1: consciousness or if sentience for each individual is something more

764
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,720
Speaker 1: than what can be mapped in that one specific organ

765
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:21,600
Speaker 1: in the human body, then just futzing around with that

766
00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 1: one organ it's it's a lot like yeah, I mean,

767
00:49:25,800 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: you're just fixing part of the system. It's it's kind

768
00:49:29,719 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: of like saying, Okay, let's say let's say the brain

769
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:39,040
Speaker 1: is just hardware, right, hardware that processes electricity like a computer,

770
00:49:39,719 --> 00:49:44,160
Speaker 1: and so you can you can take apart the hardware.

771
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:47,720
Speaker 1: You can replace the motherboard or the graphics process or something.

772
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:52,239
Speaker 1: But if you don't have anything to plug it in too.

773
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:55,800
Speaker 1: That change does not matter. It is nil. The difference

774
00:49:55,880 --> 00:49:57,680
Speaker 1: is nil. The problem is moot.

775
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,040
Speaker 3: So maybe you got to get no less in there, man.

776
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:05,480
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I know us sure, Perhaps that is perhaps

777
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: that is something approaching, you know, the seed of God,

778
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:11,600
Speaker 1: or you know the electricity that comes when you plug

779
00:50:11,640 --> 00:50:14,560
Speaker 1: it into an outlet or the matrix or the matrix

780
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:17,799
Speaker 1: or the matrix. Yes, maybe that is what volume four

781
00:50:17,880 --> 00:50:18,880
Speaker 1: is about, right.

782
00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:24,800
Speaker 3: That's what it is, matrix, Volume four, the hard intelligence problem.

783
00:50:25,800 --> 00:50:31,439
Speaker 1: Perhaps perhaps for perhaps there's there's another experiment too. While

784
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:35,480
Speaker 1: we're talking about the brain. This is another use, a

785
00:50:35,560 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 1: possible use for hybrids. There are many, many experiments, especially

786
00:50:42,040 --> 00:50:48,759
Speaker 1: experiments evolving cognition, that we cannot legally and officially conduct

787
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:55,480
Speaker 1: because we would have to be humans experimenting on other humans.

788
00:50:56,480 --> 00:51:02,640
Speaker 1: So Alzheimer's research, right, is a huge field, and there's

789
00:51:02,680 --> 00:51:06,279
Speaker 1: a lot of potential for improvement. And Alzheimer's is, as

790
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 1: anyone can attest, a debilitating, tragic condition. When we make

791
00:51:11,320 --> 00:51:17,200
Speaker 1: models of the decay involved in Alzheimer's we could potentially

792
00:51:17,400 --> 00:51:22,840
Speaker 1: make much more robust, much more helpful models if we

793
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:26,280
Speaker 1: used the brains of human monkey hybrids.

794
00:51:26,600 --> 00:51:30,880
Speaker 3: Ah, but we would have to allow them to decay

795
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 3: so many times, Yeah, with so many you know, subjects

796
00:51:36,960 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 3: to get that robust model, that's what you mean?

797
00:51:39,000 --> 00:51:42,439
Speaker 1: Right? We could create other brain disease models where it's

798
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:46,759
Speaker 1: possible to allow a condition to progress beyond what would

799
00:51:46,840 --> 00:51:50,799
Speaker 1: be ethical or legal to do with a full human being.

800
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 1: And even there isn't that sticky? Isn't that already? Doesn't

801
00:51:54,520 --> 00:51:57,080
Speaker 1: that already make you feel kind of gross? The fact

802
00:51:57,120 --> 00:52:00,400
Speaker 1: that we had to say full human? Yeah, because what

803
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:04,760
Speaker 1: everything we have learned about our species throughout the span

804
00:52:04,880 --> 00:52:08,959
Speaker 1: of recorded history, everything we have learned indicates that we're

805
00:52:09,080 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 1: really starting to screw up when we start referring to

806
00:52:13,440 --> 00:52:17,359
Speaker 1: any part of a population as full human versus something else,

807
00:52:17,560 --> 00:52:20,239
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So maybe we as a

808
00:52:20,280 --> 00:52:24,840
Speaker 1: species simply don't have the philosophical or ethical chops to

809
00:52:25,200 --> 00:52:29,320
Speaker 1: address this, and that goes to our concerns, right. James McDonald,

810
00:52:29,400 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 1: writing for Jstore Daily, phrases this in a succinct fashion.

811
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:38,640
Speaker 1: He says, in many ways, the ethical concerns are thornier

812
00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:43,160
Speaker 1: than the technical aspects. Direct transfer of tissue between animals

813
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:47,279
Speaker 1: and humans raises concerns about animal diseases crossing over to

814
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:50,120
Speaker 1: humans potentially threatening a large population.

815
00:52:50,320 --> 00:52:51,200
Speaker 3: Okay, I can see that.

816
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: I can see that absolutely. Another concern, he says, is

817
00:52:54,680 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 1: that animals developing with human cells might somehow develop human

818
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:03,240
Speaker 1: physical or mental characteristics. The idea of, say, a pig

819
00:53:03,320 --> 00:53:06,320
Speaker 1: with a human mind being used as an organ donor

820
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:07,440
Speaker 1: is horrifying.

821
00:53:08,360 --> 00:53:08,760
Speaker 3: Agreed.

822
00:53:09,320 --> 00:53:12,200
Speaker 1: Agreed. Luckily, so far as we know this, human mind

823
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:16,360
Speaker 1: development probably would not happen by accident. Emphasis on probably,

824
00:53:16,520 --> 00:53:20,040
Speaker 1: which bothers me. I don't know about you, but most certainly. Yeah.

825
00:53:20,080 --> 00:53:24,239
Speaker 1: But McDonald says, even if human tissue somehow migrated to

826
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:28,759
Speaker 1: an animal's developing brain, it would still probably develop his

827
00:53:28,840 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 1: animal brain tissue. But is probably enough.

828
00:53:32,520 --> 00:53:35,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I know.

829
00:53:36,920 --> 00:53:38,920
Speaker 1: You don't think so. But your kidneys are fine.

830
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:43,040
Speaker 3: I know exactly. I don't. I don't have a pressing. Well,

831
00:53:43,520 --> 00:53:44,280
Speaker 3: that's not true.

832
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:44,600
Speaker 1: I have.

833
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:47,600
Speaker 3: There are members in my family that right now need

834
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:48,839
Speaker 3: a heart I have.

835
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:49,319
Speaker 1: I have.

836
00:53:50,600 --> 00:53:53,520
Speaker 3: I'm thinking of a person in particular that needs a

837
00:53:53,560 --> 00:53:56,680
Speaker 3: heart transplant or his you know, his life will be

838
00:53:56,719 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 3: cut short almost certainly so having this. If we had

839
00:54:01,080 --> 00:54:05,279
Speaker 3: access to this, I would have to I would have

840
00:54:05,360 --> 00:54:06,560
Speaker 3: to advocate for it.

841
00:54:06,560 --> 00:54:10,840
Speaker 1: It's sort of like at various times in the course

842
00:54:10,880 --> 00:54:14,600
Speaker 1: of stem cell research, politicians who are very much against

843
00:54:14,640 --> 00:54:19,959
Speaker 1: it for usually for reelection or election purposes, for anything. Yeah,

844
00:54:20,320 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 1: they pulled one to eighty when they realized they could

845
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:24,920
Speaker 1: help a loved one.

846
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, or just they have that one degree of

847
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:31,839
Speaker 3: separation with somebody who it is fully impacting. Right, We've

848
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:36,600
Speaker 3: seen that over and over and over again with any issue.

849
00:54:36,800 --> 00:54:41,560
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And so now we end in media arrests. We

850
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 1: end in the middle of the story, and we have

851
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:47,600
Speaker 1: to ask ourselves and ask you as well, what next. Again,

852
00:54:47,800 --> 00:54:54,440
Speaker 1: here is the situation as it stands. Barring some global catastrophe,

853
00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: experimentation in this field will continue because the possible potential

854
00:54:59,560 --> 00:55:04,640
Speaker 1: benefit are just too impressive. They're too too much of

855
00:55:04,960 --> 00:55:07,680
Speaker 1: a beneficial paradigm shift.

856
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:10,319
Speaker 3: And you know, we haven't even gotten into some of

857
00:55:10,360 --> 00:55:13,719
Speaker 3: the other really out there ideas about what this could

858
00:55:13,719 --> 00:55:14,440
Speaker 3: be or mean.

859
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:17,680
Speaker 1: Barely touched it. Super soldiers possibly.

860
00:55:17,320 --> 00:55:21,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, super soldiers or superspies, because imagine if you could

861
00:55:21,520 --> 00:55:24,479
Speaker 3: have a cat human hybrid that looks just like a cat,

862
00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:27,200
Speaker 3: but has the intelligence of a human and can communicate

863
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 3: in some way and it's just spying on you know

864
00:55:30,840 --> 00:55:33,279
Speaker 3: whatever housing. Maybe it's in your house. Do you know

865
00:55:33,320 --> 00:55:35,239
Speaker 3: what I mean? I mean, think about that.

866
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:38,120
Speaker 1: I don't I have cats. I don't trust them, nor

867
00:55:38,440 --> 00:55:41,480
Speaker 1: anybody as everybody who has a cat as a companion,

868
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:42,239
Speaker 1: don't trust them.

869
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:44,960
Speaker 3: I love them, just don't trust them.

870
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 1: I think that's the most prejudiced thing I've ever said,

871
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,439
Speaker 1: at a one hundred percent stand behind it. I love

872
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:53,760
Speaker 1: the animals that live with me, I do not trust them.

873
00:55:54,080 --> 00:55:55,080
Speaker 1: That's what dogs are for.

874
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:57,279
Speaker 3: They're already too smart. I mean, if we're if we're

875
00:55:57,320 --> 00:55:59,640
Speaker 3: gonna make a hybrid, it's that's dangerous.

876
00:56:00,160 --> 00:56:03,400
Speaker 1: You know, didn't we talk about how US intelligence agencies

877
00:56:03,440 --> 00:56:07,000
Speaker 1: tried to make cyber cats before. Yeah, and then also

878
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: cats domesticated themselves, right, and they you know, you ever

879
00:56:12,239 --> 00:56:14,439
Speaker 1: look at a pug and you think, dang, that could

880
00:56:14,440 --> 00:56:19,520
Speaker 1: have been a wolf. Cats did not undergo that same

881
00:56:19,600 --> 00:56:22,719
Speaker 1: sort of eugenic practice.

882
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 3: They just showed up like y'all have food, Give me

883
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:27,560
Speaker 3: more of that food.

884
00:56:28,040 --> 00:56:30,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, they said they'd solved the rat problem, and they

885
00:56:30,360 --> 00:56:32,520
Speaker 1: kind of did in a lot of cases. But then

886
00:56:32,560 --> 00:56:34,440
Speaker 1: they didn't leave. You know what I mean.

887
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:35,880
Speaker 3: They solved the hard rat problem.

888
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:40,400
Speaker 1: They solved the hard rat problem. But speaking of solving

889
00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 1: hard problems. We're faced with a geopolitical dilimmau here too,

890
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:50,120
Speaker 1: because countries and institutions that enforce ethical conventions in this

891
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:55,000
Speaker 1: regard may end up falling behind. We're already seeing this

892
00:56:55,200 --> 00:57:02,080
Speaker 1: sort of splintering of experimental heft and and location of

893
00:57:02,120 --> 00:57:07,680
Speaker 1: the pioneering research because these experiments are happening, you know,

894
00:57:07,719 --> 00:57:11,080
Speaker 1: the more extreme ones are happening in countries where it's

895
00:57:11,080 --> 00:57:14,120
Speaker 1: a little easier to bend certain regulations.

896
00:57:14,440 --> 00:57:17,200
Speaker 3: Well, what we're talking about Japan, and you know that

897
00:57:17,240 --> 00:57:21,480
Speaker 3: one in particular, You're not necessarily it doesn't strike me

898
00:57:21,520 --> 00:57:24,640
Speaker 3: as a country that would bend these rules too much, unless,

899
00:57:24,640 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 3: of course you go back to World War two and

900
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 3: Unit seven thirty one and some of that kind of experimentation.

901
00:57:29,520 --> 00:57:31,640
Speaker 3: But it's such a different.

902
00:57:31,680 --> 00:57:34,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Matt I was. I was specifically

903
00:57:35,080 --> 00:57:41,760
Speaker 1: thinking of China, but already the different scientific communities of

904
00:57:41,800 --> 00:57:46,520
Speaker 1: the country of China, places based there are raising hell

905
00:57:46,920 --> 00:57:51,480
Speaker 1: with objections to what they see as lacks ethical regulations

906
00:57:51,560 --> 00:57:53,600
Speaker 1: and so on. There have been a number of notable

907
00:57:53,640 --> 00:57:56,240
Speaker 1: experiments in the past years that have pushed the envelope

908
00:57:56,280 --> 00:58:02,640
Speaker 1: there to various extreme degrees. The thing that we'll run

909
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 1: into here is that private entities that are state sponsored

910
00:58:09,440 --> 00:58:13,760
Speaker 1: can make enormous progress on this. And it becomes scary

911
00:58:13,920 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: when we realize that right now there's very strong potential

912
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:26,880
Speaker 1: for this, but there's not provable precedent yet. As soon

913
00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:32,400
Speaker 1: as provable precedent exists something that can be reproduced with

914
00:58:33,240 --> 00:58:38,000
Speaker 1: let's say, gosh, even a seventy eighty percent chance of success,

915
00:58:38,760 --> 00:58:45,440
Speaker 1: then people and institutions will rethink whatever existing ethical considerations

916
00:58:45,480 --> 00:58:50,040
Speaker 1: they have, because then it becomes a question of what

917
00:58:50,160 --> 00:58:54,160
Speaker 1: do you place what is higher on your list of

918
00:58:54,200 --> 00:59:00,560
Speaker 1: important things, your moral code or your ability to live

919
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:02,040
Speaker 1: to see tomorrow.

920
00:59:02,080 --> 00:59:05,320
Speaker 3: Ability to live to see tomorrow, as well as creating

921
00:59:05,360 --> 00:59:06,960
Speaker 3: a viable business plan.

922
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:11,959
Speaker 1: True, oh my gosh, even worse. Yes, So what we'll

923
00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:17,400
Speaker 1: see is going to be going to be darkly fascinating.

924
00:59:18,680 --> 00:59:23,600
Speaker 1: There will either be a sea change in the way

925
00:59:23,640 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: we approach ethical concerns of the past or why. Possibly

926
00:59:28,640 --> 00:59:32,800
Speaker 1: there will be very well funded secret programs. I don't

927
00:59:32,840 --> 00:59:35,240
Speaker 1: know how long they would be able to remain secret.

928
00:59:35,520 --> 00:59:38,080
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, we've already kind of covered this before,

929
00:59:38,200 --> 00:59:40,640
Speaker 3: especially when we were talking with Josh Clark about his

930
00:59:40,920 --> 00:59:44,479
Speaker 3: show The End of the World. The experimentation that's going

931
00:59:44,520 --> 00:59:47,520
Speaker 3: on in small labs that are just you know, you

932
00:59:47,640 --> 00:59:50,240
Speaker 3: pay for the time, nobody asks any questions you do

933
00:59:50,280 --> 00:59:54,000
Speaker 3: your experimentation that's occurring across the world, especially in the

934
00:59:54,120 --> 00:59:57,120
Speaker 3: United States. True, if you have an outfit that is

935
00:59:57,520 --> 01:00:01,040
Speaker 3: working on something and you're being successful at it and

936
01:00:01,120 --> 01:00:04,680
Speaker 3: nobody is checking or approving your experiments.

937
01:00:06,360 --> 01:00:13,280
Speaker 1: Especially in this environment where certain things are certain things

938
01:00:13,320 --> 01:00:18,720
Speaker 1: like genes or the technology applying genes is allowed to

939
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:25,480
Speaker 1: be patented, that comes troublingly close to a private entergy

940
01:00:25,720 --> 01:00:29,080
Speaker 1: being able to own, for lack of a better word,

941
01:00:29,280 --> 01:00:34,440
Speaker 1: and entire form of life. Yeah, so imagine, you know,

942
01:00:35,000 --> 01:00:41,280
Speaker 1: imagine it's not just pig people or mandig. It's Comcasts.

943
01:00:41,360 --> 01:00:45,040
Speaker 1: Pig people, pig people powered by Comcast.

944
01:00:45,360 --> 01:00:50,320
Speaker 3: And they represent X number of viewers every week, the subscribers.

945
01:00:50,360 --> 01:00:52,880
Speaker 1: You know, I just picked Comcasts because they have a

946
01:00:52,920 --> 01:00:55,680
Speaker 1: monopoly in certain parts of the US. I don't think

947
01:00:55,680 --> 01:00:58,120
Speaker 1: they're in the chimera game yet.

948
01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:01,960
Speaker 3: Dude, gosh, I just had a really dark vision of

949
01:01:03,080 --> 01:01:05,360
Speaker 3: web bots, you know, and all that kind of thing.

950
01:01:05,400 --> 01:01:10,440
Speaker 3: But in this case, it's some company that has patented

951
01:01:10,560 --> 01:01:13,800
Speaker 3: a certain human type or a hute diversion of a

952
01:01:13,880 --> 01:01:17,040
Speaker 3: human where they just mass produce them in, put them

953
01:01:17,040 --> 01:01:19,840
Speaker 3: in housing somewhere, and then attach them to the television

954
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:23,440
Speaker 3: so they can have a certain number of viewers for

955
01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:26,520
Speaker 3: every episode of whatever thing it is. Yeah, wow, that

956
01:01:26,560 --> 01:01:27,800
Speaker 3: would not make any sense.

957
01:01:27,920 --> 01:01:31,120
Speaker 1: But do their rights count? I don't know. Well, let

958
01:01:31,200 --> 01:01:33,320
Speaker 1: us know what you think. So along and short of

959
01:01:33,360 --> 01:01:37,560
Speaker 1: it is that something like this is inevitable because again,

960
01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:42,240
Speaker 1: the potential benefits are just too good for anyone to

961
01:01:42,280 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 1: really walk away. But will this end up being a

962
01:01:46,280 --> 01:01:49,920
Speaker 1: dystopian nightmare? Will this end up being the utopian answer

963
01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:54,880
Speaker 1: to so many problems today? Where's the answer, as it

964
01:01:54,920 --> 01:01:59,640
Speaker 1: so often is, somewhere disappointingly in between those two goalposts.

965
01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:02,440
Speaker 3: Where it ends up being a great opportunity for anyone

966
01:02:02,480 --> 01:02:04,360
Speaker 3: with a lot of money to get a great organ,

967
01:02:04,520 --> 01:02:05,840
Speaker 3: but for everybody else.

968
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:09,680
Speaker 1: Or even worse, look at the way medicine works in

969
01:02:09,800 --> 01:02:12,880
Speaker 1: many countries, especially in the US. Now, imagine that you

970
01:02:13,080 --> 01:02:17,720
Speaker 1: are able to buy let's say, of a replacement kidney

971
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:22,360
Speaker 1: or something that you need to live, but because it

972
01:02:22,440 --> 01:02:27,080
Speaker 1: is privatized, you are required to you know, you're essentially

973
01:02:27,120 --> 01:02:31,240
Speaker 1: renting or making you have an organ mortgage that's gonna

974
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:36,320
Speaker 1: happen organ mortgages. I know, and it sounds like if

975
01:02:36,320 --> 01:02:39,680
Speaker 1: you didn't speak English. Organ mortgage sounds like a pretty

976
01:02:39,720 --> 01:02:40,400
Speaker 1: cool phrase.

977
01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:42,400
Speaker 3: It really does. But in the end, it just means

978
01:02:42,480 --> 01:02:44,560
Speaker 3: a lot of money coming out of your paycheck every month.

979
01:02:44,640 --> 01:02:47,440
Speaker 1: And then what happens if you can't pay the.

980
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:51,320
Speaker 3: Bank buys your organ, right or it just gets your organ.

981
01:02:51,200 --> 01:02:54,040
Speaker 1: And then do they decide how you how you concentrate

982
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:58,560
Speaker 1: your labor to pay them back? Tricky, tricky, tricky stuff.

983
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:05,680
Speaker 1: And that's our classic episode for this evening. We can't

984
01:03:05,680 --> 01:03:06,600
Speaker 1: wait to hear your thoughts.

985
01:03:06,600 --> 01:03:06,960
Speaker 2: That's right.

986
01:03:07,040 --> 01:03:08,120
Speaker 1: Let us know what you think you can reach.

987
01:03:08,160 --> 01:03:10,560
Speaker 2: You to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on

988
01:03:10,600 --> 01:03:14,960
Speaker 2: Facebook X and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy

989
01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:15,480
Speaker 2: Stuff Show.

990
01:03:15,520 --> 01:03:17,840
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991
01:03:17,920 --> 01:03:23,040
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992
01:03:23,080 --> 01:03:25,280
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993
01:03:25,320 --> 01:03:27,400
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994
01:03:27,720 --> 01:03:29,280
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995
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:32,120
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996
01:03:32,120 --> 01:03:32,920
Speaker 3: fashioned email.

997
01:03:33,160 --> 01:03:36,840
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998
01:03:36,880 --> 01:03:40,840
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999
01:03:40,880 --> 01:04:02,600
Speaker 1: writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.

1000
01:04:03,040 --> 01:04:05,120
Speaker 3: Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production

1001
01:04:05,240 --> 01:04:09,760
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1002
01:04:09,840 --> 01:04:12,720
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